If you are someone who fell off the Scandal train at some point during the course of the previous 5 seasons, I ask you to run, not walk, to your nearest On Demand, iTunes or Amazon account and get to binge watching this season because the show hasn’t had a story arc this intriguing and well laid out in a hot minute. Of particular note is the manner by which the story is unfolding and how each subsequent episode after the premiere provides context for the events that transpired within 601. “A Stomach for Blood” is no exception.
This episode flashes back and forward as the others did with happenings this time being seen from the perspective of Abby Whelan, and boy do we get some answers!
Election Night. Again.
Starting off, we are taken back to Election Night once again. Francisco Vargas is giving his victory speech, and Abby, the President and the rest of the campaign staffers for Mellie Grant are watching it on TV.
As Vargas wraps up his speech, he is soon shot right on live television. There are several gasps heard about the room, but Abby just stares at the screen in stunned disbelief. If anything, she under reacts and lapses into a kind of stupor as her phone starts to vibrate. She looks at the screen but makes no attempt to answer the call.
There is panic in the room, but Abby doesn’t register any of it. The Secret Service swiftly escorts the President out of the room and Abby as well. She practically has to helped out for her feet were dragging along, refusing to work on their own. Meanwhile, her phone continues to buzz. Everything is moving quickly, yet Abby remains in a daze. She hears and sees nothing.
Abby is pushed into the Presidential limo and soon the vehicle and their Secret Service detail are rushing away from the hotel. Fitz in a phone conversation while Abby sits numb with her still buzzing phone in her hand. Once Fitz gets off of the phone, he starts speaking to Abby, but his voice is coming at her as echos in her fogged state. He calls her several times but isn’t able to get through to her until he claps his hands in front of her face to snap her back to the present. He tells her that she doesn’t get to zone out on him at a time like this, and as Chief of Staff, it is her job to hold it together and be there with him. He then instructs Abby to answer her phone before he takes up his own phone and asks to be patched through to the FBI Director. Abby instead turns her phone off.
Now back at the White House, Abby navigates through chaos to get to the safety of her office. She is a shaky mess. Once there, she turns her phone back on and finally answers the insistent call that she refused to take before. Her first words to the person on the other line were: You shot him.
Abigail, WTF!
Whoever she is speaking with is offering her further instructions and Abby tells them that she can’t just leave the White House without the President noticing that she is gone. She is, after all, his Chief of Staff. Abby goes on to beg for a different assignment, but the person on the other end hangs up on her. Frustrated, Abby launches a vase at her door. Girlfriend is in over her head.
The Hook
Flashing back further, it is 60 days before the election and Abby is in the Oval discussing Fitz’s post-presidency plans. He wants his presidential library to be in Santa Barbara, but Abby informs him that there already are two other such libraries in Southern California (Reagan and Nixon). Fitz isn’t particularly enamored by her suggestion of Sacramento, and then moves on to the topic of an aide that Abby just hired. Apparently, this young woman brought him a muffin and decided that her braless boobs ought to be on the menu as well.
Abby assures him that the girl will be gone by morning. Fitz goes on to state that “these young ones are bold” before dismissing the aide as nothing more than a child at 22 years old. He goes on to muse that he’s more attractive to women now than he had been at 25. (LMAO!) Abby gives him an indulgent smile before pointing out that as the most powerful man in the world, these women are attracted to his power and not him specifically. “Power is sexy,” she enlightens him.
Well, there goes that boner.
Abby is set to go off to a donor lunch on Fitz’s behalf when he returns to their main conversation, asking about Vermont as a site for the library. He says that if the library were there, he could spend time at the house and be closer to Karen (who I presume is in boarding school up there). Abby is not at all amenable to this idea, asking him if he is joking. Fitz is reflective now, wondering aloud at why no one deviates from what’s expected with the libraries and foundations. He speaks of wood chopping, skiing and relaxation.
Abby carefully reminds him that the presidential library will stand as a living monument to not only his past but to what he will be in the future. She tells him that he is young and has much more to accomplish. Fitz doesn’t look like he much gives a damn about any of that as he simply wishes Abby a good lunch.
Next we see Abby at her donor lunch and she is meeting up with none other than the Mystery People! Let’s call them Android and Ponytail. Abby is giving them her pitch for the Grant Library, and when she asks if they had a figure in mind as to how much they were looking to contribute, Mr. Android says $250 million. Abby’s eyes widen at that unusual amount that any one donor is willing to give to a library and she isn’t sure that she heard the man correctly. Ponytail speaks up then to say that she thought that they were giving $300 million and Mr. Android amends his statement.
Abby is looking at them like they have lost their marbles and wonders aloud at the extravagance of their offer. Mr. Android answers that they aren’t offering that kind of money for a presidential library. “Do we look crazy?” Ponytail asks, and Abby is probably thinking, uh yeah!
Mr. Android says that the $300 mil isn’t for the President but for Abby herself. It is her team that they want to be a part of. Abby is confused as she says to them that she was under the impression that this meeting was a donor lunch with representatives from the “Fund For American Renewal.” She tells them that never heard of the organization before but that her office assures her that they are legitimate. Mr. Android assures her that his business is entirely legitimate, which leads Abby to point out that he is there to offer her money for a team of hers that does not exist. Ponytail says that the team may not exists yet, but the funding for it does. She goes on to state that the money has been set up in a PAC account that is to be controlled by no one but Abby.
Before continuing on, Abby gets their names as Mr. Peus and Ms. Marjorie Ruland. We all know that these names aren’t real, right? In any case, Abby tells them that she serves at the pleasure of the President, and Mr. Android tells her that she’s done that for far too long. Ponytail then leans in to ask Abby of how tired she must be to be catering to someone else and taking care of and putting forth someone else’s vision daily. Abby looks somewhat contemplative as Ponytail asks Abby to be honest about being thrilled at the prospect of being done with Fitz come January, but Abby tells her that she’ll still be working with him post-presidency. “That’s just sad,” Ponytail says to her in response. (LOL!)
Mr. Android pipes up then to clean up Ponytail’s reaction a bit by saying to Abby that what was meant was that Abby doesn’t have to follow that plan, and can instead forge her own path. Android remarks that Abby has ideas and a vision of her own that no one gets to see because she is in the shadow of the man who she considers it a privilege to work for. He goes on to state that Abby’s abilities aren’t lost on him, and that his Fund was set up to support the future of this country and he believes that Abby is one of them. As such, they are offering her $300 million to share with them her ideas and they will listen.
Feeling that this offer is too good to be true, Abby wants to know what it is that Mr. Android and Ponytail really want. She asks what strings are attached to the offer, and he tells her that it depends entirely on her. If she meets their expectations, they intend to set their sights higher. Ponytail comes in then to ask Abby if she’s ever considered running for public office. Abby laughs at that and says to her that in Washington, a person is much more powerful in the shadows instead of as some junior senator or congresswoman. Android then asks of her thoughts about President of the United States. Abby is momentarily silent at that before saying to them that they couldn’t possibly be serious, but they very much are. She feebly offers that she isn’t a politician and Mr. Android goes on to states that Abby also isn’t cut from the same cloth as everyone else in town and is one who happens to not recognize her own value. Android says these are precisely the reasons why the three of them are sitting there together.
Ponytail then suggests that Abby allow herself to think the “sitch” over for a bit, but Abby politely rejects their offer.
Later we see Abby at her apartment. It looks to be the morning and she is getting dressed for the day. Leo (who has been MIA from this show since Jesus was a boy) is present! He’s going about how he understands that working for the White House is a privilege, but that is super excited that Abby’s time there is coming to an end. He points out that she hardly sleeps and the job takes the fun out everything for them. Leo cannot wait until he can have his girlfriend to himself once more.
As he is speaking, Abby isn’t even listening. Her thoughts are clearly on the offer that Android and Ponytail presented to her. The idea of being someone grander is having some appeal to her as we see from the private smirk that she gives out of Leo’s notice. She is so deep in thought that she has to be brought back to the present by Leo calling out to her. When she does come back down to earth, she asks Leo of the bottle of bourbon that his father gave them.
That evening, we see Abby visiting Cyrus with that very bottle. He’s impressed by the liquor and wonders at what it is that he did to deserve it. Abby tells him that she thought he did well during his debate performance and thought she’d pass along her compliments in person. Of course, Cyrus isn’t fooled as he asks her what it is that she needs from him, pointing out that she came over with a bottle of bourbon worth $2,000. (Gatdamn!)
When Cyrus once more asks her of what it is that she needs, Abby finally drops the facade yet chooses not to directly state why she has visited. She instead asks him how he knew that Vargas was the right man to run for president. Cyrus goes on to say that Vargas had “it”: brilliance, charisma, breeding. Being handsome was an added benefit. He adds that Fitz had it and Vargas happens to have it as well.
Cyrus pours some of the alcohol into a glass and hands it to Abby as she asks him what makes him sure that the person has what it takes and can go all the way to the White House. Cyrus studies Abby for a beat before turning away from her to pour himself some of the bourbon. When Abby presses him for an answer, Cyrus asks her if she has told Fitz that she is thinking about leaving him to run for office. Abby denies that she’s thinking any such thing, but Cyrus knows better. He tells her that he knows the look after having seen it on many faces.
Resigned, Abby finally admits to Cyrus’s suspicion. Cyrus deduces that Fitz hasn’t a clue about any of this and Abby tells him that her thoughts haven’t gotten very far and that she may not even do it. Cyrus tells her that she has what it takes to be a brilliant candidate, but he wants her to understand what’ll happen once she leaves Fitzgerald. He tells her that things will change between them once she steps out from under him; the smiles, the shared drinks will stop. Fitz will feel abandoned by her, and that no matter how great her life or successes are, there will always be a part of her that won’t ever feel whole again, that will always remain with Fitz.
Cyrus goes on to say that if she can live with that, then she should absolutely run, but if she can’t, then she shouldn’t. He tells her that no one, especially himself, will blame her.
With that bit of advice in her head, Abby is in the Oval the following morning admiring a picture of herself and Fitz laughing it up in the Oval. Abby’s reminiscence is interrupted when Fitz comes into the room and remarks about how he loves that picture of them. She turns away from the image then and says something about being told to wait for him in the Oval. Fitz hands her a file as he asks her how her lunch went with the donors. Abby waves it off as inconsequential and she accepts the file offered and flips it open.
Fitz has found land in Rutland, Vermont (pop. 17,000) that could potentially serve as the site for his library. He outlines that the location is close to his house and Abby could run the foundation from Bennington (pop. 16,000). Fitz has decided that Vermont is where he is going. He’ll take Teddy and get to see Karen. He’s all excited about the prospect of learning to fly fish and making jam when he realizes that Abby isn’t responding to his enthusiasm.
Abby is looking at the man like he’s a raisin short of a fruitcake with this proposal and his expectation that she’d move to Vermont with a population that is less than that within an anthill. She goes to shut the door to the Oval and then lets him have it. She straight up gives him a big fat NO on these plans to move to small town Vermont in lieu of doing something of consequence with the influence he will have as a former president to change the world. She tells him that she hasn’t been busting her butt working on his foundation and building up his legacy to have him sit around making jam.
Fitz listens to her words and then tells her that what he wants is to human again, but Abby counters by saying that he isn’t a human; he is the President of the United States. (Doesn’t this remind you of what Abby said to Olivia about how Fitz is an idea to everyone else but a person to Olivia?) She adds that he can’t dodge the responsibilities of the office and states that he is POTUS until he dies.
Uh, what?
Upon hearing this, Fitz wonders aloud as to why it is that everyone who isn’t himself seem to think that they know what he should be doing with his life. He then asks her if she is worried about her career, and then he states that as the “most powerful woman in Washington”, she will have plenty of opportunities. Abby tells him that she isn’t worried about herself but rather about him. Fitzgerald exhibits skepticism at that.
Abby goes on to say that her rant is most definitely about him. As president, everything is about him. She adds that in a few months, he will have “the power, the means and the freedom to literally save a piece of the world.” She then inexplicably tells him to “stop being a child and grow up.”
Oh.
Abby done did it now because Fitz is unamused.
“I’ll remind you, Abby, that I have dutifully served my country in every way possible. I have fought -- literally fought -- for this country. I have been shot for this country. I have given my child for this country. I have handed this country my heart. I have given this country my soul. And while you were baking pies for your poli-sci professors and prancing around the quad pretending to stand for something, I was giving everything I knew how to give to my country.
“I know who I am and what I’ve done. And if I want to take some time away from this bloodsucking swamp, time for myself, run myself instead of being run by people with their own agenda for the first time in three decades, I think I’ve earned that right.” -- Fitzgerald Grant III
How can one even argue with that? I mean, where is the lie? Fitz is trying to escape the poison that is Washington while Abby is working to try to keep him there because she wants to remain there. Contrary to what she said, her rant wasn’t about him at all. It was about Abby and her insecurities. She’s had a plump bit of meat dangled in front of he, and instead of outright going for it, she is working to convince Fitz not to fade into obscurity in an effort to keep herself from falling into it with him. There is no glamour or influence in running the foundation of a former president from Nowheresville.
When it is clear to her that Fitz won’t be changing his mind, Abby opts to kick him in the nuts by opining that Olivia won’t ever be joining him in Vermont.
Whew. Chile, listen. I don’t know what kind of evil spirit took over your senses just then, Abigail Whelan, but didn’t nobody ask you for your opinion. Leave Fitzgerald to his hopes (or delusions) and mind ya business.
Spiteful heffa. Instead of being upfront about now having a different outlook for herself, she’s going off on Fitz because he dares to desire a life devoid of the shenanigans that comes along with being in a position of power. Maybe it’s her disbelief at him wanting less when she is looking for more that sends her over the edge. Whatever it is, it ain’t cute.
Despite her proclamation that Olivia will never move to Vermont for him, Fitz again reiterates that the library is going to be in Rutland and that Abby should look into the land and get back to him in the morning about it.
Well, if Abby was looking for her door marked exit, she just made one for herself.
Upset over what transpired in the Oval, Abby returns to her office and pulls out the card that Mr. Android gave her. She’s calls him up and informs him that she’s down for whatever they have in mind. Such a rash decision.
The Line
Flashing back to Election night, we are taken back to before the results are revealed. Abby is watching the election coverage on TV with Mellie standing nearby. She leans over to Mellie to remark that Mellie ought to be proud of such an amazing moment. Mellie is grateful for the compliment but states that the moment isn’t about her but every woman who has been told their entire life that her dreams and desires are crazy. She goes on about showing people that it isn’t true that women can’t break the glass ceiling, and that she’s very proud of that. Blah blah…
Mellie the feminist. I find it hard to believe that this narcissist was thinking about other women in that very moment. As a faithful viewer of this show, I have yet to be convinced that Mellie is anything but an opportunistic feminist. Maybe the campaign trail changed her or whatev. I don’t know, but I can’t swallow it. Forgive me Mellie stans. It’s just a rub for me.
Anywho, the election results come in and everyone is shocked to hear that Vargas is the projected winner. Phone buzzing, Abby moves away from the others to take the call. She informs Ponytail that right then isn’t a good time for them to speak. Ponytail, meanwhile, is calling from Rowan’s new work space and watching the election coverage. (Recall that Rowan later returns to this den after assassinating Frankie that very night to find Mr. Android and Ponytail waiting for him there.) She tells Abby to dial down the panic level before “things get really interesting.”
Cryptic statement, Abby asks her what it is that she is talking about. All Ponytail would tell her is that Abby is going to get more upset and distracted than she is at the moment, and then she will need to answer her phone when she calls her because she’ll have instructions as to what she’ll need to do next. Abby has more questions, but Ponytail has already hung up. Oh boy.
Now we pick back up from the moment that we see at the beginning of the episode where Abby watches in horror as Vargas is shot. Now she knows what Ponytail meant by things getting “interesting.”
There is another jump, this time to Abby escaping to her office. She turns on her phone and finally answers her mystery caller. It’s Ponytail. We can now hear what it was that was being said to Abby on the other end of the call. Ponytail wants Abby to get to the hospital where Vargas’s body has been taken. It is important that Abby goes there and locks everything down.
Ponytail tells her that the only way for Abby to stay out of jail that night is to do as she is told. She adds that there is an associate on the ground who will meet Abby at the hospital and tell her what she needs to do. Abby, however, refuses this request. That is until Ponytail tells her about a bank in Macau that is used by North Korean intelligence to launder money is where Abby’s $300 million came from. She goes on to state that the Treasury’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes isn’t yet aware of the payment, but that she could always call to tip them off to it.
Ponytail just pulled the same stunt with Abby that she did with Olivia in order to keep Rowan (and Olivia) in check. Abby is in deep now. No way to turn around without getting in some serious trouble, but moving forward just has her sinking further into the muck.
Abby asks Ponytail what it is that she wants and Ponytail tells her that she wants Abby to get to St. Anne’s Hospital. Abby asks how it is that she is supposed to do that without the President noticing that she is missing, and Ponytail tells her that she’ll figure something out. Abby asks for something else, but there is nothing else. It is either this or jail.
In a panic now, Abby has to figure out a way to get herself to Pennsylvania without arousing suspicion. She eventually comes up with a plan. One that involves her secretary handing a red folder to the staff secretary who is to take it to the President in 15 minutes while he is in the Situation Room. She instructs her secretary to say that the source folder is classified should she be asked.
As she is giving these instructions, Jake happens by and remarks that he thought that she’d have been already downstairs. Abby takes that as her cue to depart. She and Jake come into the Situation Room at the same time as Fitz is being briefed by various heads of the intelligence community.
While Jake is filling Fitz in on what the NSA has found, Abby is nervously looking about and acting all sketchy. The voices of those in the room echo about her as if she is hearing them from under water. Soon enough, the staff secretary enters the room with the red folder and hands it to Fitz. After studying it a moment, Fitz calls Abby over and tells her that she’ll need to get to the hospital.
We are then flashed to the moment when Abby arrives at the hospital and starts to dish out orders to the Secret Service about securing the entire floor and limiting those who have access to it. We then see her as she is watching Mrs. Vargas she visits with her husband, we see Abby take Mrs. Vargas’s phone and then we see Mrs. Vargas pleading with Abby to be able to call her children so as to tell them what has happened with their dad.
All of this was seen in episode 601. What wasn’t scene was the moment that Abby is approached by Ponytail’s associate as Abby is standing outside of Vargas’s hospital room and staring in on him from the window. This associate turns out to Huck’s mousy girlfriend Meg! She's dressed as a nurse and she’s got a package for Abby from their “friends.”
Abby rejects this latest task and Meg mocks her by pointing out that Abby is behaving as if she has a choice. Abby is deflecting blame for what has happened to Vargas on Ponytail and company, but Meg isn’t here to listen to her drone on. She instead informs Abby that she has an envelope containing three long-range sniper bullets that Abby has to make look as if they came out of Vargas’s body. She is to swap these in and retrieve the actual bullets that killed him.
Scoffing at this, Abby says that she doesn’t care about the threats that are over her head. Planting evidence is a line she just will not cross. Apparently, these goons anticipated that Abby would get cold feet, so they kidnapped Leo! Meg pulls out her phone to show Abby a live video feed of Leo getting repeatedly punched in the face. Meg then asks Abby if her conscience is worth Leo’s life.
These people are ruthless. They use the thing that you crave to draw you in and then the things/people that you love to tether you in place. They did this with the scariest of them all (Rowan) and now they are doing it with Abby. Who else have they managed to lure and hold captive in this manner?
Abby hands Meg back the phone and then says to her that what she is being asked to do is the impossible, but Meg tells her that she believes that Abby can find a way to do it. After some hesitation, Abby takes the envelope from Meg.
Later speaking with Vargas’s doctor, Abby is telling her that the White House needs all evidence that could be pertinent to the investigation of Vargas’s assassination. They will need the bullets that have been removed from his body. The doctor informs Abby that the bullets are still in him and the only way to retrieve them is by autopsy. Abby tells her that they then need to have an autopsy performed, but the doctor tells her that that cannot be done until the Joint Pathology Center orders one, and they can’t order one without a word from her and a word from her won’t happen without an order from the President.
We are flashed over to the phone call that Abby made to Fitz in 601. We saw it then as happening right after Abby had been confronted by Mrs. Vargas about calling her children to inform the of their father’s demise, but this time around, we see it within the context of what happened between that moment and the phone call. Abby hadn’t been calling for the President to declare Vargas dead simply to allow his widow the ability to call her children. She needed Fitz to declare the death so that an autopsy could be performed. Performance of the autopsy would lead to the collection of the bullets that hit Vargas and would in turn allow Abby to swap them out with the ones Meg gave her.
With that avenue dead, Abby has to find some other way to get the deed done. She directly contacts the Joint Pathology Center herself. She is seen escorting Major Morales down the hallway leading to the morgue as she fills him in on why he has been called to the hospital. Morales wishes to know if Vargas has been officially declared dead for he otherwise cannot perform the autopsy unless a confirmation has been received.
Abby may not have confirmation but she does have something to entice Morales into doing what she needs him to. The major has twice been denied his request to be transferred to Edwards AFB in California and Abby uses this knowledge to get him on her hook. Using the fact that his parents live in California and that he has two daughters who would likely love to grow up near their grandparents, Abby incentivizes Morales to perform the autopsy by dangling the granting of his third transfer request in front of him. He could either get transferred to California or find himself at Thule Air Base in Greenland! The freaking Arctic Circle with all of that snow and 20 hours of darkness in the winter.
The desperation is serious when you start threatening an innocent man’s family with 20 hours of winter darkness and bitter cold. Where there’s a will, there’s a way….I guess.
Morales questions if Abby is blackmailing him, but Abby turns it into a matter of it being a race against the clock to find who is responsible for murdering Vargas. She isn’t blackmailing him, she tells him. What she is doing is asking him to serve his country in its darkest hour and get rewarded for it by that transfer to sunny California.
That’s one way to look at it.
Morales gowns up and gets to performing the autopsy. Abby is watching him from the outside of the room via a window. Not too long later, we see Abby upstairs speaking with Secret Service Agent Spaulding who she goads into going downstairs to stop Morales from continuing with the autopsy. She paints it as Morales receiving unauthorized access to Vargas’s body right under Spaulding’s nose.
Soon Secret Service is down in the morgue and bursting into the autopsy room. Agent Spaulding orders Morales to stop what he is doing and come with them. Morales’s eyes shifts to Abby and after a moment, he starts to explain himself by pointing out that Abby gave him permission, but she cuts him off before he could finish by stating that all is well and that Morales can return with his full team once the President signs off on the autopsy. She then adds that the President won’t forget Morales’s service, letting him know cryptically that what she promised him will be fulfilled.
Morales finally does as he is told and exits the room with the agents. Abby stays behind and once the agents are gone, she gets to the task at hand. She dumps out the bullets that she was given and immediately dumps the ones that Morales has retrieved into the envelope that she has. One problem though: he only managed to extract two of the three bullets from Vargas!
Looking at the the autopsy sheet, she locates where the third bullet is lodged in Vargas’s abdomen. She is going to have to retrieve that bullet herself!
Keeping an eye out for the return of the agents, Abby grabs a nearby glove and gets to work. She takes in a deep breath before her hand goes diving into Vargas’s open chest cavity. She struggles to keep from retching as she digs around for the third bullet. She is able to retrieve it and she quickly drops it into the envelope with the others. She slides the envelope into her pocket before proceeding to take the bullets that Meg gave her and coating them with Vargas’s blood. She then drops those bullets in the three cups in which Morales had the actual bullets.
Abby is about to rip the glove off of her hand when the SS agents return. She immediately adjusts herself so that she looks as if she is standing there in sadness. Agent Spaulding tells Abby that he’ll keep watch over Vargas’s body until the full Joints Pathology team arrives. Abby thanks him and she starts to come from around the slab to exit the room. Outside of Spaulding’s notice, she discards her bloody glove in a biohazard bucket located just beneath the body.
Back upstairs, she meets up with Meg and hands her the envelope of bullets. She asks Meg of Leo’s whereabouts, and Meg tells her that he’ll be released within a couple of hours should their “friends” be pleased with what she has done. Meg departs and Abby starts to turn away when she catches a glimpse of a catatonic Cyrus inside the room that she was standing outside of. Abby gets to moving away from the door but doesn’t make it far before she gets to vomiting in a nearby bin.
Looks like she doesn’t quite have a stomach for blood. Olivia tried to warn her not too many moons ago (“I See You”, 514). The “big dog” life isn’t meant for her, but Abby decided that it was. Her actions back then inadvertently led to Olivia taking a metal chair to Andrew’s head. How quickly one forgets consequences when they are blinded by the allure of the shiny bauble.
The Sinker
Returning home the next morning, an exhausted Abby collapses into a nearby seat when she hears Leo weakly calling out for her. She doesn’t initially see him until she stands up to find him laid out on the floor. He’s holding a pack of frozen food to his face as she runs over to him. He tells her that the people who beat him up took his grandfather’s watch. Abby asks him what happened, but Leo can’t remember. He blacked out and was found later by the police who bring him home.
Abby looks equal parts devastated, relieved and guilty over his condition. (She already knows what happened to him but she can’t very well tell him that now, can she?) She helps him into a sitting position and embraces him as she apologizes to him for his ordeal. Leo tells her that it isn’t her fault (if only he knew) and he gives her a little kiss on the nose. Awww…
She isn’t back long before her phone gets to buzzing. This time it’s a call from Fitz.
Off she goes to the Oval and we are treated to the scene where Olivia is playing for Abby, David and Fitz the deleted voicemail that her team retrieved from the tip line of Jennifer implicating Cyrus as the murderer (602). When we are first given this scene, we don’t get to see Abby’s reaction to that voicemail at all. The focus was on Olivia. This time around, we do get to see Abby’s reaction and she has come to the horrible realization that the mystery people are framing Cyrus for the murder.
Going back to that scene in 602, we do see Abby trying to reason with Olivia that it couldn’t have been Cyrus who did this and points out that Olivia saw with her own eyes that Cyrus was grief-stricken by what had happened. Olivia didn’t think that his grief somehow absolved him from possibly having done the deed. When David tells her that they have a suspect in custody with a mountain of evidence against him, Olivia asks why it is that McClintock hadn’t yet been charged for the crime then and asks if they have yet received a confession out of him. Of course, they hadn’t at the time. I include this bit to give further context to what happens next.
Abby gives Mr. Android a call to ask if they are framing Cyrus. Mr. Android guesses that the voicemail had been found. (Why was the voicemail deleted in the first place?!) Abby starts down the path of stating that she wouldn’t have gone along with the plan if she knew that they were going to pin this on Cyrus, but Mr. Android interrupts her and asks if she would have then allowed her boyfriend to die. He says to her that she’s brilliant but a stomach for blood she does not have (duh). Abby tells him that Cyrus should be president, but Mr. Android hangs up on her.
Lying awake in bed later that night, sleep eludes Abby. She is unable to remain in bed, so she gets to running while it is still dark out. Her mind flashes to the phone call with Mr. Android and then to her meeting with Jake earlier that day to him successfully getting a confession out of Nelson McClintock (602). She then recalls her telling Fitz that he is wrong about Cyrus and about reopening the investigation into Vargas’s shooting. (This is after OPA unearthed video of Vargas and Cyrus arguing over something.) Abby insisted then that Fitz made the wrong call in doing that. At the time, I thought that she was adamant about this because the evidence against Cyrus was weak, but now we know that it is because Abby knew for a fact that Cyrus was being framed.
Abby continues to run as the voice of a reporter is heard speaking of Cyrus’s arrest and he being personally accompanied to the Maryland Hamilton Penitentiary by Attorney General David Rosen. Then it flashes to Abby’s interference with the case by trying to get David to take the death penalty off of the table to Fitz reprimanding her for acting in his name without speaking to him about it first. Then we hear as Fitz is announcing to the world that he fully supports the decision to have the DOJ pursue the death penalty against Cyrus.
Abby suddenly stops running to take a breath. Everything that has come to pass with Cyrus, she has tried to stop but has been met by one wall after another. If anything, Abby should have taken into consideration how dogged Olivia is when she’s believes that she is on the right track with something. Setting aside the fact that a Cyrus derailment would place Mellie in the Oval, Olivia wasn’t going to stop digging until she found something. Abby knows this about Liv and she should have figured that Mr. Android and company would do whatever they could to ensure that this charge against Cyrus stuck. Abby could have been straight up with Olivia when she came to confront her about McClintock’s fake confession (602), but she didn’t. Now look where we are.
Now that it is full morning, Abby makes her way over to David’s place. She’s buzzing him from his front gate and when he answers, she tells him that she needs to speak with him. David reminds her that it is Sunday and that he isn’t working, but Abby counters by stating that as the Attorney General he is always working. David’s response: I hate you. (Hahahaha!)
Just as David agrees to meet her, Abby steps back from the intercom to await his arrival. A few seconds later, Ponytail shows up! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Batman! Is this woman everywhere?!
Abby is shocked to see her there as Ponytail asks her if she really believed that they were going to allow her to meet up with the AG so she could plead for Cyrus’s life. Abby plays dumb, but Ponytail is already onto her.
“Look at you, playing all dumb. Thinking you can outsmart us. Like there’s anything you can do that we haven’t already prepared for. So naive. But I guess you’d have to be to think that you could actually be president someday.” -- Ponytail
Wait a gatdamn minute. So these people didn’t actually believe that Abby had presidential potential??
Abby tells Ponytail that she wouldn’t be the first person to underestimate her, but Ponytail is unfazed as she replies, “Says every loser who’s built a career on riding other people’s coattails.”
Yooooooo!!!
Abby warns the woman to leave now because the Attorney General, who also happens to be her friend, is on his way down to meet her and she is going to give him information that is going to put a nail in the mystery people’s coffin.
Okay, Abby. Ain’t nobody in their right minds afraid of David Rosen. He’s more skittish than a virgin at her first gynecological appointment. Anyone brazen enough to orchestrate an assassination isn’t going to be shaking at the prospect of being threatened with him. Stop while you’re ahead, girl.
Still unfazed, Ponytail responds, “Oh, Abby. I’m a real bitch. You just play one on TV.”
Y’all.
LMAO!!
Finally, David makes his way down and he peeks around Abby to see who she is speaking with.
As it turns out, David already knows Ponytail!! Not only does he know her, she’s his flipping girlfriend known to him as “Samantha”!!
So much for Abby running to David with her information. Ponytail already has her claws in David who is none the wiser. I’m betting that they have also infiltrated the FBI with Angela and her sloppy investigation. I’m out here suspecting everybody and their damn mama. I’m still looking at Angela and asking “who this woman, Harpo?” because she came out of nowhere and was quick to insert her fine self into Fitz’s personal life. Remember how she accidentally on purpose slipped to Fitz that Abby had evoked his name to take the death penalty off the table for Cyrus? Umm hmm.
I’ve got my eye on you, Afro Sheen.
With that avenue shut down for her, Abby goes off to work. (I assume that it is the following day, but this isn’t clear.) She is walking dejectedly down the hall and when she gets to her office, she finds Huck waiting for her just outside of it. This picks up from the same scene from the last episode (607). Abby clears him for entry and then they head into her office. To refresh, Huck came there to see if he could get her to help him get access to Becky Flynn. Abby tells him that she has a lot going on and can’t help him, and Huck asks her if she’d be able to help if he offers her something in return. Huck knows that she wants Cyrus out of jail and believes him to be innocent (this bit was not included in the 607 version of this scene), and so he lets her know that Jennifer Fields is alive.
Now Huck has her attention. Jennifer Fields is alive and well and safe. Huck says that Abby wasn’t supposed to yet know and he can’t tell her where she is, but Abby can be assured that she is safe. Huck goes on to say that when the time is right, he can arrange a meeting between them because one thing that Jennifer can do is exonerate Cyrus. Abby gives Huck the clearance that he needs to see Becky (607) and she then gets to examining a file that she has on Jennifer.
Abby is later seen visiting with Cyrus in the pen and his face is swollen from the beating he sustained from that gang. She reaches out to console him, but a guard is quick to bang on the window to warn against touching. Cyrus goes on to tell Abby that Tom wasn’t Vargas’s shooter, and since he wasn’t this proves that Cyrus himself is innocent of the charges against him. Abby has come to let him know that she believes him (duh, she already knows that he’s innocent) and that she will be going to war for him. Cyrus wants to know what that means, but Abby provides no details. All she tells him is that she isn’t giving up on him.
We get flashed to where Abby has come to the offices of The Fund for American Renewal to find Mr. Android and Ponytail in a conference room. She tells them that she is there to make a deal. Before she offers them the information that she has, she wants their assurance that her doing this will get Cyrus out of jail. Once she receives agreement from Mr. Android, she tells them that Jennifer Fields is alive.
That’s not information that either of them knew. You could see that fact on Ponytail’s face.
With Abby’s information in hand, Meg is able to get Huck to take her to see Jennifer who she murders. She then shoots up Huck and we are left yet again to wonder as to his fate. We next see (as we had at the end of 607) Abby asking if the deed has been done. Ponytail tells her that Jennifer is dead and Meg says that Huck won’t know that Abby had anything to do with any of it. Then we see Abby reminding Cyrus that he had said himself that she was a force.
And the episode ends. And I still have questions. Haha!
It still feels like there is a missing piece to this puzzle. Abby had to have known that alerting these people to Jennifer’s survival would lead to them killing her. After all, Jennifer is a liability and giving her to them doesn’t ensure Cyrus’s release, so what gives? There has got to be more to it. What exactly is Abby up to and does she know that Meg shot up Huck? Is anyone else in on this with her or is she working alone? Could Abby’s words to Ponytail about not being underestimated come back to prove prescient?
Before I wrap this up, I just want to say that Darby Stanchfield really shone in this episode. This method of unfolding the story has allowed these individual actors to really show us their acting chops, and I love it. Also, Zoe Perry aka Ponytail!! She’s badass, which shouldn’t be a surprise since powerhouse Jeff Perry (Cyrus) is her daddy.
As I said at the beginning of this thing, do yourself a favor and just watch this season from the very beginning. Forget all the extraneous shipping business and just focus on the story because this has been the tightest Scandal has been in telling a story and it’s unraveling has been brilliant. But that’s just this one girl’s opinion.
Anyway, this is the end of my recap/review of Scandal episode 608! Share your thoughts in the comments section below or tweet them at me on Twitter. I thank you all for reading, and I’ll see you next week!!
