'Scandal' recap: Wedding bells and torture hell

Warning: This recap for the “Vampires and Bloodsuckers” episode of Scandal contains spoilers.

Here comes the bride… and there goes the bride.

It’s Quinn’s wedding day, but all is not roses, sunshine, and lace veils in Scandal world. Instead, the bride is fuming mad because she figures out that Olivia was behind the plane explosion that killed President Rashad and his niece, Yasmin. And when it’s time for Quinn to walk down the aisle, she’s nowhere to be found. Did she get cold feet? Has she gone into hiding to build a case against Olivia? Did Cyrus’ new boyfriend kidnap her? Will she wake up in a hotel room somewhere with a new identity again?

Where in the world is Quinn Perkins?

Here’s a rundown of this week’s episode, including our live tweets:

A somber Olivia interrupts Mellie’s daydreaming on the balcony to deliver the bad news: The plane carrying President Rashad and niece Yasmin exploded. Everyone on board is dead. Mellie can barely keep it together, but has to stay strong to work out the various ceremonial details of sending their bodies back home. A flashback reveals what really happened: Olivia and Jake were behind the plane explosion! If Mellie ever finds out, she is going to be livid at Liv.

Meanwhile, Cyrus’ morning starts off on a much lighter note. He and Fenton spent the night together, and Fenton cooked him breakfast wearing a six-pack ab apron. Heart eye smiley face.

But Cyrus gets a call about the Rashad incident and has to rush off. When Fenton asks him what’s going on, Cyrus can’t tell him because of security clearance. When Fenton presses him again, the veep jokes about a secret crypt underneath the White House containing vampires that were once former presidents.

Olivia goes to meet with Quinn at a war memorial the night before her wedding. She’s got a “something borrowed” (from the freakin’ Smithsonian, btw) for the ceremony — a pin owned by Bess Truman. But Quinn doesn’t give a flying fig. She knows Olivia set up the plane bombing and has an eyewitness.

Liv denies it at first, and coldly refuses to engage in a discussion about it. After all, Olivia Pope knows best — like that time she gave Quinn a new identity (pilot shoutout!). That turned out OK, right?

“You gave me a life that suited you,” Quinn replies. “What if what suited was my death?”

Good question.

The wedding day dawns. Jake assures Olivia they made the right decision to side with the rebels; it will promote peace in the long run. At the QPA offices, where the wedding is being held, Abby is just leaving to get Quinn when David arrives. She warns him not to get mushy and try to hold her hand again. Girl is brutal about shutting. It. Down.

At the Oval Office, Mellie meets with the Bashran ambassador, now answering to the rebels who overthrew Rashad. So, she’s not feeling kindly toward him. He delivers a message: the new regime will sign Mellie’s nuclear treaty if she recognizes them as a legitimate government.

Hell no! Mellie stares him down and promises to rain down bombs on Bashran to make them pay for her boyfriend’s fellow president’s death.

At the office, Charlie and Huck are getting ready for the ceremony. Charlie gives Huck a best man gift of cufflinks, and it is adorable, you guys.

But then Abby bursts in. Quinn is missing, and she left her wedding ring behind. Runaway bride!

Charlie won’t believe it. Quinn was so excited to get married that she spent hours and hours writing her wedding vows. Well, after some digging by Huck, they realize that she wasn’t writing vows — she was gathering intel on the plane bombing. She has a folder full of pictures on her laptop.

Olivia’s eyes say “panic!” while the rest of her face says “Oh no, I’m so worried about Quinn.” She works with the rest of the gladiators on tracking down Quinn, whom they now think has been taken captive. On the side, she orders Jake to find Quinn.

Charlie is stressed and worried. Poor guy was really looking forward to his wedding day, and even spent a good amount of time on his vows — you know, reminiscing about the first gun he bought for Quinn, etc. They might both be weirdos, but they’re weirdos together.

Curtis Pryce shows up at the office, but not to talk to Liv. Turns out that Quinn left him a message about knowing the real assassin’s identity. Now, Olivia really spirals into panic mode. So, she and Jake strategize how to throw everyone off her scent. They discover that Quinn’s eyewitness was Sgt. Ladd, who was on the tarmac during the explosion. Ladd used to work for one Fenton Glackland, Cyrus’s boyfriend!

Jake points out that Fenton did attend Rashad’s state dinner (assassination attempt No. 1) and probably has financial assets in Bashran. Liv feels a momentary hesitation at throwing Fenton under the bus, but like we said, it’s momentary.

When informed about this development, Cyrus basically laughs. Fenton isn’t an evil mastermind; he’s a guy who eats pudding for dinner. But then he remembers their security clearance conversation. Maybe Fenton is behind this after all.

Charlie learns about it and goes nuts. He takes Fenton hostage and starts torturing him by hitting him with a bag of oranges. It’s horrible, but then again, this kind of thing is exactly what brought him and Quinn together in the first place.

Mellie calls Jake for a meeting on the balcony. She hints that she knows about his “extracurricular” activities and asks if she can order him to take out the rebel leaders in Bashran. Jake says he would, if so ordered… except Mellie can’t order him in this case. When he’s in B613 mode, he has only one boss — and her name is Olivia Pope.

Mellie needs a dose of conscience, which means calling up Marcus. He meets with her in a limo and tells her in no uncertain terms that she should recognize the new regime and pass the treaty. It will save millions of lives.

“Why can’t people just do the right thing? Is it that hard?” he wonders. Mellie recognizes the truth in what he says. Later, she meets with the ambassador again to tell him she’ll accept the new leadership. But she won’t negotiate further on the treaty; they have to sign the deal as is.

The gladiators have figured out that Quinn called Curtis right after meeting with the culprit, so they track down footage of the war memorial. But it blacks out, because Olivia ordered Jake to get rid of it. She quietly breathes a huge sigh of relief at not being outed. The footage does serve one purpose, though — Cyrus knows the culprit can’t be Fenton, because he was with Fenton the entire night.

After realizing that Charlie is missing, Huck rushes into his torture/interrogation of Fenton and stops it. Fenton didn’t take Quinn! Cyrus takes him home to nurse his wounds, and a pained Fenton jokes that he should’ve heeded the warning about the vampires.

That doesn’t soothe Charlie, much. He starts smashing all of the wedding paraphernalia as the others watch sadly. Huck brings him some whiskey, like a good best man should. But they both feel helpless. Meanwhile, Abby cries as she packs up the wedding stuff, and David comforts her. Despite what she said earlier, she takes his hand and then kisses him. It was inevitable, Red!

As for Olivia, she takes a long, cold hard look at herself in the bathroom. Who has she become?

The next day, she heads into the B613 office, where Jake reports a new development. He scoured footage of the QPA office and discovered it had been taped over. He and his minions recovered a frame depicting Quinn in the elevator.

She didn’t flake out on her wedding. She isn’t out there working against Olivia.

“Who took her?”

Somebody check that crypt.

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.

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