SCANDAL Recap: The Other Woman

Scandal starts with a phone call, a late night phone call from Fitz to Olivia. She can’t seem to let him go, despite seeming to want to. The next call she gets is regarding the case of the week.

The case of the week is Reverend Marvin Drake, the “Nations Pastor”. He is missing. He’s had enemies since he performed a gay marriage last year and the team tried all of their angles  to find him, including calling The DA, who hangs up on Olivia. Not that I blame him.

They end up finding The Reverend at a hotel, dead on top of a handcuffed hooker.
Olivia wants to sneak him out of the hotel to preserve his legacy as the most respected religious leader of his time. When Olivia asks Huck what he needs to take care of this he lists a scary amount of things including a bone saw. Uh…this is awkward because Olivia only wanted to move him out not dispose of him. They move him to his bedroom at home and make it look like he died in his sleep. They leave the wife to make the 911 call.

Harrison meanwhile has been put in charge of talking to/calming down, as Abbey puts it, “the lady of the night”. He tries to pay her off but it doesn’t work. In fact when Harrison follows her he is concerned that she isn’t even a hooker. Looks like she is his mistress.
She is a lawyer, an activist…basically a saint. A saint the Reverend had been seeing for the last 15 years. 15 years! That’s a long time for an affair to remain a secret. Harrison needs to make sure it remains a secret, Abbey is in charge of the funeral and Huck is tasked with checking on Quinnsay.

Huck doesn’t find Quinnsay at Olivia’s. He finds that she has booked a plane ticket home to see her Dad. I’m pretty sure if someone framed me for a murder and someone else took the time, money and energy to move me across the country and change my name I’d stay put until I found out what was going on.

Olivia meets up with the mistress looking to get her to sign the non-disclosure agreement. The mistress says she wants $6 million. Which seems like a lot to Olivia and me. Turns out she does have $6 million in leverage…she has a son. A son that is quite a bit younger than 15. I find it amusing when someone makes a thinly veiled threat against Olivia Pope but I’ll just wait to see how this plays out.
Olivia explains all of this to The Reverends widow, now it’s all about negotiation. Despite Olivia doing some of her fast talking the negotiations don’t go so well.

The rest of the team does their thing though, Harrison pays off a number of people and Abbey whittles down the guest list for the funeral.

Finally the wife and mistress come to an agreement. It does come out to $6 million but there is a trust for the child and some other provisions that seem to make both parties…agreeable.
Of course things don’t go smoothly though, mainly because we have a good 40 minutes left in the show. The medical examiner decides they may want to do an autopsy.
Turns out the autopsy request came down from the DA’s office. Now it seems David is just trying to annoy Olivia. He should really just come to terms with Olivia being shady and better at getting things to go her way and let that whole Quinnsay thing go.

It’s late at night again and The President is calling Olivia. Their talks are oddly sweet, even though I know it’s not right him being married and all. It’s their chemistry, while not even in the same room which pulls me in.
Funny enough while I’m watching Olivia break down on the phone with the one guy she can’t ever truly have my daughter says, “What is up with her? Oh you know what…she’s a Gemini.” As if that explains everything.

Olivia does get Fitz to agree to shut down the autopsy of The Reverend so the call was at least productive.

At The Reverends home Olivia is going over the First Lady’s impending visit. All Mrs. Drake has to say is “Thank you”. The problem is she took a sedative and she is less than up to this visit. In fact instead of saying “Thank you” she says “He had a mistress”.
Mrs. Drake opens up about her husband and his mistress, how betrayed she feels. The First Lady has quite a bit of insight and shares it with Mrs. Drake while Olivia listens from the other side of the door.

Olivia gets back to the office to find out the mistress is asking, maybe more like demanding more money. Olivia looks pretty pissed.
She gets to the mistress’s house to find out how much more money she wants. When she can’t come up with a number Olivia gives the mistress a talk much like Mellie gave Mrs. Drake but from the mistress side of things instead of the wife side.
What it really comes down to is the mistress wants her chance to say goodbye, which means she wants to go to the funeral. The wife isn’t having it, but as usual Olivia gets her to change her mind.
In the end The Reverends wife does the most generous possible thing, she takes the mistresses hand and walks out of the church with her as the funeral ends.

On a side note I want whoever wrote the eulogy that Fitz gave at the funeral to write my eulogy as well. Almost brought tears to my eyes.

Leaving the funeral Fitz and Mellie are in a limo, she wants to talk about the apartment they had when they first got married. Fitz wants to know what she wants. She wants to be forgiven, she can’t keep living in what is basically a war zone. They used to be friends, partners. She ironically uses the same line Fitz used with Olivia earlier. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
He takes her hand and kisses her forehead before forgiving her. However he goes right back to reading his briefs on his side of the car. It’s not a touching moment by any means.

That night Olivia is awake, as per her usual, when her phone rings. She is watching the replay of the funeral and listening to Fitz’s eulogy but she doesn’t answer the phone.

Interspersed through the above is the ongoing possible war with Sudan:
At The White House The President is looking at a picture of a hundred dead children from Sudan. He calls a meeting with The Joint Chiefs to discuss his options. While Fitz is meeting with The Joint Chiefs, Cyrus who keeps pacing, finally interrupts he needs a moment, alone with The President. Cyrus thinks the photo was faked, he doesn’t trust the intel. The President finds the intern who looked a little unsure when the picture was unveiled. The intern tells Fitz why he thinks the picture was faked and that he in fact told the Director of The CIA the same thing. Fitz gets the Directors resignation.

While all of the above was going on Quinnsay was back home trying to reconnect with her Dad, that doesn’t go so well, and when she goes back to look at the motel where she hid out after the bombing Huck shows up. Quinnsay is mad, she didn’t want to be followed, or worried about.
Huck, despite looking like he is on the verge of a psychotic break, gives Quinnsay some good advice and they leave to go home.

A few other things that went on during the episode…
Huck goes to an AA meeting, he really doesn’t look good this episode. Except he isn’t an alcoholic, he is really talking about killing people. I’m not sure there is a 12 step program for ex-hitters.
Cyrus and his partner have a huge fight about having a baby, Cyrus says he can’t do it now, he takes care of The President and that is all he can do.
And the DA gets put on administrative leave. He was actually told to take a vacation…semantics. It’s probably best he did take a vacation because he starts a whole wall in his living room with pictures and post its…all about Olivia and her numerous cover ups. It’s a little like a crazy man from Criminal Minds.

Oh and the biggest thing I may have left out of the above recap, Supreme Court Justice Thornton and Olivia have a quick meeting about Quinnsay. Turns out Justice Thornton is the one Olivia called when she needed to get Quinnsay out of the trail. She makes this ominous statement, “That innocent little girl of ours could bring down this government.”

Quick reminder that Scandal is back in two weeks.

Scandal airs Thursday 10/9c on ABC