Courtesy of ABC
You know what’s super awkward? Finding out our ex-boyfriend may have KILLED YOUR MOM! Crazy day over in the Scandal universe.
Let’s bitch it out…
We open with Liv’s (Kerry Washington) obligatory dinner with Rowan (Joe Morton). Right away we know something’s around the corner regarding Liv’s mom, as she’s not-so-subtly worked into the conversation to remind the audience that we don’t know what happened to her. Meanwhile, the dinner gives Jake (Scott Foley) and Huck (Guillermo Diaz) – my new favorite odd couple! – the opportunity to hack into Rowan’s files to learn the truth about Operation Remington.
Over on K Street, we don’t have to worry about Liv’s financial troubles anymore…cause it’s Presidential Campaign season and everyone is knocking at the door. Lisa Kudrow returns as Josephine Marcus, the congresswoman who has a secret she needs to keep: she had a baby at 15 and put it up for adoption. She needs Liv to serve as her campaign manager and bury it. After one rough day in Montana, her team discovers that the baby was not adopted by another family; she was actually raised as Josie’s sister. Thanks to Cyrus’ (Jeff Perry) tip, Josie is forced to disclose the adoption (but not who the baby is) during the Democratic Primary. After briefly firing Liv for advocating the disclosure, Josie comes to her senses (because, really) and offers Liv the job back to run her presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, the White House begins courting Leo Bergen (Paul Adelstein) as Fitz’s (Tony Goldwyn) campaign manager. But he refuses to “back a loser.” Ouch. He says what we’re all thinking: the President looks miserable and the Oval Office “smells like desperation.” After witnessing Fitz sneak off into the bathroom to call Liv and walk through his White House Correspondents Dinner jokes, Mellie (Bellamy Young) realizes Fitz needs Liv if he’s actually going to get re-elected. So Mellie also offers Liv the job.
Side note: When Mellie tells Liv that they owe Fitz the opportunity to win on his own steam after they stole it from him earlier, it took me a beat to figure out what they’re talking about (oh right, Defiance!). After all the crazy plot lines on this show, rigging the election seems so long ago…and definitely not the highest transgression on the list.
Just as Liv chugs her glass of red wine, pondering her decision, Jake and Huck show up at her door. Huck uses his “two things make a coincidence, three things make a conspiracy” rubric to discover that instead of being part of Operation Remington, Fitz probably shot down a commercial airliner killing 300 people. Including…wait for it…Liv’s mom!
Courtesy of ABC
Other Observations:
- Scandal’s giving Josie a solid sympathetic back story (military member, husband killed in action, stumbling into politics grassroots-style). She’s also got strength. Do we actually want Fitz to win re-election? The country may be better off…
- The B613 storyline is an interesting correlation to what’s going on the U.S. right now (though obviously not to that extent). The Executive Office and Congress are setting up their “plausible deniability” saying that the National Security Agency is operating without Presidential knowledge. Scandal‘s on the cutting edge right now
- Um, did Cyrus intimate that B613 killed Kennedy?
- Great showcase for Sally Langston (Kate Burton). Between her banter with her husband, and going into the men’s room to corner Leo Bergen into running her Presidential campaign as an independent, this is the most fun she’s been in a while.
- Quinn (Katie Lowes) gets sidelined because she went all “drill baby drill” on Huck. Ha!
- I love the way the POTUS burner phone mirrors Liv’s addiction to the unhealthy relationship as she scrambles to pull the phone out of the trash. Also, what’s with Liv and Fitz eye-humping each other at the WH Correspondents Dinner? Seriously, could they be any less subtle? For people in the public eye, whose jobs revolve around optics, they’re really bad at this.
- Speaking of optics: not sure what was going on with Liv’s hair during the WH Correspondents Dinner, but it should not happen again.
- On shows/movies in general, I’m over the “last minute download scramble as someone’s coming through their front door but when they get to the office I’ve disappeared” scene. It would be interesting if next time someone uses it, the intruder just gets caught.
- In other news, Harrison (Columbus Short) still exists.
Best Lines:
- Cyrus (upset that Liv is working for the other side): “I gave her a world class education in the dark arts!”
- Jake (to a frustrated Huck, who’s trying to walk him through hacking into a classified database): “How do you print?”
What did you think? Were you happy to see Lisa Kudrow get a meaty storyline? Are you excited to see the Liv/Fitz confrontation teased in the preview for Episode 6? Sound off below!
Scandal airs Thursdays at 10pm EST on ABC