Hello, gladiators! Welcome to another recap of 'Scandal', the only show on the air where dinner is a bargaining chip, there are assassins around every corner, and a loving father may turn out to be either the villain of the piece, or the unlikely avenging angel that can save your career. Here is 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner', a flashback-heavy episode all about Olivia's relationship with her father, aka Rowan Pope, the head of the black-ops government group, B6-13. In flashbacks to five years ago, we see Huck and Liv's friendly interactions in the subway station as Huck remains homeless and Liv attends awkward dinners with her dad who's trying to restore a loving relationship with his daughter following the death of the matriarch of the Pope family. Rowan is still lying to Liv about his job but they soon reconcile a little. She chats to Edison (yay! Awesome to see him back!), her then-beau, before getting caught in an attempted mugging that Huck saves her from, revealing his true nature to her when he brutally beats down the would-be muggers. Later, Olivia talks to Huck and they open up to each other, Huck revealing his tragic past. In a conversation with her dad, Liv inadvertently reveals Huck's story to his then-boss Rowan. Oops. A few days later, Rowan has Huck secretly apprehended, lying to Olivia about B6-13 andd Huck's 'arrest'; later she meets David Rosen for the first time who tells her that Huck was never arrested.
Olivia investigates, tracking down the front company and address Huck mentioned in a confused state and confronting her father. Rowan cuts her down to size, revealing his true face by coldly ordering her about and the nature of his work. Olivia walks out of the restaurant and soon has her revenge by going for dinner with her dad and Edison, her now-fiance, a senator in charge of spy monitoring. She demands Huck back. Huck is given back to her but her father calls her, revealing he got Edison in an accident and tells her to break up with him. Olivia reluctantly agrees but cuts off all ties with Rowan. He's dead to her now. In the present day, poor Jeannine Locke is getting set up for a fall and Olivia and Fitz chat about it (including a Dalai Lama anecdote that is hilarious). Liv reveals that she's going to attack the White House which Fitz agrees with. Olivia soon announces a press conference outside the White House with Jeannine. Mellie is desperate for Jeannine to be brought in while Cyrus is busy dealing with Rowan's pressure and Olivia's conference. Cyrus and Mellie try to get Fitz to 'admit' to sleeping with Jeannine, which he angrily rebuffs. The pair plot to leak more faked information to back up their lives to the delight of the assembled press.
Abby and Olivia struggle to get an alibi for Jeannine while the latter is shocked by her father's arrival at the offices, warmly greeting the entire team including Huck. The father and daughter share a grinning confrontation where he demands she drop the Jeannine Locke situation otherwise Ballard will die. Olivia and Huck talk about B6-13 and how orders of insubordination are treated (Huck recalling the pit of deprivation where an agent is 'reprogrammed'). Liv contacts Fitz and asks him to help free Ballard despite he and Ballard's rocky relationship. Fitz orders Cyrus to find out about Ballard despite all reservations. Quinn hacks into Olivia's email ("because can") and uncovers the breaking-off of the father-daughter relationship, but Huck tells her not to and to avoid becoming like him. Meanwhile Abby gets the IMs that will give Jeannine an alibi from Jeannine's friend/colleague Ethan by threatening his hard drive. Soon the campaign to clear Jeannine's name continues by dressing her up. Jeannine has a breakdown ahead of the interview and Liv toughens her up for the fight ahead. Everyone needs an Olivia Pope pep talk in their life. Seriously. Mellie soon gets frustrated by the lack of progress and arranges a meeting with the naive Jeannine, one that soon has her destroying the IMs with Ethan's help to Liv's anger. Olivia bargains with her father for Ballard's life by giving her father the dinners back, before challenging Jeannine who is being paid off by Mellie. The interview is cut off by an announcement from Fitz who demands Ballard back from Cyrus, otherwise he'll tell the world the whole truth. Fitz announces his affair with Jeannine and the entire issue is put to bed with Jeannine getting promised interviews and a book deal along with her two million from Mellie. Quinn confronts Huck about something she found in Liv's emails and deduces that the homeless man in Liv's emails was Huck. Huck violently confronts Liv about B6-13 and the truth about her father, shocked when he throws her against a car. Huck stalks off, horrified. At home, Liv tries to assauge her guilt with wine when Rowan contacts her, tells her to open the front door... and reveals a bloody and barely conscious Ballard! The pair embrace as Rowan demands dinner with Liv and Ballard manages a single word: 'Hi'. A great follow up to the very strong series opener and one that definitely follows up with the great cliffhangers of last week. Best of all are the flashbacks which rather than delving into the tumultuous relationship between Fitz and Olivia (which were getting a bit stale to be honest), focus on Liv and her dad and are played extremely well by Kerry Washington and Joe Morton alike who play the relationship as treading the line between loving and loathing in equal measure. The flaws in this episode are only slight ones - Mellie does a lot of one-sided 'Evil Queen' stuff in this episode which is a shame seeing as she's normally a much more developed character. Harrison gets nothing to do really and the turn Quinn is taking is, while I'm sure worth it down the line, is just a bit annoying. I like Quinn when she's good, not playing at being bad. Anyway, a solid follow up which wraps up the Grant affair story - for a while at least - and gives us plenty of backstory into the Pope family which seems to be the main pin for this season as we learn more about Rowan (or is his name Eli?). Plus that ending brings back the fantastic Scott Foley and sets up just what shocked Cyrus between he and Fitz. Hmm...
ED NOTES: FOUR STARS, PLEASE