SCANDAL Recap: Nobody Likes Babies

We start right where we left off, a battered and bruised Huck is still bad ass and he manages to save Hollis from Charlie. In exchange Hollis is never to speak of election rigging to anyone at all every again or Huck and/or Charlie will end him.

At the White House the First Family are taking pictures with the new baby. They do a great fake happy. As soon as the photographer leaves Fitz wastes no time talking about divorce. Mellie gets snarky but Fitz isn’t playing. “Do. Not. Push. Me.” She seems to takes him seriously.

Olivia confronts Cyrus about trying to have Hollis murdered, who by the way wasn’t the one who attempted to have Fitz killed. Oops. Cyrus promises he won’t do anything like this again.
Olivia doesn’t want the election rigging to get out anymore though so they have to find a way to shut Rosen down. Right then Fitz shows up looking longingly at his lady love. Cyrus opts to leave them alone. Fitz immediately kisses her. Seriously how can they have so much chemistry? It is so palpable I can barely breathe watching them sometimes. She says she is marrying Edison and he says no I’m getting divorced.
Fitz also knows Mellie was crazy enough to induce labor 4 weeks early to try to divert his attention. What doctor would do that? It hardly seems safe.
Fitz wants Olivia to wait for him. He wants her to say it. She says she’ll think about it, he seems okay with that.

At Pope & Associates Quinnsay first line of the episode pisses me off. She wants to make sure Hollis is going down for “ruining her life.” I’m not saying what Hollis did was right, I’m not saying Quinnsay didn’t like her previous life, what I am saying though is she has a great life now. She is working for a woman she wouldn’t even have been in the same stratosphere as before. It’s done. Stop. Your. Bitching.
Harrison tells her to knock it off too…except he says it better than I just did.
The Gladiators are running through what they know about the assassination attempt on Fitz. Intercut is Olivia sharing this information with Verna who is in a hospital bed not looking so good.
OH DEAR LORD Verna hired Becky to kill Fitz. She did it so she could clear her conscious without confessing. That seems extreme to me but I guess it makes sense to her. Olivia says it isn’t about clearing her conscious; it is about protecting her legacy.

Back at the office the Gladiators are digesting the information that Verna was behind the assassination attempt. Olivia says she isn’t their problem, David Rosen is their problem. Before they can decide on a plan of action Huck mentions bobble head. Bobble-head is still in play. You all remember the bobble-head they planted in Rosen’s apartment, right?
The team divides and conquers the CD after CD after CD of audio they have from Rosen’s apartment. The R-rated CD’s get brought to Abbey to listen too. It’s A LOT of CD’s.

Over at the hospital Fitz, who was visiting Verna, calls for help. Verna isn’t breathing. Moments later we hear a news report that Verna passed away.

James is in the park with his new daughter when he gets a visit from Rosen. James says he can’t talk, he is doing the Dad thing now, he quit his job, he’s done. Rosen says without James and his testimony there is no case. This is happening, expect a subpoena.

At home James shows Cyrus his subpoena from Rosen, he confronts Cyrus about fixing an election and now one of them is going to jail for it.
Cyrus tries to find a way around this. A lawyer, flying James and baby Ella to France.
James comes out and asks Cyrus if he really stole the election and Cyrus tells James to take his clothes off. James isn’t in the mood but Cyrus says it is because he wants to make sure James isn’t wearing a wire. James says Cyrus could be wearing a wire, so what do they start doing, getting undressed of course. Standing naked facing each other Cyrus admits nothing. James calls bullshit and Cyrus comes clean.
It’s actually a very moving scene and I’m not sure how but it works that they are baring everything while being naked. It’s good symmetry.

The next morning after listing to hours of her and Rosen together Abbey questions Olivia about paying Rosen’s ex to say he beat her. Olivia admits it and goes even farther telling Abbey she used Harrison to make it happen. Abbey is pissed. Harrison is sorry she is upset but he also does what he is told. He never questions Olivia because that’s not his job. He fixes things, he does what he is told and he leaves the personal emotions out of it and he thought Abbey realized that.
Harrison: You want to cry about your feelings? Really? Here? We don’t’ get to have feelings. That’s the job. Gladiators don’t have feelings. We suck it up, we hold it down, we don’t question.

Oh but he isn’t done. Olivia saved all of them and now it’s their turn to save her.
Man I love it when Harrison Gladiator’s Up.

Abbey heads over to Rosen’s apartment. He’s happy to see her and she states “you love me”, he agrees so she kisses him. Abbey however is  there not only to get laid but to get the memory card from the voting machine that they suspect is in his safe. We’ll see if Abbey can go through with this.

As if this isn’t enough going on at once Quinnsay scrapes together $5K and tells Huck she wants to hire him to kill Hollis. She can’t let him just walk away. Huck says $5K isn’t enough to have someone killed but he will do it for free if she wants. I’m not saying Hollis doesn’t deserve it but Huck shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing. Thankfully Huck has a condition to the killing. He will do it but then Quinnsay can’t work at Pope & Associates anymore. She is doing this for revenge and they don’t do revenge there. She can have Hollis killed and go back to being Lindsay or she can continue to be Quinn and move on. She can’t have both. Quinn picks this life and withdraws her money.

Cyrus and Olivia are on the phone catching each other up. Rosen has the last voting machine card and James is heading to the Grand Jury. Cyrus hangs up and calls Charlie.
Charlie is following James when Cyrus calls him back. He wants him to wait but Charlie says he doesn’t have too much time left; they are almost at the Justice Building. Cyrus calls James on the other line and pleads with him to not go through with this, but James says he can’t go to jail. At the very last second Cyrus tells Charlie to stop. James is going to testify.
Cyrus calls Olivia to tell her it’s over, he couldn’t stop it.
Olivia hangs up and grabs a bottle from her closet and even though it’s 9:00AM she’s ready for a drink. While she is getting ready to drown her issues James is testifying. James however doesn’t sell The Secret Five out, he says he found nothing in Defiance and pretty much calls David Rosen a conspiracy nut.

Abbey gets to the office to find everyone else drinking with Olivia. She isn’t there long though before Rosen shows up. He wants to know where the memory card is. She says she doesn’t have it, she didn’t take it; she doesn’t know what he is talking about. David is not okay with this, he tells Abbey they are done. As he leaves Abbey pulls the memory card out of her bra and hands it to Olivia.

Olivia gets a visit from Edison the next day. I almost forgot about him, is that bad? He is there to give her a ride to Verna’s funeral but she says she has a car coming. Edison also wants an answer about the proposal. She hands him back his Grandmother’s ring. She doesn’t want normal or simple, she wants “painful, difficult, devastating, life changing, extraordinary love.”

At Verna’s funeral Olivia finds Fitz to tell him she will wait for him but he has changed his mind.
Fitz: Screwing your mistress is one thing, but marrying her, that’s political suicide.

He is clearly very angry and hurt and obviously knows about the election rigging.
While he is giving the eulogy we see a flashback to Fitz visiting Verna in the hospital. She admits she hired the assassin and also spills the whole election rigging scandal. It seems rather petty of her to take all of them down as she isn’t going to be around to share in the fallout.
Fitz looks so heartbroken when he realizes Olivia was part of the rigging. It seems to really just solidified what his Dad always told him, that he wasn’t good enough, and it appears he believes Olivia thought that as well.

We aren’t done yet though, as soon as Verna says she is going to tell Rosen everything Fitz says he can’t have that. While apologizing repeatedly he cuts off her oxygen killing her.
Dark turn Fitz, dark turn.

Mellie finds Fitz in the Oval Office later that night. Fitz tells her he thought it was Mellie that tried to have him killed, but he knows now it wasn’t. She is also the only one who has ever been honest about who she is. Fitz asks her if she loves him, enough to be on his side, no matter what happens. Mellie says she has never left his side; she loves him no matter what. Fitz declares they are in this together, Mellie is all he has. They kiss in the spot of the Oval Office where he and Olivia have done so much fooling around.

Seriously, this show throws me every week. It just keeps getting better – and more twisted – every time I tune in.

Scandal airs Thursday 10/9c on ABC