‘Scandal’ Discussion: ‘Scandal’ Is Back And Everyone Is Still Kind Of Terrible

ABC/Peter “Hopper” Stone

Previously on Scandal: Murder! Sex! Murdersex! Sexmurder! Torture! Booze!

So, where are we?

  • Sally is following through with her plan to run against the President in the next election, because power-mad Vice Presidents who have murdered someone and are making plays for the Oval Office is apparently a thing now.
  • Fitz is still moping around the White House, drinking scotch, and shoving his tongue down his borderline-unwilling campaign manager/mistress’s throat, because he is a giant spoiled baby who has no idea how to process the word “no” in a healthy, reasonable manner.
  • Olivia is playing kissyface with the President in plain view of the First Lady, who proceeded to take her out to a wine-soaked lunch in full view of the press so she could tell Olivia to get her sh*t together through the fakest smile you’ve ever seen, because Mellie is the greatest. (Please consider this your reminder that I did a complete 180 on Mellie after she chugged hooch and dressed down Fitz in the White House dining room. I love her now.)
  • Also, Olivia is “dating” Jake to throw the press off the affair scent, and is investigating Fitz’s handpicked new Vice President (his playboy former Lt. Governor in California), who (a) has a thing for Mellie, and (b) is played by Jon Tenney, who played a character named Fritz on The Closer, meaning this ticket would technically be Fitz/Fritz.
  • Cyrus is stuck between a rock and a murder place, because if he spills the beans about Sally killing her husband he’ll also out himself as her body moving co-conspirator.
  • Sweet, innocent James — the show’s one redeemable character, to the extent being so naive that your cartoon villain husband repeatedly uses you to further his awful plots and you fail to see it coming every single time makes you “redeemable” — is sinister now, running around bugging picture frames and anonymously texting reporters about Sally’s husband’s murder like a doe-eyed Doug Stamper or something. (Also, I love that Scandal just straight-up stole the “show text messages on the screen in real time while low rumbly music plays” thing from House of Cards. I swear to God, let’s just merge those two damn shows together. Claire Underwood vs. Mellie would be a title fight.)
  • Harrison is stealing guns and boinking mysterious ladies in his office, because even when he’s openly terrified for his life, Harrison is awesome.
  • Quinn is kidnapping children now. Of course.

Yup. Scandal is back.

*****ELI POPE: What is this?

BARISTA: Uh, it’s the half-caff grande hazelnut latte you ordered, Mr. Pope.

ELI POPE: Is it? IS IT?

BARISTA: Uh, I think s-…

ELI POPE: No, you do NOT think. That is the PROBlem. Let me tell you what THIS is. THIS is lukewarm bathwater that someone tried to disguise with what appears to be pint of cut-rate hazelnut syrup. THIS is everything that’s wrong with this country, a pimply-faced English major masquerading as a barista sloshing some coffee-flavored water in cups of varying sizes and having THE NERVE to call it a half-caff grande hazelnut latte. You think? You THINK? Let me tell you something…

[looks at nametag, snorts in disgust]

Trevor, you do not think, nor SHOULD you, because you know NOTHING. I wield more actual power sleeping comfortably in my bed than you can possibly DREAM of at night while you’re curled up on the lumpy futon in your studio apartment. EMPIRES rise and fall at the whims of men like me, men who BUILD and PROTECT the very things that enable a nation of naive incompetents like you, Trevor, to spend six-figures of your parents money on an education that isn’t worth that stale lump of DRIED DOG VOMIT you are trying to pass off as a biscotti. The least you could do while you’re killing the spirit of this great nation from the inside like some sort of parasite — the very LEAST — is try to provide the great men a quality half-caff grande hazelnut latte as they prepare to face another day of keeping you alive against the will of the Gods. Is that too much too ask, Trevor?

BARISTA: Uh … no?

ELI POPE: You disgust me.

*****Can we be honest here? Can we be really, really honest? I hope Fitz loses the election. I hope he loses by 50 points. I hope somehow someone unearths a long-hidden clause in the Constitution — possibly in invisible ink, possibly discovered by Nicolas Cage, possibly reprising his role as Dr. Benjamin Gates from National Treasure for a special guest appearance — that allows the American public to force him onto a leaky, hastily-assembled raft and push him out into the ocean off the coast of Maine. I would like that. That spoiled, whiny, scotch-chugging putz needs to go. He might have turned into my least favorite character on the show, and I came to that conclusion during an episode in which Quinn literally kidnapped a child with the promise of ice cream. That’s saying something.

Also, at some point we are all going to have to have a very serious conversation about just what the hell Olivia is doing running into this jamook’s arms every other week. Not today, though. Today we’re watching Jimmy Kimmel’s “Escandalo” sketch from last night to close out the recap. I would 100% watch this show. Not even lying.

Next week on Scandal: Olivia tells Mellie she has to stop having feelings for and/or an affair with a potential member of the Executive Branch, which is pretty f*ckin’ rich, if you ask me.

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