Scandal Season 6, Episode 11
“Trojan Horse”
Posted by Sage
Ten full episodes since we FIRST saw election night, Scandal is finally ready to crown Fitz’s successor. It won’t be easy or bloodless, so crack open that Cab Sav and let’s get to the gifs:
It’s four days until the electoral college votes, and every major news outlet is predicting Mellie. Get your crown, girl.
David and Sarah Ponytail are having crazy sex, if almost fully clothed. He’s in love with her too. David why are you SO BAD at women?
“Shh, shh, it’s me.” Jake interrupts mid-sex water break, because someone’s got to tell David that he’s banging the devil, no big.
“It’s a lot to take in. Try to act natural.” She’ll kill him if she gets wind that he knows. David is…not the BEST liar?
“Senator, there are no options.” Olivia wants Mellie to to cede the presidency now that Cyrus is off the hook for Frankie’s death. Mellie is not about it. (But I do love it when Olivia calls her by her title.)
“That is America out there, I don’t quit on them.”
“He is not gone, he was taken.” Olivia grows a conscious about Mellie benefiting from Frankie’s assassination.
“GET OFF YOUR CROSS. Like you never murdered anybody.”
“I know you, inside. You are a better person.”
BEST. LADY. FRIENDS.
“Cyrus Beene is innocent of all charges.” David gives a press conference about his release. Abby streams it for Cyrus in prison. Maybe like, get him out of there first, watch speech second? Whatever. Fly freeee, little bird.
“Mellie is devastated. As she should be.” Fitz could not care less about Mellie’s state of mind and keeps putting his grubby hands all over Olivia under the guise of comforting her.
“I need to see my daughter.” Abby sets Cyrus up in a hotel, but Michael refuses to bring Ella there. I wonder why.
“Which one of them got to you…I know, it was Olivia.” Lizzie Bear returns and immediately throws some shade at the best friggin’ friendship on this show.
“Why are you even here? You don’t LIKE me.” “I don’t like people, but I respect you.”
“Do you need water, more pillows maybe?” Quinn steals a pillow from Charlie to give to a recovering Huck. Engagement over in 5…4…3…
“Is that my robe?” “No.” “Yes. He says it feels like money.” Like you wouldn’t.
“Isn’t that wonderful?” “No, it’s not. Because it wouldn’t be fair.” Mellie tries to sell Olivia on her non-concession again, and Liv is like, “Oh, honey. It’s over.”
“I’m really sorry Olivia. But my mind is made up.” She lightly touches Olivia’s arm on the way out, because she’s genuinely sorry they’re not on the same page here.
“Cyrus Beene: our new client.” OPA switches sides and Lizzie starts campaigning for Mellie. Is anyone PAYING OPA? How do they keep the lights on, or pay for Sunshine Cleaning?
“The suits won’t fit.” Cyrus lost 14 pounds in jail, and is just depleted in general.
“You’re still in this thing, Cyrus.” Olivia comes to give her ex-best friend a pep talk, but getting his ass kicked in jail didn’t leave Cyrus in the mood to serve his country for the next four years.
“You left me for dead, now you’re here.”
Angela smells a rat in Olivia’s proximity to the Tom/Cyrus thing, but Fitz dances around the subject. Girl, please, just leave and get your life.
Rowan has one final bone to place on his dino skeleton, in a nod to Dr. David Huxley.
“Step inside the box.” Rowan spent hours walking around his office, locating the one square foot of surveillance safe zone.
“If Cyrus Beene becomes President, they WILL kill you.”
“Survival of the fittest, right?” Be cool be cool be cool.
Mrs. Vargas speaks up for Cyrus, and that’s all it takes to get him back in the race.
“Cyrus is not a good man…he’s a liar, a cheater, a manipulator.” Lizzie Bear goes on TV to say, well, true things about her now candidate’s opponent, but she’s one to talk. (And WHY has no one made a gif of Phoebe saying, “Hello kettle? This is Monica. You’re black.”)
“We’ve all done terrible things, those were your words. I forgave Abby, it’s your turn.” Liv tells Fitz to get off his high horse and go say something inspiring to Cyrus.
“You drink beer now?”
“What was prison like?” “Pure hell.”
“It’s still there, Cyrus. It’s yours. And as your President, I’m asking you to take it.” Fitz instructs Cyrus to get back out into the world to take what’s rightfully (ehhhh…??) his.
“You don’t spend a decade in Washington without committing a few sins. I’ve committed more than a few.” Cyrus kicks his campaign back into high gear with a speech that earns him points for its relatively bold honesty. (If America knew the particulars of some of these sins, well…2016 taught us that wouldn’t mean much, would it?)
“Unworthy as I am, his hopes have become my compass. And that’s why I’m here.” Dead man’s legacy is a tough message to beat.
Sarah Ponytail and her man show up at Lizzie’s office to introduce themselves to Mellie. They’ve bribed enough electors to get her into the Oval. Things are in motion, and no one can stop them.
“You’re our horse, senator. Our way into the White House.” Hey, remember 2004’s Troy?
“Okay, one: I don’t fear anyone.” Mellie calmly threatens the gatecrashers. In response, Sarah bashes Lizzie Bear’s brains in and threatens to kill Mellie’s children. Scandal Season 6: MORE BRAINS.
“I came here as a courtesy.” Angela finds proof that Olivia made the payment to Tom, implicating her in the conspiracy to frame Cyrus. Fitz acts like a dick to try to throw her off the scent – never a difficult role for him to play.
“You made Olivia your target from the beginning.” He’s calling her a jealous girlfriend, Angela, DESTROY HIM.
“And it’s so ridiculous and so insulting that you’re going to have to say it for me to truly understand.” Could you speak into her GOOD ear, Mr. President?
“This isn’t about truth and justice, it’s about something else.” He’s doubling down on this, why.
“Boy, I am the director of the FBI, not some chick who got dissed at prom.” TELL HIM.
Olivia walks into the office, sees Lizzie dead on the floor and Mellie in shock.
“Just like we dreamed…only the nightmare version.” Mellie understands that her victory has nothing to do with her, and it’s so so so tainted.
“Hey: eyes on me.” “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for this mess.” Olivia leaves Mellie in the capable hands of Jake Ballard. She’s a mess. She doesn’t deserve this.
“I am your Vice President. I am your shield. I clean up your political messes. I take the political bullets for you, I clean up the messes you leave behind. It is my duty, so you do not apologize to me.” Hey, he isn’t perfect. But Jake has some princely blood in him, for certain.
“Angela is finding an arrest warrant for you.” “Good.” Fitz STILL thinks this is a personal vendetta of Angela’s – even though he KNOWS she’s right? – but Olivia sees an opportunity to take the White House from Mellie (and therefore Sarah Ponytail) in a way that doesn’t look like any of them threw the vote.
“I am not asking your permission and you don’t tell me what to do.” Olivia is happy to take the bullet for the country and wants none of Fitz’s whining.
“Don’t you see? I would lose you, forever.”
“My father will die.” “So all this…is for him.”
“You arrest my father, you stop me taking the fall for this, for doing what I have to do, you also lose me forever.” LOSE/LOSE SITUATION, FITZGERALD.
ELECTORAL COLLEGE DAY.
“Didn’t you hear? We have a suspect in custody.” Someone ELSE has been arrested in conjunction with Frankie’s assassination, and it’s Rowan Pope, the kindly paleontologist.
“M’am, these orders came from the White House.” Against her EXPRESS WISHES. Nay, her ORDERS.
Mellie drinks her moonshine while she watches the electoral college swing her way. She can taste the glory she should be feeling here, and it just makes the whole experience all the more bitter.
“What do you have to be sorry for, Red?” “All of it.” Cyrus and Abby watch the news together. Abby wallows in being the unsuspecting patsy who invited the vampires into the house.
“I TOLD YOU.” Olivia bursts into the West Wing to find out that Fitz took her father into HIS custody. He vows that they’ll take down this evil organization together. Olivia gets a familiar look in her eyes, and I don’t like it AT ALL.
DO NOT KISS HIM. Remember LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE? How could this make up for all the other ways in which Fitz has done Olivia and her friends dirty? I feel sick.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Don’t you shut that door.
Mellie is appointed to the highest office in the land, in the most hollow victory since this one:
Scandal has queued up a dystopian political hellscape, wherein pure evil is pulling the strings behind every decision. For five seasons, this was actually thought of as ESCAPIST entertainment.
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