Maybe women can’t be president — but they sure can drink a lot. At least on Scandal Episode 2, which has a little more drinking — okay a lot more — than the murderous episode last week, because who has time to uncork a bottle when you’re assassinating a president? Thankfully, when you’re simply backstabbing, manipulating, framing and torturing — you know, all the things that women do to each other in the course of a day — there’s time to throw back a few.
It’s enough drinking to make anyone dizzy — the writers too, who have framed this in a delicious flashback. It’s surprisingly more tense than you would imagine, even with a drink in hand.
We open with wha??? Mellie’s victory party.
The photomontage with their innovative clicking snapshots reminds us — as if we’d had such a tough week that we forgot — that Cyrus might have murdered his running mate Frankie, and Fitz endorsed Cyrus over his ex-wife Mellie, Olivia was going to bury Cyrus. Which is all very interesting, but the real intrigue here is the affair blooming between Mellie and Marcus.
Oh HELLO.
Olivia’s not having any of that — she knows what an affair (another interracial affair, mind you) will do to White House dreams. “Keep your legs closed,” she warns her. Hypocrite.
Mellie and Olivia spend a lot of time talking — and drinking — this episode, as the former first lady really cannot decide between her heart (okay her panties) and her aspirations. Why must a woman choose, though. Fitz didn’t. Guess what Mellie chooses?
Oh and
Meanwhile, the race is on to find evidence that Cyrus killed Vargas. Abby brings in the usual suspects (Jake. Oh Jake) to force a confession from the prisoner. But no worries, we no longer believe that our justice system is honest. Or that women are any better than men. Olivia takes out the new FBI head for drinks while Quinn steals the evidence from the Bureau.
Meanwhile this FBI “friend” (ha ha, there are no friends in Scandal) ask Olivia if she can date Fitz. Case in point: women NEVER date their friends’ lovers.
Olivia can’t really handle Mellie’s happiness with Marcus — it’s truly sickening — so she plots with Abby to give him a job so he’ll go away.
Mellie’s so pissed at Olivia — god, this is one big cat fight — she decides she’ll accept Cyrus’ offer to be Vice President. But then at the funeral of the one good person on the show, she has a change of heart. And she comes back to her husband’s mistress for help.
Despite Quinn’s incessant whingeing over whether she should marry Charlie, she and Huck find the evidence against Cyrus — like when he says on video to Frankie, “Over My Dead Body!” and Mellie can come full circle, drinking to her future candidacy.
Yep! They are!
