Hello Gladiators and welcome to another week of recapping and reviewing! Now where did we leave off last week? Osbourne, the CIA director and supposed governmental mole had been found shot dead, the victim of a staged suicide, and the fall guy for the real mole, who's busy working with everyone's favourite freelancing assassin Charlie. Olivia and Ballard have finally kissed, Huck and Quinn haven't, and... oh, you know, the usual dodgy dealings and betrayals that make up
Scandal. Welcome to 'Molly, You In Danger, Girl' which references Tony Goldwyn (Fitz)'s previous role as the killer in the movie Ghost and in which Whoopi 'Legend' Goldberg's Oscar-winning psychic uttered the phrase to the heroine in peril. Nice touch,
Scandal writers. As the episode begins, Fitz is giving a White House press conference, planting the blame on Osbourne for being the CIA leak. Meanwhile Ballard sneaks into Liv's apartment and takes down all the cameras in there before turning them on later - turns out Huck and Quinn sweep the apartment once a month and Ballard knows. Creepy much? Ballard then has the nerve to call her FROM HER OWN APARTMENT telling her that she's hard to get hold of and that she's never home. That is ridiculously creepy. At Pope & Associates, Osbourne's widow Susan comes to the offices, demanding that they help expose the faked suicide with the help of an unusual suicide note. Olivia agrees to take on the case to be sure and they soon guess that Albatross killed Osbourne to make it look like a too-perfect suicide, just like Wendy's murder blamed on David too-obviously.
David and Wendy's friend Molly get the all-clear to go back to their lives now Osbourne is dead but they're shocked that Molly looks like she's been paid off to lie, having played the entire team. Abby grabs David and hauls him back to the offices (where he's practically inducted into becoming a gladiator by helping the team) while Charlie meets the mysterious black guy and is told to deal with the situation of Olivia knowing. Cyrus is briefing Fitz and Mellie on an interview he wants to give - Mellie sarcastically undercutting with demands for Oprah - and finally gets them to agree so that Fitz can announce his re-election plans. It's not Fitz and Mellie's marriage that's in trouble - Cyrus and James are on the rocks following Cyrus' revelations about the campaign and the breakdown of trust there. We hope they get it together, they're mostly a great couple. Fitz plays a nice beat with telling Cyrus to keep fighting for the man he loves. N'awwww... The Pope & Associates team split up to find Molly and investigate a storage unit rented by Albatross under a fake name while Olivia flirts with Ballard - he nearly slips up by mentioning her unused kitchen but reels it back. Huck & Quinn (which sounds like a crime-fighting unit from the 1970s) find the storage unit and an empty wooden crate into which Huck is knocked out violently. The others are stuck trying to find Huck but Quinn lets loose a Liv-inspired rant that lets her get access to the CCTV feeds. Go Quinn! Molly is confronted by Harrison and Abby and admits she took the money to protect herself from being killed, being ordered to frame Osbourne for the mole role. Meanwhile Huck mysteriously disappears over the CCTV feeds at the storage unit to Quinn's horror and David and Abby have a heart-to-heart where the latter still admits she has feelings for the former. Quinn discovers the CCTV has been messed with, finding the right unit and a bleeding, shaking Huck inside the crate.
Later Olivia watches Fitz and Mellie's couples interview and watches it sadly. She does have a thing for torturing herself over true love, doesn't she? She later brings burgers and fries, startling Ballard who's on his way out. They have a nice couple-y evening in with beer and smooching, the pair quickly breaking into a full-blown tryst. Unfortunately it's during a late-night search for some water that Olivia discovers the wall of screens covering her apartment and freaks out, resulting in a fight that knocks Olivia out accidentally - but not before she discovers that Ballard has been protecting her from Albatross all this time, the pair watching an intruder break into her place!! James and Cyrus have it out, finally addressing their issues as Cyrus returns home from his hotel and James realises he chose his own happiness over exposing the truth. James admits that he wishes he'd lived in ignorance for bliss but it seems a bit crappy of Cyrus putting all the blame on James. Cyrus DID rig a national election and then lied about it over and over. James' faith is expected to be a bit shaken. Still, here's hoping they fix things up. In the White House, Fitz confronts Mellie over the truth over the interview, admitting that they only got together because it was practically an arranged, blue-bloods Republican marriage for 'breeding' purposes. Mellie suggests that marriage is all about lies and pretending. That's the reality of marriage. Fitz later admits something to his 'husband' Cyrus over the phone - that he killed Verna Thornton but should hide it. Huck later has a breakdown in the office, rocking back and forth like a terrified child, shock washing over him and the rest of his teammates and friends. However, they have bigger things to worry about - Molly is killed in a hit-and-run, an obvious cover-up by the mole, just as Quinn discovers that the mole was in the unit round about the same time that Huck was attacked. At the hospital, Olivia is instructed by Ballard to lie about what happened as Fitz comes to visit, an update from Cyrus (via Charlie) alerting him to Olivia's concussion. Fitz hugs Olivia as her mind reels and she looks at Ballard outside of the door. Just what the Hell is going on?
A great, great episode and easily one of the best all season that pulls together more storylines and threads over the season, leaving nothing abandoned. Kerry Washington gets a great chance to play a lighter Liv at times, particularly during her moments with Ballard, but her heartbreak and betrayal is a gratifying pay-off. Guillermo Diaz is also good, his chemistry with Katie Lowes sparking well between this dynamic duo, and his emotional regression after being assaulted and kidnapped is instantly understandable and empathetic. Quick question - is that a continuity error? I could have sworn last week that Osbourne mentioned missing out on his son's soccer games but here, there's only mentioned a daughter. I might be wrong, but I'd love someone to give me either a 'yes' or a 'no', guys. So who really is the mole? I could see it being Cyrus or Mellie personally, in order to keep Fitz riding high in time for the re-election announcements. Or maybe it's someone completely innocuous - Charlie seemed to be the one who attacked Huck on the orders of Albatross so it could really be anyone higher up. Hell it could even be a member of the team themselves? More and more questions are being added with plenty of answers and introspection to boot and it's just making us more and more excited for the ending of the season (in the best way possible) to see how Shonda Rhimes and her team pull everything together for the finale. Solid, brilliant work all around. Feel free to stick your thoughts on the episode in the comments section below - or your theories on who the mysterious Albatross is!