Scandal S4 Ep.4- Like Father, Like Daughter.

Just when I started to say some Hail Marys and light candles for Scandal to return to its former glory, Shonda Rhimes hits us with a woah! The last few episodes left me kinda worried, okay, not kinda, but really worried. This is Scandal, my show, this is the show, it can’t go on with a whimper, not when there are cages to be rattled and more drama to be had. I was worried, but then, I needn’t have worried because that Shonda has some tricks way up her sleeves for us.

The people;

Liv is getting her groove back little by little, I think this season is going to be a slow and necessary burn and this is what Liv is leading us to. Quinn, has been annoying but likeable-ish annoying, and for the most part, she gets the job done. Huck…is well still Huck. Jake is still a bore, but sometimes I don’t know about him, I’m hot on him then it goes cold. I’m definitely way over Fitz. I think its time for Mellie to have a bath, brush her hair and wear some decent clothes. I love smelly Mellie but come on now Mell, you have a country to quasi-run. Cyrus is getting some TLC and it is clouding his judgement big time, except of course there is more to this story, I hope there is because I don’t like Cyrus getting played except Liv is the one making the play. That Papa Pope is up to no good, when is he never. Red, aka Abby sometimes Debbie, is starting to know what it feels like to stand in the shadow of Olivia Pope and it ain’t pretty. Oh and Tom is caught between the hell and high-water, and Jake.

The story;

This was all about the scandal and politics and family and loyalty. It was possibly my favourite episode since the season premier. This is what scandal does the best, marry political dialogue and high dramatic before setting fire to the whole thing. Lovely. Karen Grant is busy eiffel towering around town, believe it or not that is a sex move…I can only just imagine it… lol. But she’s drunk at a college party and calls the only person she can, Olivia Pope, to clean up her mess. Liv succeeds in getting her out of the party and hopefully into college. Just when it feels like all Karen needs to do is tell her parents how she ended up two hundred miles from school without her secret service detail, a sex tape of her doing the eiffel tower with her two sex partners surfaces on her cell phone and its all hands on deck. This was simple but loaded with drama that reignited old issues and reunited old lovers. Fitz and Liv, Liv and Mellie, Abby, Huck and Quinn… Fitz decides Liv should handle the situation and Mellie will be left in the dark bout it. Of course that blows up when Mellie sees Liv walking the corridor of the White House and she, Mellie goes HAM on Fitz who in turn calls Mellie out for being a bad mother when she goes stack raving about Olivia Pope being in her house after she expressly forbade it. Dick. He even gets one into Liv when he finds out she went away with Jake, not alone and he stupidly believes. I cannot with Fitz, and I think that is why he is kept around to irk us all. Fitz decides Liv should handle the situation and Mellie will be left in the dark. The dialogue was back on form too in this episode and when Mellie gently delivers that line; “a sex tape, well she’s just like her father isn’t she.” I cheered. Mellie wins!

Meanwhile the parents of one of the boys in the sex tape are blackmailing the president and after Liv convinces Fitz to let them have the money, they go in for more at which point Liv regulates in bad ass gladiator style. Olivia Carolyn Pope, the wearer of the white hat and kicker of all asses. Its a great scene when she tells them she going to destroy them. Oh and her shade to all the reality TV show people out there, THE BEST! *side eye Kim K and co.* However, even more pivotal was the scene between Mellie and Karen, a real mother-daughter moment, when Mellie lays down the law but the only way a mother knows how. She understands Karen is going through sometime since Jerry’s death, its the same something she, Mellie has been going through but only she is not eiffel towering Fitz, just eating chicken. Lots of chicken.

Karen was not the only story at play, Abby was shunted to the side and Cyrus lets her understand in plain words that she will never be Olivia Pope and to a great extent she ought to be happy about it, and if she is jealous, that’s her issue not his. David Rosen is still wallowing in self pity following the death of Judge Sparks, he of gun control. Papa Pope is trying to off Jake because he knows too much and somehow Tom gets caught in the cross fire of the B6-13 war which is far from over. He gets made an Jerry’s killer and we know shit is about to go down when Papa Pope is called in to get a confession. Fitz so simple and stupid sometimes. Really?

One last thing;

This was an episode that could easily have gone awry in the wrong hands because of the issues of feminism intertwined with sexism. Mellie lets Karen know that if she were a boy the case would be different, there would be no fixers, no handlers, nothing because it’ll be easy to sweep this under the rug as just another thing boys get up to, as a girl, it is heavily frowned upon. The message here is one of taking back the narrative through acknowledgement and in a way informing the audience that society still operates in that way and there is work to be done.

THIS is the Scandal I know and love.

Now if we could only get back Steven from season one… I am still holding that candle.