Scandal Review: Heavy is the Head (Season 5 Ep. 1)

Scandal is back and doing exactly what it does best, juggling and interweaving storylines so intense it makes your heart race.

Every scandal starts with a secret, and those secrets only get more dangerous the longer they’re kept in the dark. And there are several twisty secrets floating around in “Heavy is the Head.”  The main thing we can take away from this episode is that everyone in D.C. has got some serious communication issues.

Olivia and Fitz return in their honeymoon phase, yet again, intoxicated with their lust for each other, sneaking around and thinking they can have it all.

The problem with Olivia and Fitz being together is that outside this bubble, they don’t work, and Olivia knows it. Fitz has always had a hard time thinking about the reality outside of their relationship; he goes for grand gestures like buying a house in Vermont or serving Mellie with divorce papers. But, as Olivia points out, she doesn’t want to dive into the spotlight, (or stand in the sun, if you will) with him, at least not yet.

There are many nods and hints at fairy tales and love stories in “Heavy is the Head,” all clearly alluding to this relationship. For Olivia, Fitz is a fairy tale, he’s Vermont, and in another life where she isn’t Olivia Pope and he isn’t Fitz Grant, they might have worked. However, Olivia knows deep down, that fairy tale is both unattainable and ultimately undesirable. She will never be happy casting all of the things she’s worked for her whole life aside to go make jam in Vermont with Fitz.

Queen Isabel:  Not all fairy tales have happy endings, my dear.

Olivia is well aware of the issues between her and Fitz, especially his inability to respect boundaries, when she takes a step back to look at their relationship. She’s determined to fix those issues, a wise and respectable choice, before telling anyone, including Abby. However, it looks like Olivia doesn’t get to make that choice when Sally Langston reveals circumstantial evidence of their love affair on national television.

After being given the runaround on whether or not Fitz would go to Mellie’s senatorial swearing in ceremony, both Abby and Elizabeth feel betrayed. Abby is the Press Secretary and she considers Olivia to be her best friend, she would’ve made a powerful ally if Olivia had told her about the affair. Elizabeth also holds a lot of power in her position as Chief of Staff. Have these two teamed up to throw Olitz to the wolves by sending the footage of Olivia and Fitz to Sally? Has this move pushed them over to Team Mellie?

Speaking of Mellie, the gauntlet has been thrown down between the newly sworn in Senator and her husband. Fitz officially declares war on his wife, banning her from a state dinner with foreign royalty, and then only showing up at her swearing in to serve her with divorce papers.

When Olivia prompts Fitz to attend the ceremony this isn’t what she expects to happen; she even uses Mellie’s history of standing by Fitz and working so hard to get him elected as a catalyst to get him to show up for her now that the tables are turned. Instead, Fitz throws that hard work in Mellie’s face, spewing some truly sexist lines at her, relegating everything she’s done for him to the actions of a pageant queen.

Fitz: Your biggest accomplishment so far is waving and smiling.

Other thoughts:

• Is Scandal’s blatant reference to the death of Princess Diana in this episode’s B story an interesting way to reference reality, or is it just tactless?
• Huck’s cycle of committing gruesome murders and then expecting to be a normal human is becoming repetitive.
• Seeing Olivia Pope do her job, fixing things and getting justice, continues to be endlessly entertaining though. Where Scandal’s secondary storylines could seem “case-of-the-week,” instead they take only the best of the procedural style of Season 1 to beautifully highlight Olivia’s abilities and provide a different perspective to the other aspects of her life.

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What did you think of Scandal’s Season 5 premiere? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC.