The last few episodes of Scandal – especially “Vermont is For Lovers, Too” & “YOLO” have turned the fictional Washington D.C. world upside down! If you haven’t been keeping up – or even if you have and your mind is still spinning – this will help bring you up to speed. You’ll likely need the refresher afterwards too – it’s gonna be that crazy!
Episode eight, “Vermont is for Lovers, too” gave some hope for the illicit star-crossed lovers Olive Pope (Kerry Washington) and President Fitzgerald “Fitz” Grant (Tony Goldwyn – but show creator and showrunner Shonda Rimes certainly had fans worried! Earlier in the season we learned that Operation Remmington was. In his navy days Fitz – on official orders – shot down the commercial jetliner that had Olivia’s mom in it! Because Fitz refused to discuss or verbally admit it, the first part of “Vermont is for Lovers” had Olivia ignoring Fitz’s phone calls…and then smashing the phone dedicated to their phone calls.
Determined to find out exactly why the plane her mother was on was shot down, she’s her entire gladiator team – plus Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) working on this. They have figured out that Rowan Pope (Joe Morton) – head of the CIA on American soil called B613 and Olivia’s father – had someone named Omar Dresdan secretly removed from that flight.
Unfortunately, in “Icarus” the last lead about Omar was accidentally murdered by Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes). Charlie (George Newbern) has been courting her for B613…mostly. In his own warped way Charlie actually cares about Quinn – much in the same way he cared about Huck (Guillermo Diaz. Because Charlie actually loves his work, a woman with such enthusiasm for the murder/spy game is something he’s attracted to. Quinn really was enthusiastic when Charlie was teaching her how to shoot, but much less so when Charlie tricked her into giving the gladiator’s main lead a lethal injection. The act was all caught on a security cam video. B613 has that video, so now they also have Quinn…I’ll come back to this.
During the second half of episode eight Fitz managing to get Olivia to give him an hour of her time – which is when he flies her to Vermont.
.All is forgiven! After all Fitz didn’t know her mother was on the plane, it’s not like he killed her on purpose. (I’m guessing at the thinking involved here. Apparently love makes you rationalize a lot of things.) Besides, at the end of the episode Olivia finds out her mother wasn’t even on that plane!
Folks who’ve been watching all this unfold already knew that Mama Pope, Maya Lewis (Khandi Alexander) was alive. We first saw her at the end of “Icarus.” Olivia’s father,- went through a building, a tunnel, and a corridor in what was likely an underground jail cell, to announce to Maya that Olivia has been asking questions about her. “Vermont is for Lovers” opened with Rowan telling Maya that because Olivia was asking questions he was moving her to another jail in another country. Maya demanded that he let her see Olivia first, while there’s a moment of wavering on Rowan’s part, his answer is absolutely not!
Mama Pope has the same, “by any means necessary” attitude as her husband. When Rowan refused to let her see Olivia the woman ate her own wrist so that she’d lose so much blood he’d have to hospitalize her. From there she uses the drugs meant for her to knock the doctor out and escapes. She waits for Olivia outside of her apartment building. That’s how Olivia discovers her mother is still alive.
You would think that plus the Josie Marcus (Lisa Kudrow) story that was running would be enough. FYI Josie Marcus abandons the run for President when her sister daughter Candace (Sally Pressman) pulls a stupid stunt by planting a campaign laptop in the opposing candidates campaign headquarters and then claiming it was stolen. Rather than turn in her daughter Josie claims to have done it herself. Olivia Pope and Associates know the truth. Harrison Wright was particularly upset since he’d just slept with Candace!
Harrison has most important things to be concerned about. Despite Harrison getting Huck to wipe out the visa application for former employer Adnan Salif, the man’s has gotten back into the United States. That’s because Cyrus Beene had a new application done when Harrison refused to cooperate with him in a scheme to bring down Josie Marcus. Salif had sworn to kill Harrison because – with the help of Olivia – Harrison only served six months for his part in an insiders trading scheme while they threw the book at Salif. It wasn’t an empty threat and Harrison is worried!
Just a quick note, a woman came to deliver this news, and Abby Whedan (Darby Stanchfield) was very interested in who this woman could be. She also noticed the connection between Harrison and Candace. She and David Rosen (Joshua Malina) may be working on having a normal boyfriend & girlfriend relationship, but I’d keep an eye out for some kind of Harrison and Abby moment tonight.
The universe gets back at Cyrus though. Cyrus had found out the Vice President Sally Langston (Kate Burton) was planning to run against Fitz as an independent candidate. Looking for a way to stop him he and First Lady Mellie Grant (Bellemy Young) found out that Sally’s husband Daniel Douglas Langston (Jack Coleman) was a closeted gay man. Cyrus set up his husband James Novak (Dan Bucatinsky) to do a prestigious in-depth interview with Daniel, so that he could get pictures of the man making a pass at James to blackmail Sally. To make sure Daniel would make a pass he has Mellie let it drop to Daniel Douglas that Cyrus and James had an open marriage.
Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned. When Daniel made the pass he told James about being told he had an open marriage and about Sally’s plans. James figured it out and slept with Daniel out of spite. Cyrus never thought James would cheat on him, so when he gets the pictures he was devastated. For a while Cyrus pretends not to know, but in “YOLO” he ends up confronting James, who was furious at being used and “pimped.” (Don’t blame him, but revenge sex isn’t a great reaction either.) James said he wouldn’t out poor Daniel – who is hopelessly homophobic and tortured about his sexuality – so the plan failed. That’s when Cyrus told him about the pictures. James counters with saying he wants a divorce and is taking their adopted daughter! Cyrus was so upset he broke down in front of Mellie!
Cyrus does try to see the plan through and shows Sally the photos. Sally calls his bluff, telling him he’s got more to lose than she does: destroying his husband, marriage, not to mention that James sleeping with a man married to a woman will be seen as the worse crime. Being that Sally earlier had just promised her campaign manager to change her stance on abortion and told Fitz she’d be running against him, she was not about to let Daniel’s indiscretion get in her way!
Besides that, she’s also right. Cyrus saw the truth of this and called James with deep remorse. He begged James for forgiveness, said he did a terrible thing and Sally will never see the pictures – no one will because he’s going to burn them.
Tonight we’ll find out if James stays or goes. He was definitely touched by Cyrus’s speech… I do think Cyrus meant every word he said. However, he still lied about Sally seeing the pictures. Knowing Shonda Rimes, that fact will come back to haunt Cyrus.
Now it’s time for me to get back to Huck and Quinn. Note, I didn’t say HuckleberryQuinn. Shonda’s smashed that to bits. At the end of the Vermont episode Huck was waiting for Quinn in her apartment because he learned Quinn killed their lead. He’s got all of his torture equipment with him and fully intends to torture Quinn to find out who she’s working for! Having someone rip teeth out of your head tends to kill affection.
This is true even if the one doing the pulling could have done worse – like cut off fingers and toes. Sorry Huck, I know you see that as doing a great kindness.
What could be worse in this scenario? Before Huck starts on Quinn he tells Quinn how much he’s going to enjoy doing it – because he’s never done it with family, with some one he loves.
Huck is crazy – even more than we’ve thought. Seriously, Huck? You tell her you love her, now? This is way beyond S&M! (I think -I’m no expert.) Too bad you couldn’t have said something earlier because this mess could have been avoided. Quinn wouldn’t have started making out with Charlie and set up for B613/ Instead, Huck’s been ignoring Quinn all season, cutting her out of his life – supposedly for her own good.
Personally, I think it was also because Quinn made him want to go back to his old ways as well. Ever since Command (Rowan Pope) proved to Olivia he could make Huck kill at will (By having Huck murder the pilot who actual flew the plane mission that Fitz is credited with doing and that made him a war hero) Huck has been jonesing for some more murder. The reason he’s been giving: he didn’t want her to become more like him. Ironic, right? Now Quinn is fully into it. As Charlie told her:
You want to be a big dog? Big dogs get bit. You got bit.
Quinn cried on Charlie’s shoulder saying Huck was all she had and he hurt her. Charlie comforted her and says she has him. He means it, too. Quinn must have felt that because she dropped her towel and she and Charlie sleep together.
But wait, there’s more! The new bromance of Jake & Huck is still in effect! They’re the ones that realized Maya had to have a tracking device implanted somewhere and ripped it out – without anesthesia. Again, Mama Lewis was able to handle it. Then Olivia wanted to get her mother out of the country and got a safe house set up in Hong Kong. That turned out to be a problem Rowan Lewis had put her mother on the no-fly list for Homeland Security, only under the name “Marie Lewis” and a bunch of serious charges. Jake and Huck then had a private conversation and concluded that the only way Olivia’s mother would be safe is if they took out her father.
They look so normal…yet Huck had Quinn duct taped in her apartment with blood splattered all over and trying desperately to escape. Jake is in a love triangle involving him the president and the president’s mistress! Oh, and they’re both members of the same murder/torture clue called B613. Abby and David keep saying they’re trying to be a normal couple. Well, they should be careful what they wish for because obviously looks can be deceiving.
How are they going to manage that? Jake went to Fitz to ask for help. Fitz turned him down flat, saying Jake just wanted to be Olivia’s hero to get her into bed. Jake is furious and storms out saying they’ll handle it themselves. Later, Olivia calls Fitz, “just to hear his voice” and when he hears the problem, tells Olivia he’ll handle it.
He does! He calls The Pentagon and arranges for a military plane to fly Maya Lewis out of the country. As Maya was leaving, Abby pushes Olivia to hug her mother goodbye.
Olivia had been weird with her mom the whole time, her memory kept flashing back to the day her mom left on the plane. After Olivia hugs her mother goodbye and Maya gets on the plane, Olivia remembers something. The day her mom left a strange man called the house asking for “Marie.” It suddenly all clicks for her. Rowan Pope had it appear that her mother died to protect Olivia from finding out who her mother was – an international terrorist! That’s why he was so upset that day about the “airplane crash.” He knew all those people died because someone else must have figured out that a major terrorist was one that flight and ordered the missile strike. Earlier in the episode we heard Rowan tell Charlie he doesn’t enjoy killing…it looks like he was telling the truth.
However, now there’s a more serious problem:
What the Huck! After all of that torture is Quinn now working for Huck? Is she going to try to kill Rowan? Maybe S&M does go that far? All I know is that there is likely to be some major chaos! Hopefully Huck will get a call into Quinn before she can strike!
So there’s your rundown for tonight’s Scandal winter finale! If you can’t wait until 10pm – here’s a sneak peek SPOILER for Scandal episode 10!
Oh yeah – this winter finale is going to be a doozy! Let me know what you thought of it!
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