SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
This episode was exciting, it was intriguing and it was captivating. And it looked like Olivia was finally being taken to task for all of the terrible, despicable things she had done thus far. I was having so much fun watching it. Then the whole experience was ruined by the very last scene.
I thought that it was plausible that it could have been Olivia who had had Rashad and Yasmin killed, but I didn’t think that it was likely. Like I said in the last recap, the rebels had motive and had proven that they had access to the man. The one time this entire season I had given her the benefit of the doubt, Olivia proved me wrong. It was her. And she did it as part of a deal with the rebels to get them to agree to the nuclear treaty.
Hadn’t Olivia and Jake, in the last episode, come up with a way to get rid of the rebels in order to minimise (or completely eliminate) the loss of life of American soldiers in a war with them? Or did I misunderstand their conversation? Because if they had, there would have been no reason for them to have made that deal with the rebels in the first place. I had assumed that had it been Olivia who killed Rashad and Yasmin, it would have been to get her way; i.e. that there would be no war with the Bashrani rebels to begin with.
Mellie came so darn close to ruining that plan though, which was the only positive thing about her little tantrum with the Bashrani diplomat. Honestly, the way that her feelings for Rashad were clouding her judgement were so annoying. Understandable, but annoying. It was reasonable that she would have lost herself in her grief over Rashad and want revenge, but it felt wrong that Shonda Rhimes, of all people, would do one of her strong female characters such a disservice. She even went back on her denouncement of B6-13 yet again by asking Jake to take care of the rebels,
So I’m glad that Marcus didn’t entertain her lust for revenge, talked some sense into her and was able to change her mind. It was surprising that the rebels wanted so little; that they would honour the treaty if the neighbouring nation did and to be officially recognised as the legitimate leaders of the country. They weren’t bad terms. Agreeing to them would mean that there would be no social progress for Bashran, however, but at least there would be peace.
I wasn’t surprised that Quinn knew that it had been Olivia who had Rashad and Yasmin killed. I was so happy that she lost her illusions of Olivia still wearing the white hat and stopped hero worshiping her the way that she did. With that gone, Quinn was the only person remaining who dared to challenge and disagree with Olivia. It was beautiful. I didn’t think for a second that Olivia’s threat would silence her. In fact, I thought that it would only embolden her to bring Olivia to justice even further. Like did Olivia even know who she was dealing with? This is Quinn!
So I was exhilarated when it looked like she had planned everything down to the very last detail to make Olivia sweat, trip her up and expose what she had done. That she knew Olivia so very, very well that she knew exactly what she would do, how she would react and how she would feel. It seemed like Quinn had planned everything out even before she went to meet with Olivia. I was one-hundred percent expecting Quinn to suddenly show up and drop the truth bomb on everyone.
But she didn’t do any of that. She really had been taken. That revelation took all of the wind out of my sails and left me disappointed. It ruined the entire episode for me. It was no longer a carefully laid trap for Olivia. Plus, it made the fact that she tried to frame Fenton even worse. She was trying to scapegoat the man because she thought that Quinn was coming after her, when she wasn’t. I really thought that there was still someone out there who would stand up to Olivia and that wasn’t the case at all.
Random thoughts:
- Fenton acting like a love struck school girl is adorable.
- Rolling my eyes at Olivia pretending to be upset about Rashad’s death.
- Giving Quinn a new life is not the same as ending someone else’s.
- Lol. Huck is Best Man and Maid of Honour.
- I’ve been calling Curtis by the wrong name this entire time.
Scandal airs Thursdays at 9 PM on ABC.
