Written by Michael Arceneaux (@youngsinick)
It's probably for the best that Olivia Pope doesn't have a bunch of girlfriends. If she did, at this point most of them would be telling her in an exhausted tone, "Girl, I don't wanna hear about that man no more. You do this to yourself." Her guy friends would likely offer a variation of that same sentiment. If I could sit Olivia Pope done myself, I'd tell her flatly, "You ain't a pimp, you a fairy." If she didn't catch the Pimp C reference, I'd reevalute our friendship altogether.
To her credit, Olivia did at least try to stand firm in her "no more fooling with Fitz" declaration on last night’s episode of Scandal. It was nice to see her tell her married boyfriend, "You need to stop calling me." It was even better when she decided to declare jihad on the cell phone used to communicate with him. Unfortunately, her other would-be boo, Jake, was right when he explained that if POTUS wants to speak with you, you will eventually have to. Of course, he was saying that from the bitter place that is the friend zone, but #factsonly all the same.
So as we knew what was coming once a Secret Service agent and a helicopter appeared at Liv’s doorstep. Millions of Gladiators thought to themselves, “You in danger, girl!”
Once they got to talking, Fitz got to scolding Olviia. Despite being previously exposed as the man who shot down the plan carrying her mother, Fitz fixed his mouth to say, “You know who I am and you’re just this bundle of dirty secrets.” His defense for not telling Liv all of his dirty little secrets was that he told her everything he could “legally.”
In response to his pity party, Olivia shouted, "I fixed the election. He's my father. I ruined you."
That was her cue to exit, but Fitz suckered her once again after revealing that the house they were in was built with the intentions of them starting a new life together. All it took was the thought of a secret den for their sidepiece love to get Olivia to rush to him and commence the sex scene.
For real?
Fitz: "I killed your mama, but I built you a house!” Olivia: “LET ME KISS YOU NOW, DADDY.”
Wrong answer, Ms. Pope. You should've started singing Luther Vandross' "A House Is Not A Home."
Anyway:
MELLIE WHAT?
MELLIE WHO?
Just when you think Fitz and the First Lady might have reached some point in their marriage in which they can at least respect each other, Mellie gets her reality check when she tries to reach him (and then Olivia) by phone. Fitz is a horrible person. An entitled brat with no respect for any of the women in his life no matter what he tells either of them. The morning after, Fitz told Liv that he’s going after Rowan. Yeah, good luck with that, sir.
Fitz and Liv weren’t the only two who got some last night.
Harrison finally had sex with someone: Congresswoman Josie Marcus’ sister-daughter, Candace. It happened after Harrison was put on babysitting duty for Candy after she went rogue and disobeyed Olivia’s order to not discuss the alleged break-in of Marcus’ campaign headquarters by the Reston team. As it turns out, Candace faked the whole incident, only her mom-sister took the fall and withdrew her candidacy.
I would have preferred a longer run for the "Phoebe for President" storyline, but Josie Marcus was self-righteous, bullheaded, and not ready for presidential politics. Harrison was correct in assessing her as “a first-time congresswoman from a forgettable state.” To that end, bye-bye, Josie.
But to give Josie a little credit, she was the only person in the entire episode that showed genuine compassion for a loved one.
The same cannot be said of Cyrus, who pimped out his own husband, James, to the VP Sally’s gay husband in an effort to diffuse Sally’s independent run for president. Cyrus rather arrogantly told Mellie, “My husband is not your husband.” As in, I can wave him around like bait, but he won’t actually go through with any discretion. Well, after finding out that his husband doubled as his pimp, James got his and now Cyrus is the one hurt about it.
As for the sociopath portion of the show, Huck found about Quinn’s role in last week’s murder and he’s about to the torture the hell out of her to find out all the sordid details. I would feel bad for Quinn if I didn’t hate her character so much. She wanted to be “’bout that life” and now she is. I hope she rushed to her medicine cabinet for some Percocet before Huck tied her down and started to drill, baby, drill.
And there is the issue of Olivia Pope’s parents. Olivia’s mom pleaded with Rowan to get a glimpse of her child in the flesh. She lamented, “You have to give me something, one thing before you throw me out with the trash. Please.” Rowan told her no, though he did eventually share press clips of his kid. Not being a completely horrible person, Mama Pope wondered why didn’t the two have any pictures together. His excuse was that “they grew apart.”
Dude, all those Sunday dinners and you haven’t taken at least one selfie?
Not satisfied with the “You can’t see your daughter again no matter how long I’ve kept you captive,” Mama Pope conceived a plan for a breakout. She gnawed her own wrists to be moved to the medical wing of this secret lair of doom. After that, she killed the doctor and snuck out—ultimately finding her daughter on the street.
Would a person who was held captive before Al Gore invented the Internet know how to Google Map her daughter’s apartment? Wait, why am I trying to make sense of this show? Never mind. See you all in two weeks.
P.S. Shout out to the wonderful director, Ava DeVarney, for a great job last night.
