The One Where Fitz And Liv And Mellie And Cyrus Might All Get Blown Up

OPA Treason Slumber Party, Y'all!

Situation: Olivia and her thugs gladiators just shut down B613.

What Makes It Awkward? To use the common business jargon: the agency has a lot of stakeholders -- including the president, who shows up at the office when Jake is in the middle of yelling at her about all the treason she just committed. Also, Jake knows Liv pulled off this whole caper with sexspionage and now his feewings are huwt.

How is order restored? Informing DHS about the assassination plot against Fitz would expose not just B613's former existence but the fact that Fitz had Marie in custody and was party to her flight from the country, so that's out. Cyrus calls in Rowan (who knows that the guy I was calling Clive last week is actually Dominic Bell, Marie's lover and former handler), Jake calls in Charlie and Quinn (and right as Quinn is in the middle of saying she never ever wants to go back to OPA like seriously ever, so that's also awkward, or would be if anyone anywhere gave Shit One about her). And when Jake is so pissy about Rowan taking control that he makes Olivia choose between Commands and she picks Rowan, he stomps out. She follows, telling him he should be happy because she's set him free, but he reiterates his many objections to her having a relationship with Rowan. According to him, "Dad" is only one of the masks that Rowan wears: "Once his mask comes off? Run." LONG STORY SHORT: a mini version of B613 is reconstituted at OPA.

How I Got Into College

Now here is a girl who really doesn't feel like writing a personal statement.

It's Mourning In America

Alert Type: Strategic Eulogy Alert.

Issue: Senator Hightower has died of a heart attack, and since he was (as his chyron notes) "A PIONEER FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM," and the election is in six days, whomever gets to deliver the eulogy will probably enjoy a considerable boost in the polls from Latino voters.

Complicating Factors: Because of the whole assassination plot thing, Liv has ordered Fitz to stay on lockdown at the White House, and Sally is gunning hard for the slot.

Resolution: Fitz prevails...

Spoiler: ...but if Cyrus gets his way -- and he has a decent reason -- Fitz may not get the chance to deliver his speech at the funeral after all.

After Huck delivers Dominic Bell to OPA, Rowan and Olivia try to question him about the location of the bomb, but he's more interested in sassing both Popes about allllllllll the shit he knows about them from his (sexy) time with Marie! But some of the stuff he says seems to make Olivia think she may know him from childhood, though when she asks Rowan if that's true, he doesn't say...

...because he conveniently gets a call from Leo, who's standing in the lobby at a DNA lab, telling him about the rumour that the First Lady ordered a paternity test for Jerry Jr. and demanding a DNA sample from Fitz! When Olivia asks what that was about, Rowan tells her the truth, because now he's not working with Leo; he's working with her!

So Liv goes to the White House and confronts (a drunk) Mellie, demanding to know which of the kids is Andrew's, and yelling at her about the test having gotten out, because why would Mellie think the White House doctor would keep a secret like that, and it's idiotic and reckless for her to have done it...except Mellie's never idiotic or reckless (I dont know about "never" what with fucking the bottom half of the ticket (as it were) three feet from her kids BUT ANYWAY) Olivia thus figures out that Mellie must have done it on purpose!

Mellie confirms that her exposure was no accident! "I want his head in the fire and I want to see him burn!" But then she vamps for a while about how much she hates Fitz and everything she's done for him, blah blah blah the usual, before accidentally winding up ("never reckless," Olivia? OKAY) with "Big Jerry isn't something I want to be nailed to anymore!"

And then she realizes what she said and demands that Olivia fix it: "You owe me, Liv! YOU OWE ME EVERYTHING!" (She really does!)

Bottle Up And Eventually Explode

Ivan and a thug plant a bomb under the floor of a boiler room someplace. Ivan killed a janitor to do it. Ivan laughs psychotically about the dead guy. Ivan is crazy.

Dominic vs. Rowan vs. Olivia vs. Marie

So Rowan wants to force Dominic to quit being cute about where the bomb is, and comes up with a pretty good idea: he's going to get Dominic to call Marie and then play Russian Roulette with him, with her on the phone, on the theory that Marie will be so desperate not to cause the death of the only man she ever loved that she'll give up the bomb location. (Also present is Olivia, who doesn't want anyone killed in her office...or in general, I guess, but who can say, really.) Except, of course, Marie's like, "Goodbye, Dominic!" And then Huck has to hustle Liv out of the room while Rowan totally shoots Dominic in the head. Goodbye indeed, Cragface.

Winner: Rowan.

DNEhhhhhh

Okay, so Rowan gets Leo a sample of Fitz's DNA (or whatever, I guess it could be anyone's given what's about to happen), Leo has it tested, seconds later the test is done, and Abby is paying off a guy at the lab to say that Jerry Jr. really is Fitz's kid. Nice try, Leo. (Sorry all your efforts were for naught, Mackenzie, but hey: Harvard! AND Yale!)

The Dangling Conversation

So because Liv is selfish and likes keeping people on the line for her personal amusement, the way she deals with Dominic's murder is to call poor Jake and unload on him, remembering a time when she was a kid and Marie used to take her to a playground where she'd meet up with some dude and hold his hand and now Liv is pretty sure that was Dominic. Marie loved him then, or so it seemed, but if she could just let him die like that, maybe Marie can never love anyone. Jake, based on VERY little evidence, says that Olivia's not her mother, but Olivia says it must be nice not to care about anyone or anything, and also, she admits that when she was having bug-planting sex with Jake the other night...he's right, she felt something. And that makes her feel like she's betraying stupid Fitz. THIS FUCKING IDIOT. HOW CAN SHE HAVE ANY DOUBT ABOUT THIS. SHE SHOULD SINK HER WAY-TOO-LONG SKANKY TALONS INTO JAKE BEFORE HE FIGURES OUT SHE'S GARBAGE.

With Fitz on lockdown (and despite a battery of remote junket interviews Liv set up for him), Sally's pulled ahead four points in the polls, Florida and Ohio are back up for grabs, and there are now only FIVE days until the election! Fitz tells Cyrus he'd rather die in Ohio than lose there! Call up Marine One! Fitz is going rogue!

Liv comes into the office, where Rowan tells her, "Everything's fine!" To him (and me, frankly), that means everything's been cleaned up and no one will ever know what happened there, but she turns it into a whole THING about how it's wrong to kill people or whatever! But Rowan's not having it: he's waited a long time to kill Dominic -- and he enjoyed it -- because Dominic ruined Rowan's life by telling Marie to marry him and creating their fake family! But Liv counters that Dominic didn't destroy their family! Marie did that!

Liv calls Cyrus to update him on Dominic's death and that they still don't know where the bomb is and now probably won't, just as Fitz is getting on Marine One in front of a green screen! She's horrified...but then Rowan tells her that, crazy as Marie is, she won't kill Fitz if LIV IS THERE WITH HIM!!!

Harrison follows financial evidence to a warehouse (or whatever) with all kinds of info about Fitz's schedule alluringly spread out on a table, and of course it's an ambush, as Adnan pulls a gun on him!

Liv arrives at the high school (the one with the crooked voting machine in the trophy case) and takes Cyrus's place on stage next to Mellie as Fitz goes up to speak! She quietly tells Mellie (who is drunk, either again or still) that the paternity test is handled, but that if Mellie still wants to know the truth, Liv will arrange an ACTUALLY secret one for her!

After returning from dumping Dominic's body, Quinn bullies Huck into saying he wants her, and they finally fuck, and honestly, at this point, if we learned that Katie Lowes and Guillermo Diaz are purposely trying to be as gross as they possibly can, would ANY of us be surprised?!

Quinn and Huck are so busy having fishnet-tearing sex that they don't notice a lady tip-tapping right past them!

Of course it's Marie, who tip-taps into OPA and orders Rowan, "Bring my baby home"!

And then Olivia's getting a call from Rowan! His theory was apparently wrong! The bomb's still set to go off! Liv doesn't have much time! She tells Fitz, probably also feeding him the cover story that they've set off the sprinklers in the basement!

Liv gets back to the office and sees something TERRIBLE!

Freshly fucked Huck and Quinn smirk back up to the office to find Rowan with multiple stab wounds Liv is trying to stanch, and no sign of Marie!

Having struck out trying to reach Liv, Jake calls Cyrus to tell him what he's just learned from David thanks to some blah blah blah CC camera business: Hightower didn't die of a heart attack! He was killed! And the bomb was never at the school in Ohio! IT'S IN THE CHURCH WHERE THE FUNERAL IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN AND WHERE SALLY AND ANDREW HAVE BOTH ALREADY ARRIVED! Cyrus tells Jake, "Good work!" which I was sure meant Jake was about to die (which could certainly still happen next time!!!).

But Cyrus doesn't tell anyone! Instead, he gets a terrible idea, and strolls through the halls, quietly beaming about it!

Mellie opens up the real paternity-test results she somehow already has (WHAT DAY IS IT???) and looks stricken by whatever she sees!

Marie activates the bomb!!!

Cyrus lies that the funeral's been pushed half an hour and stalls Fitz by getting him to read the eulogy to him!

AND THE BOMB COUNTS DOOOOOOOOOOOOOWN!!!!!