Scandal is not playing around with Season 7

Oct 27, 2017

Scandal is getting good good again.

Not to say that it wasn’t good before now. It’s just especially good and relevant and special because their crazy, twisty, made-up world is no less believable than our current reality and at least in Shondaland they have Olivia Pope to help them out.

Shonda Rhimes is not pulling any political punches in the show’s final season.

It seems like the minds behind this masterpiece are hell-bent on making big statements about real issues plaguing our country and we are loving it.

Which brings us to Episode 4.

This time there’s quite of few layers of that going on. Mainly, the missing girls Fitz is trying to find are pretty much not made up at all. IRL, black girls go missing every day with not so much as a mention in the press. In Shondaland, the former POTUS is back in D.C. to get Liv to help him do something about hundreds of missing black girls no one seems to care about.

Too bad when he tells her she doesn’t care either. At all. Doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. She’s too busy being upset that he just interrupted her almost-grind with Curtis. He’s in a tissy after seeing the former leader of the free world waiting at Liv’s front door so late at night and he let’s that be known by quickly excusing himself and giving Liv a death stare on his way down.

She’s also just upset in general. She is extra angry. At Fitz? At herself? Who knows. She’s not trying to hear anything he has to say about the hundreds of missing teens but she does suggest he take his piddly peasant problems to Quinn.

She has bigger fish to fry with no time to deal with the old POTUS. On to the new POTUS!

Mellie is in the Oval Office with President Rashad and they are having major mind sex between every line of policies and peace treaties they discuss. Olivia walks in and is instantly annoyed by all the DL fireworks popping off between the two leaders to the point that she has to fake smile and start scratching her scalp to keep her cool.

When the Gladiators get going on the missing girls case they start searching through the pile for a face to peg the problem to. They need to find someone the public will sympathize with. Not fear. Not ignore. They need a poster child with a name that sounds white. She should be pretty and smart and accomplished and damn near perfect so as not to give the people any reason to be intimidated by her blackness and to convince them she’s worthy of their concern. Abby says something about how disgusting it is that they have to do this and she’s right. Deep.

Fitz and Papa Pope are in somebody’s basement talking smack about Olivia. As usual, it’s a heated exchange that is mostly a pissing contest between the two over who loves Olivia more and who knows how to handle her more. Also as usual, Papa Pope wins. He tells Fitz he’s Olivia’s only weakness and his little cause isn’t the key to getting Olivia out of the B-613 business. Fitz is the key. He’s the bait.

Cyrus is still trippin’ about the super expensive painting the rich guy gave him. He stares at it in his office forever like there’s no work to be done in the White House. Later, he and Mellie have a little gabfest about their love lives after she sees the painting and kicks her heels off to get comfy for all the tea they’re about to sip. Guess there’s nothing more important for the President to do either. Mellie opens up about her crush on Rashad because Cy is the only one who gets it. She’s also encouraging her pal to go for Daddy Warbucks but Cyrus thinks he’s icky. Have you seen his ex? “He’s beneath me,” he says. Well ain’t that the pot calling the kettle Ugly!?

Again, why is Olivia so mad? Now she’s in her office and Marcus stops by for a visit and she can’t even say hello. Her standard response to anyone who speaks to her seems to be and aggro “What are you doing here!?” Geez. He’s just trying to check on Mellie because that’s his boo thang in his heart. When Olivia refuses to sneak him onto her schedule he tries to convince her to help out with the missing girls. He finally breaks through the ice queen’s wall by making a joke about Fitz and Vermont being cold and white. It’s enough to get her to her old stomping ground where she’s mortified by the faces of missing girls on the wall.

Just like that our girl is back and she did not come to mess around. She rattles off a fool-proof plan for getting the press they need; easing her conscience and stroking her own ego all at once because she can still do this job in her sleep and she’s not really that mad or angry all the time she’s just trying to be hard because she’s Command. On her way out she bumps into Fitz in the hallway and it’s all the way different from the last time they spoke. Now she’s all nice and blushing and giggling when he suggests they have a drink when just a few scenes ago she was all “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, PEASANT!?”

Let’s just go with it.

So Fitz and Olivia are flirting in the hallway and he’s dropping low-key innuendo and undressing her with his eyes. She scurries off before things get too out of hand but it’s clear this is only the beginning of another something between these two crazy kids.

Fitz goes on Curtis’ show with the mother of one of the missing girls and Curtis tries to get gully on the air because he’s still mad about the elevator/ hallway thing from before. Why didn’t Fitz care about these girls when he was President? Fitz handles it like a G and turns it right back on Curtis and the media, saying he didn’t know about this problem because the media doesn’t cover missing black girls. “The only reason her picture is on TV tonight is because a rich white guy is sitting next to her mother.”

COME THROUGH SHONDA…

Olivia goes to visit her dad at the Smithsonian and the conversation turns to B-613 in a hurry. Where is this part of the museum located that nobody can hear this man yelling all his business, Olivia’s business, the President’s business? I’ma need him to lower his voice. Aren’t there security guards? Patrons? Janitors out back smoking a cigarette? Also, why is he still working on dinosaur bones? Wasn’t that just a cover story for his real job of controlling the world and everyone in it? Shouldn’t he fake retire from his fake job since he is supposedly real retired from his real job as Command? How did he learn to do the dinosaur work and who was getting the bones together when he was out murkin’ folks for all those years? He tells her that she can’t have a love life and be Command at the same time and she gets mad because she’s a grown woman and she does what she wants to do.

Mellie is in a meeting with Rashad and other dignitaries trying to get this peace treaty done when security storms in a sweeps him away. There’s a coup happening in Bashran and Rashad is no longer the President. Mellie is ready to take off her earrings and go to war for her man but Olivia is not down with that plan. She needs some time to think about it so she heads home for some wine.

She’s heads home and is just about to get her sip on when Fitz comes knocking again. He says he needs help with the missing girls and Olivia wants no part of any of this. Guess we’re back to mad again. It’s very obvious these two aren’t battling over whatever they’re talking about. They’re battling over their burning desire to be together again. DUH.

I want them to figure it out but I’m also tired. I’m still a bit unhinged over that mess when Fitz and Olivia were finally together, he was divorced, the whole world knew about it and was like, NBD, it’s cool. Olivia was all sad and miserable because it was Christmas time and there were all these dinners and parties and gender roles Liv did not want to play Liv and the lady asked her about the snickerdoodle cookies and she almost blew her lid? She ended up getting drunk off Mellie’s moonshine in the closet and then Fitz picked out her dresses and she was like…OUT. What happened there? Didn’t she know he was about to not be the president anymore and they could just Netflix and make jam in Vermont in a little while?

The back and forth between these two is almost too much to deal with. Not because their chemistry is so intense but because they play too much. How many times have we watched this EXACT conversation go down? Somebody yells something or hard whispers something…”Look at me and tell me you don’t love me…” or something close to that and then exactly what happened tonight which is this: He needs her. He wants her. They belong together. He’s speaking super way too close to her face for me until they finally burst into a reluctant, steamy kiss and her back is against a wall. Again. Got it. Totally still here for it. Awww…#LivandFitz4-evaWe’re gonna miss this show so much.

Now it’s back to business and Olivia has changed her tune after a little lovin from her ex. His ex, Mellie, assures Olivia that she’s not making decisions to defend Rashad because she has feelings for him but because it’s the right thing to do. Liv lets her know she has her back and they’re friends again in a jiffy.

Liv must be on a mission to turn her frown upside down because she’s skipping around town righting all of her wrongs. She heads to QPA to notify her former team that she is creating a new department of the FBI just to focus on the missing girls. Guess Fitz still got it!

The other thing he has is a problem. Jake did some digging and found out about his secret meetings with Rowan and Olivia is pissed when she confronts her father by kicking a stool over to him and telling him to SIT.

This can’t be good.