It's been two months and "Scandal" returns! And as usual, Shonda Rhimes packs the hour with plot. There is not a wasted moment. Is Olivia becoming so lost in her cynicism that she has to keep drinking? Perhaps she's turning her into a raging alcoholic! That'd be fun!
Feel free to read my recap of the last episode to catch up on all that recently happened but may have faded from your memory. Believe me. I had to do that myself.
Here are the 10 tastiest morsels from tonight's return:
- Sally goes for it! Fitz gets a little angry when Sally Langston declares her third-party presidential run while staying as vice president. But she gets uncomfortable when a reporter asks a question about her dead husband's autopsy, making her wonder if her murder will be exposed. She tells her advisor, the smarmy Leo Bergen, that she feels God is punishing her for taking a step away from her firm anti-abortion stance. "The devil murdered my husband when he snuck inside me," Sally said. (That's a great way to take responsibility for your actions!) As an independent candidate, she has virtually no chance of winning but let the games begin!
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
- "The Closer" fans rejoice. Jon Tenney, who played a guy named Fritz on "The Closer," is now going to work under Fitz as his vice presidential candidate. He's a playboy governor of California but is otherwise clean. He loved someone but lost her. Who is it? We shall find out soon.
- Skeletons, skeletons, skeletons. Sally's sweet advisor Leo revives rumors of Fitz and Olivia, just for the heck of it, in public. A reporter gets a tip about Sally's dead gay husband Daniel Douglas not getting an autopsy and brings it up to the new press secretary, who happens to be James Novak, Cyrus' hubby. And we know why James got a bit flustered by the question, ahem. Or was that simply a studied act? Again, we shall soon find out.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
- Mellie works Olivia over. Mellie needs to crush those rumors again of Olivia and her hubby so she creates a lovely public lunch where photographers and important people are hovering. The pair talk about the ridiculousness of the situation while smiling and pretending to be best of friends. Oscars all around! Mellie has had to act a good portion of her time with Fitz. This is a piece of cake! She provides Olivia a list of men to date to distract the public from the rumors. Smart!
- Mellie has her own past. Naturally, the buddy Fitz is picking as VP? He slept with Mellie back in the day. She is the one that Nichols lost, the one that led him to live a life of service instead. Obviously, she and he will be back in bed again soon. She's pretty pent up. This might help her loosen up!
- Olivia demands answers from Fitz. She tries to resign, post Mellie lunch. But you know that won't happen. Fitz won't let her. Then she changes topics: she found out earlier that Jake now runs B613 and wants to know why. Fitz says he killed 329 innocent people on that plane years ago and let her terrorist mom free so he needs a friend at the top. She doesn't think Nichols is the right vice presidential candidate and he won't listen. But she won't quit. Nope. Can't separate these two!
- David and James reunion. James Novak hates his husband Cyrus now. So he is now taping Cyrus' conversations and giving the audio to David, the district attorney. It's not admissable if they want to go after Cyrus, unfortunately. "He's a monster," James tells David. "He's powerful. And he thinks he doesn't have a weakness. But it's me. I will play the good soldier and sleep beside him as long as it takes to take that monster down." Come on now. You think Novak has a chance? Then we find out he's... the leaker!
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
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Rowan is a wee bit upset by his demotion. Just a wee bit.
As usual, Rowan spits his words out in the most condescending manner to his daughter, this time explaining how he viewed Fitz's actions, letting her mother go as a bargaining chip while taking him off B613. But he says he knows all of Fitz's secrets and he will wreak revenge. Of course. "The greatest weapon I have against him calls me dad," he says, the lovely scenery being chewed up and spit out as usual. "Everyone is afraid. Everyone should be afraid.The president should be very afraid. If I were you, Olivia, I'd be terrified. Whatever chips you have, you should run from the burning building known as the White House." He said Fitz will not make it to the end of his term. "Start grieving now," he said. "It will save you time down the road." Olivia doesn't follow her dad's advice. Rowan's first step on his road to ruin Fitz: talk to Leo Bergen.
- One step ahead, one step behind. Cyrus knew that Olivia would talk to the coroner about what happened to Douglas' body. So he had Charlie and Quinn kidnap the son of the coroner so she'd come up with a fake back-up story about him falling down drunk and dying that way instead of the "natural causes' cover story or the real story. Dirty, dirty tactics.
- Harrison has a storyline! Someone from his past comes back to haunt him. She (who looks like Raj's sister from "The Big Bang Theory") tries to come on to him, he resists, then of course, he doesn't. Who is this shady character? Why does he want to shoot her? Should I care?
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