With the Problem of the Week centered on the First Daughter’s sex tape and further developments in JJ’s murder plot, ‘Like Father, Like Daughter’ is hands-down the best episode of the season so far.
Let’s bitch it out…
Teenagers ruin everything. Liv (Kerry Washington) is sitting down to a nice fast-food dinner with Jake (Scott Foley), Cyrus (Jeff Perry) is getting some with the prostitute hired by the RNC (Matthew Del Negro) and First Daughter Karen is stuck at a party in her underwear, plastered out of her mind. Luckily she has the wherewithal to call Liv, whose mission it becomes to get Karen back to the White House unseen (thanks to Guillermo Diaz’s Huck for shutting down all of the cell phones in the building!). Things escalates quickly when Karen is sent a video of her in a threesome with two unknown…gentlemen. I’m too embarrassed to google “Eiffel Tower” but it’s probably something you never want to see a 17-year-old do.
I very rarely feel bad for Fitz (Tony Goldwyn), but watching him live through every father’s nightmare when Karen admits to him that she slipped her secret service detail, jacked some guy’s plane, went to a party, and (of her own volition) banged two unknown boys…ugh it’s heartbreaking. You can see how badly he wishes she was raped, which is equally disturbing.
So it’s time to commence Operation Scumbag and find the sex tape. After searching through photos of the partygoers (“I think he was blonde”), Karen narrows it down when she remembers “He has a tribal band on his right bicep.” Classic (Side Note: I am in no way slut-shaming Karen, but I thought it was a little odd to play Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out” during the montage of her attempt to find the two guys she banged the night before. The tone is definitely off, like they should have been shopping for prom dresses and doing a makeover instead).
Luckily, Liv tracks down the parents of the boy with the sex tape who, in a surprising turn, start blackmailing the President. After initially offering to pay $2.5 million, they go too far and Classic Liv shuts it down. It is great to see Liv so enraged and disgusted by these horrible people.
The upside of the whole tragedy is watching Mellie (Bellamy Young) wake up. She and Karen talk about the impact of JJ’s death on their lives and Mellie lets her know she gets one free pass. But like it or not, she is the First Daughter. “It may not be fair or right, and it’s definitely sexist…but your knees are gonna have to stay together.” And then Karen asks the question that no one’s bothered to ask when trying to get Mellie to put on a dress and smile pretty for Fitz the past few weeks: “Mom, are you alright?”
Meanwhile, over in secret spy land, no one is sleeping soundly. Rowan’s (Joe Morton) trying to get Tom (Brian Letscher) to kill Jake. Jake is trying to get Tom to kill Rowan. And poor Tom is just screwed. You almost feel bad for Tom, even though he did kill the President’s son. All he wanted was a good government job and a gold watch at retirement. Instead he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place (i.e. two Commands that will kill him).
After the Secret Service comes under scrutiny (they did lose the first daughter after all), the President discovers that Tom went to Fort Dietrich, where the meningitis strain was stolen, a few days before JJ died. So he sends…wait for it…Rowan to interrogate Tom (good choice boss). Tom breaks under pressure and tells Fitz that JAKE ordered the murder of his son. Yikes, this can’t be good.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Do you agree it was the best one of the season so far? Sound out below! #Swagapalooza!
Scandal airs Thursdays at 9pm EST on ABC
John says
But most disgusting (or whatever she said) sex tape ever?
I agree with you on the song, so many other choices they could have made. George Michael’s Freedom ’90 would have been a good choice. I honestly thought it was Puff Daddy for a second.