This was the strongest episode of the season as the murder of Jerry comes into clear view - or not. Rowan is involved so you know this won't be clear by any means.
And the First Family deals with its grief in different ways, some a little kinkier than others.
Plus, plenty of folks are probably Googling the phrase "Eiffel Towering" - but I wouldn't recommend doing it at work.
Secret Service incompetence in fiction: Under-age daughter of the president Karen ends up a house party (as Huck learned, it was called #swagapalooza) all drunk up her you know what and is in some bedroom calling Liv for help. Where is the Secret Service? She somehow shook them off. They do land a helicopter on the roof and get her out. Of course, Liv did all this as a favor. Karen has understandably lost faith in the Secret Service given that her brother had died under their watch.
Huck's technical magical move of the day: Huck shuts down cellular service on multiple carriers in one location so president's daughter can escape without visual evidence from a nightclub. He doesn't just shut down the 3G or 4G signals but he shuts their phones off. How? That's what I call "Huck magic." Problem: it's too late: someone had already taped Karen in a video in action. And that person quickly sent a copy to Karen. Fitz asks her if she's been raped. Still wasted, she tells her daddy that maybe she was the willing protagonist, not the victim. Liz gets her sent away for tests to see if she's pregnant or saddled with an STD or two. "I want heads on spikes," he says, of the Secret Service. (Is that what Obama said after that recent broach?)
Fitz needs Liz's help: Oddly, during this scene, Mellie is nowhere to be found. So Fitz has no problem asking Liz to clean this up. We don't see her say y es, but of course she says yes.
Huck technical magical move part 2: He gets photos from all the smartphones that night and gets the faces of all the dudes who were there in hopes that Karen figures out who she might have bonked. She remembers a tattoo and narrows it to one. Problem: there are two. Quinn soon gets the kid to talk and both boys are fingered. (Well, not literally but you know what I mean...)
Annoying Abby: She sees Huck and Quinn in the White House, whines that she wants to know what's going on. They can't say. Cyrus can't say. She's the press secretary now. She is no longer in the "need to know" position she had working for Olivia Pope. And Cyrus calls her out for being jealous that she's no longer in the Pope circle. Fortunately, that's the last we see of her this week.
Reunited - and it feels so sad: Time alone in the Oval Office again, Fitz and Liv talk about what happened. After his son died (and they blamed it on Liv's mom), they talk about how they coped. Liv ran away. Fitz buried himself in work. (And as we know, Mellie buried herself in junk food.)
David Rosen gets arrogant - for a moment: He refuses to release or return the B613 files to Jake, who is trying to protect himself. David says making the documents public would destroy government as we know it. Jake doesn't buy this logic and threatens to snap his neck if he doesn't get them. So David reluctantly hands it over.
Mellie going nuts is always fun! A couple of episodes ago, Mellie asked Fitz to simply warn her when (and she knew it was when) Liv would appear again. But he didn't. So she goes ballistic when she sees Liv in the White House hallways. "A magical fairy granted your wish and poof! She appears in the Oval Office!" she exclaims to Fitz. He has to explain that Karen called Liv. Mellie is still incensed, does not want Liv near her kids. "I will fix this," she yelps. "You stay out of it."
Blackmail of the day: The parents of one of the boys who had sex with Karen try to shake down Fitz for $2.5 million. In yet another private Oval Office meeting with Liv and Fitz, he feels like a failure as a parent and a father. "Am I failing as a man, too?" he says, as he draws Liv close. "I almost died without you." She can't resist - of course. "I did miss you," she says breathlessly and they fall into each other's arms. She then has to tell him she went to the island with Jake. "So I'm a failure as a father, a husband AND a man." he ruefully says. He decides to pay the money and do as his father does, "sweep it all under the rug." But that doesn't end up happening. When the greedy rich parents ask for $500,000 more, Liv goes nuts and tells her she is going to smear their names to high heaven as child-porn peddlers. They renege and she gets what she wants because she's Liv and "this is what I do!"
Best rant of the night:
Fitz: "I have dealt with drunk Mellie, bad hygiene Mellie. No, I got it. Smelly Mellie. I have dealt with drunk Mellie and Smelly Mellie and 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 here 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? ... Karen spent last night in a threesome with two guys making a move they call Eiffel Towering. You know why I know that. I saw the sex tape. Liv is fixing the mess that you made, that I made. The difference is I'm running a country and grieving for the loss of my son... All day, every day, you are sitting around in booties and a dirty robe eating chips and getting drunk at 11 a.m.!"
Mellie: "A sex tape?"
Fitz; "Yah."
Mellie grins: "She takes after her daddy, doesn't she?"
Mellie nurtures: Fitz's rant wakes Mellie up. She tells Karen that she understands why Karen did what she did but given the situation with her dead brother, she gets a pass. And they hug.
Incompetent car bomb set up: The person hired to ensure Jake's car blows up made it so Jake would notice gas dripping underneath his car. I'm not sure why that would even be a sign if his car would blow up when he pressed his key fob. Then again, what do I know? I'm not technical whiz like Huck. As we know from last week, Jake is now on Rowan's bad side and is probably not long for this world.
Secret Service Tom Boy: Rowan is a little peeved that "Golden Boy" failed to off Jake via car bomb. Jake, Tom Larson says, knows his moves. Heck, he used to report to Jake. So this wasn't easy. Not that Rowan is a big excuse man. He says disappointment leads to frustration, which leads to resentment, which leads to anger, which leads to rage, which leads to indifference. And indifference, of course, is the worst. "Jake Ballard needs to go," Rowan tells him. "I've put a clock on it. Do not let me down." Moments after Rowan leaves, Jake pops up - of course. He says he may have to kill Tom before Tom kills him. And even if Tom kills Jake, does he think he's safe, being the one who killed the president's son? "You may not trust me," Jake says, "but you know you can't trust him."
The daughter's partying has Secret Service under scrutiny and they find gaps in Tom's schedule that may point him to the murder of the president's son. Jake convinces Tom to spill the beans and finger Rowan. Just as he's about to confess, Rowan (of course) pops in. Ironically, Fitz brought him in. He doesn't think Rowan did it. He trusts Rowan. He thinks Rowan can suss out what Tom had done and why he picked up a lethal agent that ultimately killed his son. So Tom has no choice but to blame Jake Ballard, a necessary falsehood.
Jake, waiting in the Oval Office to talk to Fitz about the situation, is escorted out. Jake knows he's been screwed. And Tom is sent away for a long, long time. Rowan's work is done - until next week.
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