SCANDAL Recap: Defiance

Let’s take this in parts this week shall we?

Case of the Week:
A billionaire, Harold Pierce, has apparently lost some of his sanity at the most inopportune time. Harold built an empire with electronics but he just divorced his wife and hooked up with a socialite a young socialite. His company is up for IPO and his son and ex-wife are worried. Not only are they worried about his behavior but they are worried his actions will hurt the company’s IPO chances.
Olivia gives the case to Harrison to handle. She says he is ready and he has earned it.
Abby and Harrison babysit Harold by cutting off his communication and making sure he stays in his house until after the IPO meeting.
While they are sitting outside in the car the girlfriend comes running out of the house, she says Harold is sick and needs a doctor, she gives them a number for their doctor and asks them to call.
The doctor arrives awhile later and the girlfriend lets him in but bars Harrison and Abby from entering. I’m starting to wonder if Harold is actually sick and if that man was actually a doctor.
We don’t have to wait too long to find out since the doctor calls for Abby and Harrison telling them they need to come inside. They rush in to find Harold has married his young girlfriend, making her the only person who can legally commit him. The doctor was actually a doctor of theology. Harold may be having a mid-life crisis but he doesn’t seem to be completely crazy.

That night outside Harold’s house Harrison and Abby are watching Harold and his new bride dance. Abby says they look happy. Harrison apologizes about David not working out. Abby says it is okay but she is teary eyed. Harrison looks like he may crack but then he holds out his hand and dances with Abby on the lawn to the music coming out of the house. He tells Abby she will find someone who will make her happy.
The next morning Harrison calls Olivia to tell her Harold shot his son in the arm during an argument, he wants Olivia to get over there but she tells him to see it through. He is ready to handle it himself. Harrison doesn’t look so sure.
Harrison has had enough though, he tells everyone but the son and Harold to get out of the room, he sits them down and tells them this ends now.
Harold says he is finally having some fun, he always did everything right, his whole life and now he is having fun. He is trying to tank the IPO because he doesn’t want his son to spend his life like he did, always working. His son says what makes him happy is working, working at the family business. They were both trying to make each other happy.
At Pope and Associated Olivia is watching Harold give a press conference cancelling the IPO and announcing his retirement. Harold’s ex-wife is there with Olivia and she is sad, she thought Harold would come back to her. Olivia gives her advice she seems to be taking, move on, be happy.

David and James
David has a new angle to this whole Pope and Associates scandal and it is James, Cyrus’s husband. David contacts James and gives him all of his voting conspiracy evidence. James says he isn’t interested but David tells him to at least check out the evidence and then make a decision.
Later that night, over at the White House it’s Fitz’s birthday dinner. Most of the Secret Five are there along with a few others. Fitz is telling a story about how he was down in the polls in Ohio. The exit polls said they were losing but low and behold in Defiance County Ohio they won, despite what the exit polls said, and they went on to win the whole election. James has the light bulb above his head look. He is no longer smiling and as soon as the dinner is over he runs to his desk, pulls out the file from David and sees what he is looking for. Defiance is on the list from one of David’s many pieces of paper.
It appears James is starting to believe David’s story since he does some research of his own. He meets with two guys to talk about how you would prove a voting machine was tampered with. Next thing we see James is at Defiance County looking in a warehouse at the voting machines from the election. He pulls voting machine after voting machine but all of the memory cards are missing. As if Hollis and his Secret Five would leave something like a memory card to trace back to them.
James is still at the warehouse where he sees one voting machine is missing. The guard tells him there is one on display at the high school. The high school is locked but he sees a janitor. He gets into the school and is looking at the voting machine from the display case. He pops the lid and there is a memory card in the slot. Wow, Hollis’s people aren’t as thorough and I would have thought. They blew up a company but forgot a memory card?
James plugs the voting machine in and votes for the democrat five times and gets five receipts that shows he voted democrat five times, but when he prints out the final receipt it shows he voted three times for the republican (Fitz) and twice for the democrat. He has his smoking gun.

Quinnsay
Quinnsay is in the office with Huck most of the episode. She pulls her little I’m adorable and bouncy stuff on him and under the guise of running possible scenarios for the Harold Pierce case she asks if there is a drug that will knock someone out for 10 hours. She gets the information and turns away with a very determined look on her face. Seems like she may be looking into how she relocated with no memory after the bombing at Cytron.
She got a new life, a job she loves and she was acquitted of murder, what more does she want?
Later Quinnsay confronts Huck about how she got to DC. She is pissed. I’m surprised she didn’t start looking into this sooner. In fact she finds out the private plane that flew to DC the night she was “taken” is owned by the Supreme Court Judge who is part of the Secret Five.

Olivia and Edison and Fitz
So Olivia and Edison are officially dating, I guess. He is telling her all about the girls he dated between when they were together and now and Olivia won’t say anything about the guys or should we say guy she was with. I have to tell you, I don’t like Edison. I don’t have a good reason either. He seems like a nice guy, a nice solid guy. He isn’t Fitz though. Don’t judge me; I can’t help it that I like Olivia and Fitz together.
Edison wants to know why she won’t talk about who she used to date. She deflects.

Meanwhile in a sub case of the week Olivia is working with a Senator who is dealing with a sex scandal. I find it amusing how often she deals with sex scandals considering who she is in love with. The Senator is the senate majority leader. When he resigns Edison starts to get excited about maybe being able to become majority leader.

At the White House Fitz is watching said sex scandal Senator give his speech about how sorry he is, he doesn’t hear any of it though, he doesn’t even hear Cyrus because he is staring at Olivia who is standing off to the side of the Senator. He really looks like he misses her.
Enter Mellie, snarky bitter Mellie. She is there to talk about Fitz’s birthday gala. A gala he didn’t want, but as Mellie points out, you can’t always get what you want.

Olivia visits Cyrus’s office to find out who Fitz is going to back for majority leader. Cyrus wants Edison to get the job because that would mean Fitz is over Olivia and Cyrus can have his president back.

In the Oval Office Fitz gets a package from his Secret Service Agent. Fitz tells him no more surveillance on Olivia, to pull back. It doesn’t stop him from looking at the pictures in the envelope though. It is Olivia and Edison all cute and coupley. Fitz makes the sad face that breaks my heart while angrily flipping through the photos.

Later Cyrus and Fitz are talking about who to back for majority leader. Fitz does the right thing and decides to help Edison get the majority leader position. He makes that terribly heartbreaking face again and when Olivia hears it from Edison she makes her own heartbreaking face. She covers by offering to go to the president’s gala with him since she takes Fitz’s “support” as him being over her.

It’s the night of the gala and Olivia is stunning in her shimmery flowy dress. Edison seems to agree.
The President and Mellie arrive at the gala and she tells Fitz she doesn’t want to go in, she is sick of smiling and acting like she is happy. Fitz says she forced him to have this party so she is going. He tells her to buck up; his mistress isn’t his mistress anymore she won. She keeps repeating she doesn’t want to go, please don’t go and he throws her words back at her, “We can’t always get what we want can we.”

They get out of the car and I barely have time to take a breath when a shot rings out and Fitz goes down.

Next week cannot come fast enough!

Scandal airs Thursday 10/9c on ABC