'Scandal' Winter Finale Tweet-cap: Happy New Year!

Warning: This recap for the “Rasputin” episode of Scandal contains spoilers.

Scandal promised a lot of twists, turns, and trouble in its winter finale — and it did not disappoint.

As the finale ends, nearly every character is in a completely different place than they were in the beginning. It’s like a Scandal reboot!

The episode starts off some time after last week, with Fitz and Olivia still blissfully in love. But the cracks are starting to show. Liv is picking out china patterns and reviewing seating charts; these are not gladiator-level tasks.

By the end, she realizes… and he realizes… and we all realize that this dream was just that: a dream. A beautiful dream, but everyone had to wake up at some point. And so we head into the new year with Olivia and Fitz split up, seemingly for good this time, and wide-open paths for every major character.

Just goes to show, you never know what you’re going to get from Shonda Klaus.

Here’s a rundown of the winter finale, including our live tweets:

Happy Golden Days of Yore

At first, all seems well at the White House. Fitz looks happy, Olivia looks happy, Abby looks happy, even Cyrus looks… well, as happy as Cyrus can get.

The country is apparently warming up to Olivia, and Fitz’s poll numbers are rising. But this is not Olivia Pope. This is a facsimile of Olivia Pope, one who mingles with senators’ wives and talks about cookie recipes and leads children on tours.

This is not the gladiator we all know and love.

A big spending bill is coming up for a Senate vote, one that Fitz really wants to go through. But Mellie gets other ideas when she learns that Planned Parenthood has been filed under discretionary funding, which means it could lose money at any time. And there’s no way she can vote for it. The Senate Majority Leader Jerk dismisses her concerns and says they’ll pass the bill without her.

Mellie is not about to stand for that, so she decides to filibuster! That means she has to keep talking, with no bathroom or food breaks for 16 hours. Fitz and Cyrus don’t think she can do it, but we know she can. #MellieForPresident!

Meanwhile, at OPA, Marcus is trying to introduce some holiday cheer in the office (ha!). But Liv’s housewifing, Huck’s been missing for awhile, and Quinn is… well, Quinn.

Speaking of Huck, he’s still holed up in that random warehouse with a captive Rowan. At least Huck is feeding him some terrible fast food with even more terrible names (the “Underground Railroad,” really?).

Rowan questions why Huck hasn’t killed him yet, and theorizes that Huck is acting under someone else’s orders to keep him alive.

Lastly, we’ve got Jake, still skulking about in the shadows, this time watching Tom. He follows Tom to a meeting with that guy Russell, who dated Olivia and tried to kill Jake. Seems Russell is the mastermind behind this whole Lazarus scheme. He also wants Rowan dead, and threatens Tom to find out where Papa Pope is… or else.

Faithful Friends Who Are Dear to Us

Fitz and Cyrus are discussing Mellie’s filibustering, when Abby suggests they bring in Olivia to fix the situation. “She’s busy,” Fitz says, waving his hand. Um, doing what — folding napkins into origami shapes?

Back at the warehouse, Rowan is still going at Huck, now taunting him about how they are both parents. See, he thinks Olivia has asked Huck to keep him safe. But Rowan goes too far when he brings up Huck’s son, Javi. Now, Huck really is tempted to kill him.

Mellie is doing her best to filibuster, but she’s losing steam. She manages to grab a power bar to eat (within the rules), but she’ll have to go to the bathroom soon. There is a loophole, though, that would allow her to take a break, but it requires a friendly senator to step in with a very long question.

Meanwhile, Susan Ross is still crushing on David Rosen pretty hard. And she only falls harder when he off-handedly presents her with a bracelet — that he first tried to give to Lizzy after one of their trysts. Being a cold witch, Lizzy laughed the whole thing off.

Liv is trying to help Mellie with her filibuster, but gets shot down by that Senior Woman Senator. Hmm, who else could step in to save the day?

Why, there is a somebod … happens to be president of the Senate… in a very good mood because she just got a pretty bracelet from her crush …

Susan asks a very long question about gonorrhea (LOL), while Mellie dashes to the bathroom. Of course, Olivia is there, waiting for her, and the two frenemies have a nice chat. Mellie thanks her, and they kinda-sorta bond over Liv’s new First Lady-ish duties. Is it us or does Liv seem almost jealous of Mellie’s moment in the filibuster sun?

In any case, Susan’s diversion works, and Mellie completes her filibuster. But when we flash over to the White House, where Fitz is waiting for Olivia for an important holiday dinner, she’s nowhere to be found. Where’s Olivia Pope?

Let’s go over to Jake, who’s found Russell. It seems that Russell and cohorts are planning to bring back B-613 from the dead (thus, Lazarus), but not the organization that Rowan corrupted. No, they want B-613 to be what it was originally meant to be, and they want Jake to be a part of it. No thanks — Jake shoots Russell in the head!

So, wait, where is Olivia? She’s at the doctor — getting an abortion. Did your jaws drop to the floor like ours did?

If the Fates Allow

After the procedure, she returns “home,” where Fitz is waiting for an explanation and apology. Instead, Olivia rifles through their closet until she finds some of Mellie’s leftover moonshine and starts downing it (definitely not expecting anymore). He yells at her for not being there, and she admits, “I didn’t want to be there.” No, Olivia Pope did not want to be chatting up housewives in the corner while Fitz talked to VIPs. She IS a VIP.

They start arguing — about her father, about her move into the White House, about Fitz’s expectation of her. She asks him if he wants her to “be your housewife? Your girlfriend? Your property?”

Whoa. Chug.

They see what’s happening: This dream they had, this fantasy of their life together, could never be a reality. Olivia liked Fitz when he was unavailable. She liked that Mellie had to deal with the wife-y stuff.

Fitz realizes that just as he dragged Mellie down, he was about to do the same with Olivia. And with that, the dream is over. They have to face the cold and harsh light of day. And the soaring and heart-tugging strains of “Ave Maria” start up.

The last few minutes of the episode show us where everyone ends up. Lizzy sees the braclet on Susan’s wrist and has a moment of what might be regret. Marcus does his Marcus thing, we guess.

Quinn goes home alone to cry, but Charlie shows up, being all Charlie-like, and she kisses him. Huck releases Rowan and actually smiles. Jake goes to confront Rowan — and ends up going into his house.

And Olivia? She gets a new couch. Then she sets out a big bowl of popcorn, pours herself a big glass of wine, and sits on that new couch.

We all have to muddle through somehow.

Scandal returns Thursday, Feb. 11 at 9 p.m. on ABC.