Scandal Season 5, Ep 11: The Candidate. AKA: Hand Me Your Hooch!

So, this week was all about girl bonding? Kinda strange. Bonding between the ex-wife and the mistress. Sounds a bit like my dad’s funeral with the ex-wife, current wife, and mistress all in attendance. But I digress. 

Mellie and Olivia had a bit of a girl-pow-wow. It started with the book talk, and Olivia telling MellieMel to cut chapter 2. Chapter 2 is about how Fitz got shot, and Mellie wants to put out the emotion and connection to the American people. Olivia one-ups her and tells her to write about why she stayed with him after learning about his mistress. 

Mel is a bit freaked out. Says Olivia can compartmentalize the shit out of anything. Olivia fires back “You asked for Olivia Pope, you got Olivia Pope.” Eeep! Or as I like to say…Don’t ask a question if you don’t want to hear the answer. 

This leads to a bit of a Pee-Wee Herman moment:

“You don’t know why you stayed”
“Do you know why you left?”
“Do you know?”
“You don’t know either?”
“I know you are but what am I?”

More bantering, and Olivia continues to push the issue, Mellie tells Liv that she was just a blip on the radar. She never had what Fitz and Mellie had: 23 years, children, a real relationship. She calls Liv his plaything. She gets pissed and leaves, going to a bar where she runs into Cyrus. She tells him that they’ll never really be rid of the two of them (Ovitz). He tries to butter her up as a way to run her campaign, and she shuts him down. She says she already has someone in mind. She goes back to Liv’s place – with her hooch in her hand.

 She shares her hooch and her reasons for staying: it worked for her. With Fitz focused on Olivia, Mellie had room to breathe and think on her own, outside of being the First Lady. Olivia admits to being wrong in her affair with Fitz and becoming the First Mistress. Mellie tells her she was glad that she was the mistress and she was probably a good one. A great one. Liv responds by telling her “I am an overachiever” which sends the two, now drunk on moonshine, laughing at each other. 

That’s Chapter 2: Why she stayed is that she was scared. Afraid to stand on her own, and yet, she did causing a filibuster on the senate floor standing up for women’s reproductive rights. Liv tells her she had the power the whole time. 

The two of them crank out the chapter with the focus on Mellie's self discovery, and Liv realizes that the book won’t get published in time for the election, so they go online and post chapters. 

So while the gals are getting cozy over their hooch, a new sexy reporter is interviewing Fitzgerald for an article on how he views his presidency. Cyrus goes over the rules, and Sexy Reporter Lilian is all about “Eff The Rules!” because before she can ask any questions, she turns into a bumbling school girl with a crush, confessing to Fitz that she’s attracted to him.  After doing his slow blink, 'OMG I’m in shock face', he asks her to dinner. DINNER! Really?  They eat. They suck face in the back of the presidential limo. They get semi-busy in Fitz's bedroom and Abby walks in on them!! Fitz go ballastic! Tells Abbs that she has no right to barge in on him, and sends her on her way.

In other Scandal stories, VP Susan is confronted by Lizzy who wants her to run for President. Susan isn’t stupid and says no, she’s not interested. She also knows that she’s the sacrificial lamb to Saint Mellie. Lizzy isn’t giving up – she gets David to try to convince her saying “the Muppet is in love with you!” She also threatens to withhold his sexy times until he does. 

David asks her out, and after going through all the typical DC date spots, asks her about French fries. He takes her to the infamous Gettysburger! A burger joint! Susan is eating it up…David asks her about the run for president and she tells him she’s not going to put herself through that, feeling like she’s a bug that Mellie can squash. Davis tells her she’s not a bug, she’s a warrior and thinks she could really win. He seals the date/deal with a kiss.

David goes to tell Lizzy that he’s done messing with Susan, and Lizzy tells him it’s too late. Susan has filed her paperwork for the campaign. She then goes out to test the waters with the American people with the media. 

Cyrus. Oh Cyrus. He lies to the president stating that he has to attend his cousin’s funeral. His “cousin” is a governor in Pennsylvania and just might be his new ticket back into the White House. 

That's all for this week. So - is David really into Susan? What will that be - a Dusan? a Savid? Ugh. that does not work at all! What about Cyrus? He's trying to find another candidate to latch on to. And Mellie and Liv? Friends? Stranger things have happened.

Scandal Recap: Season 5, Ep 10: It's Hard Out Here for a General. AKA Jake is a sneaky bastard, and I love it!!

Oh, it’s been 6 months. Since we’ve last seen everyone…let’s see. Mellie was the first lady, and then she wasn’t. Olivia was with Fitz, and then she wasn’t. Olivia was also preggers then she wasn’t. She moved into the White House, then…she left it. Olivia had the power. Then she didn’t. Jake was out to take down Command, then he doesn’t. What is happening?

Based on the previews, the white hat is off! 

Olivia is having dinner with Papa Pope. Guess they mended fences when Fitz left the picture. He tells her “You had the oval. You had the power.” She says “He tried to make me into a first lady.”

They keep talking and he tells her “Jake has come home. So should you.” I guess you know who Papa Pope prefers for his little girl.

 Sally Langston – back and bitchy again. Powerless means impotent. And who wants to be impotent. She’s off on another one of her rants, talking about how no one is emerging unscathed.

JAKE! Sorry, I’m always excited when he’s in the room. Actually, he was waiting in the hallway and tells Liv “I don’t like waiting.” She snaps: “Then don’t. Leave.” Standoff. Bitch face. Eye roll. Open elevator calling his bluff…and she jumps him and humps him. Angry sex. And Jake goes downtown ladies! Down. Town.

Abby is woken up by the president. She’s trying to sleep and he’s running strategies through her in the middle of the night. She complains later to Cyrus that he’s calling her 24/7 and she’s freaking out about it. She’s tired. Exhausted because Fitz won’t stop talking to her. He’s broken, needs his batteries replaced. She then wonders why Cyrus isn’t helping her. He tells her that she’s his new wife. He can’t function alone, Mellie is gone and although she was great despite her faults, she’s outie. Olivia is gone. Cyrus is on the outs. Abby’s in. she’s the new woman in Fitz’s life, and Cyrus is gloating.  

Huck shows up at Olivia’s and she won’t let him in. He’s wondering why – who’s in there? Huck says he can’t talk about the client, because they don’t want the NSA to know about it….and it’s because the client is the head of the NSA. OH, and it’s a ripped from the Hilary headlines. The NSA director has work files on her personal computer, and she notices that the computer is moving files all on its own. But of course, that doesn’t happen. Someone has programmed the computer to steal files from something called Project Mercury.

Jake goes to visit Fitz at his request, and Mr. President discloses that the Post has Project Mercury. He needs someone to shut down the whistle-blower. Jake is wondering why he doesn’t call Olivia. Jake asks “You don’t talk to her?” Fitz says no. Asks if Jake talks to her, and Jake pauses, and says no. Ahem. Technically, they didn’t do much talking did they?

Everything points to the fact that it’s one of her computer programmers that she’s been dating, Billy. She refuses to believe it’s him….Olivia isn’t so sure. She’s trying to figure out if he’s a spy or a whistle-blower. Billy is in the wind. Huck finally gets a ping on his phone and Quinn and Marcus show up at his place. Except, they find Jake with Billy’s phone.

Jake and Olivia are fighting over what Billy is doing. Olivia is trying to cover up for her client, and Jake is trying to help Fitz save the country. Olivia says she’s protecting her client and her only flaw is falling for the wrong guy. Jake fires back that Liv knows all about that! Bam. Ouch. NSA woman realizes that Billy played her…and she’s currently under investigation. She wonders if she’s going to be fired, and throws put the gender card – stating that if she does get fired, everyone will say that women are too soft and get played so only men will be in that position for the next umpteen years.

Abby discovers that Project Mercury is a spy project, and they have a whistle-blower. Billy has contacted the Post.

Mellie Grant shows up and she’s written a book. A statement of her beliefs, hopes, and dirty laundry. She wants Liv to read it. She does and tells Mellie the book is crap, and tells her what she really needs to write. Mellie enlists her help to write it.

Abby shows up with a bottle of scotch to hang with her gal pal. Leo wants Abby to quit her job. He took a campaign in Texas, saying that they never see each other anyway. Abby is complaining that she’s the work wife, and she’s tired. She’s not sorry for the rich, powerful, handsome leader who got his heart broken. He’s waking her up. Olivia says Fitz doesn’t have any one. She was the last person she had, but now she’s gone and Abby is all that is left. She eventually gets fed up with him and goes off telling him she’s not everything and can’t know it all.

Olivia also won’t call him to ask for a favor on behalf of her client. Abby calls her on the bullshit. Saying that she doesn’t want him to pick up the phone, because she’s terrified. Olivia knows she’s being a baby, and can’t take her own advice to just suck it up and call him. She ends up calling. Fitz is shocked, but doesn’t take her call.

Quinn and Charlie are having some pillow talk about Billy the Whistle-Blower. He says the dude has some serious game for completely dropping off the radar. Quinn and Charlie bounce ideas off each other and she figures out a way to find them.

Quinn discovers that it wasn’t Billy. She finds that the scrambler used couldn’t change the rhythm and cadence of Billy. They don’t know who it is, but someone is trying to set up Billy. 

Fitz places the head of security in the hands of Jake! OMG.

Jacob. Hamilton. Ballard.

JAKE. You dirty double agent. What the hell are you up to? Is this your scheming? Papa 

Pope’s grand plan? Certainly a power play.

Olivia discovers that Jake was at the house where Billy’s phone was found because he was there to kill Billy. Heh Heh. Kill Bill.

Olivia goes to Papa’s house to find out what the hell. Confronts Jake with the Olivia fast talk, Jake and Papa Pope tell her that she can either throw a temper tantrum like a 14-year old or step up and grab some 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue power.

Huck is being really mean to the new guy Marcus, and Quinn calls him on his shit. Huck gets all deep and says “we have to protect him. We can’t let him be friends with us.” Hidden meaning: their souls are twisted and evil and Marcus is still a good guy…so they can’t bring him into the inner circle of darkness. 

What's going on with Jacob Hamilton Ballard? and Papa Pope?

Scandal Season 5, Ep 3: Dog Whistle Politics. AKA: That's Coded Language Muther Effers!

Who are you working with? 

As if! 

Papa Pope is denying everything. He’s not Lazarus. He’s not B613. He’s incarcerated. What could he possibly do from the inside of a jail cell?

Well….

PP goes off on a rant. Dude, of course Lazarus One was his doing, and while he may be in jail, he is always free.  He still has power.

Jake goes to Charlie and sends him to Paris to find out what’s going on with the Lazarus thing. Charlie brings in Elise to help with the job, and um…awkward pause. “Jake? Is that what you’re calling yourself?” Somebody has some history with the beautiful Elise! 

She leaves, but he finds her at her place. He wants to come in, she says no, but he says yes. You always let me in. Elyse is an art dealer, and is the one that Jake needs to find the stolen art pieces. Somehow they had a missed connection at Grand Central Station. He waited an hour, she got there later. He didn’t wait. He left. Dude. You don’t leave. You wait. Jake thought she was dead. He grieved. SO…this is the one that got away. 

She was his WIFE!

“I really loved being married to you. We were good together.”

Reunited and it feels so good….

Charlie tells Jake he’s got game. Has a girl back home that chooses another guy and is all up in his face about it, then he hops across the Atlantic and gets with a hottie that hate his guts.

Elise has lured the man with the painting into her home, and a Jake and Charlie are in a surveillance van trying to find out who he is. Their feed goes down, and they hear shots. They run in and find the dude dead, Elyse is shot. Jake goes to help her. It ends up being a flesh wound. He regrets getting her into this, and she says she really never showed up at Grand Central Station. They’re spies. That’s what they do. He completely ignores that and says “What about now? Come back to the states with me.”  

Meanwhile, the evening news show is doing an expose/historical biography/ of the “Little Black Girl” that can be anything she wants. They have footage of her in college stating that she wanted to work in the White House. The reporter questions: “Is she a political savant, or is she willing to do anything to get what she wants?” Showing her history of men, and how her power increased with each hook-up, she just had to go for the gusto and get the most powerful one of all. 

The press is having a field day with Olivia, and he’s ripping Lizzy a new one when Abby walks in. He promptly fires her. Olivia tells him you are an idiot, and you can’t just fire Abby when you’re emotional. Olivia tells Fitz that Abby did exactly what she would have done. He jokes “Well, then you’re an idiot” which should really have opened up a few more “I know you are but what am I?” lines. 

Olivia realizes that those flashes from her windows are not lightening, but someone taking pictures of her. HuckleberryQuinn shut it down.

Mellie busts into the meeting of the women in the senate, and they promptly tell her how things in the senate really work. They tell her it’s all about cigars, and scotch, and peckers, Oh My! So since the boys are off pecking their booze and peckers, the women are uniting their uterus-es (uteri?) to have their own agenda. On the topic: impeach Fitz. Because he can’t keep it in his pants and distracted the country with his libido and yet it’s the woman that’s getting raked over the coals.

Cyrus stutters: but he’s a man!

Mellie is clearly not on board. Cyrus disagrees and tells her his may be her to use this as her ticket to the Oval Office. Mellie and Fitz are having a moment over their son. And isn't he adorable hiding behind the curtain giggling! She tells him she doesn’t want to fight anymore and keep hurting each other. She gets her things and goes. She continues to say she’ won’t do it. Cyrus won’t let it back down. He feels like he was kicked in the teeth. 

Mellie says her heart was broken, Cyrus calls BS. She never loved him – he did. He would have died for him. He was his son, loved him as his child, his soul. Just rips a whole inside that would not close. THEN throws down “ Your child is dead, you can visit his grave, bring him flowers. You know exactly where he is and what he is.” Cyrus says he can’t do that, because he can’t pick up after him, remove the obstacles, keep him safe from the vultures. Keep him away from all the bad things. Mellie finally has had enough and tells him to get out, before he has him thrown out. Dude. Bad form. You don’t go after someone’s dead child. Bad form, Cyrus. 

The senate isn’t done – they want the President investigated.Fitz meets with the gang of old white guys and throws himself at their mercy, saying he’s aware that he made a mistake and betrayed the people’s trust. He’s willing to offer he support for them, and they tell him the true cost – which comes in the form of legislative reform.  Everyone but Stanley and Fitz leave, and he says he’ll give Fitz equal pay, and Fitz’ll get the Brandon / law-and-order bill killed. Then throws in “next time you decide to go outside your marriage, choose yourself a girl who’s a little  more palatable to the base” What is that supposed to mean? Kill the Brandon bill, or they go for impeachment. Sir. 

Fitz calls her to talk to her about the Brandon bill, and she tells him there’s a porn video featuring them, she has threats of rape, and he tells her to stop reading that and turn off the computer. She’s on a rant. Would they say that if they knew she had a gun and shot someone? She’s survived being kidnapped and tortured. She’s ready to go PTSD on them with her gun. He says turn it off or I’ll go down there and turn it off for you. She says she’s fine. Then admits she’s losing it. But only a little bit. Backbone.

Quinn goes to Marcus to get him to be the face of Pope until Olivia’s spotlight dies down. IguessworkingwithPopemakesyoutalkreallyfast. She challenges Marcus: “Do you want to be a Gladiator in a suit?” His reply…No. Hell no.

That's the "Um, Hell to the NO" face right there!

  Until he changes his mind, since he needs the cash. Quinn just wants to keep the clients, and have him be the face telling the public that Olivia is waaay too busy to show her face. He’s not going to put up with the press though. He’s sick of people judging her and he reveals he’s there so that she can help a Sista out who helped him once. 

He walks out of Pope’s offices to a swarm of reporters shouting questions. Where is Olivia Pope? Tell us why she won’t defend herself as passionately as she defends her clients? She’s usually so well spoken”

He stops. Turns. "For a black woman. Usually so well spoken for a black woman, isn’t that what you meant? You’re implying that she’s a homewrecker that slept her way to the top." He fumes! Pissed that they're saying she pulled herself up from her bootstraps, when the girl went to elite private schools. He goes back in where HuckleberryQuinn tell him he can’t just go off script! That’s not what they wanted him to say! He fires back: This. Is.War. There is no script. He’s fighting his way, and not going to sit back and take it. 

Throws down: “That’ is how I gladiate.”  BAM. 

The three of them go on the offensive, appearing on every news show that will have them. Granting interviews and spinning the story they way they want.  They accuse the press of using the ‘Slutty mistress stereotype’, and not the passionate advocate. Marcus says they’re shading her. It’s dog-whistle politics. Racism. Sexism. Anti-Semitism. Misogyny. Bigotry. All in the form of a language that is so offensive, that only the one that it’s targeted at can hear it. Why? Because no one else realizes what those words are when saying them about a person of color. 

/Pause. Folks: this is what my graduate school professors study: “Critical Race Theory.” You take existing shit, and view in through the lens of women, people of color, disenfranchised, marginalized, and you get a different outcome than the rest. Shonda Rhymes – did you sit in that class with me? Are you sure you weren’t there? You nailed it. Nail. Head. /BackToTheStory

Marcus accuses the press of using Thug politics.

“Are you accusing me of using offensive language?”

“YES”

And what was offensive? They called her:

Lucky. Sassy. Ambitious. Well spoken. Well mannered. Articulate. Shrill. Calculating. Overconfident. Secretive. Urban. Hot blooded. Arrogant. A siren. 

Coded Language. 

Well. Okay then. Did you get that people? This is what they say rather than saying someone was SMART.( Sassy. Ambitious. Secretive) INTELLIGENT (Well spoken. Well mannered. Articulate.). RESOURCEFUL. (Calculating. Overconfident. Secretive.)

See the difference? 

Marcus asks: So, who’s going to tell Olivia I work here?

Huck, looking hucking-nice in a suit, smiles and says: “I will. I’m damaged. She doesn’t like to yell at me.”

Fitz, back at the Oval Office, asks Abby: Do you always do what Liv would do? What would Liv do about the Brandon Bill. Abby says she has to give Gibson what he wants.

Fitz asks again: Is that would Liv would do? 

Abby tells him it’s the smart thing…He wants to know if it’s the smart thing, or the right thing? Next thing you know, the President is on the move. The television live feed shows the President on a late night outing. Where’s he going? To visit Olivia. She’s watching and is not pleased. 

She’s up and ready for him at the elevator “What the hell are you doing? What the hell are you doing?” He tells her: “The right thing. I’m taking my girlfriend on a date.”  Tells the Secret Service dude to look away because he’s going to make out with his girlfriend.

Score one for Fitz.President Grant is escorting Olivia Pope out of her apartment building and into his car. 

The press is back with their comments: Is she going to be the next first lady? Or the first lady to take down a sitting president? 

That’s all it takes to send Mellie over the edge. She’s now ready to take down Fitz. 

Gotta admit. Shonda got this one right. Not to get all “Woman Power” here, but damn. It’s never the man that get’s the rape threats, the expose in the press, and the bad reputation. The Coded Language? That’s spot on. Nail. Head.