Scandal recap: 'Trojan Horse'

Mitch Haaseth/ABC

Olivia hasn't been a hero in a while, and with this season of Scandal, it's hard to come back, but it's doing its best, y'all.

Ready to wear the White Hat™ again, Olivia wants to be your star. She wants to put the right man in the White House. But when you have a woman who's ready to wield a putter any which way, the future of the good guys doesn't look so bright. Doesn't make sense? Let's take a walk together…

Is the most unbelievable thing that has happened ultimately that David Rosen was able to break a bed while having sex? I think it is. That's where we pick up after last week's throwback Thursday Scandal — with David Rosen sexing that obnoxious blonde woman on a bed so hard that it broke. Fortunately, that ends when Jake snags David in the kitchen and tells him that he has to leave, or that awful blonde is gonna kill him too.

Back at OPA, Mellie and Olivia are still battling over this whole Cyrus/Mellie controversy, and Mellie isn't having it. When Olivia brings up the White Hat™, Mellie throws down and reminds Olivia that she's killed people and stuff. Girl isn't wrong. But Olivia chimes in and tells Mellie that she is a good person, and she's better than this, which is why she would have been a good president. That's when we launch into motion… past election night and the past eight years and everything in between. If the electors choose Cyrus, he will be president.

Olivia goes to the Oval to tell Fitz what they've decided on, namely, that she's not interested in stealing the Oval twice. Fitz tells her that she deserved the win, but you know what? Maybe she didn't. Strong opinion over here, but guys… Out of jail and weakly bearded, Cyrus wants to see his daughter, but Michael won't allow it. Good thing he has the consolation prize of likely being the next POTUS.

Mellie is ready to take Olivia's advice and call it a day, but Elizabeth North shows up, which has pretty consistently been bad news since Portia de Rossi showed up with her asymmetrical cut for the first time. She tells Mellie that she expected more out of her. So Mellie shows up at Olivia's while the team takes care of Huck (remember when he got shot three times in the chest and driven off a cliff that A LOT OF YOU were passionately confident exists around D.C., and then he swam out of a quarry?) to tell Olivia that maybe they should just let the electoral college decide. It sounds dangerously similar to our current world, but with not quite as much at stake.

So now it's up to Olivia to take her one-time-friend-then-adversary-then-friend-then-adversary and make him presidential against the candidate she once managed… because Olivia wears the White Hat™ now, forever. But Cyrus isn't interested in Olivia's proposition, even when Olivia tries to scare him with wavering electorates.

Anyway, in the White House, apparently FBI Director Angela is on sleepover status with Fitz. She questions our girl, Liv, and why she's helping Cyrus out when she was trying to bury him a couple weeks before. Oh, Angela, if you only knew, girl. Olivia is on the move with Frankie Vargas' widow about to do an interview endorsing Cyrus, but before they can move forward with that, Rowan calls Olivia to his curator office, where he's building a dinosaur skeleton. Does that sound absurd? Sure does, but what's even more ridiculous is that Rowan has mapped out the entire office, including where the surveillance cameras can't reach, so that he can tell Olivia to stop her mission before she ends up dead. But Olivia can't be swayed.

Frankie's widow goes forward with the interview, and Cyrus' numbers shoot up almost immediately (no pun intended). But as the good PR starts looking up for Cyrus, his husband Michael shows up on television to profess that Cyrus didn't kill anyone, but he is an awful man. Olivia calls Mellie to chastise her, but Mellie had nothing to do with it. Neither did Liz North. So… who was it? Olivia thinks it was Rowan, since she ignored his demands to stop her campaign against Mellie.

With enough goading from Olivia, Fitz decides to visit bearded Cyrus at his hotel room. They share some drinks before Fitz jumps into the casual topic of "how was prison?" That's when Cyrus jumps into the stories of being jumped and left for dead in prison. Fitz finally apologizes and says, "Do you remember what I gave you in the hospital? The night of the assassination? America." You know, in the same way that someone might give you a birthday present.

But it's enough of a jumpstart to get Cyrus to shave and give a press conference on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, only to say that he's not worthy of the presidency. He follows that up by saying how much Frankie Vargas was worthy of the presidency, and that through Vargas' spirit, he might be able to be the president America needs. It's the most incredible posturing on the death of a president that I've ever seen. Of course, that leaves Rowan in shambles because… Olivia is good as dead, or maybe he is.

Anyways, Sarah and her terrible, horrible, no good gang of friends are hanging out with Liz North, which explains SO MUCH. They say that they'll use Mellie to get in the White House, but ultimately, they'll be the ones running it. But when Mellie steps up to be a badass and tell this group of scoundrels that she is not afraid of them and will be sure that they are hanged for the murder of Frankie, Sarah picks up a golf putter and beats Elizabeth North's head in. I'M NOT KIDDING, GUYS. Portia de Rossi (and her asymmetrical haircut) are dead. And then they tell Mellie that Sarah will be her chief of staff, and if she doesn't comply, they'll kill her children, which, to be fair… that's not something Mellie isn't used to. She calls Olivia in a total panic and says she doesn't have any way out of this mess because once you kill a president, well, the bar is pretty high to do worse.

Meanwhile, FBI Director Angela decides to follow her faulty gut and have Olivia arrested after finding the money trail set up to make it appear that she funded Vargas' murder. But as we saw on the putting green of Elizabeth North's head, there's bigger fish to fry right now. Jake promises to protect Mellie while Olivia tries to figure out what to do next.

Olivia turns to Fitz for help, but he's pretty concerned that Olivia is about to go to jail. He wants to run the buck on Rowan, but Olivia isn't having it. She's ready to go to jail forever to ruin Mellie, removing her from the White House via "scandal." Fitz says he won't stand for it because he'll lose her. But the problem is that he's already lost her because if the plan doesn't move forward with Olivia in jail, and Rowan takes the fall, then Olivia isn't Fitz's anyway.

As the day arrives for the electorate vote, Fitz does what he wants. He sends that clueless FBI director on assignment to another state. Rowan is arrested for the murder of Vargas (which, you know, is actually kind of legit), Olivia is directly in harm's way, Mellie is practically CHUGGING hooch (how much did her dad even make?), and as the votes roll in… it appears that Mellie Grant and Friends are going to the White House.

But you know what will be awkward? When they show up to the White House to find Rowan there. That's right. Fitz had Rowan arrested and brought to the White House so that they can take down Sarah and team together from the inside. Mellie is mortified by it all, but Olivia and Fitz are pretty jazzed. So jazzed that Olitz is 100 percent back on — kisses, sex, and all.