Scandal Recap: Season 4 Episode 13 

Picking right up from last week’s cliffhanger, Olivia is about to be handed over to the Iranians but due to her knowledge of Farsi, she was able to fool both the Iranians and her kidnappers to the point where they both became distrustful of each other and they called off the deal so the kidnappers had no other choice but to open up the auction again. Seeing this new opportunity, OPA joins the bidding war again (using the Marie Wallace alias) and they become tied with the Russians. Gus, looking for a tiebreaker, asks Olivia whom she thinks the bidding should go to. She says Marie Wallace. I guess this was some sort of test because Gus decided to go with the Russians because he believed there was some sort of relationship between Marie Wallace and Olivia Pope.

Meanwhile at the White House, Fitz commands the CIA to rescue Olivia by any means necessary. Of course they inform him again of how perilous the situation is and suggested that they eliminate the asset instead. Fitz will hear nothing of it. Cyrus, frustrated with Fitz at this point, colludes with the CIA chief and they hatch a plan to bomb Olivia, the kidnappers and the Iranians at the point of exchange. Abby figures this out and she attempts to tell Fitz what Cyrus is up to but sneaky Cyrus prevents her from doing so.  At her wit’s end, she meets with David and asks him if he has a connection at Interpol. What is Abby up to? More on that later.

The Gladiators, after losing the bidding to the Russians are scrambling to find a way to save Liv. Jake visits Maya in prison and she directs him to Rowan’s hideaway. Eli Pope fishing at a lake is probably one of the weirdest things I have seen on this show. Jake implores Eli to rescue Olivia to which rowan replies “I don’t have a daughter anymore”. Well that was a bust!

Mellie meets with Andrew to give him his amnesty deal. Instead of accepting this get out of jail free card, Andrew acts like the treacherous rat that he is and tells Mellie that all it will take to ruin any chance of her having a political career is to let it slip to a reporter that he had her every which way from Sunday in the White House. At that point, Mellie realized that Andrew would have to be silenced completely. She gets in touch with Lizzie bear and tells her she needs to find a way to muzzle Andrew. In the most twisted display of Stockholm syndrome, Lizzie actually contacts Huck and tells him he needs to figure out a way to silence Andrew. Unfortunately for her, Huck had just gotten a lecture from Jake about reigning in his inner monster; Huck tells Jake, Liv is the one who reigns in the monster for him. Huck tells Lizzie he has given up murder and torture for Lent but he still has his ways of eliminating threats. Cut to a naked Andrew, tied up in a chair and Huck injecting him with something. The next time we see VP Andrew, he is in a complete vegetative state with the media reporting that he suffered a fatal stroke. Nice way to wrap that up!

At the exchange site, Cyrus and the CIA are watching the entire thing through a satellite feed. As the CIA chief gives the command to drop a bomb on them, Cyrus stops her because he recognizes the buyer on the feed. Turns out the winning buyer was none other than Stephen Finch (I predicted this in my review of last week’s episode), the OG Gladiator from season 1 that moved to Texas to get married and have kids. I guess that didn’t work out because he is working with Interpol now.  How did Stephen end up there? Remember when Abby was looking for an Interpol contact? Well she was trying to find Stephen. Yay Abby for saving the day. When Olivia sees him, she goes to him, grabs his gun and shoots Gus in the knee and she proceeds to stomp on him in her very fashionable boots. Stephen and Olivia hug and after she thanks him, she invites him to come back to DC with her. He declines but lets her know she saved him and he never thought he would get the chance to do the same for her. There go my hopes of a love square on TV.

Back at her apartment, Huck installs new locks for Olivia. He hugs her and tells her he is glad she is alive and she responds “me too”. A couple of seconds later after her friends leave; Mr. President is knocking on her door. His face lights up when he finally sees her but that joy is short-lived because Olivia proceeds to berate him for going to war with West-Angola. She can’t believe he would let so many people die just to save one person. He tries to defend himself but she is hearing none of it. She throws her ring at him and he leaves. Poor Fitz. He can’t seem to do anything right. Personally, I’m glad we have Olivia Pope in her natural habitat. Maybe now we can get back to the regular case of the week formulas that worked so well before. Welcome back Scandal!

written by @Afrostyling