Scandal Recap: Quinn, Lose or Draw
Olivia’s father was like a dog with a bone on Thursday’s Scandal fall finale — or, rather, a dog without a bone.
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Within the first 15 minutes of the episode, it was revealed — over yet another tense father-daughter dinner — that Rowan kidnapped Quinn in the hopes of swapping her for his stupid dinosaur skeleton. He even repeated his iconic/ludicrous “I want my bones!” line to Olivia, albeit with slightly less energy this time. They were in a restaurant, after all.
Despite assuring her he’s “not bluffing,” Olivia put her daddy in his damn place. “I’m in charge here,” she informed him, before storming out of the restaurant in a dramatic huff. “You don’t make decisions. You don’t think, you don’t make moves.” (Side note: Do you think the employees at this restaurant see Olivia and Rowan walk in and are just like, “Oh my God, these two again.”)
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Jake attempted to diffuse the situation by offering Rowan a friendly warning (“You don’t know what she’s capable of, not anymore”), but neither he nor his daughter showed any signs of budging. In fact, Olivia escalated the situation by going to the only person in the entire Scandal-verse who still scares the crap out of me: Mama Pope.
After exchanging idle chit-chat about Maya’s sweet new apartment (with free cable!), Olivia brought her mother up to speed on the Quinn-Rowan situation — at which point Maya proceeded to laugh in her damn face. (You’ve got to admit, it’s a ludicrous scenario, even for the Pope family.) She then offered Olivia this bit of accurate-yet-unhelpful advice: “All your problems go away if this bitch dies. You let the clock run out, and you do nothing.”
Meanwhile, Curtis went “missing” after a meeting with one of Olivia’s staffers. “A tragedy all around,” Olivia noted over a glass of wine with Jake. She also whined about the never-ending game she’s playing with her father, to which Jake replied that the only way out is to kill him. “I’m sorry, Olivia, but you can’t have it all. Come out of the shadows. Make your choice: Are you Command or not?” And her choice… was to kick him out of her damn apartment. (In other news, I’ve completely lost count of the number of times we’ve seen this exact scene play out over the past seven seasons.)
As if all of the above wasn’t stressful enough, Olivia had to make all the arrangements for Mellie’s speech about peace… I want to say in the Middle East, but honestly, there was just so much going on this week. The president also pushed Olivia to make an unknowingly dramatic promise that “nothing, no one, no man is standing in our way.”
With the clock finally running out, Olivia made her way to Papa Pope’s cozy little house for another father-daughter chat. Typical stuff — he pulled out a gun, she dared him to kill her, etc. She then whipped out her phone and put a kill order on her father, which he did not appreciate. He also didn’t appreciate her speech about how he completely ruined her life. “The apple doesn’t fall from the tree, poison at it may be,” she said. “I am just as you made me.” (And what was that about “soft chewy centers”?)
The episode ended with Rowan leaving the screen, followed by the sound of two gunshots and a woman’s (Quinn?!) muffled scream. He then sauntered back into the room, asking his daughter, “Do you want to see the body?”
Also worth discussing…
* Olivia wins the award for this week’s most ridiculous ultimatum: “You can either be my mother or a bitch. What’s it gonna be?”
* And Abby wins the award for this week’s grosses pick-up line: “I just spent the last three days with missing persons. I need a present person.” (That said, I’m glad she and David are finally figuring things out.)
* How hard did you laugh when Olivia told her mother, “He took Quinn,” and she immediately responded, “Who?”
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