Scandal Season 5 Episode 2 recap
I’m not going to complain if every episode of Scandal opens with Sally’s show, and neither are you. Because her outrage at the day-to-day workings of the White House and the despicable characters in it are, as you and I both know, way way way more interesting than whatever case of the week is going on, or the depths of b613, long may it rest.
One of the greatest things about this episode was the exploration of who does and who does not get to be flawed. The President tells VP Susan that he fell in love, he’s sorry, and she just goes ‘you don’t get to’. Olivia, by contrast, has always tried to be so upstanding and not participate in these things and be above it all, even while she’s actively entrenched with the president, and so the end of the episode, where she finally gets tired of running and lying and hiding and says, simply, ‘yes’ – that’s something I can get behind.
And it gives us something new for this show, when Olivia and Fitz have to yet again be torn asunder so we have something to pine for for 20 more episodes. Now she’s going to be the one, not who wants him exactly, not who pines, but who no longer puts herself under the radar. Who no longer allows herself to feel ‘the shame pressing on me’, which is an early great line of the season. I really like this development. After all this time, even Olivia Pope has run out of f*cks to give.
The only problem with a big opening statement like this is that now we have to wait, because the story can’t play out all at once. So we have b and c plots with the other OPA players, and they’re just not the same. My husband was doing that thing where he was watching the show by being in the room but not really watching, and kept going, “Have I missed Malina’s four lines yet?” Yes, David Rosen is underused, and maybe elevating Abby to a White House bigwig and or mouthpiece for Cyrano de Cyrus will help that, but come on. That plot was her standing in front of the press corps four different times going ‘gee, I don’t know’. It’s not super compelling. I think the actress may in fact be compelling, but they’ve got to do something else with Abby, and ‘let’s be equals, Liz De Rossi’ isn’t ringing my bell just yet. However, if they’re going to engineer her closer to Mellie Grant, and have to talk her out of saying poison-pen things about Olivia because it’s unbecoming for a senator, well, that I can get behind.
But I cannot get behind the Huck and Quinn broken twosome anymore. She actually did some not-bad work screaming at him because she actually hates herself, but this is not sustainable. JUMP AHEAD PLEASE. Get to the point where they figure out how to fix themselves or run a therapy group or start molding his son into an adorable assassin because the moping and the angst is no longer working out.
How about that case of the week, huh? Super memorable, wasn’t it? No, not at all, except that guy was from Silicon Valley, so that was fun. Anyway, next week. Which screamed-and-hissed words for whore do you think we’ll hear? I’m hoping for ‘trollop’ but ‘strumpet’ might be more Sally’s style.
