Scandal Season 5, Episode 16
“The Miseducation of Susan Ross”
Posted by Kim
There is NOTHING like an election to revive a long-running political drama. Scandal is at its BEST right now and I am loving it. TO THE GIFS.
We pick up right where we left off last week…The Republican Debate.
Susan, reeling from dumping David, just looks miserable up there.
Mellie, on the other hand, is SLAYING.
“It’s a big problem. we need to do better.” Susan has completely shut down and can barely work out a response.
“This is very bad.” Thank you, Captain Obvious.
“If you were to lose the nomination…” “Not going to happen.” Mellie is poised and confident and *I* want to vote for her.
“Vice President Ross is a decent, hardworking public servant, and she would be worlds better and far more deserving of this office than the misogynist playboy to my left.” LADIES SUPPORTING LADIES.
“I can only imagine what your plans for Camp David would be.”
“A lot like your ex-husband’s I’d expect.” Touche, Hollis.
“Listen, if all it takes to be presidential is to shake hands and give speeches and know which color lipstick to wear to the party, then go ahead on. Take your pick of one of these Bettys.” OH MY GOD.
“How presidential is it to have your ex-husband’s ex-mistress running your campaign?”
“Susan? Having fun?” Fitz calls for a commercial break pep talk and I feel so strange for not hating him.
“You only need one moment. One punch. One good one is all it takes.”
“We’re in real trouble here because of YOU.” LizzyBear lets David have it and for once it’s merited.
“How do we know this Grant ain’t the same as the other one?”
“Because it’s the 21st century. You can’t look at a man anymore and assume that his wife shares the same positions, nor can you hold the wife accountable for his actions.” MELLIE.
“We are not our husband’s keepers. We are our own women with our own beliefs.”
“In case there is ANY doubt on where I stand with the President, you’ll notice he’s my ex-husband, not my husband.”
“It IS a good line.” Bless Abby for not being afraid to admit when her opponent kills it.
Susan parrots Mellie’s line and it looks like all is lost. BUT THEN SHE ADDS “…but maybe we should be”.
“I’m talking now.” YAS SUSAN HAS DECIDED TO SHOW UP.
“I bit my tongue because we are not our husband’s keepers.” DUDE. Susan launches into the story of how she lost her husband and she is NAILING it.
“I blamed myself. I had an opinion and I didn’t voice it.” This is BEAUTIFUL.
“No, we are not our husband’s keepers, but maybe we should be America’s. Next question.” And Susan just won this round.
“America HATES me.” Mellie’s loss sends her into a spiral of self-pity because she KNOWS she’s brilliant and doesn’t understand why she’s not connecting with the general public.
SO MANY MELLIVIA FEELINGS. ALL I HAVE WANTED FOR THREE SEASONS IS FOR THEM TO TEAM UP AND IT IS AS BEAUTIFUL AS I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE.
“Mellie, I will get you the Oval. Come hell or high water.” Like father, like daughter.
“BECAUSE HE’S NOT HER HUSBAND.” GASP. Susan just won the debate based on the story about her husband and he is NOT her husband???
“Susan Ross is a liar. And we’re going to find out why and we’re going to take her down.” SUSAN I TRUSTED YOU.
“America doesn’t care about you winning the debate. You won David.” This makes me sad because it’s true.
“What’s HE doing here?” I am LIVING for how much she hates him. Bless.
“You need to sell this love story.” Much like Hazza, Susan looks like she’d rather die than touch Taylor David.
“I want her to be President, I owe her that.” Honestly, it’s the least you can do.
“You need Quinn. You need Huck. But you don’t need me?” Can we get a good story for Marcus in season six?
“I need YOU to do your job.” And his job is to babysit Mellie while she makes an appearance on Kimmel. CROSS PROMOTION FTW.
Not only was Susan never married to John, her daughter is not his either.
“You’re holding out on me.” Liv and Alex meet to follow-up on their respective dirt.
“You gave me a RUMOR.” Oh, come on, Alex. Do your homework. Rumors usually have truth to them.
Oh I kind of want Alex and Olivia to do it?
Susan’s baby daddy is in PRISON.
“Your hand is dangerously close to the flame. Watch out kid.” Cyrus tries to warn Alex against going after Edison based on a rumor, but Alex won’t be deterred.
THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE MELLIE DO MEAN TWEETS.
“How mean do you want?” “MEAN.” Marcus determines that they aren’t going hard enough Mellie’s mean tweets and demands they get meaner. He’s clearly got a plan, even if Mellie doesn’t get it.
Liv offers Susan’s Baby Daddy Ronnie a way out of prison if he’ll take a paternity test.
“I don’t think that’d be very good for Susan. She’s trying to be President.” Even though he’s in prison, Ronnie is honorable.
“They’ll believe a paternity test.” DO THE THING, TMZ. #EndBabyGate
“This isn’t politics, this is ripping a family apart for no reason!” Huck, after everything he’s done, has developed a conscience.
“It could be worse. We could be making stuff up.”
Susan’s eye roll every time she sees David gives me life.
“Tell me something I don’t know, Stupid-Face.”
“You know what will people will understand when they hear that? That the person in the relationship with a penis – that’s you – cheated on the person in the relationship without one – that’s me.”
“There is no version of us breaking up that looks good for me unless you’re willing to say that I left you because you’re an impotent alcoholic who hates kids and dogs and God. Are you willing to say that?”
“What I want to say to you, Susan, is that I love you.”
Perd Hapley breaks the news about Edison being a pill popper.
“We get it wrong, we take a hit in the polls we could never recover from.” LISTEN TO CYRUS. DON’T DO IT
“I do know that these things are generally a life long struggle.” Oh, he did it.
“Your daughter. That’s how. She was the only person who knew. You need to go to her and pull back the reins and stop her in her tracks before she gets any more out of control.” Edison is PISSED and letting Rowan have it, which always ends well.
Jake is just eating his fried chicken.
“I can’t quite decide what troubles me more: the decision to interrupt me while I was speaking, the distasteful reference to my daughter requiring reins or this foolish belief that I would ever take orders from you.” GET READY EDISON, HE GON DECIMATE YOU.
“DO YOU WANT TO BE A BOSS?” Edison doesn’t know what hit him.
Jake just eats his chicken.
“Should you ever be so unwise to forget the real boss, the only boss around here is again, Meridian Terrace? That will be the last of your worries.”
EAT YOUR CHICKEN JAKE.
“Keep my daughter’s name out of your mouth.”
“If you’re hungry, there’s more chicken in the fridge.” Literally Scott Foley’s only line in the episode and it’s fucking delightful.
“Senator Edison Davis did not receive treatment…” “Oh dear.” Cyrus is all TOLD YOU SO.
“You screwed me.” “Someone GOT to her.” Alex is PISSED because he thinks Olivia gave him false info. Also he wants her.
“I can’t wait to wipe the floor with you in November.”
“I just debated my ASS off on national TV!” Mellie doesn’t understand WHY people don’t like her because she is SMART dammit.
“Are you kidding me with how annoying you are right now? I mean DAMN.”
“This is why I don’t like you even though I am being PAID to like you.” I also kind of want Mellie and Marcus to do it?
“We need to take your blood now for the paternity test.” Liv is not fucking around anymore.
“When Susan’s President next year, she’s going to help me get out of here.” Ronnie’s blind faith is cute.
“She doesn’t think about you, she doesn’t care about you.”
“How easy would it be to plant anything we want in Ronnie’s bunk, Quinn?” Quinn FREEZES for a hot second, but recovers.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“This is wrong, Quinn. We can’t do this.”
“We’re on the same side of our friend, aren’t we?” Quinn goes to Abby for help because this is BIGGER than her.
“I’m talking about replacing the white hat with a black skull-cap.”
INTERVENTION AT OPA TIME. The gang’s all here!
“What are you doing here?” “Giving you some advice.” Oh, Fitz.
“Can I keep it real with you, Liv?” I’m having 90’s flashbacks.
“How are you not sick of playing this game?” “You’re so ABOVE playing games, aren’t you, Fitz?”
“The only reason you are here is because it affects your candidate.” Where is the lie?
“She is smart, hardworking, she cares about this country. You married her, Fitz. You had children with her. You must have thought the same thing at some point.”
“I don’t want what happened to me to happen to Susan. I don’t want her to be the victim of another Defiance.”
“Is that what you think you were? A victim? PLEASE.” PREACH. POOR BABY GOT TO BE PRESIDENT.
“We don’t have to be these people anymore.” I gotta say, this is the most I am enjoying an Olitz scene since season one.
Olivia slams the door in Abby and Quinn’s face. I THINK this intervention didn’t go well.
“This is a nightmare.” Poor Susan learns that her whole life is about to come crashing down.
“You could come clean.”
“That’s not going to go over very well.” “I agree. But the truth might.”
“Far be it for me to tell you how to parent.” At least Fitz recognizes his flaws.
“I am going to tell you a story and you are going to tell you who you want to be. And I hope who you want to be is better than me.” Fitz comes clean about Defiance OMG.
Marcus finds Mellie in the dressing room and then reads his OWN mean tweets to her.
“Apparently I have what the twitter-verse refers to as a high booty.” YOU ALL KNOW WHAT I AM GONNA DO AND SORRY I NEED SEVERAL GIFS TO DO THIS.
“Show off your high booty?”
Mellie’s giggle is EVERYTHING.
“That right there. That’s the person they need to see. Someone relaxed. Someone who can laugh.” HELP ME I SHIP IT.
“There’s another side to Mellie Grant. A side everyone can fall in love with.” Subtext: A side I can fall in love with.
Word comes to OPA that Ronnie killed himself in prison. YIKES. GREAT JOB OLIVIA.
“Why don’t you hand that over to Cyrus?” CY’S FACE. He wins again.
The person who got to the rehab nurse? Cyrus via Tom. OF COURSE.
“America loves a love story.” So Susan is going the fake relationship route. My favorite fan fiction trope!
“You’re a prop, David. That’s all.”
“Girl BYE.” Mellie SLAYS on Mean Tweets and is back in the race.
“Let’s keep it real.” Olivia steps back of the precipice of dirty campaigning. For now.
“I want to win. Desperately. But I want to win clean.”
“So what do you say?” “I say…I’m gonna kick your ass.” YAS. BRING IT.
What are your thoughts, gladiators? How long till Alex and Olivia bone? How long will Hollis Doyle stay in the campaign? Are you #TeamMellie or #TeamSusan? Let us know in the comments!
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