“It felt so gross.” – Scandal Gif-Cap – The Fish Rots from the Head

Scandal Season 5, Episode 13
“The Fish Rots from the Head”
Posted by Sage

A new presidential candidate officially enters the race. Not to be outdone, Fitz enters…everyone. To the gifs!

“Cover A made me look frigid. Cover B, there’s gotta be some warm blood flowing behind those eyes, wouldn’t ya say?” Mellivia are still bro-ing out, putting the final touches on Mellie’s pre-campaign auto-biography. I never want this to end.

“What are we going to do about Susan Ross?” Um, swaddle her in soft fabrics and rock her to sleep?

“You need Fitz.” Olivia tells Mellie exactly what she doesn’t want to hear about Fitz’s endorsement, and then clarifies: what’s best for her is if Fitz doesn’t endorse either current candidate.

“From time to time, a pick will be made. We refer to the picks only as guests.” As press secretary, Abby’s main function is now to organize and administrate Fitz’s tawdry hook-ups. And this is your weekly reminder that C.J. Cregg wouldn’t have stood for this shit.

“Who doesn’t want to be on TV?” Cyrus encourages Carlos from Desperate Housewives to ride the wave of attention in the wake of his City Hall hero moment.

“Call me your biggest fan…the Lovers of Liberty want to hear from you, Governor.” Sally Langston would love to get her Evangelical hooks in him too.

“Oh, I didn’t see you there, little Cyrus Beene.” Heeeee.

“I don’t wanna use that experience as a platform for my education bill or anything else. It’s unseemly.” Aw, look: it has integrity. Cyrus:

“It can’t hurt to have an ally in Washington.” Until your entire family is dead and you’re a vacant husk of a person. What show are you watching, Cy?

“The secret service screwed up?” I’ll say.

“I can’t believe Megan’s dead. I need a cigarette like right now.”  We’ve got a dead hooker, folks. How cliche.

“‘This one?’ She has a name.” The agents treat their living AND dead entertainment with all the respect you’d expect.

“This can’t get out. For the president’s sake.” “How noble.” *jack-off motion*

Quinn springs into action. She gives all the agents an alibi and tells Erin (the other one) that she was never there. Marcus is assigned to scrubbing Megan’s phone and Huck to erasing the old digital trail and creating a new one. 

“Okay, when are we going to stop hearing from Reverend Marcus?” Marcus’s conscience won’t shut the hell up, and Quinn finds it difficult to do her job with the voice of morality in her ear.

“Does she rescue puppies and orphans in her spare time?” Abby catches up with Liv while Liv spies on Jake’s date.

“This isn’t a date. He’s up to something.” Vanessa is too perfect. Too connected. Jake runs in Rowan’s world. Something is afoot. Or Olivia is just jealous.

“If he doesn’t think you can do the job, then the American people won’t think you can do either.” David and Susan are a regular thing now. (And HOW MUCH DO I LOVE that Susan has such a varied grown-woman nighttime wardrobe? A lot. I love it a lot.) David ruins their post-coital cuddling (for me) by pressing Susan to get Fitz’s endorsement. Where is your SOUL, David?

“He’s going through a phase.” “And I’m a female candidate for president.” Susan knows about Fitz’s late-night activities and she doesn’t want to be associated with a cad.

“I got 26 minutes, take off your pants.” Lizzie yells at David for not adequately playing Susan. Then it’s time for more sexual humiliation.

“I don’t have much time to follow football. Can we sit?” The president meets with the Governor and he’s a reaaaaaaal dick about it. (Maybe jealous because he’s never done anything selfless and/or heroic in his entire charmed life?)

“You think I can still get on Sally Langston?” Realizing that he won’t be able to get his education plan through the way he’d prefer, Frankie (that’s Carlos, I promise I’ll stop calling him that) falls in line with Mr. Beene’s scheme. Cyrus is walkin’ on sunshine.

“There was a dead body. She doesn’t like dead bodies. She’s not like us.”

“She misses the White House.” Quinn diagnoses Olivia as “bored.” Fine, but just…not that again. We JUST escaped.

Marcus tells his colleagues that everything had already been deleted Megan’s phone and cloud, before he even touched it. Ruh roh.

“But you know what scares me even more, Sally? The future.” Frankie is killllllin it on the Liberty Report.

“You need to find out why he doesn’t want to run. NOW.” Until he clarifies that he has no interest in becoming president.

Michael isn’t paying much attention to Cy’s ravings, because he’s practicing braiding on Ella’s doll’s hair like a proper house husband. Sweetness.

“Sir, we need to stop Frankie Vargas in his tracks.” Lizzie Bear smells competition for the Oval.

She suggests to Fitz that they send Susan to do Sally’s show to “tear into” the education plan. Not like she has a say in any of this.

Against OPA’s wishes, Marcus requests the dead hooker’s autopsy report. To no one’s surprise: Megan was murdered. The blunt force trauma happened before the drugs entered her system. She didn’t fall.

“You need to let this go.”

“He was missing you.” Mellie drops off Teddy and is way kinder to Fitz than he deserves.

“Put him down.” “What?” “Put. Him. Down.” …Until Lisa from the Treasury emerges from his bathroom in a robe.

“Screw as many whores as you want, Fitz, I wouldn’t expect anything less. But you sure as hell better keep them away from my children.”

“I had to tell poor Teddy she spilled something on herself, which, come to think of it, she probably did.” Here for Mellivia commiserating about Fitz’s one-night-stands.

Mellie mentions the Secret Service; Olivia checks out and goes into her mind palace. 

“What about our loyalty to the client?” “Just do it, Quinn.” THOSE RED GLOVES. Olivia’s like, how about we DON’T let a group of powerful men get away with murdering a sex worker today?

“You’re just in time to settle a quarrel.” David is literally stuck between his two jump-offs while they argue over Susan going on Sally’s show. I cry.

“Let’s just cut through the hay and talk horses.” She does it in the end, of course. She’s a good soldier.

“Ma’am, if you could take one step back from the monitor.” “I will literally murder you.”

Fitz is in bed with yet another lady. This one wasn’t satisfied by the sex (NOT SURPRISED) and asks for comment on Mellie and Olivia working together. This is news to Fitz.

Frankie’s daughter has cancer. He doesn’t want anyone to know. Cyrus’s perfect candidate has a major handicap.

“He said that I could be president one day…I tried to honor him in my life by choosing to believe that he was right.” Cyrus tells Frankie about his brother Oliver getting hit by a car in their youth. He was paralyzed. Cyrus enrolled in community college to take care of him. But brave Oliver told him to embrace his destiny and go to Harvard.  He can’t possibly be buying this.

“What are you doing here?” “Giving you what you want.” Jake is really embracing this sexual predator role-play he and Olivia have going on and I am uncomfortable.

“I’m not playing whatever game you and my father want me to play.”

“She’s perfect, but she’s not you. Of course. No one will ever do for you what I care do for you.” Okay, dude. Pretty sure she can find someone else willing to stick his fingers up there, but you keep telling yourself that.

“All you have to do is fight how good this feels. All you have to do is tell me to stop and I will.” 

“Stop.” No weak bitches in this bedroom.

“I’ll do a lot for money, but snitching isn’t on the menu.” Huck and Quinn press Erin to tell them what she REALLY saw the night of the Secret Service party.

The agents wouldn’t pay Megan; there was an altercation. After she died, they pumped her with twice the amount of heroin it would have taken to kill her.

“They’re not my clients. You’re my client. You hired me. So what do you want to do about it?” Olivia takes her findings to Abby and puts the ball in her court.

“Abby’s been busy. Handling other things.” Liv is back in the Oval with Fitz, shading him for his sluttiness.

“So that’s what this is really about.” IT’S ABOUT A DEAD WOMAN, YOU DICK.

“The fish rots from the head…your boys from the secret service are taking their cues from you.” REJOICE. TODAY IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE.

“Is that who you are now? Are you your father? Are you Big Jerry now?”

“Susan!” “The president wanted to see me.” No.

“It felt so gross.” “That’s a good thing, Susan. It means you’re still you.” Sally lied to the American people about supporting the president’s education plan. He’s happy she did? Whatever, who needs Fitz’s approval?

“I presume you did this to get my endorsement…you already got it.” Except she doesn’t want it.

“You want my endorsement. I am going to earn that from you…” “Well, then. Thank you, Mr. President.” I could give two shits about Fitz redeeming himself, but if it gets Susan the nomination…

“We must remember…she’s still a human being.” Fitz briefly locates humanity, condemns the murder-y Secret Service agents from Abby’s podium.

“I think she’s going to go to college one day, and I think it’s going to be free.” Cyrus’s sob story worked. Frankie wants to run and he wants Cy to run his campaign. Kingmaker in the building.

“Who’s Oliver?” “My brother.” “I thought you were an only child.”

Olivia comes to Sunday dinner at her dad’s house. Jake and girlfriend are already there. 

“What’s the occasion?” “Vanessa and I are getting married.” Alert the society pages. Don’t mention those late-night visits to Olivia though.

What IS Jake’s game with this Little Miss All-American? Which Republican lady with Frankie find himself going toe-to-toe with after the primaries? Will Susan find out about David and Lizzie, or will David dust off his white hat and commit to the only good person left in Washington? And does this mean that Marcus is finally allowed in the inner circle? Reactions in the comments, please.