Scandal: Like Father, Like Daughter
I have one word for last night’s episode of Scandal: INSANE.
Remember I mentioned last week that Scandal was about to hit its normal stride soon, the one where we are left panting and on the edge of our seats just about every time we get a commercial break? Well that time has come ladies and gentlemen!! Shonda and her writers must have written this episode in a library because it was A READ! Everyone basically got their asses handed to them: Cyrus brought Abby down two pegs, Fitz is tired of Smelly Mellie and Olivia is really back to “gladiating” in that signature Pope way!
Let’s get to it, shall we?
ON HER WORST BEHAVIOR
Perhaps one of the most salacious scandals we’ve seen on this show happened this episode and revolved around First Daughter, Karen. She slipped her Secret Service detail, hopped on a friend’s jet and went to house party about 500 miles from her school. If that wasn’t bad enough she nearly drank and smoked herself into oblivion where she then had to call Olivia to help her out. With the help of Cyrus and Huck, Quinn and Olivia were able to get her out of the party and onto a helicopter but that wasn’t the worst of it. She made a sex tape with two other boys and was sent the video on her way back to The White House. Now a sex tape is bad for anyone but for the daughter of POTUS?! All bad.
Karen, Fitz, Liv and Cyrus all convene in the Oval Office where Fitz is so angry he can’t even see straight! He is scolding Karen and she tries to ward him off because according to her, she’s still drunk. Fitz shifts gears for a minute and asks if she was raped in which she responds by saying “The only way you think I could have sex with two guys is if I was raped? How lame are you?” Karen is a brave one – I wouldn’t have any teeth in my mouth if I tried to talk to my parents like that when I was younger.
Side note: let’s discuss how good Fitz looked in polo and jeans. No? Okay, forget I said that.
SMELLY MELLIE
Mellie is still in a rut, eating cereal and dressed in her uggs. She sees Karen and while happy to see her, asks what she is doing home. Karen and Fitz do not let her in on the situation and though it looks like Mellie didn’t quite believe their reasons, she lets it go.
She later finds out the truth after seeing Olivia in her home and confronts Fitz. Well Fitz was not in the mood for it because he completed snapped as she was about to go on a tirade.
“I have dealt with Drunk Mellie, Smelly Mellie, Screw Everything to Hell Mellie and Crybaby Mellie and Eat Everything That is Not Nailed Down Mellie and I have not complained. But I will not put up with whatever righteous, history rewriting Mellie you have going on right now. This is not your family. You are NOT the mother, not since Jerry died. Since Jerry died, you have abdicated your role. You have mothered no one. You hold NOTHING together. You pick up no pieces. You know how I know this? Because baby Teddy thinks his mother is Nanny Jen and Karen spent last night in a threesome with two guys doing a move on her they like to call Eiffel Towering. You know how I know that? I saw the sextape they made. So you should be damn glad she called Olivia because Olivia Pope is fixing this mess that you made. This mess that WE made.
I know that I share some guilt. But you wanna know the difference between you and me? All day, every day I am running a country. I am grieving for the loss of my son but I am also running a country. All day every day, YOU are sitting around in booties and a dirty robe eating chips and getting drunk at 11am!”
I initially tried to paraphrase that but couldn’t do it justice so I just watched the scene again to make surely I accurately transcribed everything.
Now after that rant, do you know what Mellie said? Mrs. Grant, ever snarky even in turmoil, said “A sextape? She takes after her daddy then, doesn’t she?”. Good comeback Mellie but Fitz won that fight.
Later on in the episode, Mellie goes to visit Karen where confirms her knowledge of the sextape and they have a little heart-to-heart. Mellie tells her that she understands her grief and because of that she will let have this one pass, but only one. Mellie tells her that though it is unfair, she is the President’s daughter and therefore must “keep her knees together.”
RED IS JEALOUS
After Olivia and Co. are tasked with fixing this mess, Abby sees Huck and Quinn in the White House and wants to know why they are there. When they won’t say, she gets offended. Abby thought she could be the big, bad wolf but her house was the one that got blown down. She was telling them that she can have them removed when Cyrus stepped in and told Huck and Quinn that they could leave. “Red” got into a little tizzy because she felt that she wasn’t being taken seriously and basically said that she is always coming second to Olivia, even though she is the Press Secretary. Now why did she go and say that? Cyrus had to bring her back to reality rather quickly. Normally I would paraphrase but I may diminish Cyrus’s words so I have transcribed:
“There are things that happen in this White House with this particular president that you will NEVER EVER know about. Some of those things, many of those things will involve Olivia Pope. Several of those things WILL make it hard for you to do your job and you are a patriot and you are a fighter and you will soldier on. And as for feeling small, I don’t do that to you. I suspect that jealousy does that to you. My advice on that is this: you are not Olivia. You will never be Olivia and hating Olivia for your own shortcomings will not change that fact. Also, have you ever stopped to think about what it must be like to actually BE Olivia Pope? Doesn’t seem like much fun.”
WELP!!! I don’t know if Abby has picked her mouth off of the ground as yet.
THIRTY SECONDS
After Liv accepted Fitz’s request to handle the situation for Karen, the audience knew we would have at least a few scenes with them alone this episode. The first one came when Olivia updates Fitz on the status of the boys Karen was involved with. Of course Fitz wants to know where she went for two months and assumes that she went all alone. Liv does not correct him and tells him she needed to be by herself.
OH.
Is that so, Liv? I hope all of you #Olake fans (or whatever you call yourselves) are taking note. She doesn’t even see it fit to mention Jake, at first, because she knows what it will do to Fitz.
Later on, Olivia arrives at the White House again to tell the President that the Morgans (the parents of the boy who had the sex tape) want 2.5 million dollars to keep quiet. Fitz does not want to do it but Olivia tells him to just pay it because it could define Karen’s future if ever made public. Fitz starts lamenting about his failure as a husband and parent and starts to move closer to Liv. At the point, I just knew it was coming! He grabbed her and melted my heart when he said, “am I failing as a man too? Don’t ever leave me like that again. I almost didn’t survive. I almost died without you.”
LAWD!! Why did he have to go and say that? I was ready to heist the #OLITZ flag up, it was already at half mast!
They start kissing and it looks like he’s just going to take her in the Oval Office when she stops him. She chooses THAT time to tell him that she went away with Jake to which he replies, “So I AM failing as a husband and a father and a man.” He is LIVID and very hurt and tells her to just pay the blackmailers. She tries to explain and reaches to comfort him but he doesn’t want to hear it.
I am so angry at Olivia right now! You guys….. I am President of the #OLITZ fan club, as I have mentioned, which means that I take my job very seriously. She cannot be playing with my emotions like this. I was fully prepared for my #oneminute scene and all I got was thirty seconds. I know why she did it though which is why I’ll forgive her by next week’s episode….I think. She is afraid of going down that path right now with Fitz and she knows how easy he can get to her. She knew the only way to get him to stop (because she wasn’t really going to stop him) was to mention Jake.
Like I have said before, Jake is being used as a crutch for Liv. She likes him, sure, but she does not love him. She also can’t act on her love for Fitz so she needs someone to act as a buffer and keep her mind off of it.
SONS OF BITCHES
Olivia goes back to the Morgans with the check when they ask for more money to ensure that the world never finds out that President’s daughter is a “dirty little slut.” They obviously had never heard of Olivia Carolyn Pope because she wouldn’t even entertain it.
ROWAN VS. JAKE
The war between Olivia’s father and her “non-boyfriend” continues. SSA Tom (who used to be my favorite) was tasked by Rowan to kill Jake though he has been failing. Jake tries to get Tom on his side so that they can both take down Rowan because as he pointed out, it’s only a matter of time before Tom is killed as well. Rowan does not want anyone linking him to Jerry’s murder. For a little while it looks like Tom may play ball but things take a turn. After Karen slipped her guards, the Secret Service is being thoroughly looked at by the Inspector General’s office to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again. There is an internal investigation on Tom because he was at Fort Dietrich on November 2 when he wasn’t supposed to be. Light bulbs just went off for all of you, right?! Fort Dietrich is where the position came from that killed Jerry.
Fitz looks betrayed and makes a secure phone call though we didn’t know to whom.
Tom calls Jake and lets him know that he’s being investigated and Jake encourages him to tell the truth because he has proof to back him up. Jake shows up to the White House to talk to Fitz but POTUS brushes him off. It turns out that Fitz was headed to watch Tom’s interrogation. George, from the Inspector General’s office, is initially the one asking questions until none other than Rowan Pope enters. Now I can explain what happens next but I think you need to watch it for yourself.
NOW WAIT! I wasn’t ready! I felt like I had to be picked up off of the floor, it was just too much.
TOM FRAMED JAKE!!!
I have a theory: I think when Fitz didn’t respond to Tom’s plea to talk to him, he figured that maybe Jake lied about going to POTUS and felt betrayed so he turned on Jake. What other explanation is there for Tom framing Jake? I don’t think Tom would have done that on Rowan’s orders. Or maybe we underestimated his allegiance and Rowan promised to help him leave town? I don’t know, I still have to work out the kinks in that scenario.
But let’s talk about something else, why does Fitz have all this blind trust in Rowan? Now I know he is still grieving and it seemed that Rowan was willing to help you out in your time of grief but Fitz, you have to think this through! Did you forget that you tied him to a chair AND slept with his daughter? Does Papa Pope seem like the type of person that will forget how you tried to degrade him?!
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY: With Jake now being framed for the murder, when will we see Mama Pope again? Who is going to be tasked with explaining this mess to Olivia?
My blood pressure is elevated, I am out of wine and I still need to write my Grey’s Anatomy recap. We’ll reconvene next week to discuss this.
Natalya is the author of All The Things I Never Said, a soul-stirring collection of short stories, prose and love letters for the soulful wanderers, the brokenhearted and the hopeless romantics.
You can follow her rantings and occasional sparks of brilliance on Twitter @NatalyaMuncuff.
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