‘Scandal’ recap: Season 4, Episode 7, ‘Baby Made a Mess’

The President is calling his mistress: Finally, all is well again in the White House. Last week, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) told Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) that their relationship had “hope.” Now he wants to know what that means. She says that first she’ll need him to provide her with a full report on her other lover, Jake (Scott Foley), who is currently in prison for killing Fitz’s son (which of course he didn’t do, but Fitz doesn’t know that yet). Fitz accepts her deal. Man, is he whipped.

Tom tells Olivia as much, among many things we learn from him tonight, the most shocking being that he speaks. After several seasons of strong-and-handsome silence, the big lug gets the Creepy Speech of the Week. Liv pays him a visit, hoping he’ll absolve Jake and tell her who actually ordered him to kill the president’s son. Instead, he says he’s enjoying staring at her beauty; explains that Fitz went to her apartment, after she fled to the island, and cried so hard he invented a new sound; and spills about Fitz’s suicide attempt.

Then he says some stuff about her not actually having a father because Command can’t have a family; nicknames her, and her face that launched 1000 ships, Helen of Troy; and says Helen of Troy didn’t have a father either since he was a God. So it turns out that the guy who’s hardly ever spoken is actually a classicist. Scandal truly is full of surprising twists.

Poop and Associates

Someone at the Capitol tries to pass a piece of crap on camera, and I’m not talking about C-SPAN coverage of a bill vote. A video surfaces of a Virginia Senator, wearing a diaper, while cavorting with a woman, and pausing with a smile to say, whoops, “baby made a mess.” Yes, Shonda Rhimes, I think Washington is childish too. Sadly, Oliva Pope and Associates does not take on his case; we explore his drawers no further.

However, the White House supports this guy named Chip to fill his spot. Chip, as it turns out, is Abby’s (Darby Stanchfield) ex-husband — you know, the one who beat the crap out of her. She saves face in the Oval Office, but then runs to the bathroom to puke. Liv is there for her, with extra dresses and also a plan to keep Chip out of office.She storms into his opponent’s headquarters, takes over the woman’s campaign, waxes her lip and unibrow, and makes an adorable commercial starring her kid.

Meanwhile, Chip threatens Abby, in a terrible southern accent (they had to replace Sally’s character somehow). So she pulls out a gun. But what she won’t do is tell the world about Chip’s abusive past, because she’s afraid it will kill her own career. She lets it slip to Leo, though, who’s running Chip’s campaign (apparently he represents everyone with terrible southern accents) and he leaks information suggesting that Chip was behind the poop-Senator’s scandal in the first place. Then he kisses Abby and jokes about touching her boobs, which was actually pretty cute.

Pope on Pope

“Cute” is not how I would describe the phone sex between Fitz and Liv. I’m blushing. The filthy things this man is willing to say on what could easily be a tapped phone line! Has he learned nothing from Diapergate? The steamy monologue of what he’d do to her, followed, by the way, Liv confronting him about the suicide attempt. I don’t know what turns him on, but then two minutes later, she’s reaching inside her own jacket. I’m surprised she didn’t say, “It’s handled.”

Then Papa Pope (Joe Morton) pays Liv a visit. He’s furious she talked to Tom (enh, really she just listened to him, which bolsters my idea that he’s a PhD) and wants her to stay out of it. Instead, she stands up to him. So he does this terrifying thing: gently putting his hands around her face, like he’s going to kiss her forehead after reading a bedtime story (and the lies he told her about “protecting the republic” pretty much are a bedtime story) and then says “Against me you will lose.”

So she starts thinking like he would. She pays a prison guard to approach Tom, say he has “a message from Command,” and then quote-unquote murder him but without making any fatal wounds. Voila: Tom thinks Papa Pope ordered the hit, and confesses to Liv that her dad is actually the one who had him kill the president’s son. In the final scene, Liv and Fitz wait in the secret Presidential panic-room bunker while Jake is delivered. I don’t think we’ll see a three-way.

What else?

Huck’s kid traces the IP address (a baby Huck, indeed) of the anonymous kid he’s been playing video games with (a.k.a. Huck) and finds him at Olivia Pope and Associates, says he recognizes his picture, and wants to know why he left them. Cyrus pulls a sting on his hooker to test his loyalty, and discovers he’s doublecrossing him. And Quinn and Huck tell Olivia about the envelope full of pictures they found, the one two teenage girls were killed over, and the dad just shot himself in the head over. Something big is coming: Put on your diapers.