If the past few episodes of "Scandal" showed us just how far Olivia is willing to go in order to save herself, "No More Blood" showed us exactly who is truly in Olivia's corner.
What strings will they pull? Who is the most effective? Who is the fiercest Gladiator? What does "Gladiator" even mean in this context?
Gus and Co. are all set to hand Olivia off to the Iranians but they make one major mistake: they underestimate their hostage. When Olivia realizes that none of her current captors speak Farsi, she seizes the opportunity to shut the sale down.
Speaking what sounds like impressively adequate Farsi to my American ears, Olivia tells the Iranian woman officiating the exchange that Gus's crew intends to double-cross her. She then tells Gus that the Iranians plan to do the exact same thing. Unwilling to take the risk, the Iranians call off the sale and OPA/Fitz gets a second swing at rescuing Liv.
Mellie hands Andrew an amnesty agreement in exchange for his silence, but makes it clear that it is also contingent upon Olivia's safe return. Mellie is truly amazing.
After everything that she and Olivia have been through with Fitz, she is one of the main people advocating for her safe return. Sure, she said that Fitz allowing Olivia to die would mean that he ruined their marriage for nothing, but this is more personal than that. There is mutual respect between the two women that
has nothing to do with the man they have both loved. The same could be said for Mellie's relationship with Elizabeth North, but more on that later.
Because Andrew is committed to being a scumbag, he casually tosses the amnesty agreement aside and tells Mellie that he will take his chances. Sure, the White House can ruin his political career, but he can always take the story of his affair with the first lady straight to the press. They can take away his shot at becoming POTUS, he says, but he'll get satisfaction out of knowing that Mellie will never sit at the Resolute desk, either.
In the meantime, Fitz has called in every U.S. intelligence agency available to come up with a plan to safely extract Liv. The CIA director believes that a team of Navy SEALs would only have about a 30 percent chance of pulling off the mission successfully.
If they seek help from their allies, each will ask the U.S. for unimaginable favors
in return, such as the freeing dozens of terrorists. What she does not immediately say is that the other, more prudent option would be to neutralize the threat by killing Olivia, but she definitely implies it. Fitz stubbornly insists that they go with the SEALs.
Back in the Oval, Cyrus fantasizes about telling Fitz that he is a childish fool, quitting and storming out of the White House. But of course, he does not do that. He's sacrificed too much to get Fitz into office to give up now.
And that's exactly how Mellie feels about her Andrew problem. She calls Elizabeth in for tea to discuss the VP's latest threats. She did, after all, sleep with Andrew in order to keep Elizabeth alive. Now, she needs some solidarity from the GOP chairwoman.
As Mellie expertly transitions back into light chatter whenever the server enters the room, I couldn't help but think that her first lady performance is something to be admired.
It reminded me of the stoic, "ladylike" facade that "Game of Thrones" character Sansa Stark maintained while she was trapped in the royal court. They play into these restrictively gendered roles to keep themselves alive, either politically or literally.
In a culture that is used to having their Strong Women Characters carry guns and deliver precise roundhouse kicks in order to demonstrate their toughness and depth, this might not always look like strength, but honestly, most of us could not play the game expertly as Mellie or Sansa.
So, Elizabeth does as Mellie asks and seeks out help from Huck It's visibly difficult for her -- this is the man that tortured her just a short while ago -- but she owes Mellie. Huck is upset, as well.
Earlier in the episode, Jake had a little heart-to-heart with him about B613 and being turned into a homicidal loose cannon. Rowan did the exact same things to Jake, but he does not allow himself to give in to blood lust. He urges Huck to find and maintain control and he promises to do so -- not just for himself, but for Quinn, as well.
Elizabeth is asking him to tap back into his more murder-y side, just a short while after he promised to never go there again.
Always out of the loop, Abby struggles to get more info on Liv. She deduced that the U.S. knows where Olivia is and, after a tough discussion with David Rosen, she realizes that Cyrus plans to kill Olivia in order to prevent her buyers from using her to control Fitz.
Soon after, the auction begins again. Huck joins the bidding as Marie Wallace and since Gus learned about her in terrorist school, or something, he knows that she was a major player back in the day, but dropped off the map years ago. OPA ends up matching a Russian group out of St. Petersburg for the top bid and Gus asks Olivia what she would do in this situation.
She suggests that they go with Marie Wallace since she's back on the scene with something to prove, but she inadvertently gives herself away by scanning Gus's face to see if he bought it. He mocks her and they decide to go with the Russians.
After Abby stops by the office to tell OPA about Cyrus and the CIA's plan to kill Liv, Huck takes Elizabeth up on her job offer and decides to give Andrew a good scare. Tying Andrew up with his signature plastic wrap, Huck injects him with some kind of poison and then tells Elizabeth to call 911 because he doesn't kill people anymore. Growth.
Meanwhile, everyone else in Liv's corner is busy calling in favors. Abby gets an Interpol contact from David Rosen and Jake heads to prison to get some advice from Mama Pope. She can't do much to help him but she does tell him to go to Prescott Lake in Canada, where he finds Rowan fishing like he's not a wanted man/the former head of a black ops org. Rowan refuses to help Olivia, but he does deliver a pretty solid monologue complete with a fishing analogy.
The time comes for the drop and the CIA has the finger on the trigger. Abby frantically tries to call Cyrus, but he keeps ignoring her calls. They arrive on the scene and Cyrus demands that the CIA wait to fire. Cyrus has them zoom in on the meet and recognizes the man leading the Russian crew.
It's Stephen, Liv's former employee who left a couple of seasons ago. The look of relief on Liv's face would have been enough of a satisfying ending to this hostage plot, but then (!) she snatches Stephen's gun, shoots Gus in the leg and starts kicking him vigorously.
And how did Stephen know where to find Liv? Abby (ABBY!) found out that he was working in St. Petersburg and had Interpol find him. She tries to convince him to return to OPA, but he turns her down.
When Olivia returns to her apartment, Huck puts a bajillion locks on her door and promises to give her a new security system the next day. After Jake, Huck and Quinn leave, there is a known on her door and of course, it's Fitz. He thought that their reunion would be sunshine and kissing, but Liv is furious.
She assures him that she wasn't raped, but she does say that she found out there were things "worse than rape." He went to war for the life of one person - her.
She wanted their stupid Vermont fairytale, but after she and the rest of her team
sacrificed everything for Fitz to be president, he keeps carelessly trying to throw it away.
Last night's episode was about sacrifices. Tests of loyalty, of will and of determination. Abby, Olivia and Mellie each showed their own skill, strength and resolve while Cyrus wavered, Fitz strayed, Jake failed and Rowan stubbornly refused to help. Dream Abby was right. No one was coming to save Olivia.
And now, she knows. She is on her own.
