Summary: A juicy hour that doesn’t lose us in mythology but suitably deepens the central mystery while hitting close to home for Olivia.
If you have not seen this episode yet and do not wish to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
Recap:
Olivia continues to receive nightly calls from Fitz. After dismissing one of his calls, the phone rings and Olivia gets the case of a missing pastor who was prominent in the Civil Rights movement and recently officiated a same-sex marriage ceremony on the Mall in D.C. Jumping into action, Olivia calls David to let him know the pastor is missing and to ask for a favor. Feeling burned by the trial, David defiantly says no.
Pope & Associates jumps into action and manage to track the pastor down to a hotel. In the room, they find the pastor dead, naked on top of a woman handcuffed to the bed. They inform the pastor’s wife, Nancy, and move the body to his house. Though, not before Huck mistakes Olivia’s request for the opportunity to chop the body up and hide it. Olivia coaches Nancy to get back into bed, “discover” her husband is dead, and call 911.
Meanwhile, Harrison tries to get the woman they discovered the pastor with, who they believe is a hooker, to take some money and sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. She won’t do it. He follows her back to her house and realizes that she is not a hooker. Talking to Olivia, they determine that she is the pastor’s mistress, a civil rights activist herself and apparently in a 15-year relationship with him.
At the White House, Fitz is shown a picture of the mass killing of children in East Sudan, prompting everyone in the Situation Room to recommend action. Fitz agrees to see plans and as the room breaks, Cyrus notes that a young analyst seems to have a concern he isn’t voicing. In the Oval Office, Mellie comes in to tell Fitz of the pastor’s passing and gets a cold reception.
As Olivia and the others work the job, she has Huck go check on Quinn/Lindsey, who is staying on Olivia’s couch following the trial. Huck finds that she’s gone and hopped a flight to Oakland. Dealing with his own struggles, he tells Olivia she’s gone and that he’s going after her.
The mistress tells Olivia that she will keep quiet for $6 million. Olivia laughs at the request until the mistress reveals that she has a young son with the pastor. Negotiations between Olivia, the mistress, and Nancy begin as Harrison bribes all possible extraneous people who could testify to the affair into signing NDAs. Abby, meanwhile, organizes the funeral service for the pastor.
Cyrus is bugged by a Texas senator for special interest treatment, threatening to withdraw support of the President if not given his way. Cyrus dismisses him and the senator leaves alluding to the picture from East Sudan being a set-up. Interrupting the morning senior staff meeting, Cyrus tells Fitz he doesn’t think the intel should be trusted and they should call off any action. Fitz and Cyrus go to see the young CIA analyst Cyrus noticed earlier and asked him about the picture. He notes that vegetation in the image is not consistent with current conditions in the Sudan, that the picture is photoshopped from something older. Fitz calls off action and when confronted by the Director of the CIA, asks for his resignation.
In Oakland, Quinn visits her dad, who shows clear disappointment that she ran after the bombing. She goes to investigate the hotel she was staying in when the building was bombed and Huck finds her. He convinces her to come back to D.C.
Fitz calls Olivia that night and she reveals how the pastor, who Fitz will be eulogizing, really died. They laugh about the ironies of the situation, but Olivia reveals that he was with his long-term mistress. Very relevant to their situation, Fitz asks her what she wants him to do. She asks for him to give her up. When he says that he can’t do that and mentions that Mellie will be visiting Nancy the next day, Olivia angrily asks him to call off the U.S. Attorney’s autopsy and investigation of the pastor’s death.
Nancy has taken a sedative in preparation of her visit with Mellie, which is going to be accompanied by a number of press. As Olivia tries to sober her up, she coaches the wife on just saying “Thank you” to the first lady. Mellie enters and offers her condolences. After some silence, Nancy whispers out that her husband was cheating. The press couldn’t make out what she said but Mellie asks for them to leave and give the two women some privacy. As they discuss men cheating, Mellie that she is still his wife and partner and the strong one who needs to still be his partner through this. Olivia overhears this feels the sting of the situation.
David goes to see his boss about why the autopsy was called off and just how high the order came from. He is told to take a leave of absence.
The mistress demands more money to keep silent. Olivia talks to her and reveals that this is not about the money but about feeling like she deserves to still be a part of his life. At the funeral, Olivia confronts Nancy with a request: the mistress wants to be at the funeral with her son. Nancy initially denies this but Olivia insists that it will best keep everything quiet. Mistress and son attend the funeral. Following the service, as the pallbearers walk the coffin out, Nancy stops in the aisle and silently offers the mistress and son to walk with her.
In the car leaving the funeral, Mellie asks Fitz to forgive her and to stop hating her. Fitz pays lip service to the request. Huck attends an AA meeting as a way to deal with the violent urges from his past that are seeping into his daily life. Cyrus tells his partner that the child they’ve talked about adopting can’t happen as long as he’s the President’s Chief of Staff.
Olivia preps a Supreme Court Justice for a television interview. When the stylist leaves the room, the Justice asks about Quinn and expresses that she can “bring down the government” should the truth about what happened with the bombing come to light. Meanwhile, David looks at a wall of evidence regarding Quinn and Olivia in his apartment, determined to the put the pieces together.
Review
This slick, jaunty episode exemplifies what Scandal does best: dispensing with a scandal in engaging, quick speed, while deepening its overarching mystery.
Not only was this one of the more compelling individual scandals the show has dealt with yet, the way it was told kept the narrative on the gas pedal all the way through. What’s more is that this scandal dealt directly with the personal themes that drive main character Olivia Pope’s (Kerry Washington) story throughout the series. The fantastic scene Olivia overhears between Bellany Young’s First Lady Mellie and the wonderful Lorraine Touissant guest starring as the pastor’s wife cuts right to the quick and reveals explicitly the other side of the equation in Olivia’s own prior infidelity with Fitz (Tony Goldwyn).
The structure of the plot of this chapter was expertly handled by writer Heather Mitchell, with nothing feeling superfluous, and every scene building in exciting fashion to the next and to the eventual moment when wife and mistress meet face to face, and Olivia making a choice in her continuing relationship with Fitz. Not neglected are the evolving threads of impending military action in East Sudan and, of course, the big mystery of the season involving Quinn. We are thankfully not left to wonder for far too long who Olivia called to get the case dismissed.
Layered on top of that is the superb antagonistic relationship of Olivia and David (Joshua Malina), once begrudging friends. Cutting David loose of his governmental duties to personally pursue the case of Lindsey Dwyer and how Olivia relates to it all is a master stroke. That David feels Olivia is directly behind both losing the Dwyer case and now his suspension makes for juicy dramatic fodder. Malina, of course, brings the appropriate intensity and the eventual showdown between David and Olivia is set up with great anticipation.
One bit of concern with the episode is the “lightswitch” way in which Huck’s (Guillermo Diaz) impulses are starting to take over his day-to-day functioning. It’s not out of the realm of possibility of the character but it feels a bit unearned and perhaps should have been seeded better in the previous episode. Huck is a superbly intense character in the mode of the sadly neglected and gone Human Target‘s Guerrero and the storyline is both relevant and welcome for the character and for Diaz. It deserves more of an organic and stretched-out setup, though.
Though mellowing Abby’s shrillness a smidge would be recommended, the cast bats a thousand once again, more than ably added by great guest star turns from Touissant, Elise Neal as the mistress, and the reliable John Diehl as Quinn/Lindsey’s dad. And, as predicted, more and more layers are slowly and deliberately revealed.
