Gladiators Or Mounties?

It seems impossible, but when Scandal returned last night for the premiere of its third season, it actually managed to reach a whole new level of bonkers-osity -- which, for a show in which, not so long ago, a president literally murdered a Supreme Court justice, is really saying something.

As you'll recall, the crazy plot turn that ended the show's second season was the revelation that President Fitz Grant (Tony Goldwyn) has (or, at least, has had) a mistress, and that her name is Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) -- a turn leading directly to the ultimate crazy plot turn of the season, which was that the shadowy figure (Joe Morton) who'd inserted Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) into Liv's life was actually Liv's father. (I'd suggest that this would lead to a hella awkward Thanksgiving, except I'm pretty sure someone who wears as much white as Liv would ever risk eating foods as potentially stainy as cranberry sauce or gravy.)

But enough about Liv and her dad -- who, though he apparently has the resources to keep her from getting murdered by someone near Grant by giving her a new identity and disappearing her for eight months (while still keeping her business running) and a plane to ferry her away in, has in mind destinations like Brussels, Thailand, or Johannesburg. Any of those places is probably fine or whatever, but they're not going to be much use if Liv wants to spend her downtime reading the novels of Barbara Gowdy and drinking Cadbury hot chocolate.

The real magic for me and my kind comes later, as Cyrus (Jeff Perry) orders Vice-President Sally Langston (Kate Burton) to cover for the president at his various official appearances. She responds rather shirtily by condemning the president for his infidelity -- and taking Cyrus down for being gay, while she's at it; not only won't she throw in her lot with Grant, but by distancing herself from him, she'll maintain all the voters she brought to the ticket: "The voters I will take with me when I go." "'Go'?!" sputters Cyrus. "Where are you going? Canada? Because that's the only place you have a chance of being elected."

Now, I love Cyrus, and I know he's upset in this moment, so I'll cut him some slack for what is actually a pretty nonsensical dig at Canada. Though ultra-far-right candidates and parties do exist, they are very fringe; a national party based on the notion that Quebec might someday secede from the country has gotten more traction than the Christian Heritage Party. (Please click on that link for its inflammatory take on Syria: "This is a pretty big mess isn’t it?" ADORABLE.) American wedge issues like abortion rights and gay marriage are pretty much universally accepted realities in Canada, to say nothing of what is, as of this writing, the biggest wedge issue in the U.S.: socialized health care. If Sally, as a fundamentalist Christian candidate, really wants to have a successful post-Fitz political career, she'd probably be better off moving to Uganda.

...but hey, back to Liv and her dad for a second before we wrap this up: Liv's father actually starts his whole spiel by saying that he's arranged for her to spend her first eight months of exile on "a very nice island." He doesn't say which, but he very well could have meant Vancouver Island. Sure, real estate in southern British Columbia is grotesquely overpriced, but someone with his own plane can probably just send an underling into an office of the Coast Realty Group with a briefcase full of krugerrands and get anything he wants -- even a two-bedroom! And if there's one thing I know about Canadians, it's that even if they recognized Liv, down at the Thrifty Foods or government-run liquor store, from her appearances on CNN and the like, they would very politely leave her alone.