Scandal Review: Paris is Burning (Season 5 Ep. 3)

To quote the great and powerful Beyonce: “Who run the world? GIRLS.” That seems to be the theme Scandal is running with this season, and it is magnificent.

The ladies of Scandal take center stage again tonight, delivering Shondalogues and brilliant one liners left and right, and absolutely stealing the show in the best way.

Olivia joins Mellie, Fitz, Abby, and Elizabeth in the White House as her answer to the press goes viral. Emotions and tempers are running hot as everyone deals with the aftermath of Olivia going public with her affair with Fitz. Mellie is enraged, Abby feels betrayed, Fitz is a kid in a candy store, and all the while Olivia appears calm and collected.

Mellie calls in help from an old friend while Elizabeth and Abby play interference between she and Fitz. Cyrus returns to serve as Mellie’s chief advisor, and he does it well, giving her just enough advice and motivation to go after everything she wants without being blinded by her (completely justified) rage.

Cyrus: Tell me what the inscription on your monument will read when the history books glorify you. Tell me, what do you want?
Mellie: I want the Oval.

Mellie gives as good as she gets from Cyrus, telling him he’s gone soft. If these two can manage to put aside their differences and put their mutual feelings about Fitz to good use they can become an even stronger political powerhouse than they were with him. (Even if I’m still clinging to the hope that Olivia will run Mellie’s campaign. What? A girl can dream.)

Meanwhile, Abby’s running around trying to do damage control, and you know, actually do a job she’s really good at, when people aren’t slamming doors in her face. Olivia is her best friend and being kept out of the loop on such important information feels like a slap in the face to Abby. As I said in my review of this season’s premiere, Abby would’ve made an excellent asset if Olivia would have told her about the affair, and she tells Liv as much.

Abby: You left me to die out there.

Any other friendship might not have weathered this kind of betrayal, but Olivia and Abby understand each other better than anyone else, and the pair manage to make up before the end of the night. Abby understands why Olivia kept this from her, even if it hurt, and Olivia trusts Abby to do her job and present the story. She taught her well and it’s wonderful to see Abby truly come into her own.

Olivia: I think you are very good at your job.
Abby: Well I learned all my moves from the best in the business.

Olivia’s arc so far this season has been to step back, if only marginally, from the professional life she’s built and really contemplate what she wants in her personal life. It’s a definite change of pace for her, but still incredibly intriguing to watch. While she’s taking a breather from tonight’s situation she runs into Mellie searching her gigantic closet for hidden hooch. Mellie tells Olivia what it’s really like to be first lady. She reminds Olivia what it will mean to be in a public relationship with Fitz.

Mellie: You get dropped in a cage and you are trapped…When you go back down to the Oval, and you sit next to Fitz, I hope you know what you’re really fighting for.

This scene is incredible. Mellie understands Olivia, perhaps better than she even realizes. She knows what it’s like to work so hard for everything she’s achieved, and have to sacrifice year after year for Fitz’s shot at the title. Mellie knows that Olivia is a brilliant, capable woman with a great career that she loves. She brings Olivia back to what she’s always known: Olivia isn’t ready, and she may never be, to give up her life to serve at the pleasure of the President.

Olivia: Do you ever think about what I’m giving up?

Fitz goes back to Mellie with carefully worded apologies to play with her heartstrings. He says “Thank you” and “I’m sorry” and everything he thinks she wants to hear. He uses her greatest weakness against her: himself. Mellie and Fitz may never have loved each other in the way that traditional couples do, but there was a time when they were an unbeatable team. Mellie misses the way they once were, and she feels betrayed and belittled by him on a constant basis, so any act of kindness from Fitz seems like more than it really is, at least to her.

Fitz: You are going to be the first woman to put her hand on the Bible in front of the Capitol building and be sworn in as president of the United States of America.

When Cyrus tells Mellie that Fitz played her, because he is if nothing else a grand politician, it seems the spell he has over her may finally be broken. She leaves the White House with Cyrus in tow. Abby and Olivia go with option two, allowing Abby to use all the skills she’s learned from Olivia over the years to handle the situation and throw her under the bus.

Other thoughts:

• Elizabeth North also held her own in this episode, standing up to Fitz and working so well with Abby.
• Drunk OPA is probably the cutest they’ve been since season one, I loved those moments of levity.
• Seeing Cyrus practically beg for his job back in the most humble way possible is almost heartbreaking… almost.
• Jake notices a tagline on the news “LOUVRE IN FLAMES,” and goes to visit Papa Pope in prison. What on earth does it mean? Lazarus 1? I knew B613 wouldn’t stay quiet for long.

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What did you think of this week’s episode of Scandal? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC.