It’s not really handled
This week marks the premiere of the third season of ABC’s hit TV series Scandal and as promised, it offered an hour full of suspense, drama and politics.
The episode began right where the finale of season two left off: Olivia Pope’s name has been released to the press and the world now accuses her of having an affair with President Fitzgerald Grant.
To save the government from chaos and fix the situation at hand, Olivia’s father, Rowen Pope, an agent whose secret position is not yet disclosed, drives Olivia to a governmental plane terminal and demands that she take the awaiting plane to a far-off destination, where she will start a life for herself under a new identity.
Although she almost obliges, Cyrus Beene, the president’s leading adviser, convinces Olivia to stay in Washington and fix the situation with an offensive front.
Meanwhile, back at the White House Cyrus plans to fix the situation from the inside, mainly by using Vice President Sally Langston as a shield from the press. He wants her to be the one to answer the accusatory press questions that Fitz will otherwise have to answer.
The stakes are high, and all characters are tense. In a sudden change of events, Olivia Pope, professional fixer, is now the problem that needs to be fixed. Clients are firing her, and she no longer has the privacy she once took for granted. As Harrison Wright, her employee, says, she is the “most infamous person in America.”
However, Olivia, being Olivia, denies the full weight of the situation to everyone but herself. She puts on a stance of composure and says that “it’s being handled.”
But Olivia’s feigned smile doesn’t last long. A video of Fitz walking in the alleyway next to Olivia’s apartment is broadcasted nationwide and it digs Olivia into a deeper hole.
Desperate for a solution, Olivia “pulls the fire alarm” and uses the one-time emergency code that brings her to the White House. Once there, Olivia meets with Fitz and his wife Mellie in order to discuss a plausible solution to the world known problem that now revolves around them.
Still in “job mode,” Olivia acts professional despite Mellie’s constant bantering and name calling. The situation is tough for both of them, she says, but they need to be mature and work it out.
Fitz offers that instead of changing the narrative they should try to reclaim it; instead of trying to find a way out, they should try to find a way through. He suggests that they tell the world the truth and work through it together.
Olivia considers the idea, and although painful and self-damaging, realizes from a professional standpoint that it is the best option.
Mellie, however, isn’t satisfied. She doesn’t want to seem like the perfect wife if the world knows that Fitz is still in love with another woman. Instead, she wants it to seem as if the affair was a fluke, a mistake. She demands that Fitz and Olivia admit to only sleeping with each other twice — once after the inauguration and once after the assassination attempt — and says that Fitz must act as if the affair didn’t really mean much to him; he only cheated at times when he “wasn’t himself.”
Of course Fitz and Olivia comply. After all, what choice do they have? Something must be done and fast. With the plan set, Olivia breaks down knowing that not only will her reputation be ruined, but her love for Fitz will not be freed and they will still be bound by the politics and pretense of Washington. However, she finally accepts her fate and is ready to tell the world the truth (or semi-truth as Mellie insists).
But, in a final twist of events, things do not turn out as planned. Mellie, being the conniving and manipulative woman she is, has another scheme up her sleeve. Instead of going along with the original plan, she and Cyrus send Olivia’s associates (the “gladiator” fixers) a video that incriminates another woman, white house communications aide Jeannine Locke, as being the president’s mistress. Press jump on the story, and Olivia’s name is cleared in an instant.
Everyone seems to be satisfied — that is, everyone except for the two people that matter most: Olivia and Fitz. Both the president and his true lover are not happy at all with the turn of events; Olivia because the guilt of framing another woman is too much and Fitz because he wants the world to know the truth, hoping that one day they will accept Olivia and enable him to marry her.
With the situation averted, one would think all the drama has been settled. However, that is not the way Scandal works. In this show, things are never that simple. The episode ends with three mind-boggling scenes that will surely lead the season into more frenzy and fun. For one, Jeannine is Olivia’s new client, which means Olivia must get Jeannine out of the mess she placed her in. Secondly, we find out that after all this pretense, Fitz was actually the one who leaked Olivia’s name to the press. Talk about desperate lover. Thirdly, in the final scene Cyrus is given a top secret document that informs him about a military mission that the president was involved with as a young solider. By the look of it, the mission is not what people assume it to be and this will definitely play a major role later on in the season.
Overall, Scandal’s season premiere laid down a map of juicy plot twists that will have the audience craving for more. If every episode is as drama-packed as this one was, it’s sure to be an exciting and suspenseful ride.
