Cy flashes back to his previous marriages as the rest of the cast works their way through a quickie White House wedding. Dear ABC production team: you did your best. But, there's just no making Cy look young. Ditto for Fitz. Olivia flashes back to the hallway she tried escaping Ian out of, coupled with images of Fitz (Run! Run away from Fitz! That's what the dreams, mean, Olivia!), while she removes obstacle after obstacle to Cy finally marrying Michael.
Between Michael's constant infidelities and Cy's contempt, the wedding barely happens. And, it's disturbing how quickly Team Wedding can go from moving mountains to make the wedding happen to keeping Cy's reputation intact if it doesn't. It's also disturbing how many disastrous catastrophes Leo can rattle off to Abby when he's only half-awake.
Did the Jonas Brothers die?
The most pivotal scene isn't actually a flashback, and it's not even really a surprise. Team Wedding arranges a swanky dinner for Michael, Cy, and Michael's parents, where Cy plans on publicly dumping him so all of Washington will congratulate Cy and vilify Michael. But, Cy just can't follow through.
By the time it happens, we've seen how Cy's earlier marriages were based on outright lies or half truths. He lied to Janet about loving her and being straight. He honestly loved James but lied about keeping their jobs separate. Each marriage made him feel more and more like a monster, like a power-hungry machine incapable of feeling anything anymore. Nothing affects him now, until he sees Michael's parents berate him into crying over his salad. Michael looks five when he realizes his parents only support his wedding and marriage for the money. Cy spent most of his life hiding his sexuality to avoid the pain of straight people rejecting him. As a Republican, he's probably spent very little time among the gay community, so Michael's almost breakdown at the table is more like a wake-up call. About half of America wants to see this wedding fail. So, he'll make it work, goddammit.
The episode's highlight, besides the flowery White House shindig Mellie throws to boost her political independence from Fitz, is finding out how Sally Langston is faring. Quite well, it turns out. She turned her almost-win for the Presidency into a lucrative TV deal that puts her on primetime TV (what channel? Fox News?). She's not making policy, but she's in everyone's homes nightly. That's probably worse. Sally, who killed her husband for cheating with another man, is dead set against Cy marrying Michael. And she's willing to pay handsomely for anyone who can prove Michael and Cy aren't really in love.
When Team Wedding discovers Michael is a serial cheater, even after signing the marriage contract, it's up to Olivia to shut down the expose that will feature Michael's current lover. And, it's up to Abby to face a hard truth from Leo; he doesn't separate his job from his personal life. If Abby dishes on White House gossip, Leo will use it at work. Especially if it's to help a wildly popular politician who might run for President again. Using Leo as her campaign manager, of course.
Olivia, meanwhile, tries dangling a very prestigious Secretary of State position in front of Sally to get her silence on Michael's affair. Sally sends her off with a lecture about how much more fun and profitable it is to simply inflame the mob. She spent her life courting constituencies; now politicians must court her. Who'd go back to public service? In the end, Michael also provides the means of shutting Sally down; turns out, her dead husband was a client. More than once. Michael turns out to be a liability and an asset. He's unfaithful, but how many other clients of his and their spouses will behave rather than be exposed?
I get more power, and no responsibility!
Cy spends most of the episode ruminating on how he lied to Janet and James because the two of them were useful in his career. It's painful for him; Janet was an escape from possibly getting AIDS by "playing raquetball"; James was his one true love. He couldn't be honest with either, despite the othes' wonderful qualities that attracted him in the first place. Janet's dumping of him, in a gorgeous walk-in closet she's been getting drunk in, is particularly searing. Cy has just gotten Fitz elected Governor of California, and plans on his own Congressional run. He's got the wife. He's just run a successful campaign for someone else. It's his turn, dammit. Only, it's not. It's Janet's. Without a wife, Cy will spend his life getting Fitz to power, so he can be the one who makes Fitz's policies happen.
The flashbacks with James are in their early days, with James rightly worried that his career in journalism will suffer. Cy reassures James on their wedding day, only to go ahead and start using James for Fitz's political gain even before they've left for their honeymoon. And, did he really think James wouldn't find the tie he stuffed in the luggage? We know how the rest goes; James loses respect for Cy as a human being, then gets killed trying to get justice for Sally's murdered husband. Cy loses his shit on national television, to the point that Fitz has to save him. Cy should, really, never, marry anyone else. He knows it. It's hard to blame Michael for acting out. He's got to live with Cy.
Cy just won't put Michael through any worse than he's already been through. He and Michael decide to go through with it, mostly because it's a business arrangement, to preserve Cy's job and Michael's good name. But, it's a secretly honest one. They both know the other's weaknesses. They both know there's no love. But, if they can stick it out for a few years, they'll both be able to put their past mistakes behind them. Cy needs someone to stir some human feelings in him sometimes; Michael needs someone who can teach him it doesn't matter what the world thinks of him. Michael starts the day totally despondent, waiting for the wedding like a kid suffering through detention. It's interesting to see how he becomes like a child when in pain. But, Cy's honesty helps him realize he can go out there, enjoy himself, and make his homophobic parents earn every cent Lizzy Bear is paying them.
Let's shove our gayness down their throats
The wedding gives Mellie a chance to assert her independence from Fitz. She gets to clearly support same-sex marriage; while Fitz and Abby can barely make out what to call his complete apathy for the whole issue. The wedding gives Mellie a chance to delight in doing what only seventeen other First Ladies have done. And it gives her a chance to show Lizzy Bear that she's in charge. Lizzy Bear can't believe that Mellie's flouting the party, and Lizzy's direction. Mellie makes it clear that Lizzy follows. That Mellie makes decisions, and Lizzy makes those decisions work. Will Lizzy stay on the job? She's spent the season as a loyal, committed Republican. Mellie's always been more conservative than Fitz; Lizzy working for her isn't just about having a job; it's about supporting a candidate her party will actually like. Is Lizzy committed enough to the Republican Party to keep working for someone who so clearly hates her? It's almost like watching Cy berate Michael, and seeing how humiliated Cy makes him feel. How much of it will Lizzy take?
Olivia has her own demons to defeat in this episode. She's plagued by dreams that alternate between Fitz's Un-Greatest Hits and running to that Red Door of Fake Freedom. Is her subconscious telling her that running away from Fitz is about as realistic as those Red Doors that led to more captivity? Or is her subconscious just telling her to grab a gun and run like crazy from Fitz? Does she dream of Fitz's ring, a gift to her on Cy's wedding day, because Fitz gave her Doux Bebe to remind her that she can never really get away from him?
Come on, it's Fitz. Of course he did.
He tells her the ring will always be a symbol that she's okay, Fitz doesn't need to worry about her. So, when he catches her not wearing it before the wedding, it disturbs him. Has she dumped even the sign between them that she's still the Olivia he fell in love with? Is she no longer in love with him? Olivia wearing the ring again, while standing in the sun at Cy and Michael's wedding, reassures him. And, knowing Fitz's arrogance, it will, no doubt, convince him to make another play for his Vermont fantasy.
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