What I loved about this episode was the truth spoken by Jake and Cyrus regarding Liv!! Loved and totally agreed...and saw it coming. The question is, was Liv completely oblivious to it? Does she have an awareness of it now? Okay...but more on that in a bit.
Let's get the side story out of the way. Playing on it's occasional "Law & Order" writing, "Scandal" has chosen another actual headline story as the bones of it subplot. This time taking from the Cosby drug and rape scandal. Taking Liv's advice, over Cyrus', Fitz sets into play several small moves to counter the affair scandal (after giving a press conference where he apologized for the affair to the country upon the ending of the Senate's investigation). One of the small moves is giving the Medal of Freedom to a writer, Frank Holland, who is well known for his writing and support of women and feminism. Turns out Holland has been drugging and raping some of his female students at the university he has tenure at, using his wife's Oxycontin. But with the protection of his wife and the university, in addition to the lack of evidence, he seems impossible to take down. That is until Liv has the idea of having all of the women walk into one of his events where he is speaking and silently stand in a row in front of the stage. They then apparently share their very similar stories about how he drugged and raped them.
Meanwhile, in White House affairs, Elizabeth North tells Abby she has been given an opportunity to do an interview on Sally Langston's show. So of course Abby asks her what she wants from the White House. Elizabeth says she wants a job in the White House with some power! Abby warns that Cyrus wouldn't go for that, but she will see what she can do (despite her clear disgust in Elizabeth's maneuver). Abby was right, Elizabeth coming back to the White House was a no go. Instead, Cyrus has David detain Elizabeth, but as Elizabeth tells David, he has no right to detain her. David asks if she read it in an ACLU pamphlet, and Elizabeth told him she learned about her right to freedom of speech in her 1L class in law school. David asked if she attended some random law school, and Elizabeth told him she went to Stanford Law (and David no longer thought it was important to drop law school names when Elizabeth countered by asking him where he went for law school). She then said she'd be getting up and walking out the door to do her interview because she knew though she didn't respect or like David he stood by the law and this is nothing but Cyrus talking through him. And sure enough she leaves, and David tells Cyrus he let her go because he had no legal reason to hold her. So Cyrus goes to the President to get him to call Elizabeth North to get her to not do the interview. He tells Fitz to charm her and if that doesn't work to threaten her. It is important to note that Liv is also there, but Cyrus only addresses Fitz when he comes in. By the reaction of Liv and Fitz, Cyrus tells Fitz to take it under advisement and leaves. Fitz and Liv discuss further, because you know Fitz always defers to Liv.
So Elizabeth does the interview, but to Sally's surprise, she calls the Senate out for wasting taxpayer money investigating a good man, Fitz, who happened to fall in love. Sally cuts to commercial and Cyrus goes to the Oval Office to ask Fitz what he threatened Elizabeth with. But it turns out he didn't threaten her with anything. Instead he offered Elizabeth a job like she wanted, the job of Chief of Staff for VP Susan Ross. I think this is when Cyrus realizes he really has no influence, it's all Liv. But more on that in a bit.
So Elizabeth goes to David's office, who is upset that Elizabeth chose to use the interview to defend the President in exchange for a job in the White House. Why is he upset, well he is clearly not a fan of Fitz, and thought Elizabeth doing the interview meant she was finally doing what was right in his eyes (though even David goes back and forth on doing what is and isn't right). He is also upset that someone as manipulative as her would be working for VP Ross, who is actually a good person. The two go back and forth on how much he dislikes her, until Elizabeth pulls in close and tells him he likes her. To which he agrees, and the two proceed to share a love scene (ugh, not a fan of this scene...I just don't see it. I thought for sure one of them would leave the other hanging). And while they are getting it on in David's office, VP Ross (who David shared a somewhat awkward scene with earlier that could be read as possible future romantic interest) comes by his office. She wavers between interrupting his meeting, waiting, or leaving. After going back and forth she finally decides to leave, but leaves some wine coolers for David with his administrative assistant. So I guess we'll have this lovely love triangle to look forward to. David and Elizabeth will have their own reasons for possibly wanting to push Ross to go for the presidency (David b/c she's a good person, and Elizabeth because she's her power hungry Chief of Staff), all while Ross may be interested in David (and David may be interested back) but David and Elizabeth are enthralled in a love-hate romance. Meh.
Now to the important part of the episode, Olivia being faced with her truth! Earlier in the episode Abby tells Liv that she heard the senate judiciary committee received some incriminating photos that were probably buried, and suggests that may be why they stopped the investigation. And of course Liv tells her she can't share anything she knows. And later, while everyone is in shock about Rowan escaping from prison and Tom Larsen being set free, Liv tries to play surprised as well. But Abby can see in her eyes that she knows what happened. Back at home, Liv can sense someone is in her apartment and calls out "dad," but it's actually Jake. Jake essentially tells Liv: 1) she set her father free knowing he's a murderer with a high body count, 2) her father killed his wife, and since she's the one who set him free she killed his wife, and 3) he and the other agents thought Rowan trained them b/c he failed with her when all along she was his highest achievement (noting she's entitled and power hungry)! And of course Liv is not a fan of people telling her she is everything Papa Pope created and molded her to be. So she kicks him out, and he kisses her and leaves.
Later, Fitz tells Cyrus he has determined another way to find Rowan without an FBI investigation. In a later scene, Jake comes in to the Oval Office where Fitz and Liv are. It turns out Fitz has tasked Jake with finding Rowan. When Jake suggests they start by figuring out what was going on at the time (i.e. the senate judiciary committee investigation), Liv chimes in that they should just focus on next steps. To which Fitz suggests he and Jake speak in private, but Liv says anything they have to say about her father they can say in front of her. So Jake lays out the plan...he finds Rowan, looks him in the eye, and then shoots him in the head! By the end of the episode, Fitz tells Liv they can't locate Rowan and he may have disappeared forever. Rowan is the most intelligent and powerful of all of them. So that's a possibility, but I suspect it's also possible Fitz is lying to Liv (especially if Jake told him Liv helped get Rowan and Tom Larsen out...I mean they did kill his son...and she helped get them out and lied to his face by acting just as shocked as he was to hear they were gone).
Now, as noted before, Fitz continues to discuss all of his decisions as President with Liv, including giving Elizabeth North a job at the White House when everyone knows Cyrus would hate that. It cemented to me that she was the true Chief of Staff. Which made me think of that great scene when Papa Pope sends her off on the plane to disappear (because he is the "hell and the high water", duh! lol). In that scene he tells her she's being mediocre by wanting to be first lady when he raised her to at least be Chief of Staff or Secretary of State! In a later scene Cyrus tells her he's realized he's not the man behind the girl (Liv) behind the boy (Fitz), but he's the man behind the girl (Liv)...PERIOD! He tells her she's got the Oval. She's the acting president. She has Fitz happy and content, and she's running the show. A coup without bloodshed! O...and he hates it!!
And what does Liv do when she goes back to the Oval Office where Fitz is contemplating tough decisions? Well after a moment of seemingly not listening to Fitz and still being in a daze after what Cyrus told her, she proceeds to tell him exactly what to do for each problem, as Fitz sits down and takes notes!! No really, he sits down and jots down what she tells him to do step-by-step!!
So did Liv accept the fact that her father made her "president"? Is Liv now fully aware of the power she has? Is she embracing that power? Surely, after what she heard from both Jake and Cyrus, she can't be oblivious to the fact that she runs the country, not Fitz. With that truth, does she also embrace the fact that this may all be a part of Papa Pope's plan?? Does she accept what Jake told her about her false identity as the "white hat"? Only the next episodes can tell. But we do know, she's still fine with running the Oval Office.