And, finally, someone mentions the havoc Fitz has wrecked on what is probably a small, African nation. US military personnel and people of West Angola will have to live permanently (or not at all) with the consequences of Fitz's obsession with Olivia. Olivia takes Fitz to a woodshed over it, and it validates how much I love Olivia. No wonder Abby moved heaven and earth to get Stephen on the case. We really can't do without Olivia.
Even coffee sucks when Olivia isn't around
Which has been the point of the last few episodes. Without Olivia, Fitz and Cy don't know how to keep Andrew from any more levers of power. In fact, they seem to not care in their quest to save or "neutralize" Olivia. Huck hangs on to the cliff of his human decency by digging his fingernails in. Abby flails around, looking for sympathy until she realizes the phone is mightier than the drone.
Oh, and Olivia can speak Farsi. Which totally comes in handy for foiling prisoner handovers. If your kidnappers don't speak Farsi, then you can totally spark a stand off based on each other's fears about the other, resulting in your kidnappers bundling you back in the car and taking you back to some anonymous living room for another auction.
Jake and Quinn have to move around the screen and talk about Huck's inner monster. Otherwise, they don't have much to do this week. It's really Abby, Huck, and Cy who do this week's heavy lifting. And we can now give the CIA Director a name, Ms. Lowry. Tina Lifford plays the role as a no-nonsense, all-business professional. It's not personal with Lowry. It never is. People aren't people, they're assets. They're a collection of security clearances and classified information. Assets are risks. And risks must be controlled or eliminated at all costs. It's an interesting attitude to have on the show, which is all about what characters are willing to risk, personally, for the power to make the world a better place. Lowry plays no games, making an alliance with Cy and fuming when he calls everything off at the last minute, when she's basically thwarted by a Press Secretary.
Mellie shows that she's a winner, and Lizzy Bear just buckles when Mellie gives her a job to do. Lizzy has no leverage over Andrew, and no spy. The Queen of Machinations is reduced to a quivering beggar in Gladiator HQ, and then a caller of 911. She's not really willing to do whatever it takes to win; I personally expect to be out of the game after this.
Mellie hands off the assignment of getting Andrew out of power somehow, any how, and Lizzy Bear refuses it from the start. This woman started out the season so sure she could find people's weaknesses and exploit them. Now, she just wants to go home. Mellie sells it as the chance to get revenge on the guy who got her stranded up shit creek. All Lizzy can think of is to go and beg Huck to do whatever it is he's just pledged to Jake and Quinn he won't do. I don't know whether to gloat at such an awful character being so humbled or just be embarrassed that she turned out to not be a competent villain at all.
In the end, Huck decides that Lizzy Bear is right and some drastic measures involving shrink wrap and some sort of injection, are called for. Or, at least, satisfying. Andrew is naked, just like Huck likes his victims, tied up in shrink wrap, presumably because it won't leave marks (will file that away, just in case), and gives him an injection that no one will question later. Lizzy Bear is instructed to call 911 for Huck, who insists that he's not killing Andrew. But strokes that turn someone into a useless vegetable are perfectly okay. And perfect for Andrew, who is perfectly able to comprehend Mellie's quiet insults at his hospital bed.
I love it when Mellie shows up for sympathy visits. Her last one was to VP Sally after Cy cleaned up her murder, to remind her that the White House expected loyalty in exchange for Sally's unique immunity. Now, Mellie is at Andrew's side to look pre-Presidential and remind Andrew that his slut-shaming is so 20th century. She talked her daughter Karen through it earlier in the season, but it looks like she's stopped accepting it, one dirty deal at a time.
Jake, despite the episode not wanting him to do anything, can't help giving him a little lecture to Huck, who's just freaked out Quinn with his dead-Olivia spiel, and continues to sink into hopelessness. Jake is fantastic at describing the emotion-less life necessary in his line of work, and he lays it out for Huck. They have bad little boys inside of them. These boys love the blood, the crisp sound of bones snapping apart, the tears of the victims. But they can only come out when there's a naked body on plastic sheeting on the floor. Otherwise, those boys stay locked in the broom closet. Because these boys feel no loyalty to the good boys Olivia has found. The bad boys will happily turn on the good boys, taking over their bodies and destroying the whole package. So the bad boys stay locked up. If violence must be done, it must be done without feeling, like Jake's abduction of Charlie earlier in the season. Just a job to yield results.
Quinn will outright make Huck promise not to kill people willy-nilly if they can't get Olivia back. Her take is that while Huck depends on Olivia to keep him sane, Quinn relies on Huck. Which is probably a terrible choice, but there it is. Quinn looks up to Huck. She needs him to keep it together, or her memory of Huck licking her before yanking teeth out will take over.
Cy fumes in his mind at Fitz's insistence that his Vermont dream with Olivia is more important than keeping our allies from knowing how awful we've been to everybody, including our allies. Lowry is just horrified at how un-Presidential Fitz really is.
So, America goes down in flames for your mistress?
Cy toys with the idea of quitting. He fantasizes about it, really. He fantasizes about how red his face will get, how much he'll wave his hands around and moan about how many years he's dedicated to making Fitz the most powerful man in the world all so Fitz can throw away his own legacy, and possibly America's too, for Olivia's future marriage to Fitz. In the end, he blows some smoke up Fitz's ass while conspiring with Lowry, even making sure Abby won't be able to stop him from killing Olivia by tattling to Fitz.
All Fitz cares about is Olivia. And all I care about is Fitz. So, you're SOL, Red
Jake briefly toys with the idea that Mama Pope can find a way to help Olivia. All she can do is send Jake to Papa Pope, who's enjoying retirement in Canada. And, boy is he enjoying the fishing. Olivia's problems will have to solve themselves; those fish are devilishly clever, and Rowan is enjoying pitting his wits against them. They're the only real competition he's ever had. People are stupid and so predictable, Rowan doesn't even bother actually predicting their moves anymore. He just anticipates automatically when he's dealing with people. Fish, on the other hand. seem to bite or not with no rhyme or reason. Rowan will never figure them out, which means he must just simply deal with them, and lay off analyzing them, which makes them easier to stand. People are no longer worth his time.
And Abby gets treated like shit for most of the episode. There is a moment, briefly, when Abby has information for the Gladiators, namely that Cy will kill Olivia before anyone else gets to use her against Fitz. The Gladiators all let her sit at the table, commiserating and telling them that it's time to do whatever the show's writers can plausibly have them do to save Olivia after all. In the end, the show's writers decide that Abby can get Rosen to find Olivia's old employee, Stephen Finch, through Interpol.
Stephen Finch left Olivia to marry his sweetheart, Georgia, and live a normal life. So, when he shows up as the buyer, with his own gun-toting henchmen, and confirms that they're really his gun-toting henchmen, one wonders what, exactly, he considers a normal life.
Basically, any job that makes me the plot twist hero
They have a touching good-bye later, a former Gladiator still grateful to Olivia, able to get away from Washington D.C., and it's circle of genuine evil and do so well he's sending Olivia away in his own helicopter. Stephen is just glad he got to save Olivia, that she got to be the one rescued for a change. As they say good-bye, Abby reveals to Cy how she made the impossible happen, despite Cy's asshole attempts to keep Abby from knowing anything in the first place.
When Abby explains to Cy, it lacks the bitchy payback tone she used when she tipped Cy off about Michael. Now, she just calmly explains that she knew how to find someone who could help Olivia. Does Cy finally realize that Abby's more than some pretty red hair? Probably not. He only loves Fitz, as James found out three seasons ago.
Stephen isn't the only Gladiator glad to see Olivia. Huck has already installed three new deadbolts. Quinn cleaned up the apartment, but surrendered in defeat to the telltale red wine stain. Jake quietly stands ready for whatever Olivia needs. Which is quiet. Olivia really hasn't been alone in days. Surrounded by guys who only kept her alive as long as they thought they would get paid, Olivia just can't deal with people now. Except Huck, when he hugs her. His Jiminy Cricket, his savior, his lifeline, is back and safe. And it was former Gladiators who made it happen. It's a victory for the Olivia Pope family, and we've never been reminded how strong that family is than in the last few scenes. Huck is like a little boy who has to hug his mom.
It's okay, baby. Mama's here.
It's right after her Gladiators give her the solitude she asked for that Fitz ruins it. As he ruins just about everything. It's awkward between them until Olivia has her shitfit over the wreck Fitz made of another country so he could have her one day. Fitz is stunned. He must have thought that his sacrifice of other people's lives would impress her, or that she would at least sympathize with the hard position he'd been in. But there's no sympathy. Olivia's angry that she did terrible and incredible things to put Fitz in a position to be the best President ever. She believed he had the potential to be great. That's why she rigged an election. That's why she helped Hollis get away with it. That's why she helped keep Rosen from exposing Defiance. That's why she toiled for Fitz's re-election. It's why she tried to leave Fitz, repeatedly. Over and over again, Olivia has realized that Fitz can't be the President and her lover. And now, he's shown that he'll make the worst possible decisions for her. He'll bomb small, probably poor countries and get US service members killed so he can marry her one day.
Why can't you just love how awful I am?
Olivia couldn't be with a man whose wife needed him to recover from a past sexual assault. And she can't be with a man who abandoned his most important Presidential duties for future booty time. She throws Vermont out the window. She shows Fitz the door. And she relocks every deadbolt. Has she finally gotten that man out of her life? Will Fitz ever just get over her and move on to the amazing life that he gets to lead, and stop whining because he doesn't get this one thing? What am I saying? The show is based on the dance these two do, circling each other to see how much damage they're willing to do to their lives and characters to be together. Fitz proved that he's willing to throw other people's lives away. Olivia's shown that she will, periodically hurt Jake's feelings. Olivia, as usual, has halted their love over how bad they ultimately are for each other. But Fitz's entire excuse for being is that he worked so hard to be President, and now it's not enough if he can't have Olivia. Don't expect him to concentrate on his job any time soon.
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