Parents Just Don't Understand

5 Years Ago

Huck (Guillermo Diaz) was homeless and living in Union Station; he and Liv (Kerry Washington) were buddies.

Under duress, Liv had a standing Sunday-night dinner date with her father, Eli (Joe Morton); in exchange for her attendance, he was paying off her law school loans.

Liv was living with Edison (Norm Lewis); he'd proposed but she had yet to accept.

A couple of thugs tried to mug Liv, but Huck sprang into highly trained action and took them down!

...Jam?

Fun Facts About Jeannine (Samantha Sloyan) Shared At Liv's Press Conference

• she graduated summa cum laude from Berkeley
• she's a "loyal...sister and daughter" to unnamed family members
• she "absolutely, positively did not have sex" with Fitz (Tony Goldwyn)
• Liv is representing her pro bono
• like Jeannine, Liv has been the target of "brutal, underhanded" White House leaks herself (technically a fact in that she doesn't say that she wasn't ever having an affair with the President)

5 Years Ago (Again)

Liv asked Huck how he learned to fight like that, and he pretty easily coughed up all the details about B613 -- that it's also called Wonderland, that its front company is called Acme, and that it trained him as an assassin before putting him in the Hole and then discarding him at the subway station.

At that week's Sunday dinner, Eli lectured Liv about wine and wrote the number of his guy, Miguel; then she told him what Huck had told her about B613, and had Eli ever heard of such a thing as a blacker-ops CIA operating on U.S. soil? Eli hadn't ("From my lofty position at the Smithsonian?"), but she asked if he didn't have "that friend at the FBI...?"

Balls

Who called the meeting? Cyrus (Jeff Perry), I assume.

What's it about? Cyrus and Mellie (Bellamy Young) want Fitz to "grow some presidential-size balls" and confirm the false story about his affair with Jeannine.

How'd it go? Not well, at first, for Mellie or Cyrus, because Fitz is all, "I'm still the President, you're going to tell the press Jeannine was never my mistress, and we're going to apologize to her publicly." Except then he fucks off somewhere, leaving Mellie to tell Cyrus she has a folder containing all the dates she's been away from the White House, so that he can cross-reference it with nights that Jeannine and Fitz were both in the White House and build the case for their affair.

Nailed It

GChat!

When corrupt monsters within Administration are trying to convince the public that you and the President were alone together in the White House, like, constantly, the GChat logs from all your conversations with your work buddy Ethan (Vanya Asher) can potentially provide you with an alibi! Okay, it's a so-so alibi at best, since all it proves is that another human was in the very large building, besides which getting the logs off the White House's server will be a pretty big challenge, but still: GChat is your only hope. Brought to you by Google: Don't Be Evil!

5 Years Ago (Some More)

Eli told Liv that he had gotten "his FBI friend" to look into Huck's story, and that Huck got arrested for a "rap sheet as long as [Eli's] arm," and Liv was sad.

Leverage

Who called the meeting? Eli.

What's it about? He wants Liv to quit trying to clear Jeanine's name and let her take the Fitz-infidelity fall.

How'd it go? Very poorly for Liv: (a) Eli tries to blackmail her into doing what he wants by threatening to kill Jake (Scott Foley) if she doesn't -- even as he admits that she has no way of knowing if Jake is dead already; and (b) Eli's stopping by the office for the first time ever makes Quinn (Katie Lowes) all nosy about why they've never met Liv's father before...when, as we know, the less anyone in Liv's life knows about Eli, the better.

Calling In Favours

After a trip to the morgue to see if a tall dead white guy is Jake (it isn't), and checking in with Huck for a reminder of what happens when a B613er runs afoul of Command (the hole), Liv remembers that her boyfriend is President and calls to ask him to find out if Jake is alive. He's not too thrilled to do it, but since he's Liv's bitch, he agrees.

5 Years Ago (Again, Some More)

Liv found David Rosen (Joshua Malina) through a connection and found out from him not only that Huck hadn't been arrested after rescuing her from her mugging, but that he's never been arrested.

Liv tracked down Acme...

...which happened to be on Wonderland Avenue...

Liv then went to dinner with Eli and confronted him about being Command, the head of B613, and he denied it for a second before giving her a Walter White-style "tread lightly" speech, only scarier.

Wondering About Wonderland

Who called the meeting? Fitz.

What's it about? He's delegating to Cyrus the task of finding out whether Jake is alive.

How'd it go? Medium. Cyrus tries to pull the "B613 isn't actually under Executive control" card, so that Fitz pulling rank with anyone over there won't work, but Fitz is all, "I'm still your Commander-in-Chief," and Cyrus is like, "Well, fuck."

Not Cool, Cable News Talking Heads

Abby (Darby Stanchfield) has convinced Ethan to help OPA get their mitts on those IM logs, and Liv has given Jeannine a makeover, so the time is right for Liv to schedule a network interview with Jeannine and for Mellie to watch the advance coverage about it. What isn't right: anyone anywhere referring to Mellie as "a woman of a certain age." If that happened to me, I'd be so mad I called Jeannine in the dead of night, called her out for a secret limo meeting, and make her a crooked/irresistible offer, too.

5 Years Ago (Still)

Is it Sunday again already? It is. And Liv has brought a guest home to meet Eli: it's Edison! A Senator! And he just made it onto the Senate Intelligence Committee! HUH!

All The Crazy Shit That Comes Out In The Moments Before Jeannine's Big Interview

• Ethan tells Abby he can't hand over the IM logs because Jeannine told him to destroy them
• Liv twigs that Jeannine is going to make a false confession
• Liv calls Fitz and accuses him (or people near him) of having gotten to Jeannine
• Fitz tells Liv that Jake is alive, but that Fitz can't make B613 release him
• Liv squeezes in an impassioned speech about how the reason the Vermont fantasy hasn't come true is because he's President, so maybe he should President up and fix this
• (Liv reminds us that her options are to burn Jeannine and save Jake, or to tell the truth about Jeannine and kill Jake)
• Liv calls Eli and begs for Jake's life; Eli tells her that's up to her
• Liv puts "Sunday dinners back on the table" (as it were)
• Liv gives Jeannine a come-to-Jesus speech about telling the truth on TV
• Jeannine says she's going to get $2 million, tax-free, in a Cayman Islands bank account
• the interview gets pre-empted at the last second: the President is about to speak, live, from the Briefing Room
• Fitz tells Cyrus that either he's going to tell the truth about Jeannine and risk impeachment, or else Cyrus will arrange for Jake's release

5 Years Ago (Last Time Tonight)

Huck came back to the subway station, but he was all fucked up. Then Eli called Liv and told her that although he returned her pet homeless guy to her, he...also caused Edison to get into a non-fatal but pretty bad car accident, and intimated that worse would happen to him if Liv didn't break off their engagement and quit acting like she thought she could interfere in Eli's business. Liv agreed, but yelled that the two of them were done.

Fitz tells the nation that he had an affair with Jeannine (though he pronounces her name wrong so in my opinion he doesn't really sell it so well).

Sally (Kate Burton) accuses Fitz of accusing the wrong mistress in order to get out of his deal with Sally, and Fitz is like, "[Shrug.]"

A heartbroken Jeannine asks Abby why Fitz would do it, and Abby's all, buck up little camper! "Smile, Jeannine. You're getting what you wanted."

Quinn the stupid idiot tells Huck about the deal Liv made with Eli, to save Huck.

Huck physically confronts Liv, and she admits that what Quinn discovered is true, and that Eli is Command!

Eli calls Liv and tells her to open her door, where she finds a fucked-up Jake! SHE IS ON FOR SUNDAY DINNER!!!