This episode started with an O-face-filled nightmare and ended with Liv telling her father that her vagina was a secret weapon; even with a full arsenal of sexual innuendo, the most entertaining person was a pot-smoking, widowed, former First Lady.
Raise your hand if you want Bitsy to take Cyrus’s job. And I don’t mean someone should offer her chief of staff — I want her to snatch that job right out of his damp little hands, possibly in a cage match, definitely with hair pulling. Cyrus might be a monster, but Bitsy’s fake Nancy Reagan is a motherfucker, and I can’t imagine Liz trying any of this low-level espionage with such a formidable opponent. I love the big dog, little dog thing she and Mellie have going on; did you see how happy it made Mellie to undermine Fitz with someone so smart and interesting? I broke my collarbone once, and my doctor told me earnestly that eventually, the bone will be stronger in the place where it healed. I don’t know dick about the human body, and it’s possible he just wanted me to shut up and go home, but it sounded nice, and I believed him. Mellie is healing like a broken bone; last week was a baby step toward normalcy, but interactions with people like Bitsy and the impromptu and shaky speech she gave while leaving President Cooper’s wake — all of that is fortifying for Mellie 2.0.
Liv, however, is like a broken record. Fitz, Jake, Rowan, Fitz, Jake, Rowan … all of the men in her life are garbage pits soiling her impeccable coat (I see you, Limited Collection!), and she just keeps jumping in face-first. Listen: No woman should ever have to use her vagina for presidential pardons or state favors, not to keep her boyfriend from being murdered by the leader of the free world, or finally one-upping her dad, least of all, Olivia Pope. The only thing Olivia needs to do with her sex parts right now is a sage smudge because I’m pretty sure her box is haunted. You need to cast the evil spirits out and invoke some good intentions for it, already! Call Iyanla to pray over it! Ask Judge Judy to yell some sense into it! You could have it better, Liv, so much better.
At least Jake is holding steady even in the depths of despair, sitting around like an exhausted yogi, just waiting to die. It was insult to injury for Fitz to bust him in his perfect eye like that, the maniac. When Liv finally gets to see Jake, all he cares about is getting money from his offshore account to his mother and telling Liv that he knows she’s going to choose Fitz and it’s okay. Jake is pretty sincere in his feelings for Liv, and has watched her slip further away ever since they got back to Washington; since she’s so in denial about her feelings for Fitz, it was good of him to just sort of say, “I can see you.†Fitz let the meeting happen, but he also watched from behind some two-way glass like a stalker. Is anyone else convinced he’s going to empty Jake’s bank account to help pay for future Karen shenanigans?
This meeting only happened after Rowan met with Fitz and told him not to be swayed as he was swaying him, nicely asking for Jake to be turned over to him instead of the Department of Justice so he could “discipline his dog.†Rowan has no chill at all, so he ran to Jake to stick out his tongue and say “Neener neener neener, you can’t take command, command takes you,†only to get shown up by his own kid a couple of days later when Fitz moves Jake to a super-max jail instead of killing him. Olivia told Fitz there was hope, and the murder-fog lifted from his brain long enough for him to see that he was overacting quite a bit. This is why you only spike the ball after you actually get the touchdown, Rowan!
Olivia got played with the case of the week when the man accused of shooting President Cooper asked her to prove his innocence. The bullet was lodged in Cooper’s brain all these years, unable to be removed surgically, but now that he’s dead, they can pull out the bullet and test it. Liv first has to trick David Rosen into charging Carnahan with murder, since the bullet might have caused the stroke that killed Cooper, and David is pi-hi-hiiiiissed when he realizes Olivia set him up. When the test proves that the bullet was 100 percent Carnahan’s, he spouts off about earning his rightful place in history. He wanted the world to know that he did it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I don’t know; 30 years is a long time to spend in prison, and people become fixated, I guess.
Can we all agree that no one knows what to do with Quinn this season? She spent the entire episode running around the city trying to open lockers with the key she pulled out of that dead girl. THASSIT. That’s what she did. It finally worked, and when she got back to the office, she showed Huck what she found — hundreds of pictures of Olivia. So, is Olivia’s friend Katherine in on this? And what do “they†plan to do with Olivia when they get her?
Leaderboard of Arbitrary Points, Week Six
+45,000 points: “The falcon’s in the nest.†Fitz going to Olivia’s apartment wasn’t supposed to be a euphemism for sex, but you better believe it is now.
–10,200 points to Jake for grabbing Liv’s hair during that sex nightmare. Oh, I’m sorry, did I miss a meeting where we decided it’s now okay for you to put your entire white hand on my head without consent? NO MEANS NO when it comes to keeping my twist out in check.
+3,000 points to Mellie for asking Fitz if he wanted her to have the chef send up some fried chicken while he iced his knuckles on what is now forever known as the Fried-Chicken Porch.
—5,877,510 points to Cyrus for not keeping a closer eye on his fuck buddy or using a lock-screen code. Michael just picks up Cyrus’s phone, gets key information about Fitz possibly closing some military bases, and instantly has ammo to negotiate for Liz to pay him more money.
+9,433 points for this line: “You’ll get that bullet out of that dead president’s brain and prove to the world that I’m innocent.†In or out of context, it’s delightful.
—2,900 points to Cyrus for offering to set up an account for Michael to buy clothes, when the man is physically incapable of keeping a shirt on for more than ten minutes. Be a better investor, Cyrus!
+10,898,577 points to Abby. First she stayed with Liv through the night and seemed to put their friendship back on solid ground, then she told Fitz she wasn’t talking to the commander in chief, but “the married man who used to sleep with my friend,†to ask what he’s done with the man she’s currently sleeping with. She stood all the way up for Liv, and at great risk to herself. Gladiator, always. I also love the way she told Cyrus to “look at his own backdoor†for the security leak after she found out he was paying for hotels and new phones. YA BURNT.
—700,431 points to Fitz for calling Abby a bitch, but …
+ 988,322 points to Liv for pointing out how sexist he was.
+ 100,344,922 points to Bitsy for existing. She cut through all of the bullshit about what it meant to be in office by revealing to Mellie that her husband was a philandering dolt who let her do all the work. I died when she was like, Yeah, let him screw whomever he wants so he can be out of the way while you rule the country! “My husband’s only religion was believing he had to screw anything with a pulse.†Find a way to bring her back every week, please.
+200,523 points to David’s incredulity that he beat Olivia with the Carnahan hearing. “I won. I out-Poped Olivia Pope. EAT IT, SUCKA.†He doesn’t get a lot of time in the sun; enjoy it, David. Enjoy it.
–2,399,210 points to Rowan for saying, “I handed my greatest treasure to you on a platter, and you didn’t pay me my respects.†Oh, so Jake is the arrogant one, even though you’re over here referring to your daughter as a tradeable commodity? NEXT. Have all the seats, Rowan.
+34,711 points for this exchange:
Liv: I looked in his eyes and believed him.
David: That is why our judicial system is not based on looking into people’s eyes.
–5,400 points to Fitz for the whole “Jake ruined us†speech. Olivia chose Jake, which is not the same thing as him ruining them.
+799,200 points: “You go crochet or vaccinate fat kids or whatever silly hobby makes you feel like you’re making a difference,†and “I have a joint in my handbag that’s not going to smoke itself!†Bitsyyyyyyyy!
+900,000 points for making us think Huck had checked out by playing video games all episode, only to reveal at the end that he was against his son.
+5,900 points to Olivia for touching the tip of Rowan’s shoe when he showed up to the pool at the end. That was adorable.