There are two women in "Scandal's" D.C. you should never rule out: Olivia Pope and Mellie Grant.
Both have made their fair share of stupid decisions (i.e. getting involved with Fitz), but when their lives, morals or loyalties are tested, there are few people more terrifyingly brilliant than these two women.
Let's back up for a moment. Fitz quickly realizes that Andrew has taken over the White House, right under his nose. When he tries to call for help from the CIA, FBI, Jake Ballard and anyone else who could possibly help him bring Olivia home alive, a group of Secret Service agents barge into the Oval to break the situation down for him. The White House staff, the Secret Service and countless others are in Andrew's camp, every place Fitz frequents is bugged and he has no choice but to declare war on West Angola. If he tells anyone about Olivia's kidnapping, there will be dire consequences.
Fitz demands proof that Olivia is still alive. Ian and his crew force Olivia to say that she has been taken against her will and has been harmed. If Fitz does not declare war, she will be killed.
Fitz wrestles with his decision alone, finally deciding that he has no choice but to let Olivia die. Tony Goldwyn's acting actually made me forget that I loathe Fitz here. He's so conflicted and it's hard not to empathize with him. He can either kill the woman he loves or he can sacrifice countless lives by waging a needless war.
To top all of this off, Mellie believes that he's being distant toward her because she admitted that she'd slept with Andrew. (She'd hoped that she could find love the way Fitz did with Olivia, but unfortunately, Andrew happens to be Satan.)
Mellie lashes out at Fitz in response, and he finally figures out how to discreetly tell her what is happening. Fearful of Andrew's spies catching him, he pulls Mellie to him in what appear to be an affectionate embrace, whispering the truth about Andrew's schemes and Liv's whereabouts. Mellie is shocked at the news, but is even more surprised at Fitz's decision to allow Olivia to die. If Olivia never mattered to him, Mellie will be furious that he allowed a fling to ruin their marriage.
Mellie tells him to save her.
Fitz declares war, much to Cyrus's chagrin. Cyrus is verklempt because he thinks he's being shut out of Fitz's decisions, something he is especially sensitive about since coming back to the White House after the sleeping-with-a-prostitute debacle.
When Fitz asks him to read over the facts they will tell the press about the war, Cyrus goes off on him. But Fitz pushes back hard, demanding that he read the entire packet. After a lot of grousing, Cyrus reads it, and find a note Fitz left him about Olivia's kidnapping.
Meanwhile, Secret Service Agent/B613 Murderer Tom is requesting a pardon for killing Little Jerry. Much to everyone's surprise, Fitz agrees to see him. Tom is shocked as well, but hopeful that Fitz will grant him the pardon. Of course, that's not going to happen. Dude literally killed Fitz's son. Fitz is just there because he wants to know who he can trust in the White House and he figures Tom might have some insight, being a double-agent and all.
Tom figures out that this is about Olivia and launches back into his creepy Helen-of-Troy allusion. Fitz is understandably annoyed, until Tom hits him with a riddle (now that he's been outed as a murderer, Tom can only speak in riddles, metaphors and allusions to Grecian literature)m telling him that he can only speak freely in the place where he's always been able to speak freely.
Somehow, Fitz figures out that Tom means Olivia's apartment and he rushes over. Jake is sitting in her bedroom, strapping on his guns and making me question my decision not to lust over TV characters in 2015. I won't last long.
Anyway, Fitz hands him the video of Liv on a thumb drive. Jake takes it back to the OPA headquarters to analyze with Quinn and Huck.
They are pretty much getting nowhere with the tape, having watched it several times with no clues about what has happened. Finally, they realize why Olivia stopped and asked for a glass of water: to cast a reflection of her kidnappers' face. Huck is able to do some tech whiz mumbo jumbo and get an image that they can run through a ton of databases. (Side note: Even though the OPA team is still quite effective without her, I miss Abby. She's a Gladiator, through and through, and she's basically doing nothing but showing off her excellent blowout and serving as Cyrus's punching bag while working at the White House. Abby, come home.)
In the middle of this, an older woman (Marla Gibbs from "The Jeffersons"!) comes barging in, demanding to see "the black lady in charge." They tell her that Olivia is out right now (an understatement, amirite?) but offer to do whatever they can to help her. Marla just waves them away and says she'll come back tomorrow.
Never afraid to spill a little blood to help Olivia, Huck breaks into Elizabeth North's house and threatens to harm her daughter. Elizabeth is understandably shaken up. Apparently, kidnapping Olivia wasn't a part of her plan, but a scheme that Andrew dreamed up all on his own.
Elizabeth goes to his office the next day to tell him about Huck's threat and beg him to put an end to this. Andrew refuses, saying that he is forcing Fitz to wage this war for the good of the country, the GOP and he and Elizabeth's shared future. Blech.
Huck is able to get a good image of Ian, but unfortunately, his image doesn't match anything in their files. They almost lose hope, until they get another visit from Marla Gibbs. Turns out, she's a friend of Olivia's neighbor who was killed last episode. Marla hadn't been able to get in touch with her friend and thought that Olivia, who has a spare key to the apartment, would be able to help her out.
Jake, Huck and Quinn jet over to the older woman's apartment, where Huck finds a clue Olivia left for them: one of her rings stuck under the rug. Because of the building's wiring, plumbing or some such nonsense, the only way for the kidnappers to have properly spied on Liv was through the wireless. Huck is able to hack into the data on the router and finds info on one of Olivia's kidnappers. They search for his known associates and boom -- they've got Ian's name and known aliases.
Huck pays another visit to Elizabeth, this time bringing along his torture-y toolkit and carving up Elizabeth's back. Frightened and bloodied, she pays a visit to Mellie and tells her everything: Huck's threats and torture and Andrew's betrayal.
Mellie is callous, at first — I mean, Elizabeth had to know that Olivia's people wouldn't just let her kidnapping slide — but after Elizabeth reminds her that Andrew won't stop at the West Angola war, but will continue to demand things, Mellie decides to do something.
Because she is a brilliant, wonderful evil genius, Mellie plays Andrew like a pro. She tells him that she knows about his coup and demands to know just who will be living in the East Wing once he's prez: her or Elizabeth? (There's no way the American public would take kindly to the First Lady dumping her ousted husband and taking up with treacherous VP-turned-POTUS, but that's not the point.)
She plays right into Andrew's ego and they sleep together. Afterward, she steals his cellphones and gets them to OPA. They hack into his phones and figure out that Ian had been holding Olivia in an abandoned airplane hanger in Pennsylvania. Enlisting David Rosen's help, they storm in with a team of police officers, pretending to be conducting a drug raid, but it is too late.
Olivia has decided to leave her crew another breadcrumb to follow by playing Ian. She asks him what his endgame is. Sure, he could hold her there until the end of Fitz's term and then kill her, but what next? Didn't he want real power?
She convinces him to sell her on the black market, with her help. The woman who owns the POTUS could fetch a pretty penny. She would be able to determine her own fate, at that point. Plus, he'd have to clean her up to do it, and she really wanted to take a shower.
Ian takes the bait, playing right into Olivia's hands. When the news of her sale breaks, it lights up Huck's Criminal Chatter Switchboard.
At this rate, they'll have Liv home by next week.