Photo: Danny Feld / ABC
Olivia Pope: Adult Child Of High-Stakes Anti-Government Ops With Hundreds Of Innocent Casualties
Scandal's fall finale challenges Liv to determine which of her parents is the true villain. Unfortunately, it's both.
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Fight! Fight! Fight!
Langston vs. Langston
Wondering what led up to the sin Sally committed at the end of the last episode? You probably weren't, because you could make a reasonable assumption as to how it went down, but we open with a look at the Langstons' very last fight. Sally is, of course, furious with Daniel Douglas for being so reckless as to have sex with a man so closely connected to power: "That was poisoned fruit!" (Hee hee.) He tells her not to act like she didn't know what he was about when they got married: she was "Shrill Sally, the girl nobody wanted," and he was tall and handsome; he'd give her credibility, and she'd give him cover to keep his parents from disowning him — so in a sense, they were one another's beards. So while he claims he made her, she calls him her burden, her cross to bear, her original sin, et cetera and so on, and he finally tells her that he's done: he's going to leave her, and maybe he's also going to go on TV and put her on blast, and before you know it, she's grabbing a letter opener off her desk and burying it in his back, and then calling Cyrus with a face full of blood.
Winner: Two Langstons enter; one Langston leaves (to dispose of the other one's body). Well done, Sally.
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Snapshot
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Meeting Time
Get To The Point!
Who called the meeting? Rowan.
What's it about? He thinks it's about the footage of Quinn killing stair car guy in exchange for intel on Maya/Marie; Quinn thinks it's about getting close enough to Rowan to kill him with a syringe full of something blue (antifreeze?).
How'd it go? Pretty well from Rowan's perspective, since as soon as Quinn agrees to his terms, some other B613er comes in to report on Marie's whereabouts, and then Rowan doesn't have to give up shit. Once he takes off to deal with the Marie situation, Quinn goes into the bathroom, drops the SIM card from her phone and the syringe into a toilet, and then pulls out a big long pin from the paper towel dispenser to dig the tracking device Huck stuck in her gum from out of the hole where one of her teeth used to be.
So even though she didn't get to achieve her original objective, Quinn came out ahead from the encounter as well, because now her ex-friends at Olivia Pope & Associates can't track her traitorous ass anymore.
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A Wizard Did It
And A Rug To Sweep It Under
While Cyrus talks Sally out of going to the police using terms she'll understand (viz "Give me your sin!"), Charlie and Quinn crisis-manage, moving DD's body and cleaning up the blood, and okay, I can accept that the Naval Observatory might have an extra white lampshade in a store room somewhere, because them shits get broken all the time, how did they (a) locate an identical rug, and (b) get it into the house past the Secret Service guys posted outside, presumably at every available door?!
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That Quote"Abby, you're my girlfriend...we spend a great deal of our time together...I sleep beside you, I put parts of my body inside parts of your body...."- David Rosen -
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Hell Yeah!
And The Award For Best Actress In A Murder Cover-Up Goes To...
Sally, it doesn't matter that you totally went catatonic when the doctor showed up to examine DD after his "fatal heart attack." What matters is that as soon as he started to unbutton DD's pyjama shirt, potentially revealing all the letter-opener stab wounds, you remembered your lines and delivered the performance of a lifetime, throwing yourself on the body and convincing this doctor that he'd just "report his heart stopped a few hours ago." Great job, doc!
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Dialogue
Real Talk
Fitz having locked up Rowan in a Pentagon interrogation room until Marie has safely landed in Hong Kong, these two Olivia Pope fans have a chance to really get to know each other! Since Fitz is hoping that Rowan will be his father-in-law someday, this is a golden opportunity for them both!
I'm screwing her, you know. Your daughter. Every chance I get. The things I could tell you — about the way she tastes.... She's quite a girl. Talented.You're funny. You're a funny, funny man.I am?Or should I say "boy"? You're a boy. You've been coddled and cared for, pampered and hugged. For you, it's always summertime, and the living is easy. Daddy's rich and your mama's good-looking! You're a Grant! You've got money in your blood. You are a boy. I'm a man. I have worked for every single thing I have ever received. I have fought and scraped and bled for every inch of ground I walk on. I was the first in my family to go to college. My daughter went to boarding school with the children of kings. I made that happen. You cried yourself to sleep because Daddy hurt your feelings, because Papa banged his secretary, because it hurt to have so much money, you spoiled, entitled, ungrateful little brat. You have everything handed to you on a silver platter and you squander it! You're given the world, and you can't appreciate it because you haven't had to work for anything. So now you've decided that the one thing you want is my daughter, my child, mine, what I made, what I created. You can talk about what a great lay she is to try to get a response from me all you want, but guess what: I am actually, quite literally, above your pay grade, which means that I know that you believe that you are in love with her, as wrong as you may be.I do love her.You love that she is a door marked "exit"! You love that she is your way out. Because if you are with Olivia Pope, you no longer have to fulfill your father's dream of being President! If you are with Olivia, you no longer have to be your father's son! An apple never falls too far from the tree. You are always going to be Senator Grant's disappointing boy, Fitz. She is always going to be the formidable Olivia Pope. Don't use the person that I made to make you into a man. You're a boy.You don't know anything about me.Sadly, boy, I know everything about you. You disappoint me as a suitor for my daughter's hand. -
We Made A List
Rapid-Fire Facts We Learn About The Early Life Of The Artist Formerly Known As Maya Pope
- born in East London
- parents were involved in Marxist Liberation causes
- has aliases in France, Germany, Tunisia, and Somalia
- came to the U.S. in 1972
- was paid to steal documents from high-level CIA officers, like Rowan
- "She didn't kill anyone!" - Dumb Abby, who I guess has already forgotten the doctor she killed and whose scrubs she stole two episodes ago
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Meeting Time
"Condolence" Call
Who called the meeting? Mellie, in the sense that she invited herself over.
What's it about? She's very pointedly expressing her condolences for Sally's loss.
How'd it go? It's one of the greatest meetings Mellie's ever had on the show? She gets the palpable pleasure of letting Sally know that Cyrus told her aaaaaaaaaaall about what actually happened, and that Cyrus's involvement in the cover-up means that the White House now owns Sally's ass. No presidency for you, Sally! Should've been better at choking down your rage, like Fitz is!
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Alert!
Not-So-Rockin' Robin
Alert Type: Chump Alert.
Issue: Quinn doesn't know which way is up, basically.
Complicating Factors: While Huck is still mad at Quinn and doing his best to turn everyone at OPA against her, Charlie sure seems nice, and like he really likes her!
Resolution: Quinn seems to let herself be manipulated by Charlie into staying with him instead of going back to her apartment, but then she waits for him to fall asleep and slips away, back to OPA.
Spoiler: When Huck tells her that if not for Liv he would have pulled out all her teeth, and also peeled off all her skin and then killed her, Quinn decides that she probably doesn't actually have a future there, and goes back to Charlie.
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Meeting Time
The Boy Who Cried Conspiracy
Who called the meeting? James.
What's it about? He's come to David to share his suspicions about DD's death — specifically, he thinks Cyrus may have killed him out of jealousy over their assignation.
How'd it go? Bad all around. David reminds James that the last time he ran with one of James's hunches (about the fixed election), he ended up out of a job and substitute-teaching a high school Civics class, in which capacity he received a quiz so awful he still keeps it in his desk as a reminder: the student decided that, rather than take the class seriously, he'd just answer each question with a drawing of a penis. So not only is David not going to risk his career again just on James's say-so, but we also don't get to see that quiz as an extra on ABC.com. Come on, guys.
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Meeting Time
Olivia > Fitz (smarts-wise, at least) (and in general)
Who called the meeting? Olivia.
What's it about? She has some tough questions for her dad.
How'd it go? Well(ish) for her, because she's figured out what happened with Remington: Marie planted false information about a bomb on the plane, and Rowan arranged for it to be shot down (so that it wouldn't destroy London, its intended target) and also pulled Marie off so she wouldn't get killed. Not so great for Fitz, who hadn't figured this out yet.
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Wrap It Up
Fitz calls Liv to let her know that Marie's plane never made it to Hong Kong! It was found in Mongolia, with everyone on board shot to death, and Marie nowhere to be found!
Jake comes by to tell Liv not to worry too much that her father (now that Fitz has released him) will seek violent reprisal against him or Fitz, and also to tell her, "I loved you. Whatever happens next, I want to make sure you know that I loved you. I love you."
When Leo tries to buck up Sally after the funeral and make her cut all her old ties to the Grants, she cracks, telling him that DD is in hell because he's a sodomite, and Leo figures out that she killed DD and then called Cyrus, and is horrified — oh, not that she's a murderer, but that she didn't call him first!
This girl Shelby returns to David's office (after getting big-timed the day before by the person David puts some of his body parts in) with something important: she's a junior engineer who developed spy hardware, and she has a recording of Sally calling Cyrus about DD's murder!
Rowan returns to his office...to find that Fitz has replaced him with Jake — but hey, if Rowan wants a job at B613, he can totes take the aptitude test!
In their tiny, tiny bed, James tells Cyrus that he won't leave if Cyrus will install him as White House Press Secretary. Cyrus asks if that means James will still love him. James: "Don't push it."
And finally, Marie and her fabulous leather gloves call Liv to say she will see Liv real soon, and though Liv doesn't get to find out where Marie actually is...
...we do! (She's in front of a green screen.)
For Game Show Week we ask:
Other than Chuck Barris (obviously), which game show host would make the best covert government agent?
- Bert Convy: He can illustrate what he sees with quick Magic Marker sketches.
- Richard Dawson: We've already seen him thrive while imprisoned in an enemy state.
- Meredith Vieira: Those legs were made for sexual espionage.
- Alex Trebek: He's a master of foreign languages — just ask him!
- Chuck Woolery: His weird conservative Twitter feed is almost certainly part of a government disinformation campaign.