Scandal 3.3 Review - 'Mrs Smith Goes To Washington'
rating: 4
Welcome back to another week of 'Scandal', gladiators! We've seen family betrayals and momentuous secrets unravel and last week's episode left us with a doozy as Rowan released a prisoner - Ballard's back! As the episode starts, Liv watches the bloodied, broken and sleeping Ballard recover in her bed, dealing with Huck's violent outburst and avoiding a call from Fitz about Jake. Olivia calls Huck who is all about avoiding her and the situation at hand, although it soon becomes clear that he's tailing Rowan. Oooh. Go Huck! Olivia arrives at the offices, to be faced by a new important client - Mary Nesbitt - who looks set to help the business out of the financial hole it's currently in. They soon discover that Mary's son, Chris, was killed in an FBI raid over a year ago over being involved with a terrorist cell and cleaned out her account to get the team's help. Olivia hurries to Mary's meeting place - Capitol Hill - while a man sneaks from his tour group in the White House and breaks into the Oval Office, demanding to speak to Fitz about Operation: Remmington. Liv finds Mary and discovers that she's wired up to explosives, demanding justice! Damn Liv, you just had to get involved, didn't you?
Fitz and Mellie are busy dealing with their passive-aggressive parenting with the most violent confrontation over feeding their baby son while Cyrus runs damage control in the wake of the public shaming of Jeannine Gold as Fitz's 'lover'. Cyrus demands that they go to Camp David but the bomb threat soon stops this, Fitz and Mellie forced into the underground bunker. Liv hears from poor Mary about her struggle to find justice and the truth about her son's death and manages to keep the emotionally distraught woman from detonating the bomb. Olivia's team races to do research on Chris and finds a convert to Islam whose death was sealed. Olivia answers a call from an FBI commander and tells him that Mary wants her son's file declassified. Cyrus hears about the man who tried to break into the Oval Office - Peter Foster - and demands his release while contacting Rowan (who barely escapes an assassination by Huck) about the Remmington problem. Rowan reaches out to Foster, offering him more money but to no avail, Foster wanting to speak to Fitz in order to keep Remmington quiet. Rowan agrees and runs into Huck outside, gun pointed at his head! Olivia tries to get the file declassified and soon negotiates the release of hostages from Mary, leaving Olivia, Mary and Senator Struthers alone in the office. Fitz soon orders a strike team and Liv rescues Mary, forcing Fitz to immediately stand the team down. Olivia is soon branded a terrorist and refused her call to Fitz. Fitz is soon contacted by Ballard who refuses his attempts to get the file unleashed, a stand off between the two loves of Olivia's life. 
The team keep running - Quinn tries to contacting Huck and soon starts trying to hack everything herself while Abby runs to David to help. Harrison tries to get to talk to the commander but is soon approached by Laura Kinney, an FBI agent, who reveals a recruitment video for a fundamentalist, terrorist Islamic cell with Chris at the helm. Laura reveals to Harrison that there are more videos out there and that's the reason why he was killed. Harrison grabs Laura's license plate and asks Abby to get David to run the plate - Laura isn't an FBI agent at all, sparking confusion into the team. Who is Laura really? David soon chases up Cyrus about the case over Chris Lawrence and soon gets Cyrus' hackles up when he reveals that the entire team was either given a raise, promoted or fired in the case of Gordon Bates, the lead agent. David insinuates that the team was either paid off or removed. David's integrity forces Cyrus to reveal the file. David, Fitz and Cyrus contact Olivia to admit the truth - Chris Lawrence was in fact a CIA agent undercover as an Islamic terrorist recruiter and his guise must remain in order to protect all those he recruited as useful informants. He was killed due to his apparent mixed loyalties, but Mary can never know the truth. Liv hangs up and lies to Mary, who releases Struthers and Olivia before detonating the bomb! Poor Mary! 
In the aftermath, the clean up works on security protocols and procedures while Quinn races to find Liv and tells her of Huck's obsession with Rowan. Mellie and Fitz share a late night drink of some home-brewed hooch wherein Mellie reveals that she's glad Liv survived because it means she can still use Olivia as a weapon against Fitz rather than Fitz venerating her as a saint. At the offices, Liv returns to find Huck, waiting silently in the dark. Huck and Olivia stand off, with Huck finally revealing that he didn't kill Rowan. Huck, instead, goes and gives into his dark urges and kills Foster. Huck, in his horror, tearfully confesses that Rowan 'owns' him, trapping him psychologically, to which Liv comforts him. At her home, Olivia finds a jubilant Ballard there, and questions how Ballard got here to her apartment. Rowan rings Liv while Fitz rings Ballard. Olivia keeps asking, questioning whether or not Ballard is spying on her, and soon the pair open up to each other. Ballard relays the story of his torture and how Liv was the only thing keeping him going. Liv realises that Rowan owns them both. As the phone keeps on ringing, Rowan eventually hanging up, the pair sit in silence. Kind in appropriate, but I'm totally shipping them now. Team Jakelivia! A great, very solid and unusual episode that frames the entire episode around secrets, lies and ownership while giving everyone something to do. Olivia takes centre stage as usual and the branding of her as a terrorist fits right in with her taking of the 'white hat' and championing the innocent underdog while Huck gets to deal with revenge and his obsession in a new and interesting way. Quinn also gets some fun stuff, channeling her new confidence into some badass hackery, Katie Lowes playing this well. Best of all has to be Cynthia Stevenson's Mary, changing from an angry mother into a distraught avenging angel of truth and a secret martyr. A thrilling episode that gives us a dose of 24-style explosive action that explores the secrets that we have to keep. Here's hoping some of those secrets don't come spilling out... til next week, Gladiators.