SCANDAL Recap: Snake in the Garden

Last week was all about betrayal so it is only fitting tonight’s episode is more about trust. How you can earn back someone’s trust and even if you should.

Case of the Week: Before I tell you the case of the week I need to mention Rosen is now living at Pope & Associates. He caught someone ransacking his apartment and needs some place safe to stay.
This week’s case brings back Hollis Doyle. Something Quinn is less than pleased about. Hollis is there because he got a video from his daughter, she was kidnapped and they are demanding $20 million for her return. Hollis doesn’t believe the tape is real, he thinks his daughter is faking the kidnapping for the money. His ex-wife can’t believe he would think such a thing.
Mabel Doyle is the youngest of Hollis’s eight kids; he cut her off when she quit her fifth stint in rehab. So while Hollis wants his daughter back he isn’t paying the ransom without some sort of proof this is real.
Quinn and Huck go over the ransom tape; Huck does his Jedi thing and walks Quinn through the basics of figuring out where the tape was shot by the sounds, etc…
Rosen sticks his nose in their business suggesting they get the FBI to help find Mabel. The Gladiators scoff at him, they are so much better than the cops. They have never lost a single client; the cops can’t say the same. While they are doing this a package shows up with an ear inside of it.
Olivia calls the number for the ransom and tells Mabel she is going to need proof the ear is hers. Mabel says the man holding her says they now have 24 hours to pay the ransom or she will lose more than just an ear. The line goes dead. Soon a video message comes in showing Mabel without an ear. At the same time Huck and Quinn have located the building and find a bloody mattress on the floor but no Mabel.
After seeing the picture of Mabel Hollis has a change of heart, he says to pay the kidnappers, pay them whatever they want and now! He’s not heartless after all. In fact Quinn sees Hollis crying over his daughter. Hollis says he let his daughter down.
I’m telling you sometimes I want to hate Shonda Rhimes for making me feel bad for characters that are awful awful awful. Hollis with a human side? Come one!
The phone rings and its Mabel. They get an address from Mabel for the meet. Huck, Quinn and Olivia show up at the spot, wire the money, grab Mabel and take off.
They bring Mabel to the hospital so she can recover. Hollis is all smiles. He thanks Olivia.
The next day Huck is looking at the ear from Mabel, he says Mabel cut it off of herself. Hollis gets to the hospital, with flowers, to find Mabel gone. So Huck picks up Mabel at her house and brings her back to Pope & Associates. Mabel’s parents give her one last chance to pick them, a do-over if you will. She can have family or the money. If she takes the money she can’t come back. She doesn’t even stop to think about it, she picks the money and leaves.

Cyrus Gets His Groove Back: Cyrus has Charlie check out Captain Ballard. By the way someday I want to have a clandestine meeting in a parking garage.
Charlie: Is he sleeping with your husband?
Cyrus: In a manner of speaking, yes.
Mellie and Cyrus are still trying to figure out how to reign in Fitz. They’ve tried backstabbing each other, working together and now they are like a bickering old married couple.
Cyrus: Never let my guard down not when something Mellie this way comes.
While Cyrus is trying to get back into Fitz’s good graces Mellie has her own issues. Their kids are supposed to visit that weekend but they don’t want to. Mellie can’t quite find a way to tell Fitz, she wants to stay on Fitz’s good side.
Cyrus meets back up with Charlie for an envelope on Jake. Cyrus takes the information and heads over to the White House to talk to Fitz. He asks what happened in Iran in the Gulf War when Fitz’s plane went down over Iranian airspace. It’s a mission so classified it is redacted from Fitz’s service record completely. Cyrus’s point is Fitz did things he can’t talk about, things that if discussed would endanger the country. That’s exactly what Cyrus did with Defiance. Ohio or Iran what’s the difference.
Cyrus: History makes the heroes and the villains. You and I are just players.
And like that Cyrus is back in the inner circle. Fitz fills him in on the mole. Finally!
Meanwhile Mellie gets summoned to the Oval Office. Fitz is mad she cancelled his weekend with his kids. He accuses her of not wanting to be bothered with taking care of them. Mellie interrupts his tirade. The kids didn’t want to come, they have been begging her not to have to come to the White House, because Fitz is different, he smells like scotch all of the time, and he’s become mean. The kids don’t like him right now. Mellie tells him he isn’t himself anymore, he has become his Father. That is about the most hurtful thing she could have said, I think. Mellie has a great speech and Bellamy deserves an Emmy for that. She leaves and Fitz puts down his cup of scotch.

Mole Hunting: Fitz asks Jake to help him find the mole, in fact if things go well maybe there is a place in the White House for our creepy Captain.
Quinn and Huck are also still doing recon on Osborne; Huck is letting her drive to help with her secret agent skills. Unfortunately they have been made, something they realize as they follow Osborne to Olivia’s apartment building. They send up a warning text. Olivia takes the flash drive with the Albatross intel on it and hides it in vase, something Jake sees since he is watching her on the screens in his apartment. Olivia answers the door and Osborne wants to know who hired her and he wants to know now, she is having him followed, he knows something is up. At that moment all of Jakes cameras go black/no-signal. Osborne gets in her face and threatens her but we are dealing with Olivia Freaking Pope and she doesn’t back down. She tells him half her clients have his pay grade or higher so he better back off.
I’m disappointed in Huck for taking so long to get up to her apartment…in case anyone cares.
At some point later in the episode Jake calls Olivia to see what she is up to; does she want to grab lunch? He knows she doesn’t, it was all a ruse because he is outside her apartment where he breaks in and copies the memory stick and Olivia’s notes on Albatross. He also resets his surveillance equipment. Something else that still bothers me…how does she not sweep for that kind of thing???
Jake takes the intel and heads right over to Fitz. He drives home Osborne as the mole.
Osborne storms into Cyrus’s office, he can’t believe he is being investigated for being the mole. He’s an agency man, he’s not a traitor.
Later that night on the news they report Osborne was found in his car. He died of a gunshot wound to his head, self-inflicted.
In a park late at night Jake meets with a man we have never met. They talk about how great the staging of Osborne’s death was. Now everyone thinks he was the mole.

Duplicitous Snake: Olivia is getting ready to go on a date with Jake when Cyrus calls, Fitz is mentioned and that is all it takes for Olivia to want to cancel with Jake. When Jake gets to her apartment she is back in her comfy clothes. She says she tried to call him and he says he knows, he ignored it. Jake says she is just afraid of what they might be together and then does what all women want a guy to do…give a grand romantic speech.
He likes that she says “What?” when she answers the phone, he likes that she always seems to be wearing white, how she treats wine like a food group and that she knows who she is and fixes everyone around her.
He tells her to close her eyes, leans in and kisses her. Now I’m not saying it wasn’t a fine kiss, I’m just saying they don’t have the chemistry she and Fitz have, they just never will.

The one thing I didn’t mention above is Huck “giving” Quinn her own family. He picked one out for her and in a Huck way it is really quite sweet.

So Cyrus has most of the good lines tonight, in my opinion although Mellie’s speech to Fitz was damn good too.  What did you guys think?  I know this is a network show but this is week two without any scandalous sex and I’m not too happy about that.  I’m also not to happy that Olivia and Fitz are still apart.

Other than that  I am actually starting to care about the mole story line – which up until tonight I really wasn’t – I am excited to see where this season ends up.

Scandal airs Thursday 10/9c on ABC