I almost feel like the plot of this episode is supposed to be relevant and not relevant. Severiano Canales wrote this week's script, taking some details straight from Michael Brown's shooting and placing it in DC, within sight of the Capitol Dome. There's an eighteen year old black male body in a pool of blood in the street. There's an angry crowd of black faces while white cops worry about an impending riot. There's a neighborhood activist, who invents a catchy chant for the crowd to repeat for hours. There's a white cop, young, with a little over five years on the force, who acts contrite but insists the dead young man pulled a knife on him.
But Ferguson didn't have Olivia Pope. The woman, only back home for two days after fearing for her life, somehow prevents rioting and police provocation of a riot. She somehow convinces the dead young man's father, Clarence Parker, that today doesn't have to end badly. She somehow convinces AG David Rosen to personally intervene. She learns to work with Marcus Walker. Her gladiators help her uncover the sad, banal truth. And she somehow keeps it together when the white cop, who killed a kid reaching for a receipt, unloads on her for seven years of the people he claims to protect not liking him.
This week is more about Olivia trying to bury herself in work to avoid processing her own ordeal, only to find her work only brings the past few weeks back. In the end, Jake is right; she really should be in bed.
Olivia has always created a defense of wealth, power, connections and stellar wardrobe so that strangers, clients and enemies will take her seriously. Marcus Walker, well educated, could have taken his Georgetown education and become a Gladiator. Instead, he stayed in his old neighborhood, podcasting incidents of racial injustice committed against his neighbors. He sneers at upscale, fixer-for-the-powerful Olivia's efforts to work with both the police and Clarence Parker. "Your black card isn't getting validated today," he mutters at her. Officer Jeff (played by Michael Welch of Z Nation) sees her skin color at the end, lumping her in with the poor people of DC, who live in a poverty Jeff sees but gets to escape from at the end of the day. Jeff thinks he's an unrecognized hero just for showing up everyday among people who hate him. Jeff thinks it's earned him a mistake swept under the rug.
The young dead man has a name: Brandon Parker. His father, Clarence, at first wants the cop who killed his son. Olivia won't produce him, and can't produce the Attorney General, so Marcus produces a lawn chair for Clarence to sit Shiva. It's more like seven hours than seven days. Courtney Vance plays Clarence as a lifelong strict father, desperate to raise his son to live to eighteen and graduate from high school. His neighborhood and circumstances are so poor that that's his greatest hope. And even that was a long shot, and impossible now. He's grieving, and fighting a system that wants to turn his son into a criminal even while his body lays in the street.
Olivia and Marcus end up tag-teaming; Olivia works along the periphery, abandoning her DC Police Department client for directly working with Clarence. Olivia tracks down the evidence to piece together what happened, Marcus helps with Clarence and keeps people at the scene so the police can't just make this go away. Are we seeing the beginning of a new Gladiator? Marcus is such an interesting character, I'd hate for him to disappear.
Rosen and Olivia have another argument that ends in the two working together. Between Abby and Olivia, his office has seen so many eruptions of anger and frustration at secrets and injustice that I don't bother counting them anymore. When all else fails, just yell at David so he can get you to sit and tell him what's really bothering you. Chances are, he can even do something about it. Olivia can't help seeing her own desperation and fearful acceptance of death in Clarence Parker's vigil. She knows how defeated he feels right now.
Because every episode has to include Fitz, and let's face it, Mellie, making this about them and their dreams for sixteen years of Grant Presidencies, the show works its way into the White House where Fitz would love to make some sort of statement, even if he has no idea what he'd like to say, about a shooting in what is his neighborhood too. Cy unequivocally nixes that and, instead, opts to see if Governor Rosalyn Mendez of New Mexico, Latina and with her own family history of injustice that police allowed to happen can lead the Republican Party into a new century. When Rosen comes up with a way to remove a vegetable-like Andrew from his office, Cy wants her vetted over Fitz's safer choices.
Fitz, to his credit, wants a VP that will stop trying to steal the office from him. He also wants to keep his promise to Mellie- no VP that will upstage her own efforts at the Presidency in three years. Cy tries to remind Fitz that Mellie's going to have an impossible road to the Oval Office no matter what; so, Fitz eventually allows Cy to start looking seriously at Mendez for VP, despite Mellie's well-deserved fit over a deal she thought they made. But, in the end, he sabotages it himself. Notice, a leak was used. All he did was leak her name as a potential VP. Just like he leaked Olivia's name to Tom the Double Secret Service Agent in order to get the White House to find another, fakier mistress and get Mellie back in the White House. Almost like how Leo leaked Chip's sabotage of Senator Diaper to keep a wife-beater out of the Senate. Leaks are weapons.
Mellie ends up helping Fitz as someone who's job it is to let overly enthusiastic people waylay her can. Good ol' Susan Ross, Senator Diaper's replacement when Chip got blocked from the Senate, is a passionate arguer for good causes. We all know she's a great woman and will be a great, knowledgeable and people-oriented Senator. And Mellie knows that she has no greater ambitions. Fitz is convinced after about ten seconds, that she's perfect for the job of VP that will go away when it's Mellie's turn and never do anything behind anyone's back. She's informed enough to know all about the "Stand Up! Fight Back! No More Black Men Under Attack!" protests despite the media blackout, and empathetic enough to try to imagine the same happening to her own kid. But it's Susan Ross who throws the monkey wrench in their plans. She insists that she's not a VP because it gives her no opportunity to do anything about vaccination booster shots or reforming the tax code. She also insists she can't be VP because she will gush about the possibility of losing her own kid right in front of people who already have. And she's empathetic enough to apologize profusely when she realizes her mistake. But doesn't Fitz see? He doesn't need a VP who gushes about her feelings. Fitz looks like that's exactly what he wants.
Fitz has another chance to appear human tonight. With Jeff Newton being placed in a squad car, and Rosen speaking for the cameras about justice and understanding, Olivia finally can hand Clarence what his son was reaching for: a receipt. Olivia has something else for Clarence: an ending with him leaving peacefully after surrendering his rifle. Clarence has no idea why he's being brought to the White House until Olivia gets him some private hug time with Fitz, also a dad who lost his son on the cusp of adulthood. Clarence can only cry into his arms as Fitz does his best, with few words, to console him.
Olivia rests in her enormous, luxurious bed while Brandon Parker's body is approached respectfully by the FBI, who record every detail of his macabre crime scene, and finally zip the body up in a bright yellow bag. He's gone, but still visible there as the area empties out. As Olivia can finally rest, now so can Brandon. You can't let go of helplessness until you've helped someone else. You don't bury people until they can rest in peace.
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