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Scandal: Say Hello to My Little Friend

Hold on, why is no one reporting on my new coat?
“Stop. Stop while you still can.”

I’ve never liked episodes of anything ‘Ripped from the Headlines,’ especially when they adhere this closely to real life events. They just take you completely out of the fictional universe you’re supposed to be vacationing in. I don’t know if this is just me, but I tend to constantly be comparing the fictionalization of the real life event with the actual real life event which just distracts me from the show further. At least when they did stuff like this on Law & Order, I wasn’t always sure what was going to happen because I’m not a true crime buff. I do, however, follow politics very closely, so this episode...let’s just say this one was never going to be a favorite.

I suppose the Anthony Weiner ripoff was inevitable. At least they did one thing undeniably right: they hired Melora Hardin (aka Jan Levenson, aka Trudy Monk) to play Shelley Meyers (aka Huma Abedin). The twist at the end felt a little unnecessary, but at least I didn’t see it coming. I have to wonder at the senator never suspecting his wife. She was out shopping that late on the night one of his sort of mistresses gets murdered and it never once occurred to him?

Apparently there’s been an on-and-off will they-won’t thing going on between Abby and David offscreen. It was a very good idea to keep it offscreen; I totally approve. We get enough romantic angst with Olivia, we don’t need to see Abby’s too. I’m really happy they have (for now) decided to be on again. I like them together. Both deserve a little bit of happiness. Particularly David. Poor David. Unluckiest guy on television.

As for Quinn and Huck, I’m not going to lie, I’m a little frustrated to be retreading old ground with him. I understand his killing when Command said ‘kill,’ but Huck struggling with addiction and going to AA meetings has been covered. Plus, Quinn is freaking me out. They’ve been working on the ‘uh-oh Quinn might like to kill people’ thing since last season, so it’s not coming out of nowhere. It’s just...creepy, maybe? Quinn was our window character for the first season. She was the character the audience was supposed to identify with as we were dumped into the world of Olivia Pope. Things were explained to her (and through her, to us). Now she’s a budding sociopath. It’s weird, right?

It looks like Lisa Kudrow will be Fitz’s opponent for the upcoming election. Damn. It makes sense for the Democrats to run a woman against him, but did it have to be that particular woman? I find Lisa Kudrow extremely annoying. I don’t know what it is. Outside of Friends, I’ve never been able to stand her. Plus, I’d really been hoping that Senator Edison Davis would make a bid for the presidency. Liv’s ex-boyfriend versus Liv’s ex-boyfriend? That would make for good TV. We never did get the big reveal scene with Edison.

I love Fitz, but sometimes he is just so dumb. I understand him wanting to mourn his Navy buddy and it was really sweet of him to arrange a funeral at Arlington and pay for it, but actually showing up claiming he had never met the decedent? That’s not going to raise a few eyebrows? The press already knows. How long did it take James to put together Defiance and who’s to say he won’t do exactly the same thing with Remington?

Speaking of Remington, it had been previously established Jake was on Operation Remington, so I’m confused now. He thought that Fitz was there when he wasn’t? How did he not know? Why did he not know? I’m not crazy about the way they’ve been teasing the whole thing out. A minute or so on it at the end of each show followed by a hashtag so their Twitterpated audience can go bonkers on social media. It’s like those teasers on the news: “Something in your fridge will kill you. Stay tuned until the very end of our broadcast to find out what it is.”

Bits and Pieces:

I love that they’re using Olivia’s recent downturn of luck as a plot point. It would’ve been easy enough to ignore, but instead we’re addressing the sharp decline of Liv’s reputation and the firm’s trouble finding clients. Bravo, Shonda. Interesting but realistic.

Quinn couldn’t use her baby Huck training to remember to put her phone on silent before following him?

Yeah, it was obvious, but I thought the scene with James and Cyrus was a hoot.

The ‘until they hit you in the face’ line was a reference to an actual line from Anthony Weiner’s texts/tweets. What a classy guy.

Mellie’s slip with the mic reminded of 2008 when then-candidate Barack Obama suggested small town Pennsylvanians “cling to guns or religion.”

Quotes:

Jake: “He put me in a hole, which was bad. What was worse...every other day he had two guys haul me out of that hole, and he stood there and watched as they beat the crap out of me. They did things to me that you can’t imagine. And then he had me bandaged up. Set the bones, stitched the cuts, gave me a shot of penicillin, ‘cause he wanted me alive and then back in the hole. That was just for fun.”
Aren’t we lucky that none of those injuries left permanent marks on pretty Scott Foley?

Olivia: “Say the thing again.”
Abby: “We need the money.”
Olivia: “We need the money.”
Abby: “We need the money.”
Harrison: “We need the money.”
Olivia: “Right, okay. We need the money.”

Mellie: “Half of America can’t even spell G8.”
I missed this line the first time around. Glad I caught it.

Mellie: “Give any piece of trailer trash a push-up bra and a microphone and those stupid flyovers will eat it up like fried Twinkies.”

Harrison: “You drop trou and we hope to God there’s no mole.”
Shelley: “There’s a mole.”

Quinn: “What do we know about this woman?”
Abby: “Besides the fact that her husband’s circumcised?”

Cyrus: “Cowboy boots?”
Ethan: “Yes sir, I figured it was okay. After all, we are Republicans.”
Cyrus: “This isn’t the Bush White House, Ethan. We don’t wear cowboy boots.”
Ethan: “Understood, but listen...”
Cyrus: “We wear shoes. Real shoes. Thinking man’s shoes.”
Favorite scene of the episode.

Olivia: “I don’t know what I am.”
Jake: “Well, you’re the daughter of the man that runs the top secret organization that made your friend kill a man for some reason having to do with your ex-boyfriend the president.”

two and a half out of four sext messages

2 comments:

  1. I wasn't wild about this one, either, for pretty much the same reasons.

    Aren’t we lucky that none of those injuries left permanent marks on pretty Scott Foley? Psychic link. I was thinking exactly the same thing.

    And the James/Cyrus scene was my favorite, too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This wasn't horrible, but I didn't love it either. I do love the character of Huck, but I feel as though he has been stuck for a while now. Agree that Quinn's near obsession with him is getting a bit odd.

    Fitz and Dad? That should be interesting to watch.

    ReplyDelete

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