Scandal Season 6, Episode 2
“Hardball”
Posted by Sage
It’s week 2 of Scandal Season 6 and America still doesn’t have a president picked out. (Just like IRL! No president…no president at all.) Olivia is 500% sure that Cyrus ordered Frankie Vargas’s assassination, but the White House isn’t going to help her prove it. Meanwhile, Mellie has to choose between her personal life and her career when she’s presented with two attractive propositions. To the gifs!
We’re back at the RNC and Marcus is tearing up during Mellie’s acceptance speech Huck is like,”You’re embarrassing us.”
So Marcus’s feelings for Mellie run DEEP. It’s not just a sex thing. But can it also be a sex thing?
“We made this campaign together so now, let’s make history together.” She’s killing it and she knows it. The crowd goes wild.
“You cried, well I think that’s beautiful.” Mellie and Marcus have a moment over some champagne, and Olivia is watching them like a hawk.
Olivia: “Knees together.”
Mellie:
Olivia comes to the Oval to play the incriminating voicemail from the dead videographer for Fitz and Abby so they’ll finally start taking Olivia’s accusations against Cyrus seriously.
Gimme that orange coat.
“Just because he killed Frankie doesn’t mean he didn’t feel bad about it.” Olivia is immune to Cyrus tears.
Meet FBI director Angela Patterson, another black woman in a position of power!
“The election is over, Liv. And so is this meeting.” Fitz threw his support behind Cyrus, so an investigation would look bad for HIM. God, Fitz is the fucking worst.
“I’ll take care of Mellie, you make sure we get that confession.” They’re going to pin the assassination on their guy whether he did it or not.
“Tweets like, “get that dumb Mexican off my television.” Their guy IS a racist dick, so they’ve got that going for them.
“It’s a less polite way of saying go have sexual intercourse with yourself.” McClintock won’t sign a confession, even though they’re offering to make a deal. He maintains that he didn’t shoot Vargas. They’re wasting their time.
“It’s Mr. McClintock as in my parents came to America before yours did David…ROSEN.” Aw, an antisemite too. How perfectly irrelevant to the current state of our government!
Olivia orders Quinn to get to what’s left of the videographer’s cabin to search for evidence.
“I’m reminded of a movie where two women drive off a cliff together.” “We’ll drink later.” Update: Mellie and Olivia are still best girlfriends.
“Get it done.” Aware that Mellie also believes Cyrus killed his running mate, Fitz makes her sit down with him to “compromise.”
“You’re gonna kill me right. I’m assuming that’s your plan.”
“I want you to join my administration as vice president on a unity ticket.” Whaaaat.
“I’m supposed to serve you? I’m suppose to allow you to just walk away with a job I have worked for, I have bled for, I was born for?” Mellie ain’t accepting no consolation prize.
“If you think the only presidential candidate left in this election is going to get down on her knees and be a good little girl for YOU, the man who tried to murder his way into the Oval, honey, you better think again.”
“I’m not the bad guy here, Mellie. Not this time, at least.” The Cyrus who cried wolf? I don’t think so.
“You can do this. You have me.” Another flashback. Marcus is teaching Mellie how to pitch so she can impress white male voters with her all-American-ness.
“I can’t think of anything better than this. Can you?” “No.” I’m reminded of another uber romantic late night baseball date…
“Show me how you grip it.” “No, no, Miss Scully, the pleasure’s all mine…”
It’s all too intimate and obvious. Mellie freaks and leaves before she can do something stupid like kiss him.
“Who’s going to walk you down the aisle?” Charlie and Quinn are dressed like FBI agents and coming through the cabin wreckage. But Charlie wants to talk wedding planning. That ceremony is gonna be lit.
They find Jennifer’s laptop, but have to hand it over to be cataloged.
Abby calls in Jake to help her get a confession out of McClintock. HI JAKE.
“Stop doing that. Coming up to me with your concern. You didn’t choose me. Nobody does.” In the present, Marcus finds Mellie after her meeting with Cyrus and checks in on her. Something SO HAPPENED.
MOONSHINE TIME. Another flashback: Mellie and Marcus watch her throw out the first pitch. She kills it, does a dirt-off-the-shoulder move. The people love her. Mellie wants to celebrate with her favorite booze.
“Marcus…don’t.” “Huh?” “Don’t go.” Marcus STRIDES towards her from the door, throws his coat down, and does her ON HER DESK.
“Well then nab it back.” Liv doesn’t care HOW they do it; she needs Quinn to get that computer back from the FBI. Remember who works for the FBI?
“Look at us. All grown up.” Olivia and Angela go way back, apparently. It’s not suspicious at all for Liv to ask her out for drinks. Even though neither of their motives is particularly friendly.
“I get the look, the usual how ‘did you get here’ glance.” Angela and Olivia do share a genuine moment of commiseration over the micro-aggressions they face every day. Shonda, you the real MVP.
“Liv, no, I would never ever. You know that.” Angela agreed to this outing because she has a thing for Fitz and wants Liv to give her the green light.
“You should ask him out.” Olivia does not give a shit.
“Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” While Olivia does her part, Huck and Quinn are breaking into FBI headquarters. Quinn uses a man’s fears of his superior against him, expertly. He turns and runs, leaving the evidence box in Quinn’s hands.
“With all due respect, I don’t need your authorization.” The White House is taking over the McClintock case, much to the dismay of Angela and David, who believe in checks and balances and the separation of power. Too real everything is too real.
Jake comes out of the room with a signed confession. He frightened McClintock so badly, there’s a puddle on the floor.
David Rosen comes into her office, grabs Liv’s wine glass, and chugs it. “The constitution’s going up in flames.”
“Abby, how could you? How could you manage to do something so terrible, something so beneath you.” So…they’re still not friends.
“I miss you…I did choose you. I would choose you. You just have to choose me.” Marcus advises Mellie to accept Cyrus’s offer. “There’s freedom in the vice presidency,” he says. She could have a personal life.
“Mellie, where are you?”
“I couldn’t help myself.”
“You didn’t?”
“I did, I so did..boy, DID I?…I wept. Literally wept. I actually shed uncontrollable tears of joy having sex…I was blind, but now I see. My skin is warm and I feel generous. And colors seem brighter and smells seem stronger and I believe in…I believe.” Post-Marcus sex and Mellie is floating somewhere above the room. It’s the first time she’s had sex with someone she loves. She has had three children and this is the first time.
Olivia sees red flags everywhere, so she starts dropping crumbs of doubt plucked from Marcus’s past. She puts it into Mellie’s head that Marcus is a climber.
Then, she asks Abby to offer Marcus a job. A job that he can’t say no to. Abby points out that this is exactly how Olivia broke her and David apart. But Abby can’t fault her for that now, since David has turned into such a pathetic little man.
“This is a new low for you, for us.”
“It was a choice: Marcus or the presidency.” Mellie finds out that Olivia orchestrated their break-up and Olivia is not at all sorry.
“You don’t get to be vulnerable or weak or compromised by ANYONE.” Projectionnnnnnnnn.
“We are done Olivia. Good luck finding your way back to the White House now.”
“Mellie, you should be PROUD.”
“Oh, is THAT what you tell ’em?” In the past, Mellie doesn’t take the news about Marcus being offered Press Secretary as well as he thought she would. He’s like:
“Is that what you’re thinking, I shouldn’t marry Charlie?” Quinn is spiraling about her future and the rest of OPA is all:
“You’re looking for excuses because you’re scared…Share your life, because you’re not tethered to power.” Olivia calls her out for being a big baby and taking her own freedom for granted. Olivia DOES feel guilty for what she did to Mellie. But she had to do it.
Mellie goes to the White House and asks to see Cyrus and Marcus. She’s going to take VP and get Marcus back. She is…until she wanders into the empty Oval and imagines herself at the desk. She wants it. More than anything and anyone. She disappears before Marcus gets there.
“Did it hurt this bad when you left Fitz?” “Yes.” Mellie comes crawling back to Olivia. Olivia pours her a glass. Bad bitches, no feelings.
“Huck, leave us alone, we’re drinking.” But he found something in those hours and hours of footage from the Vargas campaign!
“Sorry to interrupt.” Olivia arrives at the residence with tape in hand and catches Fitz looming over Angela on the balcony. That didn’t take long.
“What you did is vile. Inexcusable.” There’s footage of Frankie and Cyrus having a drag-out fight, probably about how Cyrus exploited Frankie’s sick daughter. Frankie threatens to throw him in jail. This is all a little CONVENIENT for me.
“Abby, give me the attorney general.” FINALLY, Fitz is ready to DO HIS JOB.
It’s not looking good for Cyrus Beene. But I think there’s a lot more to this Vargas story than that. Who really killed Frankie? Give us your guesses in the comments!
I had forgotten that Cyrus had exploited Frankie’s daughter and then set up his brother to take the fall for that. You’re probably right that that’s what Frankie is upset about. I was thinking he found out that Cyrus had set up that “hero moment” for Frankie; but now that I think about it more, Frankie would have gone straight to the police with that info because he is a good person. At least I hope he remained a good enough person to choose be right over being in power. But with the thing about his daughter, it’s not really criminal even though it is morally wrong. So Frankie has the right to be angry and take it out on Cyrus without needing to get police involved.
I still think this will either lead back to Jake (without the influence of Papa Pope) or someone else besides Cyrus. I’m hopeful it won’t lead back to Papa Pope completely because that’s too easy an out.