Quantcast
‘Scandal’ recap: Season 3, Episode 6, ‘Icarus’ – Metro US

‘Scandal’ recap: Season 3, Episode 6, ‘Icarus’

Lisa Kudrow (as Josie Marcus) will not be there for you, when the rain starts to fall. Lisa Kudrow (as Josie Marcus) will not be there for you, when the rain starts to fall.

SHUT. IT. DOWN. And curl up to the screen. It’s Scandal recap time.

This week, everyone pretends to be something they’re not. President Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) acts like he knows nothing about Operation Remington. Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes) thinks she can be an assassin when she can’t even shoot a gun. And Vice President Sally is still pretending that’sa Southern accent.

We open right after Huck (Guillermo Diaz) and Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) have told their boss and lover — respectively—Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) that her boss and lover —simultaneously — Fitz shot down, at her father’s request, the plane in which her mother died. SHOT. IT. DOWN.

So she marches into the White House to ask him, but he says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” even though he obviously knows what she’s talking about. So she says she won’t work for his reelection campaign after all, and then tries to convince the gladiatorsthey’re working for Josie Marcus (Lisa Kudrow) because helping a woman into the White House is the white-hat thing to do.

What will you lie about next, Liv, being sober?

Nevermind, she’s drunk. Or is she? Yes, wasted. After swaying her way up from the couch for another full glass of red, Liv dials Daddy/commander of the secret CIA assassin program. He’s been expecting the call, and tells her she can have one question.She asks if he killed her mother; he says no. She asks if Fitz shot down the plane, and he says he only offered one question. Liv, you drunk! You were supposed to use that question to ask for more questions! This isn’t the kind of mistake you make. Is that even you in all those white suits, or Tom Wolfe in drag?

I no longer know what’s real.Did Fitz not kill that old woman receiving chemo last season? Are these not places in D.C.?

What, it’s shot in LA?!

Oh and then Sally pretends to support Fitz’s re-election while secretly planning to run herself by getting a right-wing pastor to make like he’s up in arms over Fitz’s adultery, so she can sweep in and offer him family-values legislation in exchange for his support. Except, he’s lying about lying and is actuallyan informant for Cyrus, who pays him in tax breaks.

Was Cy even talking on that phone or is it a prop?

What a relief. Finally, some honesty: Josie Marcus blows up during her prime time interview with James Novak, telling it like it is whileranting about the latent sexism in her primary opponent’s campaign ad, as well as in the media’s attention, and she thereby finally looks tough enough for the White House, as Pope and Associates has been begging her to be. Yes! No. What? Dammit. The ad was fake. Pope and Associates made it up to set off Marcus’ temper.

No, I’m mad. I don’t know you anymore, fictional characters.

Meanwhile, Jake’s informant lies about helping when she actually plans to kill him, but then she’s shot byanother spy who we thought was targeting him, but had actually been hired by Fitz. Also, Charlie, aka Creepiest Assassin, pretends to give shooting range advice to Quinn, who pretends she can handle being a killer, but really he’s luring her into the web ofDaddy Pope, who is pretending she’s not useless.

Finally, Fitz visits Liv to convince her to stop asking questions, but when she says her mom was on the flight he can only barely pretend he doesn’t care — he totally cares.

As for you — you pretend to be a fan of the show, and yet you’ve posted no fanart in the comments section.

Episode grade: A-

Follow Jane Borden on Twitter@JaneBorden