Episode 03 | Aired Oct 17, 2013

The Capitol bomb scare isn't the only explosion in Olivia Pope's D.C.
por Katie Atkinson @ EW




The scandal amor triângulo is back and in full effect. Now that Jake's back in town -- and playing house with Olivia -- where does Fitz fit in? The episode even starts with Olivia crouched on the floor, keeping watch over a sleeping, bloodied Jake, just as Fitz calls. But is he upset about Jake living at his mistress' house? If he is, he doesn't let on.

Olivia, for her part, is mais concerned with another man in her life (Huck), but he doesn't have time for Olivia because he's busy tracking down a different Pope (Eli/Rowan/Dad).

Our girl needs to get her mind off all these dudes, and over at Pope & Associates, there's a new client in the building: Mary Nesbitt. She drops a fat check, but we don't know what she needs... yet. The gang is also short a member. Liv lets them know Huck is taking a personal day. "We get personal days?" Abby marvels.

At the White House, Cyrus is lording over one seriously dysfunctional family. Fitz and Mellie argue over feeding Teddy, mostly because this is the first time they've ever bothered to feed their baby themselves. Cy informs the pair that they'll be heading to Camp David with their older kids for a picture-perfect family vacation (picture-perfect, not actually perfect).] "You WILL make the magic happen!" Cyrus barks at the First Family.

We learn that the new client has cleaned out her bank account to pay Pope & Associates (someone has to keep the sauv blanc flowing and the Neiman's credit line open), but why has she left herself without a dime to her name? Olivia heads out to investigate Mary's "meeting on the Hill," and viewers find simultaneous altercations: first, a White House tour-goer yelling about Operation Remington, and second, Mary with a bomb strapped around her waist. Olivia picks door No. 2 and becomes her client's hostage, along with eight other people.

Mary's real target is Congressman Jim Struthers, whom she begged por phone, letter, and carrier pigeon to look into how her son, Chris, died at the FBI's hands. With her hand poised over the bomb's trigger, she sneers to the senator: "You care now, don't you?" We also learn that Mary came to Olivia because she read a perfil that said the fixer always trusts her gut. What's your gut telling you about that publicity now, Liv?

Meanwhile, Peter Foster, the Remington rabble-rouser, gets Cyrus' attention, and he gives Rowan a call -- just as Huck is approaching with a gun. (Don't you wish Huck would use his PT for something a little mais relaxing? Maybe a spa dia or a de praia, praia vacation? He could probably use some Vitamin D after his time in the hole.)

Olivia's Huck-free team mobilizes around Mary's son, with Quinn told to hack into the FBI in her mentor's absence. (She really earned that Baby Huck nickname this episode.) The hostage negotiator tells Liv that they can declassify Chris' file only when Mary turns herself in. Her response? "You tell him he'll be scraping nine bodies out of the carpeting first." So that's a no. But Liv is able to convince Mary to let six of the hostages go.

This is the point when Mary makes the case for her own HGTV show as she murmurs about the jumper pattern she used for her bomb vest -- she had to upgrade to an industrial glue gun and find a "recipe" on the Internet for her explosives. A real DIY-er!

Fitz must not be a big crafter, though, because he orders snipers to try to get a clear shot at Mary. Olivia gets word of this through Harrison, and pushes Mary away from the window, standing defiantly in her place with red laser targets covering her baby-blue power suit. Fitz might not amor Liv's house guest at the moment, but he still commands the snipers to stand down.

My viewing buddy Annie Barrett insists Olivia looks like a snowman. Must be the coal buttons.

When Olivia is told she can't speak to Fitz, she comes up with a workaround -- having his frenemy Jake call instead. Is siccing one corner of her amor triângulo on another corner really her best move? Fitz isn't budging, and he definitely gets in the last (sassy) word: "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to tell her you couldn't save the day."

Huck, meanwhile, has tracked Rowan all the way out to a trailer in the middle of the woods, where the other D.C. intruder lives. (There apparently is no link between Pete and Mary. Seriously? We're just supposed to believe that unrelated security breaches of that level happen simultaneously? I'm not sure why this is the moment I've chosen to pergunta the crazy Scandal-verse...) Rowan throws money and threats at Pete, but he just seems to want a meeting with the president. As Rowan makes his exit, he's greeted por Huck's gun.

When we return to Jake, who is still bloodied and bruised from his stint in the hole, he's just worried about Liv sharing a room with a bomb. I'm not giving up on Olitz, but Jake seems a hell of a lot mais concerned about Olivia's safety at the moment than the president does. So far, all he's done is stop snipers from shooting her.

Olivia reassures Mary that her team can handle it, but Abby's not so sure. "Baby Huck's choking," she tells Olivia as Quinn tries to hack into the FBI. Abby decides to work the David angle, although that doesn't work quite as well as it used to. Harrison is told por an FBI agent that Mary's son was a terrorist recruiter, but when David looks up the supposed agent, she doesn't exist.

Which gets the White Hat thinking -- and leads him to noted Black Hat Cyrus Beene. When David asks for the file, Cy reminds him that he wouldn't have the U.S. Attorney job if it weren't for him. But when David begins rattling off names of agents who seemingly benefited from the death of Mary's son, Cyrus is paying attention.

David's stunt works. Fitz spills everything to Olivia under one condition: She can't breathe a word of it to Mary. It turns out Chris was a CIA agent who had infiltrated a terrorist cell, and the FBI didn't know his true identity when they raided the home. Olivia follows orders, telling Mary her son really was a terrorist. And when it all seems over, and the senator and Olivia step out of the office, Mary slams the door behind them and detonates the bomb, killing herself. Liv, listless outside the Capitol Building, is informed por Quinn that Huck has spent his dia off researching Rowan -- and Olivia knows exactly what that means.

The day's events left Mellie in need of a drink -- or 10. And her accent is in full Britney Spears mode, y'all, as she drinks her hooch and propositions her husband. But she's not drowning her sorrows; she's "celebratin'." Fitz is confused: Doesn't she wish Olivia had been blown to bits today? No, she explains, because Fitz would spend the rest of his days worshiping "Saint Olivia Pope." But since Olivia's still alive, she tells Fitz, "She's your flaw... which makes her my weapon."

Huck is waiting in the shadows for Olivia when she gets back to the office, and while he tells her he's "all killed out today," Rowan wasn't his victim. Instead, Rowan is still his master, instructing Huck to kill and torture the White House intruder, Pete. "He still owns me, Liv," Huck wails. "He still owns me."

She's greeted por a mais cheerful (but no less tortured) face at home: Jake. He kisses her on the check and suggests Gettysburger delivery (recalling their doomed encontro, data from last season), but she just wants to know one thing: "How are you here?" He swears he doesn't know; she's sure her father has ulterior motives. (But what are those motives, Gladiators?) Jake tells her what it was like for him in the hole and how he imagined her face to get him through it. Didn't he know her for only months before that? Is Olivia really the only meaningful relationship in his life?

Well, if she is, here's his reality check: "This is not a fairy tale. This is not the happily ever after." Rowan owns Huck. Rowan owns Jake. And Rowan (or Eli) has always owned Olivia. The symphony of phone-ringing drives início his omnipresence in all their lives, but he can't make them pick up tonight.