“A murderers’ row,” is what Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) calls the candidates upon realizing they’ve all killed people.
Credit: ABC
The Vice President is possessed by demons! This is why women shouldn’t be in office — what if she spews bile on some important legislation? Here’s your recap.
VP Sally Langston (Kate Burton) — who killed her husband for being gay and then called a different gay man to clean it up — is losing her cool. Because she’s stopped hearing the Voice of God. And he was the only person who liked her, which faint praise, considering he kind of has to like everyone, but she’s okay with that, and wants him back.
Her first attempt is to shout G-rated obscenities at invisible foes in her office. Some selections from this nonsensical and totally entertaining diatribe: “Slithering,” “writhing,” “satanic massacre,” “yum yum piggie yum yum.” I don’t know why ABC has buzzed the last 30 seconds of this episode so much, when clearly it was this 10-second rant that’s made “Scandal” history.
But her campaign manager, Leo, doesn’t care what we think; he wants to shut it down. So he calls Sally’s pastor, hoping the man will either expel the beast or put lipstick on it. Instead, Sally exits with a new plan to win back God: confess her crime to the world at the upcoming primary debate.
Leo takes the news to White House Chief of Staff Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry), who’s grand clean-up plan this time is to have Sally killed, er assassinated, er crucified.
Paper tiger
Meanwhile, Captain Jake Ballard, aka Command of secret CIA assassin outfit B613 (aka Scott Foley), wants out. It’s a high stress job. The benefits aren’t great. Not much vacation. Also, the blood, the lies, the blood. But then he and Liv have one of their fake dates, so he keeps up the ruse, saying he sold 15,000 reams of paper at work that day, and that they’re going to make him employee of the month. Then he breaks down and begs her to run away with him, to save him. She says no. And then they have not-fake sex. Because getting employee-of-the-month is a major panty-dropper.
Later, Cyrus asks Jake to assassinate the VP. But Jake is all,”I don’t work for the President’s Chief of Staff; I work for the American Republic.” And then Cyrus offers the verbal equivalent of a Rube Goldberg device, connecting a Sally confession with America’s destruction, via broken hearts on Main St, which leads to citizens withholding taxes, and ultimately to terrorist attacks. Even for “Scandal”-speak, this made no sense.
Liv also learns about Sally’s crime this week, and has her own plans to keep her from confessing. Sally needs to hear from God, to know he’s on her side, because it’s been weeks and he hasn’t texted or poked or anything. So Liv asks President Grant (Tony Goldwyn) to throw the debate, which Sally would surely interpret as a sign from heaven. Obviously, Fitz is like, “Screw off.”
But wait, because now Jake is planning to take out Sally after all. He assigns Fitz’s Secret Service double agent to pull the trigger from some scaffolding above the debate stage, which would definitely be a sign from God. But wait, because she doesn’t end up confessing and isn’t shot. But wait, the reason she didn’t confess is because she pounced on an opportunity to attack Fitz, which became available because he threw the debate.
In reaction, Liv is equal parts happy and devastated because — like a family member who wanders into the living room and starts asking questions about this show you’re watching called “Scandal” — Liv is starting to glimpse how ridiculous this is, how even when you win you lose. But, like that same family member who’s now sitting on the couch watching with you, Liv also accepts that there’s no escape.
Ambush league
Anyway, Sally and Cyrus are not in the clear since DA David Rosen (Josh Malina) knows what transpired and aims to prosecute. That won’t happen though because, since Jake missed his opportunity to run away, he’s basically evil now, so he sets up a meeting with everyone who’s meddled into the murder — David, Cyrus’s husband James (aka, the leak Publius), the reporter asking questions, and the intern who found the evidence in the first place — and then kills them all. Is this why DC has such a high murder rate?
Okay so we only saw that the women are dead. We still don’t know who the third bullet hit or whether there was a fourth one. And apparently ABC doesn’t know either because before teasing next week’s episode, they asked, in huge-font allcaps, “WHO…GOT…SHOT?” And then America was like, WE…THOUGHT…YOU…KNEW!” And then Sally was all, “PIGGIE…YUM…YUM!”
