SCANDAL Recap: Come Hell or High Water

SCANDAL IS BACK! I can’t believe you would have forgotten where we left off last year but just in case you did. Jake went into the hole for Liv (that isn’t as dirty as it sounds – it was actually quite romantic in a terrible way), Liv called it off with Fitz who crawled back to Mellie. David Rosen got his job back, he’s the good guy again and Liv, well Liv got called out as the Presidents mistress which brings her Dad to her door. Her Dad being none other than the scary bastard that runs the black ops group Jake and Huck were a part of.

The Gladiators lock down the office while the scandal of Liv’s affair with Fitz makes every single news source. Meanwhile Liv is in the car with her Dad on their way to an air field. He’s there to fix her situation aka send her away. She isn’t having it. Seriously her Dad is no joke. I cannot even fathom anyone else talking to Olivia the way he is and he sums up her childhood in one sentence. “Did I not raise you for better? How many times have I told you you have to be….twice as good.” Then he goes on to call her mediocre.
Unfortunately it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t want to go, her Dad is literally making her. He will take care of her staff, her business will still run and she will have an island to call her own for eight months until he can figure out where to send her next.

She takes a moment to borrow a stewardess phone to call Cyrus. Cyrus doesn’t want her to leave either. He knows Fitz will think he had her killed if she disappears. That is a complicated relationship if that is what you jump to when someone goes missing.
Cyrus promises to fix this mess if she will only stay in DC. Which she does. She gets back in the car and heads to the office.

At the White House they are claiming no comment. Cyrus attempts to get VP Sally to take over the public appearances for Fitz but she declines. On moral grounds, which is more than amusing to me as she had no trouble getting her daughter that abortion back in season one or running amuck with power the second Fitz was shot in season two. I’ve gotten off track. Fitz steps in and says he wants to speak with Sally alone. He admits to the affair and says he failed Sally by not being the best man he could be. His apology thaws Sally and she agrees to step up and take over his public appearances.

Liv gets back to the office where she is swarmed by reporters. You would think she was the second coming of Christ the way they were acting. Huck and Harrison make it through the crowd to pull her into the building.
The team wants to know what to do next. Liv says everything is fine, business as usual which they just don’t seem to understand. It’s Liv who doesn’t understand, all of her clients have been calling all morning to fire Pope & Associates. She is the most infamous woman in the world – makes it hard for her to be clandestine.
While she is trying to salvage any of her clients – which isn’t working – Harrison has the team in another room. He is rallying them. They have to save Liv. The White House is going to let her burn (he sounds like her Dad) and they have to do something about it. They are going to handle it.

Cyrus is with James at the White House press offices, he wants to know where that low lever reporter got her intel on Liv. James figures she got it at Malloy’s the bar the Secret Service drinks at. Cyrus is stoked to have a new lead.

Later that day Hal (Secret Service-the chatty one not the down one – that’s Tom) is approached by Mellie. She wants to know how the rumor got started, she asks him about Malloy’s as Cyrus watches from down the hall. Flash to Hal drinking too much and telling said reporter Fitz cheated with a trusted advisor. He did not however give the reporter Liv’s name.

Back in the office Liv is visited by David Rosen. He wants to know what she is going to do when Harrison and Abby burst into the room to have her turn on the TV. Cell phone video of Fitz leaving Olivia’s building has emerged. Over at the White House Cyrus tells his assistant to start a kill folder on Olivia Pope. Friends to the end, huh?
Kill Folder: Olivia went to Princeton. She was an only child. Her Mother died in a plane crash when she was young. Her Dad curates at the Smithsonian. No family photos though.

Really? Curates at the Smithsonian. I watch Covert Affairs. I know that means CIA or Black Ops or something. I wonder if the Smithsonian has any actual employees. It also makes me wonder what else about Olivia’s life isn’t real. Is her Mother really dead? Does she have any siblings? I’ve again gotten off track.

The point you are supposed to get from the Kill Folder is Olivia over the years has had quite a history with older powerful men, they make her sound like a social climbing slut. Which is the point.

At home Liv is on the couch not sleeping when her phone rings. Her Dad is downstairs. She goes to see him in the parking garage and after he is snide she stars asking about Jake. She wants to know where he is. Her Dad gives a self-righteous speech about how he makes democracy possible. If he claimed to be God himself in the next sentence I would not be surprised. Olivia walks away from him.

She heads to the office where she pulls a folder out of her safe, makes a call and gives a code key and a password to someone in the military. She leaves her office – wearing a fierce white coat by the way – along with 10 or so other town cars so the press don’t know which one she is in. Next we see her escorted by guys in fatigues into a secure room. In the room is Fitz. It’s a bunker of sorts. She says Hi and he says Hi and it is as heartbreaking as it always is when they say Hi. It’s just ridiculous.

Cyrus is looking for Fitz who is now yelling at Liv for “pulling the fire alarm”. A onetime thing that she can never do again. It was supposed to be used for an extreme emergency, like a terrorist attack or a major disaster. He’s mad because now that she has used the code he can’t get to her if something like that happens. She thinks this is a pretty big problem they have and they are going to figure out how to fix it. All of them. Enter Mellie.
Cyrus is getting nowhere with Tom (I told you he was the down Secret Service Agent) in finding Fitz.

Mellie thinks they can just do what they always did. Just act happy, go on TV and deny deny deny. Fitz reminds her that would have worked before – before she felt it was best to tell a reporter on National Television that Fitz was having an affair. Fitz wants to tell the truth. Olivia lays out the plan. It’s a perfect plan if they really do want to tell the truth, which Fitz seems to want to do. Mellie however wants nothing to do with this. She doesn’t want to tell the truth, she is not having any of this, because Fitz didn’t just cheat, he is in love with another woman.
Olivia tries another tactic. She wants to know how many times Mellie would be okay saying she and Fitz slept together. Mellie says two. Once when Fitz took office and once after he got shot. Mellie is totally okay with him having an affair, just not being in love with someone else. This she will spin with them to the press. Fitz doesn’t want to lie but Liv just wants to get this handled. They come to an agreement.
Mellie leaves and Fitz asks Liv how she is really doing. She insists she is fine. She is teary eyed and obviously not fine and then their song plays over the episode and Fitz and Liv have One Minute. He hugs her and she breaks down crying. She breaks away and leaves.

I want to assure everyone I think cheating is wrong but man this couple wrecks me. I just want them to be happy together!

The next morning Sally visits Fitz in the Oval Office. They have some small talk about family and then Fitz tells Sally to use the window after his speech to be bold and rise. Be the moral strong ground of the party. Condemn him.

Mellie visits Cyrus. She doesn’t want to be any part of this press conference, tell the truth crap. She has a plan.
Across town in the office the Gladiators have their own plan. Huck thinks they wait for Olivia to tell them what to do. Quinn thinks they should kill an intern. The team gives her crazy eyes. Harrison says they have to have his back. If they do this they are united. Not shockingly Harrison gets the quote of the night, “Are we Gladiators or are we bitches?” If that is not a shirt or a meme on Twitter by now I will be completely shocked.
Harrison takes the disc off the table and brings it to Cyrus who is waiting in a nearby car. Cyrus in turn gives it to James.
A few hours later Cyrus’s aid is briefing the press corps on the upcoming Presidential Statement when a news story breaks. It is video of said aid talking about how great President Grant is. The team (and Cyrus and Mellie) framed the aid as the mistress. All eyes are off Olivia Pope.
Cyrus for his part listens to the aid tell him how this is all untrue. Then he looks her in the eye and says he will handle this for her. Poor girl is a goner.
Olivia however is not so happy. She bursts into the office and demands to know what her Gladiators did.
Fitz isn’t too happy either. He wants to see Cyrus and he wants to see him now. He cannot believe Cyrus did this to a poor innocent child basically. Really? You can’t believe it? Mellie, who is in the Oval Office, tells Fitz there will be no telling the truth. This plan wasn’t Cyrus’s it was hers. She follows up her statement with a bombshell. She knows it was Fitz that leaked Olivia’s name to the press.
Flashback to Fitz telling Tom he needs a favor and then to the bar where Tom spills Olivia’s name to the reporter.
Fitz thought putting it out there would start a ball rolling that would in the end let him divorce Mellie and make Liv his First Lady. Fitz tells her that wasn’t the reason, the reason was because he didn’t want Mellie to have Liv’s name in her arsenal. He didn’t want Liv at Mellie’s mercy. This, this right here, is a war. Fitz and Mellie are at war and it is going to be ugly.

At the office Harrison tells Olivia nothing is wrong with self-preservation, it doesn’t mean she can’t still wear the white hat. Olivia is still less than pleased. She tells him they have a client, they need to get to work. Their client is none other than the aid he and Cyrus framed.

Cyrus is at home when Charlie pays a visit. He escorts Cyrus at gunpoint to a dingy room where Liv’s Dad is waiting. He pulls out a file on Operation Remington. That operation was the mission Jake and Fitz flew together in Iran. Liv’s Dad pulls out the non-redacted file of what really happened on that mission for Cyrus to read. Cyrus’s mouth falls open and he is speechless. Can you imagine what on earth could be in that file to make Cyrus of all people speechless?

Well Gladiators? What did you think? One hell of an opening episode, wouldn’t you say?

A few of my favorite quotes from tonight’s episode:
Liv’s Dad: I am hell and high water.
Cyrus to Liv: I am monster but I am your monster.
Quinn: Couldn’t we just kill another intern it wouldn’t be that hard.
Harrison: Are we Gladiators or are we bitches?

Scandal airs Thursday 10/9c on ABC