SCANDAL Recap: The Lawn Chair

Olivia is back to work – no rest for the weary.

The case of the week should sound familiar to anyone with a TV or access to social media. White cop shoots black teen. The father of the teen, Clarence, shows up with a shotgun. He wants the cop that killed his child. I want to mention Clarence is played by the ridiculously talented Courtney B. Vance. Love him. Anyway, Olivia does what she does, she starts handling things. She promises Clarence she will have the Attorney General of the United States oversee the case personally to make sure evidence isn’t mishandled. Olivia calls Rosen, but he’s busy.

Marcus Walker, a local activist, shows up and joins Clarence. He antagonizes the situation He talks as fast as Olivia and makes some good points. Clarence is no longer listening to Olivia. Olivia calls her Gladiators to find out more about Marcus and Clarence.

Olivia talks to the cop who shot Brandon. The officer shot Brandon because he pulled a knife on him. That’s his story anyway. We’ll see if that holds up.

The next morning at the crime scene Marcus asks Olivia for the name of the cop that shot Brandon. He riles Olivia by insinuating they asked her to handle this case because she’s black. “Excuse me if I don’t buy you’re a real down ass chick.”

Olivia talks some more with Clarence about Brandon, he sounds like a good kid: going to school, football, part time job & no running the streets.

Huck finds out the DC Police have the only surveillance of the shooting. Something they have been sitting on all day. This obviously makes Olivia suspicious so she heads over to see Rosen. He says he won’t get involved. Only Olivia starts to break down, she gets teary eyed. “For about a week straight I thought I was a goner. I lived in complete and total fear.” She equates this to living in the neighborhood Clarence is from. Rosen gives her the subpoena she needs to watch the video.

She shows Clarence and Marcus the footage. It looks quite a bit like what the officer said happened. Clarence is adamant that Brandon didn’t carry a knife and Olivia says they can find out, but they will have to move Brandon to do that. Clarence agrees and allows Marcus to help him roll Brandon over. Sure enough there is a knife under his body. Clarence is still adamant Brandon never carried a knife, but he lowers his shot gun. Olivia is left shaken, this may be too soon for her to be back at work.

The police call in cops in riot gear, calling for a curfew. Things are getting heated. Huck and Quinn show up to tell Olivia they found something in the surveillance video. There was a guy in the back of the cop’s car when he stopped Brandon, a guy that was arrested with a knife, although a knife was never booked into evidence. Olivia goes to confront the cop. She wants to know who else knew about this frame job.

Rosen then comes through, he shows up at the precinct with the man who the cop let go, in exchange for his knife and silence. The cop starts losing it. He calls Olivia one of “those people”. Which is too bad because a few of the things he says are valid, not all of it and he didn’t say it in a great way, so he goes down, deservedly so.

Rosen makes an announcement that the police officer was arrested and that the Justice Department was going to do an independent investigation into the DC Police Department. Justice was served the best it could be.

Olivia goes to talk to Clarence. He is ready to give up the vigle over his son. Olivia offers him a ride, she takes him to the White House where he meets with Fitz. A man who can empathize with a grieving father. Fitz holds Clarence as he cries. Not going to lie, got a little teary eyed myself.

The B story line this episode is all about replacing the VP. This is why Rosen was too busy to help Olivia earlier. Cyrus isn’t pleased with the suggestions for VP that Fitz keeps making but Fitz doesn’t really care. Fitz promised Mellie he would help her get to be President and this is a promise he is going to keep. He wants a VP that won’t run next election. Mellie doesn’t need the competition a sitting VP would give her.

In the end Fitz leaks the name of the young, female, Latina Governor Cyrus wanted to vet. In doing so all dirt that could possibly be found is dug up by the press ending her chances. Fitz is then able to go with someone boring, someone who won’t ruin Mellie’s changes next term. Mellie has a specific person in mind, Susan, the Governor Olivia just got elected to Senator. There is no question she won’t give Mellie a run for her money next term.

Scandal airs 9/8c on ABC