The More You Know About Mellie's Backstory, The More You Might Really Hate Olivia Pope

Access (Almost) All Areas

Alert Type: Damage Control Alert.

Issue: In order to win back the voters who've turned on Mellie for outing Fitz's affair, staying with him in spite of it, or both, she's submitting to a multiple-day TV profile with journalist Carla Steele.

Complicating Factors: The centerpiece of the profile is an interview with both Fitz and Mellie, and Mellie's not sure Fitz will support her the way she needs him to, for all the reasons we know.

Resolution: Fitz not only "shows up" for Mellie, but when Carla starts aggressively going after her, Fitz vociferously defends her: "I had the affair. I damaged our marriage and caused the public grief, and I should be the sole carrier of the blame and outrage for this embarrassing fiasco. To place it elsewhere — to blame Mellie for speaking out — is false. For Mellie to accept that blame or to take responsibility for any of it would be equally false. I made the mistake. I've apologized for it. And now it is time: I am moving on. We are both trying to move on. And all we can ask is that the American people try to do the same." And when she thanks him later for appearing to stick up for her in public, he says he meant every word.

Spoiler: Less a spoiler than a guess: if this makes Mellie think Fitz is coming back around to appreciating her, she is almost certainly mistaken.

Where It All Started To Go Wrong

Remember on The West Wing when Bartlet was kicking off his re-election campaign and we got that fun episode that showed how the whole team was assembled in the first place and it was inspiring and heartwarming? This is the opposite of that. Fifteen years ago, Mellie and Fitz were happy and in love when his dad, Big Jerry, surprised them with a visit from strategist Cyrus Beene, who wanted to run Fitz's campaign for governor of California, three years ahead of schedule. Also present: the head and chin wigs that I guess are supposed to make Jeff Perry look fifteen years younger as opposed to like he walked out of a neanderthal diorama at a fourth-rate natural history museum.

And That's Why You Keep A Lid On Your Blood Lust

Alert Type: Long Con Alert.

Issue: Quinn still has mega-blood lust.

Complicating Factors: Since Huck is continuing to spurn her attempts to connect with him over their shared interest in murder, Charlie has swooped in to help her satisfy it, including dropping tantalizing hints about his new career as a PI, which induces her to stalk him on a job.

Resolution: Charlie enlists Quinn to incapacitate a security guard at a building he needs to get into, which she does, with the craziest of eyes.

Unfortunately, whatever drug Charlie gave her doesn't just incapacitate the guy: it kills him.

Spoiler: 1. Charlie's been working for Rowan the whole time, and since he got her murder on video, he can now use it to draft her into B613. 2. The dead guy was a key witness in the investigation OPA is running on Flight 522 (of which more shortly).

Welcome To The Screwed-Up Family

Alert Type: New Client Alert.

Issue: Liv wants to bring the full might of Olivia Pope & Associates to bear on the case of her dead mother.

Complicating Factors: Putting her team on the case means bringing them into the cone of silence with regard to her father and his whole being-in-charge-of-B613 thing — as well as Fitz and his whole secretly-shot-down-the-plane-and-isn't-a-war-hero deal — which could endanger their lives (a particularly pressing issue given that Fitz has just finished telling her to stay away from Jake because there's a price on his head).

Resolution: Everyone on the team agrees to help, regardless of the potential danger, and very quickly start turning up people who remember the flight — like the gate agent who reports that a guy named Omar Dresden was pulled off the flight by marshals before it took off (though his family didn't know and thinks he died in the crash), and the guy who drove the stair car Dresden descended as he left the plane.

Spoiler: Stair Car Guy is the bro Quinn killed; there's way more to the Omar Dresden thing.

Operation Double D

Alert Type: Sexspionage Alert.

Issue: Because Team Fitz knows that Sally is planning to run for President as an independent, they need to find a way to sabotage her campaign — and since her husband, Daniel Douglas, seems to like the ladies (he was ogling Mellie's boobs during grace at a dinner last week), Mellie and Cyrus are going to entrap him; the mission starts with Mellie telling Sally that one of Mellie's staffers reported that DD got "handsy" with her.

Complicating Factors: Sally denies the charge with suspect vehemence; then the escort Cyrus and Mellie hired to come on to DD at a White House cocktail party totally strikes out.

Resolution: DD does get flirty at the party after all...

...and Jack Coleman is playing yet another guy who's closeted for political reasons.

What I Did For Love (Of Power)

So when Jerry sprang Cyrus on Fitz (and Mellie immediately jumped on board), Fitz was kind of a whiny bitch about it, flatly refusing to run as a war hero (though of course we know why) and making the whole thing about his daddy issues, to the point where Cyrus threatened to quit unless Mellie started thinking of Fitz as her "charity work" and informing him that he doesn't need the drama because he gets enough of that from his own wife, har-dee-har-har. Anyway, Jerry decided that the way to attack the problem would be through Mellie, and, while deeeeeee-runk, also decides it's a good idea to tell her that Fitz shot down Flight 522 because — according to Jerry — the government had intel to the effect that there was a dirty bomb on board that would have taken out half of London and started World War III. Mellie's barely digested this news when BIG JERRY TOTALLY RAPES HER. HOLY SHIT.

But then...I guess that's what turns the happy, in-love Mellie of the past into the cold-eyed, power-mad Mellie of today, because she not only doesn't tell Fitz anything but, the very next day, she uses the assault to blackmail Jerry into telling Fitz exactly what he needs to hear from Jerry to convince him that he should run for governor after all. YIKES.

Getting a briefing on Liv from his hired goon Mike, Fitz finally finds out that Rowan is Liv's father!

Rowan goes to visit Omar Dresden at some super-secret prison, but "Omar Dresden" is actually Liv's totally-not-even-kind-of-dead mom!

And fifteen years ago, right after Fitz agreed to run for governor because rapey Jerry apologized him into it, Mellie discovered she was pregnant BUT WHO IS THE FATHERRRRRRRRRRR?!