Olivia’s Face-Off & Cyrus’ Epic Downfall
The Scandal Winter finale played out like a Shakespearean tragedy with Olivia’s face-off with her dad and Cyrus’ public humiliation once the press learns about his affair with a male prostitute. My patience with Ms. Pope is at the breaking point because she is being too hard on the only man who has always had her back. I’m about sick of her and this White hat nonsense that has allowed her to put herself and her crew on a pedestal pretending that their motives are pure while everyone else is supposedly wrong. Olivia tries to kill her dad and convinces Cyrus to marry his gigolo and ole Randy Andy kidnaps Olivia to get back at Fitz and force him into attacking Angola.
The episode opens with Olivia pouting over Daddy Pope getting away while Fitz and Jake hash out what went wrong. They have snipers searching for him when they discover the Notorious MOM in the hole. She thanks Olivia for saving her and seems to think that her own daughter will be on her side but she is sadly mistaken and Olivia tells Fitz and them to charge her mother with murder and a host of other serious crimes. So much for the mother daughter reunion.
A Lobbyist Called Slickback
Mrs. Ellen comes to OPA and gets on Olivia for not telling her that Cyrus bugged her phone. She observes that Olivia is either bad at her job or just not willing to help and even has nerve to use that tired old quote about there being a special place in hell for women who do not support other women. Um Mrs. Ellen, you need not quote Madeline Albright while you are out here being a Lobbyist called Slickback and playing a wife against her husband. Call me petty, but I really want Cyrus and Mellie to jump her. Mother Albright was not blazing trails in fanciful brooches and sensible shoes for other women to be out here using her words to cover their dirt.
Lizzie leaks Cyrus’ photos with the gigolo to the press making him a laughingstock while the Grant Administration is struggling with its response to the crisis in Angola. The President does not want to be drug unnecessarily into a war, but the failure to retaliate is making them look weak. Olivia suggests that Cyrus marry Michael to try to smooth things over but he refuses saying that it wold be cruel and unfair to James for him to marry “this person.” Oh so it was okay to put a hit on the man twice and pimp him out to Daniel Douglas, but marrying a professional mic-checker is a bridge too far for Mr. Beene. It’s good to have standards.
Tying Up Loose Ends
Jake narrowly avoids being killed and learns that Rowan is planning to kill all former B613 agents to tie up loose ends. He even goes so far as to create playing cards with the agents’ photos known as Kill cards. Jake finds his card on the gunman that he takes out and warns Huck and Quinn. Quinn goes to warn Charlie and winds up sleeping with him and later discovers that he’s been sent to kill her. They get into a Mortal Kombat style brawl that ends with them sitting on the floor bloodied and bruised in a kind of truce. He even agrees to help Huck make amends with his family.
Jake gives Olivia a gun and tells her that she needs to defend herself because Rowan is cleaning house but he of course tries one last time to get her to run off with him into the sun. “The sun went down a long time ago, and it’s not coming back, ” she tells him while holding the gun.
These Daughters Aint Loyal
Huck tracks Rowan’s car to a B613 safehouse in Roanoke but he is actually at Olivia’s apartment opening a bottle of wine and chilling like he pays the bills up in that joint trying to reminisce about Songs in the Key of Life. Olivia tells him to leave, but he pulls out a gun and tells her to sit. She does and then proceeds to get real disrespectful after he says that she is not going to be happy until he’s dead.
“You can never leave me alone because you have no place to go. The only life you have is the sad twisted one that you built here the one where you lurk in the shadows, pull puppet springs and pretend that the world could not exist without your protection. You’re a sick lonely man who only knows how to lie and call it love.”
Um Ms. Pope, this is no way to talk to your dad, and I am sure that you know better. Daddy Pope interrupts her little speech asking “Could you be more ungrateful?! There would be no Olivia Pope if not for me. So what your stomach turns every time you look at me? Well let me be the one to Let me break it to you Olivia, you are looking in the mirror.”
Olivia jumps up and grabs the gun in the middle of his rant, and he warns her to watch herself but this little heffa pulls the trigger! The gun was not loaded, but Daddy Pope screams and says “Are you kidding me? You just shot your own father? Never, never in a million years did I think that you would be willing to pull the trigger.” He took the gun from her and then leaves after telling her that she will miss him when he’s gone.
I have tolerated a lot of bad behavior from Ms. Pope – the adultery, the borderline alcoholism and trading on sexual favors to get what she wants, but this betrayal of her own dad is about the last straw for me. He is not innocent, but he is family, and she has shown way more dedication to friends than she ever has to own father. That is not cool. Not by a longshot, and she is sure to reap what she sowed. If she can forgive Jake for choking her and Fitz for being a serial azzhole, then surely she can muster some small portion of compassion for her own dad.
Olivia goes back to visit her mother and demands answers about where he might have gone. Mamma Pope looks at her calmly and tells her to get over herself. “Girl, you need to let it go.” She tells Olivia that she is just like her father who kept her in the hole and visited her every day.
Are you a Bitch Baby?
Cyrus gives Fitz his letter of resignation and is packing up his house when Olivia shows up with a pep talk. “When did you decide to let them ruin you?” she demands before telling him to quit acting like a “Bitch Baby” and go be the Cyrus Beene that she has always known – the political monster who really runs the country.
Mrs. Ellen confronts Mellie about Fitz deciding not to go to war and makes the mistake of saying that she thought they were on the same page. Mellie informs her that she knows about her and Andrew and warns her that she will be out for revenge in the next election cycle.
After being set straight by her mother, Olivia goes home and attempts to be normal with Jake. I say attempts because she looked and sounded real crazy dancing around talking about how she is choosing herself and is happy to dance alone. Yeah, sure. So she and Jake are about to get busy when he leaves her alone in the living room while he goes to the bedroom for a blanket. By the time he returns to the living room, she’s gone leaving behind an overturned glass of wine on the couch. That is how you know she didn’t leave willingly because ole girl does not waste the grapes.
The Vice President, ole Randy Andy, met with Fitz griping about his failure to attack Angola after their government supposedly bombed his car. He told Fitz that while it was messed up that he would not act on his behalf, he had something that he would go anything to get back, and the implication is that the something is Olivia. And so it ended.
- I am feeling some kind of way about Olivia attempting to shoot her dad. He read her disloyal azz the riot act, and now she is probably going to need his help to get out of this current bind.
- Baby Ella deserves a better stepdad than the gigolo, and I am sure that James is turning over in his grave at the thought of this nonsense. What can Michael teach this child other than how to make it clap for dollars?
- Are they going to bring back Trill OG Bitsy to mentor Mellie in the second half of the season? Mells is getting some of her spark back, but I think she needs a few more lessons from her shade mentor.
- Will Daddy Pope come back to save his ungrateful pitiful child? I’m pretty sure that he will, and I hope that she learns to appreciate him and his methods.
MarvyMDS 