Scandal review – 4×10: ‘Run’

 

Wow. Just wow. With an edge-of-your-seat pace and stellar acting, ‘Run’ was made for TV Top Ten lists.

Let’s bitch it out…

You know it’s a fantastic episode when you realize you haven’t blinked and your mouth is agape the entire opening sequence. ‘Run’ is officially my favorite episode of Scandal ever, and that includes the ones with kick-ass Cyrus (Jeff Perry) monologues. Or even the one when Liv (Kerry Washington) picks Jake (Scott Foley), dumps Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) forever, and runs off somewhere she doesn’t call “into the sun.” Oh that last one hasn’t happened yet? A girl can dream, can’t she?

But let’s get back to the issue at hand. We pick up where the mid-season finale left off, with Liv being kidnapped from her house as Jake goes into the other room for some piano sex blankets. When Jake sees she’s gone, he rushes out of the building thinking Liv has been taken outside. We then see she was ushered into her neighbor’s apartment across the hall, and has been there the whole time. This is no fly-by-night kidnapping crew, as seen by their elaborate plan to get her out of the house by hiding Liv under her dead neighbor’s body (!). Shit just got real. RIP Rose.

As Liv wakes up from being drugged, she deduces she’s in a Middle Eastern prison. She also has a new cell mate, Ian (Jason Butler Harner), who says he’s a journalist kidnapped from Egypt. From here, Scandal proves it can do the captivity storyline as well as anyone out there. Liv gets to demonstrate her fixer prowess as she tells Ian not to give up, and her intelligence as she realizes the guards don’t have the authority to kill her. We get to see her evolution in captivity (I loved the difference between the first day with her using toilet paper to cover the toilet seat, to not caring and rolling around on the bathroom floor by the end). But most of all, we get visceral heartache when she thinks she caused Ian’s murder, and when she realizes her escape route through the bathroom window is blocked. As a side note, ladies, I don’t know about you but I’m now only wearing bras with underwire in them…just in case.

Now let’s talk about Ian. The big twist as Liv tries to escape: her fellow cell mate was actually the ring leader of the kidnapping. And they’re not in the Middle East, but a very elaborate sound stage. I had guessed that Ian was the leader, possibly because we just saw this exact same scenario on The 100. Guessing the twist didn’t make any of the scenes less taut or riveting, however. Was I the only one screaming at the TV when she started telling Ian that Fitz would come for her? She’s usually smarter than that.

Now that Ian knows Liv’s importance in Fitz’s life, the previews suggest that he blackmails POTUS to declare war to free Liv. Yikes, Vermont will have to wait…

 

Other Observations:

• Liv kills her guard with one shot right between the eyes. (If this is all an elaborate ruse to find out more about Liv, did the captors need real bullets? It seems like Ian was playing loose with the safety of his own kidnapping crew…). Also, why did Liv drop the gun after she shot him!? If she kept it, she could have shot Ian afterwards, escaped the sound stage, and been home in time for dinner.
• Liv’s poor neighbor. Doesn’t she know that it’s (literally) the kiss of death when kidnappers take off their masks?
• As much as I loathe any Vermont references in Scandal, a big kudos for the creation of the White Hat Jam company in the dream sequence. Also, what was Tom doing there?!
• After the first segment in the midst of Liv’s kidnapping, the show cut straight to a 50 Shades of Grey commercial. Needless to say, it was a bit jarring.

What did you think of ‘Run’? Is it in your list of favorite Scandal episodes? Who do you think Ian works for? Is he an independent contractor or part of a bigger conspiracy (knowing Scandal, my money’s on conspiracy)? Sound off below!

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9pm EST on ABC