Fitz Shows Liv His Cabin In The Woods

What's In The Child's Best Interest?

Alert Type: Dysfunctional Post-Divorce Co-Parenting Alert.

Issue: Rowan feels that Liv is getting too close to learning the truth about her mother, so he intends to send Maya away to a very similar cell, but in another country, so probably even crappier.

Complicating Factors: Maya has nothing AT ALL to lose, so once he tells her his plan, she responds in a way few of us would.

SHE CHEWS THROUGH HER OWN WRISTS!

Resolution: Maya buys herself a few days in the infirmary before her transfer to whatever hellhole Rowan plans to stick her in; while she's there, Rowan softens and brings her his collection of Liv press clippings.

Spoiler: When Rowan dodges the question of why he only has twenty years' worth of clippings and no actual personal photos of their daughter, Maya figures out that Rowan and Liv are not close (understatement) and that maybe she might have an in with Liv....

Making The Best Of A Seriously Bad Situation

This Is What Separates The Ams From The Pros

Alert Type: Dirty Tricks Alert.

Issue: Someone broke into Josephine Marcus's house and stole her campaign manager/secret daughter Candace's computer, which was loaded with touchy campaign info.

Complicating Factors: Since nothing else was taken, it's pretty obvious that the burglary was campaign-related, and the obvious culprit seems to be Reston. But Candace doesn't help matters when she directly contravenes her orders from Olivia Pope & Associates and gives a press conference about it in which she accuses Reston publicly. Fortunately for her, someone at Reston campaign headquarters logs on with Candace's computers soon enough, which gets David Rosen's office involved.

Resolution: When David pillow-talks to Abby that his IT guy found that there was nothing on Candace's computer but a stump speech, but that it had been wiped right before the break-in, OPA figures out that Candace staged the whole thing. Liv orders Marcus to fire Candace, but when the time comes, Marcus takes the hit herself and drops out of the race. Liv kept telling Marcus that she wasn't ready to run for national office, and apparently she was right. WAS THIS WHAT CANDACE WANTED ALL ALONG?! We'll probably never know. And anyway, now Liv is free to go work for Fitz after all.

We Wouldn't Think Of Going Without The Bait— Uhh, That Is, The Bait-thing Beauty. The Bathing Beauty!

Alert Type: Honeytrap Alert.

Issue: Mellie and Cyrus need to derail Sally's presidential run and, having determined last week that Daniel Douglas is a slut, but not for ladies, they need to maneuver James so that DD will hit on him: thus, Cyrus gets him an assignment writing a puff piece on DD.

Complicating Factors: James isn't part of the plan; also, dangling him in front of DD means Cyrus runs the risk of James actually cheating on him, though Mellie is more concerned about this than is Cyrus, who smugly tells her, "My husband is not your husband."

Resolution: DD having heard from Mellie that James likes older dudes and that Cyrus and James have an open marriage, he does hit on James, who finally figures out how Cyrus has used him, and gets back at Cyrus by Doing Sex with DD.

Spoiler: James may or may not know that Cyrus had a photographer outside, who took photos of James and DD in very compromising positions!

Up The Eastern Seaboard And Through The Woods, To Fitz's House We Go

Who called the meeting? Fitz.

What's it about? He wants Liv to know that he now knows Rowan is her father, and he's sad that she didn't tell him. Other than that: the usual.

How'd it go? God, these two idiots. As they hash out the question of who was protecting whom by keeping what from whoever, Fitz keeps changing the subject back to this house, which he's just choppered her to, and when she gets exasperated enough to tell him to shut up about it already, he explains that it's the house he had built for them to live in after they both decided to make their Vermont fantasy a reality. Okay...I know they're not REALLY specific about the timeline on this show, but wasn't that conversation, like, a month ago? He got a whole gigantic house built in that time? Or had he been sitting on the Vermont fantasy before he even brought it up to her? Whatever, it's not important, because it makes Liv jump on his face, and sex ensues. In short: successful meeting, particularly as Liv tells Fitz on her way out not to sell the house, as he'd told her he was going to. (Not so successful for Mellie, who has no idea where Fitz is, makes his poor secretary try to call him, then makes her call Liv, and figures out where they both are and what they're probably doing whilst not answering their phones.)

Rowan goes to get Maya for her transport to parts unknown, and finds the sedative jammed in her (naked) doctor's neck and Maya nowhere to be found!

Just when Quinn thinks that even with the whole OPA team trying to track down video of the person who killed Stair Car Guy, she's be able to evade detection, she comes home to find a clear shot of her face on some CC camera and Huck waiting for her, with torture tools, curious to know whom she's working for!

AND LIV COMES HOME TO FIND SOMEONE WAITING FOR HER!!!!!