'Scandal' Discussion: Everyone Is Doing Great. Thanks For Asking.

Last week on Scandal: Sally went crazy. Olivia drank a gallon of wine. Someone got shot.

I don’t want to sit here and scream “I TOLD YOU SO” because (a) that’s simply unbecoming, and (b) I had just south of a 50% chance of being right — leaving open the small chance that Jake’s bullet was meant for a secret double-crossing assassin who was standing in the shadows directly behind James and David, which you always have to account for, because, again, Scandal — and doing a victory dance for calling a coin flip is just a ridiculous way to behave, but yeah, rest in peace, James Novak. You were a sweet, beautiful, easily manipulated little fawn who was more interesting in 10 minutes of flashbacks last night than you were in the previous 2+ seasons combined, and you will be missed.

And speaking of those flashbacks, it was … kind of nice to see people smiling, right? It’s a shame that it took the slow, gurgling death of the show’s one moral beam of light to make it happen, but even Fitz came off positive for once, all smiling and dancing and talking about love. Although I suppose it’s easier to be cheery before a Supreme Court justice plots to murder you because she and your closest personal advisers stole the Presidential election for you and she started feeling guilty about the whole thing. I don’t know. Hasn’t happened to me yet, so I guess I shouldn’t judge. Either way, between that, Cyrus’s glorious disaster of a neckbeard, and our introduction to the pick-up line, “Even though you’re a Republican, you have a very hot mouth,” I am squarely in the #TeamFlashback camp.

Meanwhile, in the present, everything is a disaster.

  • Jake is turning into Eli Pope, right down to the CA-dence and dra-MAT-ic EM-PHA-SIS on se-LEC-Ted syll-a-bles during his IN-TENSE mon-o-logues.
  • Cyrus was so overcome with sadness about James’s death that he broke down during a White House press conference and emitted little grief wails that were simultaneously the funniest and most heartbreaking things I’ve ever heard.
  • Olivia’s mom is still putting bullets in everyone.
  • Olivia’s dad responded to Olivia’s plea for fatherly advice by comparing himself to a deity and telling her exactly how many people he’s murdered.
  • Harrison is scared because his lover/arch-nemesis is scared.
  • Abby is scared because David is scared.
  • David is scared because he almost got murdered, and might still get murdered, which is a pretty reasonable reason to be scared, especially considering the guy threatening him is the head of a secret spy organization and has no qualms about burying bodies in broad daylight.
  • Huck and Quinn are … no, not yet. I still need a minute.
  • Everyone is dumping all of this on Olivia, and she’s having feelings about it.

Other than that, everyone is doing great.

*****The other big part of last night’s episode was guns, and as much as I’d like to pop-off for the better part of 500 words about how hilarious it was that a Republican president came out in favor of gun control during a reelection campaign and was almost universally applauded, I’m going to put that on the back burner now because, holy moly, Mellie. I’m as much of an East Coast, freedom-hatin’ liberal as you’ll ever see when it comes to guns, but something about her firing off shotguns at the range and ranting about automatic weapons between big glugs of minibar vodka just hit me square in the heart. My 180 on Mellie — who I once compared to Cruella de Vil — was so swift and ferocious that it’s a miracle I didn’t end up in traction.

Also, I’m sure Andrew will turn out to be, like, a triple-double Russian spy who is using her to get into the White House so he can sell launch codes to Olivia’s mom or something, but in the short term, I am ecstatic she is hooking up with him now. It says a lot about the state of affairs on this show that I am openly rooting for an affair that would tear the White House — and possibly the nation — apart at the seams, but here we are, I guess. Fitz drove her and me to this. I regret nothing.

*****Here are my full and complete thoughts about the thing where Huck cornered Quinn and they made out like two tipsy high school sophomores after she hocked a big stringy glob of spit all over his face:

No.

Next week on Scandal: The Presidential kids are coming to town while their mother and father are each carrying on torrid affairs with high-ranking members of the reelection campaign. That should go well!

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