Scandal recap: An Innocent Man

We said it last week and it remains true: Olivia’s gut is just a little off right now. 

This week she got played by the man convicted of shooting a former president decades ago. After that president died, the convict (Private Practice‘s Brian Benben–forever Dream On for me) convinced Olivia that he was not the shooter, only to manipulate the situation so he is named the murderer of that president, which is what he wanted all along. Olivia may not have been able to follow her instinct there and it left her unsettled but once she got an idea of the manipulation game going on with Rowan and Fitz, she jumped in with both feet.

While Papa Pope did play Fitz like a violin (for which we got another masterful monologe by Joe Morton), Olivia is the queen of making Fitz do what she wants (Mellie said as much during the episdoe). All it took was a hint that she would take him back and Fitz scrapped plans to ship Jake to B613, which Rowan wanted all along to ensure Jake’s demise, and instead sent him over to a nice, clean, relatively safe super max prison. And when her father stomped in angry that his plan had been thwarted, Olivia had this to say and close out the episode:

“You may be Command, but I’ve got weapons at my disposal. Weapons you can’t possibly possess.”

And it seems like everyone understood what she meant.

Did Olivia just tell her Daddy that the fi-ya between her thighs is a better than any weapon or wrath he could every possibly unleash?! 0_o

— Rowdy Rooksy (@RowdyRooksy) October 31, 2014

–We tweeted this during the show but it bears repeating: We are here for all things Mellie and Bitsy. You could see the light go off for Mellie as she listened to the former First Lady privately curse and tell her the real truth, which was that she ran the country and not her duly elected, now deceased husband. Their camraderie was a reminder how isolated Mellie has been, not just since her son’s death but during her time in the White House. And how it has all beaten her down. But that ambitious manipulativeness returned, along with her suits and helmet hair, and she did as the Republican lobbyist asked and helped shut down that closing bases rumor. And she probably got to light up with Bitsy for her trouble. I’m telling you, Thelma and Louise over here.

Their dynamic duo-ness did not go unnoticed online.

Mellie gone run for president. Season 5. This old lady is going to be her Cyrus

— k.p. (@_kyndrah) October 31, 2014

I’m loving this woman. She’s schooling #mellie Get ready for #presidentmellie

— Black Girls Golf ™ (@BlackGirlsGolf) October 31, 2014

–And yes, Abby is back in for sure. She went from pitching temper tantrums to suiting up for Olivia, confronting the leader of the free world, excuse me, the man who slept with her friend, in a heartbeat. And then she put Cyrus on notice that she knows about his secret  life with the escort. She has picked up a thing or two. I’d worry about her life expectancy–we all know how Cyrus deals with threats–but I have a feeling she’ll end up helping him get out of the mess when the Republicans either blackmail him or plain old leak it. That should be fun.

–Huck playing online video games with his unwitting son is both cute and disturbing. Getting a sense this can’t end well.

What did you think of tonight’s episode?

You can follow Abby on Twitter at @AbbyWestNYC