Last night's edition of Scandal proved that Olivia Pope is now to fixing what Cassie is to operatic singing.
The show began with Abby trying to play the role of Olivia's "proxy" as campaign manager. Although Cyrus tried to warn "Gabby" that no one in that campaign war room was going to give a damn about her thoughts and her feelings, she went in confidently anyway. A cute trench coat will do that to you, I suppose. Nevertheless, Fitz promptly asked "Where is Olivia?" as Mellie rolled her eyes in complete disgust while her boo thang, VP candidate Andrew, looked like a lost sad puppy dying of boredom.
What was Olivia doing? Not minding her damn business, per usual. Liv met with her dad to get B316 intel -- specifically on how exactly to find its source of funding in an effort to shut the unit down. When Huck found that out, he initially balked at the idea and told Liv that she was being a "mark" for her father. In response, Liv bossed up and verbally bitched Huck out, which made him fall in line.
Then, a scandal from fake Fitz fling's past resurfaced. Yes, Jeanine Locke held a press conference to announce a memoir about the affair she didn't really have with the president of the United States. That prompted Olivia to return to her day job (sorta). Cyrus, suspecting that VP Sally's team was behind this, wanted to hit back hard. Olivia disagreed as Fitz proceeded to kick everyone out of the room and have yet another overly emotional conversation with Liv.
I am so sick of these two. Olivia and Fitz wanna be on their Beyoncé and Jay Z, but they just gotta accept they are Nelly and Ashanti: doomed. Honestly, I couldn't give even a decimeter of a damn about how these two end up. They are annoying, self-involved, and increasingly less interesting.
Now, Liv and Jake is a complicated relationship I'm still curious to watch play out. Jake showed up drunk outside of Liv's apartment. He'd been dranking (he'd been dranking), which led him to Drakeing over the phone with Olivia. Liv is still mad Jake took James out of the game, though I wish she'd stop playing. After all, this is the same person who if he had his way the first time, would've had you and yours all locked up for voter fraud. Pour a little red out and keep it moving.
Still slightly ignoring her day job, Liv went back to her dad to find out whether or not he was playing her. Guess what happened in between that time? Cyrus unleashed the beast and exposed that VP Sally, who professes to be the biggest pro lifer besides Jesus Christ, had a daughter got an abortion. Cyrus thought he won, only for Olivia to tell him what an even bigger mess he made. Cyrus' jaw was cracked, but he checked Liv's chin a bit when he told her that Fitz was ignoring her warnings to keep Andrew on the ticket.
Liv stormed in Fitz's office to stop him and then we had yet another emotional roller coaster of a conversation with Fitz and Liv. Fitz wants Liv to tell Andrew to stop screwing his wife. She follows command, which was mighty damn rich. I mean, seriously, Fitz's mistress is telling his wife's new boyfriend to stop smashing the wife he says he is totally indifferent to. Typical selfish man: I can fuck as I please, but you, my wife whose peach I've let spoil, it ain't no fun if you get some. Again, I hate Fitz.
To Andrew's credit, he read Liv her rights and made it clear that he genuinely loves Mellie Mel, but Liv continued to play the "I ain't a [career] killer, but don't push me!" card. Eh, evil or not, at least she's finally doing her job. To that end, Liv handled the civil war between Fitz and Sally by temporarily teaming with the Sally Langston campaign to take out their Democratic opponent, Samuel Reston. That involved letting Reston's wife know that it was Reston who killed her boyfriend. Reston got a whiff of what was happening, tried to threaten his wife, only to find out he had been recorded while speaking to his wife in prison. All's well that ends well.
Although it's just lovely that Fitz's campaign is now somewhat back on track, his head may turn into a pool of blood thanks to Olivia Pope's mama, Marie. Jake and B316 have been tracking her moves, but just when they had the chance to take her out, Huck and co. pulled the plug on the entire operation.
We have Olivia's sex game for that as she followed Huck's instruction to go bed Jake in order to use that old Cingular-phone looking device to extract the info from Jake's cell that Huck needed to figure out the algorithm. God, I hope that sounds correct. Math really isn't my thing, y'all.
And it bears repeating: fixing is no longer Olivia's strongsuit. Shortly before all of this bullshit happened, Marie showed up at the dinner Liv was having with her father. She let her know the following: She killed Claire, the natural hair having Black girl who was about to snitch on Marie's operation.
Help me understand, Olivia. Your married boyfriend is the president, and your side piece, the leader of a super duper secretive operation that kills terrorist like your mama. Now, knowing all of this, plus seeing in real time your terrorist mama punk your ex-terrorist killer daddy in front of you, wouldn't it dawn on you to let Jake and B316 cook a little longer?
Apparently not because now B316 is over and that big bomb Marie has is presumably heading straight to Fitz. WAY TO GO, OLIVIA. WAY TO FUCKING GO. I don't condone Jake choking you, but ma'am, you tried it. Ugh. Hate.
P.S. Most people were losers last night, but give Mellie a round of applause for slapping the dog shit out of Fitz like Rick James after finding out he cock blocked her affair with Andrew. Fitz is an awful, awful man. Slap him again next week.
Written by Michael Arceneaux (@youngsinick)
