Courtesy of ABC
In “The Fluffer”, Liv (Kerry Washington) tries to take a little vacay and everything goes to hell.
Let’s bitch it out…
Poor Gabby…er, I mean Abby (Darby Stanchfield). Liv, still smarting from the way Fitz reacted to Mellie’s affair, sent Abby to the White House as her proxy. She lasted about a minute briefing Fitz (Tony Goldwyn), Andrew (Jon Tenney) and Mellie (Bellamy Young) before everyone left the briefing room. But Cyrus (Jeff Perry) and I agree…her coat really is very stylish.
It was a bad week for Abby to be proxy, because “someone” (read: the Langston campaign), paid Jeanine Locke to write a book. You remember Jeanine? The White House staffer who OPA had take the fall for having an affair with the President. Kudos to the Props department for that amazing book cover and coming up with the title “Taken for Granted”…ha! This spurs Cyrus to leak the fact that Sally’s (Kate Burton) daughter had an abortion at 13 (very much against Liv’s directive). Instead of losing female voters, Sally becomes sympathetic and now it’s really a race. This is why you listen to Liv!
By the end, Team Grant and Team Langston realize that by slinging mud at each other, Reston’s campaign is rising to the top. They decide to team up together to take him down once and for all and make it a two party race. Remember when Reston killed his wife’s lover? Well they manipulated the wife who is serving jail time for the murder and got Reston’s confession on tape…and in the media. And just like that, Reston – a recurring adversary who has appeared sporadically throughout the series since its inception – is put to a quick end. Adios!
But that’s not the only fire to put out this week. Cranky Fitz wants to drop Andrew from the ticket even though it’s political suicide this late in the game. Last episode Liv was “the help”…this time around she calls herself Fitz’s “fluffer,” getting him ready for whatever he needs. In this case, it’s getting Andrew to stop sleeping with Mellie. That is the only way Fitz will continue to have him on the ticket.
During the “fluffer” fight, Fitz says something actually useful: “This didn’t happen to you. I didn’t happen to you.” Exactly. I feel like we (the viewers) are on this hamster wheel with Liv as she makes the same poor decisions over and over. We all had that friend in high school that had SUCH a dramatic relationship that she was breaking up with her boyfriend every week over something life-ending. This is pretty much the Fitz/Liv affair. It’s got the same emotional maturity as that high school romance.
In the best scene of the episode, Liv carries out Fitz’s wishes and confronts Andrew with an ultimatum: he can either remain on the ticket and stop sleeping with Mellie, or continue sleeping with Mellie as Liv destroys his life. Not much of an option. “While you might like living out the rest of your days teaching political science at a small second tier liberal arts school, I don’t think Mellie will be by your side for it. She is more of a ‘run with the big dogs’ kind of woman.” In the end, Andrew chooses what Liv knew he would: power.
Courtesy of ABC
Meanwhile, Liv dives head first into bringing down B613. Thanks to Papa Pope (Joe Morton), she finds out that B613 gets its funding from all government agencies through a back-door algorithm in the OMB database that siphons off small amounts from all over the government and deposits them into an account that only Command has access to.
Uh oh, you know what that means. Liv has to take one for the team. Huck makes a great point: how many times does she ask the Gladiators to do things they don’t want to do? It’s time to take your own advice. However, in this instance, the action in question is sleeping with Jake to get the account code from his phone. Personally, I’m not seeing this as much of a hardship, but whatever. Technology aside (the information on his phone shuts down all B613 computer systems? What if he dropped it in water?), I’m perplexed why Liv is so ashamed of herself for sleeping with Jake as a means to an end. After all, didn’t she like him before he killed James? Did she forget that Fitz killed Verna? She had no problems jumping back into bed with him after that. I swear, one of these days I’m going to write an unbiased recap that hides my current loathing for Fitz.
Once Liv gets access to all B613, she pulls the trigger and takes down their entire surveillance network. Unfortunately for everyone, it was right at the time B613 was chasing down Liv’s mom (Khandi Alexander) to find out how she is planning to carry out her attack against Fitz. When Jake visits OPA, he throws Liv against the wall and screams at her, “You just killed the President.” Uh oh, that was the very thing she was trying to avoid…
Other Observations:
- We get it ABC, we should all buy the new Nokia phone with the Windows operating system. Sheesh – give it a rest!
- The Scandal staff is getting much better at hiding Kerry Washington’s baby bump
- LOVE that Harrison’s female assassin contact refuses to give up info about Liv’s mom because she’s “Leaning In” professionally. I guess Sheryl Sandberg’s approach really applies to all lines of work.
- Should the head of B613 get drunk and booty call an ex? This doesn’t seem like good national security protocol…
- I like that Charlie (George Newburn) is able to call Quinn (Katie Lowes) out on the fact that she just wants to save the day to get back into OPA’s good graces. I’m a little concerned for her future though since he’s so intuitive. It’s only a matter of time before he figures out the relationship (by “relationship” I mean, all the licking) between her and Huck (Guillermo Diaz).
Best Lines:
- David Rosen (Joshua Malina): “You’re not going to believe this, but I was this close to saying top secret money-saving algorithm yesterday”
- Jake (to Liv): “James wasn’t your friend…I would never kill your friends.” Oh, okay then.
What did you think of ‘The Fluffer’? Are you glad that the take down of B613 and Reston happened so quickly? Is it me or was Quinn more tolerable this episode? Sound off below!
Scandal airs Thursdays at 10pm EST on ABC. We’re now just two episodes away from the finale. Here’s a look at next week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssC0WCiW-fE