Scandal – White Hat’s Back On

  • Title: Scandal – White Hat’s Back On
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Scandal - White Hat's Back On

In the show’s Second Season finale Olivia (Kerry Washington) calls together Mellie (Bellamy Young), Cyrus (Jeff Perry), Hollis Doyle (Gregg Henry), and Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) for a secret meeting now that she knows Billy Chambers (Matt Letscher) is the mole and has access to the falsified voting evidence from Defiance, Ohio. After agreeing the main issue is not Chambers, but the memory card, Olivia rallies he troops to recover the only evidence of the rigged election which put Fitz into office. Privately, Fitz also asks Olivia to come up with a plan to get the American people to accept them as a couple and allow the President of the United States to divorce his wife and move his mistress into the White House while fighting for re-election (and it’s a pretty damn good one).

Olivia suspects that Chambers is going to use Samuel Reston (Tom Amandes), whose rightful spot in the White House was stolen from him, to break the news of Defiance, but they are unprepared for the move he actually makes and still unaware that David Rosen (Joshua Malina) is secretly feeding Chambers information on their every move. Aside from figuring out a way to get Mellie and Fitz back together, Cyrus also has to deal with the fact that Vice President Sally Langston (Matt Letscher) is putting together an exploratory committee to run against Fitz in the upcoming Republican Primary. As Rosten blackmails the President to put his name instead of Langston’s on the ticket for his running mate in the next election, Cyrus suffers a heart attack from the swirling amount of stress which isn’t helped by Rowan’s (Joe Morton) promise to “take care of Olivia Pope.”

When Jake (Scott Foley) refuses to take care of Olivia for Rowan he’s forced the kill the agent Rowan sends in his place. Hearing of the attack on Olivia and understanding Rowan and his goons won’t stop, Cyrus tells Olivia that Fitz is responsible for Verna Thornton’s (Debra Mooney) death and finally agrees to show the President the video of Olivia and Jake. Meanwhile, Quinn (Katie Lowes) shows an amazing amount of initiative when Huck (Guillermo Díaz) balks at torturing Chambers for the memory card and steps in to do the torture herself only then realizing that David is the one who betrayed them and is still in possession of the memory card.

The episode somehow, despite all the craziness of two years, finds a way to reset everything back to the status quo at the beginning of the series with Olivia and Fitz in love but separated, Rosen back where he belongs (with a nice raise for his troubles) and proving to be a true white hat (even if he’s not going to stay with Pope & Associates), and all evidence of Defiance destroyed. Given how the episode shakes out I really expected the episode to end with the promise of Olivia Pope & Associates back to work. However, before the finale ends the episode throws in a pair of last second twists by revealing Olivia’s relationship to Rowan and news of her affair with the President becoming public knowledge. With the show’s biggest secret out of the bag, the revelation that Rowan (the head of the secret government assassin squad who trained Jake, Huck, and Charlie) is Olivia’s father, and Huck’s distress at how much Quinn reminds him of himself, there should be plenty for the next season to delve into when Scandal returns in the Fall.

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