Scandal Season 3 Episode 12 recap
I mean, I know what I think – or who I think, and it makes me sad. But something is happening to all these people, so that’s good, at least. It’s not that it’s been slow, exactly, just that the same patterns have been happening over and over again. With the James. And the Quinn (ugh – we’ll come back to this). And the Olivia. Last night may have been ridiculous, but at least the show has gone all the way batsh*t, now and forever. If you weren’t sure, then you and everyone else pinpointed it at the moment “Yum yum, crispy piggy, yum yum!” became part of our pop culture lexicon.
Still, it felt like a lot of release. The weird-but-good scene where Olivia starts laughing hysterically because everyone running for President is a murderer – well, these are the ways we keep from rolling our eyes at this ridiculousness and moving on. We can overlook a lot, including Olivia’s strategically holding her giant bag in front of her at the debate, if we know that these characters are, on some level, aware of how crazy their lives are.
I said last week that these people were on the wrong side of history, and there seems to be more evidence to support that. We’re spending more and more time inside B6-13, more time with Cyrus, more time with Sally and her support team. More and more time spent with the dark side. Away from the white hats.
On that note, though, does Shonda Rhimes have an eye, or what?
I mean, think about it. Kate Burton and Jeff Perry held reasonably small roles on Grey’s Anatomy. It was someone else’s show. They did what they had to do. But then, in the weird Shondaland brain, she decides that really, what lives inside the two of them are a sociopathic political genius who never heard of a scruple and a demented religious freak with delusions of cheery conversations with The Lord.
An eye, and an imagination. Because then we’re back to Crispy piggy and you don’t write that line and edit it into your show that way and then pretend that you are anything other than a completely over-the-top hysterical thrill ride. So I wonder whether some of the casualties of the show are people who are too normal. Too regular. Everyone on this show is pretty damaged, but it’s a matter of degrees, right? Harrison didn’t even make it onscreen, probably because he’s less likely to have a Jesus-fueled psychotic break moments before making a bid for the presidency.
But the people who would order the former Vice President assassinated onstage? Those people are where we live. Those people are the ones who start as normal nice guys and can go ahead and try to be someone’s fake boyfriend, but who wind up as Command. (The eagerness with which he said “I’ve done evil things too” before she could even get hers out of her mouth!)
It’s nice, I guess, to hear Olivia say “there’s no Vermont”. There’s no happily ever after for any of these people. There’s only creativity in the sadly ever after, which is infinitely more interesting.
Also interesting – what Cyrus will do if his husband is killed (he’s not, I bet); what Abby will do if her love is killed (much more likely); what Olivia will do if her best efforts to save all the saveables around her fail, since most-to-all of them are in pretty decent-sized Jeopardy. What’s not interesting is James, unfortunately, but if they find a way to turn him evil, to match Cyrus for once in his life, then there could be more to watch. But at this point, I’m much more concerned with a show called “How do you solve a problem like Sally Langston?” with guest appearances from Rowan-who-was-Eli.
Now, one final point. Quinn.
The stuff about the paper was unbelievably stupid. We know this. And even though the desk and counter were appropriately disgustingly late 80s-early 90s, she was just a whiner in a whiny plotline. Don’t make me have to care about this.
But I wonder something. Quinn seems to be universally reviled, and in fact I think the show wants her to be that way. It’s not like we’re supposed to be sympathetic. And the last time I can think of a character like this, why, it was also on a Shonda Rhimes show. Katherine Heigl’s Izzie was much maligned, far before Heigl herself became the focus of scorn. Right? In fact, that was the beginning – Izzie got ridiculous storylines, Heigl felt she was being disrespected, cue the unraveling. So, um, is this not that, not by any means – but is it a distant cousin of that?
Why are Olivia Pope’s nails like that? Rounded and, like, sparkly pink? That was the least believable thing in the episode, which is saying something.