The Vice-President Sallies Forth With Her Independent Presidential Run

This Crisis Needs A Manager!

Mellie races into Cyrus's office and growls, "She's running!"

James needs to know what he's supposed to tell the press corps!

Cyrus doesn't want to tell James anything until he's got the polls, and Ethan has the awkward job of telling Cyrus that he can't have them because the President is reviewing them with his new campaign manager first!

Having Cake, Eating It Too

Situation: Sally's announced that she's running for President as an Independent.

What Makes It Awkward? Because Fitz is such an immoral scumbag (I'm paraphrasing) (and editorializing), she's not going to resign as Vice-President, but will continue working in the White House and keep him from doing whatever bad shit he'd do in her absence.

How is order restored? To be determined! Though if I had to guess, I'd say that Sally cracks from the pressure or gets murdered.

Fitz vs. Everyone

So this move by Sally means that Fitz needs to find a new running mate, and he's decided that it's going to be this bro Andrew Nichols that we've never heard of, but who (according to helpful exposition) was Fitz's Lieutenant Governor when Fitz was the Governor of California, and is the state's Governor now...even though they're both from the same state -- which isn't technically illegal according to the 12th Amendment, but given that Nichols is another straight white man does make the ticket kind of samey and therefore strategically unsound? But Fitz is in a cut glass tumbler-throwing move and isn't trying to hear that from anyone, including Olivia, and is super-sucky about the whole situation even though he was just making out with her like five minutes ago.

Winner: President Pouty Pants, I guess.

The Listeners

Who called the meeting? David Rosen.

What's it about? After treating James like a paranoid wacko when James raised suspicions about DD's death, David wants James to know that he was right all along, even though the phone recording he's playing James to prove it is inadmissible in court.

How'd it go? Badly. David wants James to go back into the White House and spy on David's behalf; when James refuses, David gets shitty about how James's husband gave him a nice government job and James has gone soft, and James is like, kind of like the one he gave you? and David's like, ...I guess.

Harrison Harassed

Alert Type: Adnan Salif Alert.

Issue: Harrison is still freaking out about the fact that Adnan Salif has been readmitted to the U.S.

Complicating Factors: David can't do anything about getting Salif's visa revoked because it came from too high up in the Administration.

Resolution: Nazanin Boniadi, apparently an old compatriot from Harrison's Salif days shows up to talk about "the future" and how they can "help" each other, and then tries to kiss him, but he puts her off.

Spoiler: But not for long.

Veeping It In The Family

Fitz's once and future best bro is a California politician who dates a lot of (age-appropriate) models and TV hosts so I guess we should be happy the show didn't call him Navin Goosome.

He Probably Has Some Advice About Her Hair And Finances, Too

Who called the meeting? Olivia, sort of, in that she shows up at a monument on the assumption that he'd be there, which he was.

What's it about? She just heard from Cyrus that Fitz installed Jake as Command at B613.

How'd it go? REAL uncomfortable. Rowan is really angry -- and justly so -- and says that Fitz has made pretty much the worst enemy he could ever imagine: a guy with nothing to lose who knows all his darkest secrets, can use Olivia against him, and has no allegiance to anyone anymore. He advises her to run from the White House like it's a burning building.

More Like "Pretentius"

Alert Type: Deep Throat Alert.

Issue: A source is poking White House Press Corps reporter Vanessa Chandler with texts about suspect issues surrounding DD's death, like that there wasn't an autopsy, and she starts raising them at James's press briefings.

Complicating Factors: This source is anonymous, identifying itself only as "Publius."

Resolution: Still open-ended, but now the question is out there in the public record.

Spoiler: Publius = James.

"If He Thinks This'll Put The President's Campaign Tits Up...I Mean...."

Situation: Abby and Leo are appearing on what I assume is a Sunday morning talk show to talk about Sally's candidacy.

What Makes It Awkward? Leo Goes There with regard to the "rumours" that Olivia, the President's new campaign manager, is also his mistress, and Abby, who somehow was not prepared for this to come up, says that those rumours were "put to bed" a long time ago, whoooooooops.

How is order restored? Mellie takes Olivia out for an extremely public lunch (so they can be photographed being friends, which they totally wouldn't be if Olivia were fucking Fitz!) and presents her with a list of potential beards.

Get Thee Behind Me

Who called the meeting? Leo.

What's it about? He's thrilled with everything that's happened since Sally's big announcement.

How'd it go? Uh, weird. Now that doubts about DD's death have been raised, Sally is immediately ready to give up, and attributes this setback to divine punishment for her worst crime. Oh, she doesn't mean totally murdering her closeted husband: she's talking about how she changed her position on abortion! See, she didn't kill DD. That was the Devil, who "snuck inside" her.

Good luck with your handful, Leo!

Strangers Are Strangers, No Matter How Much They Talk About Softball

Look, Billy, there are certainly lots of people who want to keep total sociopaths from having occasion or opportunity to cross your path, but even the commanders of shadowy black-ops government agencies can't keep tabs on everyone all the time, and if one of those agents is still mentoring a sweet-faced girl against direct instructions, it falls on you not to believe her when she gives you a line of bullshit about having a sister on your sister's softball team in order to convince you that she's your ride. Because maybe she just wants to use you as a bargaining chip...

...so that your coroner mother will tell her old colleagues that the real secret truth about DD's death is that he was super-drunk, hit his head, and had a brain bleed, and thus render the Republic less safe as highly placed officials get away with literal murder!

Nichols Is Not Completely Clean, But Is Completely Boring

Olivia has not been convinced by the "oppo research" from Nichols's last gubernatorial run that he doesn't have any dark marks on his record or in his past, so to prove herself right, she's doing an aggressive interview prep to see what his deal is. When she asks why he hasn't "settled down" yet and keeps dating all these models or whatever, he gives her the pat answer that he hasn't met the right person yet, but she only has to press him for about a second before he admits that he lost his one true love years ago. Maybe something about Olivia's blouse made him feel like...opening up.

(Because it looks like a vagina.)

Prez So Sads Cuz Pretty Lady Very Mad

Who called the meeting? Olivia.

What's it about? Nichols.

How'd it go? Annoyingly. First, there's this whole stupid thing where Fitz tells his assistant to close the office door and Olivia insists that it stay open, and the poor assistant is like, "I ALREADY KNOW YOU'RE FUCKING SO PLEASE LEAVE ME OUT OF YOUR FOREPLAY." Then Olivia reports that the polling on Nichols is good, and that she can spin the pick in a way that makes Fitz look loyal and smart, but that Nichols is still a bad choice. She complains that his ignoring her on this score shows that he doesn't trust her, and between that and the whole beard list Mellie gave her, she should resign. Fitz gets furious about the idea that she might get a fake boyfriend for the sake of his campaign, and when she argues back, he closes the door and shuts her up by kissing her. But it doesn't work for long, because she's also mad about Jake's new gig, which Fitz justifies by saying that he killed all the people on the plane and let Olivia's terrorist mother leave the country, and Jake is the only one he trusts to keep those things from getting out and ruining him. Anyway, the upshot of all this is that Olivia's not resigning, UH DOY.

Leo stops by Cyrus's office to needle Cyrus about the DD leak because Leo knows that Cyrus helped Sally cover up the murder and Cyrus knows he knows, so now they're in this together!

James and David are listening to the whole thing because James planted a bug in the digital photo frame on Cyrus's desk! James wants to take Cyrus down because he's a monster who's done shit David can't even imagine! But David says the recording is inadmissible, and whoever Publius is, he or she is in danger! And then David figures out from James's face that he's Publius, but for real, who else would it have been?!

Jake interrupts Wine Time to tell Olivia he took the Command job so that he could try to track down her mother! Olivia says that her father wasn't always a monster, and that the job made him that way! She used to think that public service was a good thing to do, but now she knows it's bullshit! Unrelated: is Jake a patriot?

Patriotic enough to be her beard, anyway!

While Fitz chokes down his rage about Jake's bearding to announce his VP pick, Leo has a secret nighttime park meeting with Rowan!

And speaking of the new VP pick remember how he said he had a lost love you guys you are NEVER GOING TO GUESS WHO IT ISSSSSSSSSSSSS!