Pictures of Michael, Cyrus' "fiance," show him making out with another guy at a bar. Gladiators are alerted and create a plan for Mellie to host a wedding for Cyrus and Michael at the White House (still don't quite get why everyone has to go out of their way to save Cyrus...he's done some pretty horrible things over the seasons...guess I'm just not a fan)...Sally, yep she's back, offers a reward for anyone who can prove the wedding is a sham (she was tipped off about the fraudulent nuptials by Leo...I still don't get Leo and Abby's relationship), and someone comes forward. Liv gets Sally to call off the interview by suggesting Sally's deceased husband was one of Michael's clients. And Cyrus and Michael get married...
O...and at the wedding Liv is wearing a ring Fitz gave her that once belonged to his great grandmother. Fitz gave it to her at Cyrus' second wedding. We also got some background story on Cyrus' first wedding. He was married to his first wife for 16 years, until she left him b/c she was lonely and she realized or learned he was gay. Cyrus had a fit, mostly b/c it ruined his political future...hence he is Chief of Staff and not the President. We also saw flashbacks to his 2nd wedding, and how he manipulated James right before their honeymoon...after making a promise that he would never do anything like that right before they got married. All of that, coupled with the revelation of some of Michael's back story (parent's who only came to the wedding b/c they were paid by Elizabeth North, feeling like no one will ever love him)...and Cyrus being willing to throw him to the wolves to save his own back...just further emphasizes how much Cyrus is all for Team Cyrus at the expense of whatever (or whomever) is in his way. Even the death of what seems to have been the love of his life didn't change him.
"Honor Thy Father" - Episode 18 (April 2, 2015)
Taking me back to the early days of Scandal, we get a nice unrelated case for Olivia to work on. Oliva wakes up next to Franklin Russel (Brian White), from the bar. He tells her she was screaming in her sleep in multiple languages about a red door. She attempts to say their rendezvous is done, but he says he doesn't think so and goes in for a kiss. And let's just say he must be right, because she stays in said kiss...until she gets a call...
A congressman is asking Olivia for help. His father found his 15 year old sister hanging. She committed suicide over an affair she was having with her high school math teacher. Later, his father confessed to killing the math teacher. This all happened 15 years ago, and the congressman has asked President Grant for a pardon, but Fitz denied his request. The Congressman doesn't think his father killed the math teacher, and asks Olivia to meet with his father, as his execution is impending. Olivia obliges, but his father says he does this every 10 years and needs to move on with his life. Olivia tells him she's going to take his case, against his will, because she believes he's innocent. Olivia has Quinn look into whether Hoffman, the math teacher, had sex with other students. They discover he did, and then proceed to go find his ex-wife. However, Olivia learns from her sister, she passed away a few weeks ago. So Quinn and Huck go through her house to see if they can find any evidence that she killed her husband, and not the congressman's father. Quinn calls the cops with an anonymous tip about a gun she finds in the house.
Liv later goes to see the congressman's father with the congressman to tell them the gun found in the math teacher's ex-wife's home matched the ballistics for his murder. But Liv points out the gun had to have been planted, b/c there would have been rust if it was in her basement for 15 years. She then drops the bomb that she thinks the congressman held the gun, and planted it on the teacher's ex-wife after she died of natural causes to frame her and prevent his father from being put to death for a murder the congressman committed! His father then jumps up and tells him to shut up, as he begins to almost confess, and tells him to respect him as his father. He then leaves, and the congressman tells Liv his father threatened to kill himself if he turned himself in. He tells Liv he's been trying to take responsibility for the murder for 15 years, but his father won't let him. Liv goes back to visit the father to convince him his son can get a good trial and lawyer, pointing out he isn't truly living b/c of the lie his father is forcing him to keep. The Congressman finally gets to confess and is taken into custody, and his father is released.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth North goes to interview Harmony, Mellie's half-sister, without telling Mellie. Elizabeth warns Mellie that her half-sister is angry deep down, and tells Mellie she needs to fully welcome her into the family fold. Cyrus tells Abby to make sure to keep Harmony away from the press while she's visiting Mellie. He also throws in Mellie's run will be over, b/c Fitz hates the way Mellie gets when she's dealing with her family. And Cyrus seems to be right, as Fitz refuses to go to dinner with Mellie and her sister. But then he does indeed end up having dinner with them, which quickly turns left ending with Harmony telling Mellie to watch how she talks to someone who has so much dirt on her. Fitz then talks to Mellie about needing to be welcoming to her sister, and she tells him that that was supposed to be his job...he was supposed to be the "first lady." So Fitz does just that...he becomes Mellie's "first lady," and gets Harmony to leave the White House amicably. Then Cyrus hears Fitz tell Mellie she's going to win the race, and he's going to be right by her side.
And in the B-613 world, David offers Jake immunity for testifying against B-613. Jake not only declines, he attempts to threaten David into closing the case.
Max, Margo, and Simon...retired B-613 agents, are credited with 37 assassinations. David plans to offer them full immunity in exchange for testifying against Jake and B-613, but Jake has the office under surveillance and hears the plan. Womp, womp. Unaware of this, they move forward with the plan and move them into a safe house. When Charlie goes to check on them later in the episode, he finds them all dead (well one was still dying) and Jake! He and Jake get into a wrestle with a gun, and Jake manages to shoot the last one dead and run out. Charlie tells Huck and Quinn they have to kill Jake, and Huck agrees. Quinn disagrees at first, but decides to go along with them after Huck agrees with Charlie. Though she still tries to rationalize with Huck that maybe they won't have to take Jake out.
They later track Jake to Liv's apartment, but when they rush to her apartment they find her there with Franklin. Liv quickly sends them on their way, and then Jake opens the door at the apartment across from Liv's. He tells Huck and Quinn they don't have to worry about Liv as long as he's alive. Huck tells Quinn, Charlie, and David it's over, b/c if they fail at an attempt to kill Jake, Jake will kill Liv. David tries to convince them not to give up and to tell Liv everything, but they don't change their mind.
David has a flashback to the night Jake could have killed him and chose not to. Or perhaps I should say, David has a flashback to the night he witnessed Jake kill James, Vanessa Calhoun, and Shelby Moss. He leaves a voicemail for Huck saying they have a witness against Jake, and its him! And of course, Jake hears all of this! Including when David says they have to take down Command and Command is Rowan and Jake.
Then when we think Jake is about to kill Rosen, he tells Rosen to take two steps to the left, and we see his assistant, Holly, has a gun out! Jake kills her, and we learn Holly is a B-613 agent. She killed the three witnesses in the safe house. We also learn that Liv is fully aware of EVERYTHING, when she reveals this to Huck after he tells her he's there to protect her from Jake. Liv then tells him she never thought she'd have to tell Huck and Quinn not to lie to her. It turns out she knew Jake was spying on them, and knew Jake hadn't gone rogue.
And the episode ends with Franklin standing at Liv's door speechless...and next to him...PAPA POPE!
"I'm Just a Bill" - Episode 19 (April 16, 2015) [AKA #PapaPopeIsBack]
Marcus, who is now running for mayor, was having an affair with the Mayor's wife, when they heard someone come in. Thinking it was the mayor, she hid Marcus in the closet. He then witnessed three masked men come in and kill her. So he called Liv for her help. Quinn and Huck proceed to dismember her, put her in a suitcase, and clean the apartment to make it look like the murder never took place and the mayor's wife is just missing.
The police take Marcus to the police station without arresting him. So Liv goes to the station and nips that in the bud and has him released. They later learn the mayor hacked Marcus' email and sent several emails to his wife form Marcus' email to frame him for the murder of his wife. Marcus recalls one of the men being named Micky, and the Gladiators proceed to try to locate a Micky in the mayor's circle. Through a picture, they are able to discover it's the mayor's personal driver. However, since they cleaned up all of the evidence, everything falls on Marcus. He has to decide if he's going to go public with the fact that he was having an affair with the mayor's wife and testify so that justice is served...oooor...he can let Liv use it as leverage to get the mayor to drop out of the race, leaving Marcus as the winner of the mayoral race. When left with the choice between justice or his career...he chooses...his career! The mayor announces his resignation and endorses Marcus. Marcus then goes up to the mic and proclaims it is a lie and that the mayor killed his wife b/c she was having an affair with Marcus. He then gives his testimony to the police. What I don't get is...if it was all about doing the right thing...how did he explain the crime scene being cleaned up?? But guess we'll just skip over that...or maybe I missed it.
"Brandon Bill"...a bill regarding the shooting of Brandon by a police officer in an earlier episode...is at a tie in the Senate. The VP refuses to vote without reading the entire 1200 page bill. And she breaks it down. Cy tries to get her to vote, but she says if she votes with unanswered questions she'll have to vote no. So he gets David to go over the bill with her, where she points out to Rosen the bill has no enforcement mechanism. Mellie goes to talk to the VP, and the VP points out she knows that Mellie is planning to announce her plans to run for the Senate around the time the bill is passed, and even her plans to run for president. She thinks it's a brilliant plan, but still plans on fully grasping the bill before voting. The next morning Fitz goes to speak with the VP and tell her there's no more time. He tells her she's new to all of this and needs to go vote the way she is supposed to. She says he knew what he was getting when she agreed to be VP. She said the bill is nothing but a bunch of little compromises, and she came to help make change. So she and Fitz decide to pull the bill and proceed to rewrite it. And then Mellie announces her run for the Senate without any news on the now pulled bill.
As for the main attraction...Papa Pope makes himself at home in Liv's apartment. Pours them a couple of glasses of red wine and has a seat, while Liv stands there and asks him what he wants. He tells her some people are trying to build some case about a top secret agency (LOL...he's a fool!). He then proceeds to tell her he's giving her 48 hours to shut it down. When she says she's not going to help him, he points out Fitz would suffer the most if the case isn't stopped. He then proceeds to read her in the way only Papa Pope can. We then also see that he sedated and tied up poor Russel, who won't remember anything. And Olivia plays along with it by waking up Russel and pretending to be wasted, to convince him they just drunk too much.
Later, Jake tells Liv he's here for her if she needs him. And further in the episode, David begins to ask Jake questions regarding Rowan and Operation Remington, which he is unfamiliar with. David asks for the name of the pilot that agreed to shoot down the plane so the pilot could testify against Rowan, and Jake tells him it was Fitz.
As Liz leaves, she has flashbacks to her kidnapping and begins to shake. She gets home, pours a glass of wine, and invites Russel over. Russel tells her he came b/c she's beautiful and she seemed upset, but he's looking for something more stable. She tells him her life is very complicated, but she wants it to not be complicated. She says when she's "Alex" and with him, nothing is complicated. She invites him in, and of course he obliges, in more ways than one.
Liv later tells David, Jake, Huck, and Quinn about her encounter with her father. They decide to push forward and make the case public to take down Rowan, noting the risk it'll be for the president. Liv claims she's okay with it if it means taking down her father.
Later, Papa Pope asks Liv for her decision. She tells him she's chosen her side, and it's not his. She says she cares about Fitz, but as Rowan said, she'll never let a person get in the way of what she believes is right...which in this case is justice for those who have been hurt by B-613 like Huck and Jake. Papa Pope applauds her for choosing what's right over Fitz, though he's surprised. She reiterates she's not helping him, and he says they may be on different sides but at least she's become a worthy opponent. She then tells him to find a way to shut it down without lies and blood, and he says if that's her expectations for him she won't be very proud of him when it's all over.
Shortly thereafter, Jake goes to the Gladiators' office after receiving a text that is supposedly from Liv. He is attacked and stabbed by a masked attacker. And when he pulls the mask off of his attacker, it is revealed that it's Russell! Russell was sent by Papa Pope. I knew they were working together! He then stabs Jake repeatedly. So yea...Papa Pope has taken out Jake!
So Papa Pope's return was a big deal in the end, but I'm disappointed with how little screen time he actually got. Though I suppose that comes with the territory of who he is. He sets things in motion without getting his own hands bloody.