Spoilers if you haven't seen tonight's episode of Scandal ("Mrs Smith Goes to Washington")!
Pour some wine. Pour some hooch. Pour whatever takes the edge off because Rowan owns everyone! For an episode that focused mainly on Olivia's life being in jeopardy, it was actually the final moments that really brought tonight's episode of Scandal home. And I actually love that. Sure, not every episode can have Olivia trapped in a room with a woman with explosives strapped to her chest and her thumb just inches away from the detonator, but this episode almost actually focused on a client, as opposed to being entirely about Olivia and/or Olivia and Fitz.
Don't get me wrong, I love Olivia and Fitz. It's one of the stories that makes Scandal such a guilty-pleasure show for me, but if every episode is about the two of them, we'll start to forget that Fitz is supposed to be the President, and Olivia's supposed to be a mega-powerful Washington DC fixer. Their professional lives are a big part of their characters, and seeing them get their respective jobs done solidifies that powerful edge each of them has. If they're only ever dealing with their own personal drama, well, the roller coaster ride starts to feel more like a merry-go-round, and that's not as fun, is it?
Tonight's plot fell somewhere between Olivia/Fitz drama and client drama, as the woman with the explosives checked in at Pope and Associates before taking her bomb threat to the Capitol Building. She wanted answers about her son's death and she was willing to kill and die to get them. Olivia walked in just as things were hitting the fan and she did her best to spin and fix and keep the situation handled from the inside, while Fitz tried to get the situation handled from the outside. And Ernie Hudson was there to negotiate. Because who you gonna call?
So, once again Olivia and Fitz's stories merged, but in a less direct way. More of that would be good for a little while.
In the meantime, Huck's still a live wire after learning that the guy pulling his strings is Olivia's father, and tonight he tracked down Rowan, leaving us to wonder if he was going to kill him. But he didn't. He tailed Rowan and then, on Rowan's orders -- or suggestion -- he killed the guy Rowan had held captive instead, making it look like a suicide, complete with a nice note. Later, poor Huck broke down to Olivia, crying over the fact that Rowan still owns him after all this time. The man does seem to have an ironclad grip. Olivia knows he owns Huck and he owns her, so he must also own Jake too, right? After all, he let Jake go. He let Jake return to Olivia. So what's Rowan's plan? I don't think Olivia's paranoid at all to worry that Rowan will use Jake against her somehow. It's probably just a matter of time, and if Rowan's as manipulative as he seems to be, Jake might not be able to resist whatever the order is.
So Huck's still in a dark place, but that's sort of where he lives. On the bright(ish) side, he seems to be over his anger toward Olivia. Maybe he gets that she's in the same boat he is.
There were some great moments of the night, but I have to give the episode to Mellie for getting tanked on hooch. She's kind of funny when she's drunk.
