Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s been a while to say the least. Scandal has finally returned after a hiatus of 3 weeks only to deliver another great episode. Before we get into this episode, let’s remind ourselves where we left off in episode 15, Boom Goes the Dynamite. Really quickly, in this episode we learn that the White House mole hunting down David Rosen; Jake Ballard is still trying to snag a date with Olivia even though she seems to only be extracting information from him; Fitz has drunkenly aggresses his way into a political hole in his attempt to rescue the Kashfari hostages; Jake Ballard is spying on Olivia at the service of his friend President Fitzgerald; all of Pope and associates’ cases involve an affair; still recovering from his water-boarding Huck has found a friend/protégé in Quinn; Jake Ballard is still creepy; Cyrus and Mellie are being shut out; and the mole was revealed as an insider in Grant’s administration, CIA director Osbourne! So maybe that wasn’t that quick, my apologies.
This episode also marked the shift back into the season 1 episode structure in which each episode focuses on a Pope and associates case. Episode 16, Top of the Hour, opens with a seemingly normal family preparing for dinner, when the daughter opens her front door to a hoard or photographers and reporters. Her mother is accused of having an affair with Verna’s replacement on the Supreme Court. Naturally Olivia Pope is on it; affairs seem to be her thing. Sorry, I had to. Before she enters the scene though, she visits Jake to give him some inside information. Waiting for the news cameras at the top of the hour, she struts her Olivia strut up the driveway with Harrison and Abby flanking. Meanwhile, grasshopper Quinn is flourishing under the hands-off direction of Sensei Huck. The two have been deemed HuckleberryQuinn by the geniuses of tumblr. In the White House, Fitz has finally warmed back up to Cyrus, but hilariously not Mellie. I don’t know why, but I find it hilarious when Fitz blatantly dismisses her.
Cyrus and Olivia’s relationship is again put the test. At this point, I’m not sure what is holding it together. Cyrus nearly begged Olivia to encourage her client to deny the accusations of her sexual relationship with the to-be Supreme Court justice. Olivia does the opposite, causing a media war between the depiction of the Justice nominee as a predator and Olivia’s then college-aged client as a predator. Though I’ve stated before that I’m not a fan of Cyrus Bean, he gets the greatest lines. Remember his “slutty president problem” quip from last season. This episode Rhimes steps it up a notch with Cyrus’s question to Olivia, “Is you vagina apolitical?” I was in tears. Back to Olivia’s case, stakes are raised when the female CEO’s job becomes at stake as well as her marriage when photographs reveal the affair lasted a little longer than previously admitted. This causes doubts about the paternity of the family’s eldest daughter.
In a rare moment of Olivia in her home during daylight hours, paparazzi photograph Olivia and Jake in her backyard, causing Jake to go to great lengths to delete the picture. Later that day, Olivia is witnessing a fight between her client and her husband, which serves as the perfect backdrop and mirror for her phone conversation with Fitz. I appreciate how this episode gets back to the basics. Olitz phone conversations are usually the highlights of the episodes they take place in. This one was also no short of spectacular. Fitz finally directly expresses his disappointment in Olivia’s betrayal of him, and Olivia mourns her mistake all to the background of a screaming couple who have the freedom to express themselves in such an unrestrained manner. This counters the restraint of Olivia and Fitz’s relationship and late-night phone conversations. It all culminated in the lines, “I trusted you. You ruined me. I’m ruined” with Olivia’s half-whispered howl, “I’m ruined!” If I haven’t raved about Shonda’s dialogue enough, she’s brilliant.
On Fitz’s side, Jake passes along the intelligence Olivia gave him which reveals the location of the hostages and sets in place a rescue mission. On Olivia’s side, she and her client share another brutally honest, yet compassionate Pope pep-talk, which though directed at the client is really meant for Olivia herself. This is all while the ladies chug red wine straight from the bottle. These women are like twins! Meanwhile, Huck’s grasshopper is growing, but it might be putting her in danger’s way. In the White House, just when Cyrus thought he had made his way back into the inside, he realizes with the help of Mellie that Fitz is two-timing him with Jake Ballard. In good news for the Grant administration, the rescue mission was a success. At the close of Olivia’s case, she provides hope for the couple and subsequently her own relationship with the President, time. Harrison and Abby perhaps also need time to mend their friendship, which has been on the fence since Abby found out Harrison sabotaged her relationship with David.
In the creepiest scene of the episode and perhaps all of T.V. ever, Jake Ballard shows up at Olivia’s house, bruised from beating up the photographer that nabbed the picture of he and Olivia. He lies and says he got mugged, and when Olivia goes to get ice he smiles at the hidden camera in her living room he’s been watching her through for the past months. His smile sent chills up my spine. Uggghhhhqqwllbkkklzz! I can’t wait for the rest of the season. From Shonda and the casts’ tweets lately, we have a lot to look forward to.
Questions:
Will they ever name America’s baby?
Do you think Shonda is setting up a romantic storyline between Quinn and Huck?
How awesome are Cy’s sassy lines?!
How did you cope during the hiatus?