A part of me can't believe that season four of "Scandal" has really ended. It had its highs ("The Lawn Chair," Olivia's subsequent takedown of the police chief in "I'm Just a Bill," Susan Ross) and its lows (Olivia's kidnapping), but it still feels like it flew by.
The good news is that this finale actually gave us a bit of closure.
The bad news is that it comes at the expense of some of the show's better characters.
Mellie's busy schmoozing with Rowan, who is posing as Damascus Bainbridge (because yeah, that totally sounds like a real name), a very rich donor supporting Mellie's Senate campaign.
And how exactly is Rowan managing to get this close to Mellie? Because he has the entire Secret Service under his thumb, apparently.
Still unclear on how someone who treats everyone in his power so badly has not been killed. If the hyenas in "The Lion King" finally revolted against Scar, why can't any of the B613 agents get together and say "Hey, this dude is really awful to us. Maybe we'd be better off if we just took him out?"
Anyway, Rowan uses this opportunity to blackmail Mellie with some secret photos one of his spies snapped while Mellie was getting horizontal with Fitz's other former VP, Andrew Nichols. There are also shots of Fitz and Liv, info about Sally's late husband and mention of Operation Remington (which Mellie knows nothing about).
Mellie's shocked, but she plays it cool and shoos Elizabeth away so that she can find out what Rowan wants -- nay, what he needs. This time, it's a list of names. This cannot be good.
Olivia, David and company are pressing forward with this crazy idea to take down B613. Jake testifies about Operation Remington (a.k.a. that time Rowan got Fitz to blow up an entire plane full of people only to find out that his actual target, Liv's mom, wasn't even on it) which would mean exposing Fitz as the shooter. What's more, it was the event that kicked off B613 and Big Jerry used the entire thing as leverage to launch Fitz's political career. This is a hot mess.
The worst part? The day of Jake's grand jury testimony is the exact same day that Fitz signs the Brandon Bill into law. He calls and Liv doesn't tell him about the testimony, but instead congratulates him on both the Brandon Bill and Mellie's campaign, telling him that she's proud of him.
Moments later, she is brutally snapped back into reality. That list of names that Rowan demanded? They were the names of all of the grand jury members. Rowan had them all executed inside of their minibus.
Who. Is. This. Guy? How did he come to be? Attacking him head-on obviously isn't working, so why don't they just slowly poison him or something?
Work smarter, not harder.
For once, David Rosen is the one who wants to call it quits. Olivia tries to convince him to keep pushing and get justice for the jurors, but David is really shaken. The court stenographer, Faye, was just killed in a hit and run. In fact, David and Jake are the only two people who were in that courtroom who haven't died yet.
Naturally, Mellie and Elizabeth are both flipping out. Liz doesn't know why Mellie asked for that list, but she knows something is wrong.
The fact that David isn't answering Cyrus's calls in the midst of this crisis tells Abby that something is wrong. Unsure of what to do, Mellie finally whispers to Cyrus that she killed those grand jurors.
As for Olivia? She is OVER IT. Her father has been manipulating, bullying and abusing her for years. For once, she doesn't want to fight for someone else. She wants what she is owed: her father's head.
"For once in his life, he's the kid and I'm Command," she says, dreaming.
She can't even run off with Jake when he offers, so she turns to the only person who has ever been able to get one up on Rowan: Marie Wallace/Maya Pope/Devil Mama Pope.
Of course, Marie takes this as an opportunity to hurt Olivia, telling her that she makes up problems so that she can solve them in order to feel "important."
OK, with Rowan? I definitely think Liv and her crew have bungled everything. And rigging that election for Fitz was supremely stupid. But otherwise, Olivia Pope gets things done.
Deep down, Marie must know that, too. She finally gives Liv the key to getting Rowan's enemies to rally against their common foe. The problem isn't that there is no one around to hate the man. It's that they don't know that he exists.
Never one to ignore good advice (except, when it involves Fitz), Olivia gathers her team and decides to give her info to the head of the CIA, the woman we met when Olivia was kidnapped earlier this season. The idea is to tell the heads of the agencies being undermined by B613 all about Rowan and the full-scope of his work. It takes a little convincing, but eventually, th4e CIA head seems to buy their story.
There are only two problems with this: 1) After Mellie's confession, Cyrus met up with Rowan, who explains that Liv's plan would bring down everyone, including Fitz, and 2) the head of the CIA already knew about B613. Of course, she only thought that it was a small shadow operation.
At first, she is incensed and wants to bring it all down, but Cyrus, who refuses to commit her name to memory and calls her "Honey" instead, advises her to back off. If B613 is that powerful, does she really think it wise to take it on?
She caves and they arrest Jake and Olivia. Then, Cyrus makes a visit to David Rosen. He's well aware that David still holds a torch for Abby, even if she's still seeing Leo Bergen off-screen. Cyrus threatens to have some unspeakable harm befall "Red" should David refuse to help him with the Liv-and-Jake situation. Of course, David gives in and half-blackmails, half-begs Olivia and Jake to sign affidavits, recanting their stories about Rowan.
For good measure, Rowan gets rid of any evidence of his own existence.
He agrees to give Marie Wallace her freedom if she promises to never speak his name again. Then, he has the fake Virgil from last week's episode take out every B613 agent that ever heard of Command and blow up the B613 files that have been sitting around for about two seasons.
After that, he kills fake-Virgil.
He tells Olivia that she has officially succeeded in getting rid of Rowan. He no longer exists. Now, he's just Eli Pope, a "doddering" curator at the Smithsonian.
Defeated, Olivia gives up all hope that she'll ever take down her father. That is until Quinn, of all people, gives her a great idea.
She brings up the money that Huck stole from B613 eons ago. Huck tells her that there is no way to track that money back to "Eli," because it could have come from anywhere. A light bulb practically pops up above Olivia's head.
They frame Eli for embezzling that money from the Smithsonian and before you can say "finally," Eli is carted off to jail. Olivia stops by to gloat and the rays of vindication coming off of her are so powerful, I actually cared about Eli's downfall for the first time all season.
This is a character who has singlehandedly bullied, blackmailed and harmed almost every single major character on this show. It's nice to finally see him get his comeuppance. Even greater that it is at the hands of his only daughter, the person he has manipulated and tortured most harshly and with the most fervor.
Mellie also finally gets what she wants. Election night comes in a flash and of course, First Lady Mellie Grant is now Senator Mellie Grant of Virginia. At the ceremony, Elizabeth "accidentally" (note the skeptical quotation marks) tells Fitz about the grand jurors and Damascus Bainbridge. Fitz had no idea about any of it, but as soon as Elizabeth shows him a picture of "Damascus," he puts it all together.
Fitz plays it cool, posing for photos with a radiantly victorious Mellie, but as soon as they are back in the Oval, he lets her have it.
She is busy planning her eventual presidential campaign when Fitz mutters, "You think I would let you be president?" Mellie's wide-eyed confusion and dismay is almost heartbreaking as he tells her that they are no longer a "team" and unceremoniously kicks her out of the White House.
Then, he turns to Cyrus. He calls him out on the deal with Rowan, having Liv and Jake arrested, etc. Not wasting a minute, he fires Cyrus, as well.
Obviously, Mellie and Cyrus have done unspeakable things, but to be fair, they were largely done to protect Fitz. Who was the one who shot down that aforementioned commercial airplane at Rowan's behest? Who was the one who subsequently became a governor of California and later, POTUS? Who was the one sleeping with Olivia Pope for years and then waging wars to get her back when she was kidnapped?
Granted, Mellie and Cy deserve to be punished for their actions, but this self-righteous act Fitz has going is more than a little rich.
Confrontations abound this episode. After Eli is arrested and Olivia is safely home, Jake does something he should have done along time ago: he bounces. Don't get me wrong. Liv and Jake are definitely my "Scandal" OTP, but she is clearly in love with Fitz and will never let him go. Now that Jake has finally fulfilled his mission, he decides to grow a spine and cart his broken heart off to greener pastures.
Back at the office, Quinn corners Huck. She knows that he was the one who took out those grand jurors; she recognizes his "work."
Whipping out a gun, she demands that he tell her how Rowan convinced him to do it. Huck insists that it was to protect his family, but Quinn insists that he can't be with them because he's become a monster. By the end of the scene, Huck is ramming his head into the barrel of Quinn's gun, begging her to shoot.
We never see the end of that scene, though, because we have to return to the never-ending saga of Liv and Fitz. After dumping Mellie and Cyrus (whom he replaces with a grinning Elizabeth North), Fitz heads to Olivia' apartment. She isn't there, and he mopes back to the White House.
To his surprise, Olivia is waiting for him on the White House balcony, wine glass in hand. She tells him that it's finally OK and they share a passionate make-out session right outside. Yeah, because there are zero cameras there and you're totally already divorced from the first lady/newly-elected Virginia senator. Gah. I feel like I'm on one of those annoying hamster wheels and I just want to get off.