Scandal Season Finale Review: Tick Tock / Transfer of Power (Season 6 Episodes 15 and 16)

Mellie Grant is a President that has no time for your sexism, or your assassination attempts!

Scandal Season 6 Episodes 15 and 16, “Tick Tock” and “Transfer of Power,” say goodbye to President Fitzgerald Grant and hello to President Melody Grant, and along the way put Olivia Pope in what could be the ultimate position of power.

The Gladiators believe that Maya Pope is in town to bankroll Mellie’s assassination, but when Maya claims she’s in town to help her daughter, no one believes her. In fact it’s kind of disappointing that Maya Pope gets apprehended five minutes into the episode, until the first of many twists is revealed.

It turns out Maya isn’t in town to bankroll the assassination, she’s there to be the assassin. So Olivia does the sane thing, and releases her mother so they can follow her, but her mother digs out her tracker and slips her detail.

Who didn’t see that coming?

We do get a beautiful gift from the forty-five minutes that Maya is locked up, Khandi Alexander gets to deliver some really intense monologues, and her inflection is fascinating to watch. There are certain moments when you begin to see the resemblance between Maya and Olivia, and it’s mostly when it comes to impassioned speeches. Maya’s a bit more theatrical, but they seem to have similar rhythms.

It’s a workout just watching Maya shift from one subject to another, and I have to wonder exactly how exhausting those were to film. Still, despite all the somersaults these scenes are gems, and definitely some standout moments of the first hour.

Despite the assassination threat, Mellie is determined to have her inauguration despite some people advising her to cancel the pomp and have a private ceremony behind closed doors in the Oval.

It would have been easy to push Mellie into a corner and not unpack some of the implications about what happens with Mellie taking office. While the assassination plot does provide some action, we have some great character moments that show Mellie as a president who just wants to give the women traveling to see her their moment.

Let’s consider that she also spends “Trojan Horse,” “Mercy,” and “The Box” with Peus and Samantha threatening to kill her children, or her, if she didn’t do as she was told.

I don’t blame her for wanting to celebrate. She deserved to have her hand on that bible, and take the oath out in the open, just like 44 presidents before her.

Plus, everyone around her seems to color her as a fragile flower. Sure, she needs the protection of the Secret Service, but she’s also aware of how much the public is spending to protect her.

I am not saying Mellie is bulletproof, but she’ll tak a calculated risk for the greater good. Like, remember when she was the junior senator from Virginia who came out of left field and fillibustered a spending bill that would have defunded Planned Parenthood?

She knows her stuff, so while everyone is trying to convince her not to do something because she might get shot, she prattles off the cost of keeping a president safe, and the armaments of her motorcade by saying it could “literally launch grenades.”

Scandal is also getting into a bit of the double standard the world is going to encounter with the first female president when Mellie talks about her outfit for the inaugural ball. She expresses distaste in having to finalize her gown, while noting that for the other 44 presidents it took 10 minutes.

For her it means having to pick out a dress is that will “impress the New York fashion blogs without offending the Washington conservatives.” 

Not since CJ Cregg’s curt “It’s a dress!” comment on The West Wing, have I heard someone in a fictional White House shut down a trivial comment so elegantly, while still throwing shade.

Honestly, I am hoping that Scandal gets to a point in its final season where Mellie’s sex isn’t an issue. While these little nuances are fun to explore, it’s going to get old fast. I want to see Mellie be an effective president and I want to see her have a good partnership with Olivia, and I think that’s going to come to a moment when they have to say, “Look, I’m now your President, not your First Lady.”

That’s not to say that Mellie can’t be feminine, and in fact, her clothes can present a opprotunity to plant some easter eggs in later episodes.

Take, for example, Mellie’s purple suit jacket. The jacket appears shortly after Fitz recounts his memories of the night he got shot, but the color purple stands for much more, and given that Mellie makes a speech that cements her determination to go out there and take the Oath of Office, it becomes that much more significant.

Aside from being the color of Mellie’s dress the night Fitz’s got shot, purple has a diverse number of meanings including symbols of ambition, power, and independence. It’s also one of the colors of the National Women’s Party.

Maybe purple just looks good on Bellamy Young, but given how determined and feminist Mellie has been in previous seasons, I want to believe that her wardrobe choices mean more.

While it’s rewarding to see Mellie finally in the Oval, these episodes were also about Olivia’s transition to power. Olivia made it clear she would stay in The White House as Mellie’s Chief of Staff, but we didn’t expect her to murder a Vice President on her first day, and then becoming the head of B613.

To unpack this a little: the bigger bad that hired Maya Pope was really Luna Vargas, the untouchable widow of Frankie Vargas who was elected and then assassinated in Season 6 Episode 1 “Survival of the Fittest.”

After a shady phone call from Maya, in which Maya hints that she’s not aiming at Mellie, Olivia pieces together that Luna Vargas was behind her husband’s assassination as well as Peus and Samantha’s mission.

After Maya’s call, I did start to piece together that the only other person in the vicinity of Mellie during the call was Luna. It was a brilliant place to hide, and I half expected claws to come out when Olivia confronted her. She did fire back, insisting that she was “Plan B,” but still the pieces didn’t come together.

With it clear that Luna is a threat, Olivia Pope kills a Vice President for the second time in her career, and the curse of the Scandal Vice Presidency continues. (The first time being on Season 5 Episode 17 “Thwack.”)

But that really doesn’t end things, because Luna wasn’t behind it at all. As she’s pleading for her life, she starts talking about Jackie Kennedy, the pink Chanel suit, and how Frankie’s ideas would have died on the vine. In a final conversation with Cyrus, he uses the same phrases, and it tips Olivia off.

I’m a little relieved because I thought, “there can’t be anyone sneakier than Mellie and Olivia,” then she started going on about being First Lady, and I immediately recalled Season 5 Episode 3 “Paris is Burning” when Mellie talks about how she doesn’t enjoy being First Lady.

I get where Luna is coming from, but still it didn’t feel like the thoughts were hers.

Let’s just say, we didn’t see a lot of Luna over the course of the season. We’ve seen her do some interviews, we saw her broken up over Frankie, we saw her take photos with Mellie, but we really didn’t see her interact on policy or have any political agenda, which would have made bigger bad Luna more shocking.

What more frustrating is that Luna didn’t have to die in all this. She was chosen as Vice President because she was untouchable and innocent, and this only occurred after Peus insisted that they oust Ballard, prompting Mellie to choose another candidate. Cyrus was offered the job of Vice President in Season 6 Episode 12 “Mercy,” but he said he didn’t want it.

In short, this whole plan had to be in the works for a while, and relies on knowing exactly how the Gladiators, Mellie, and Eli would react. Also, while Cyrus’ speech was very similar to Luna’s I’m not sure I buy it. I want more of an explanation.

What’s a little more frustrating is that Olivia has traded one big bad for another. Cyrus can’t be removed from the equation because he has something on her.

Fitz’s last executive order was going to be reconstituting B613 at the suggestion of Eli Pope, and Fitz would run it. But Fitz changed his mind. Olivia then has Mellie sign her first executive order saying it was “lunch money for defense” until the budget comes through.

So Olivia has no choice but to go forward with the endgame Cyrus hoped for. She nominates him for Mellie’s Vice President while also getting to be the most powerful woman in the world by controlling a bunch of super-secret spies, and daily operations of The White House. 

What could possibly go wrong in Season 7?

Stray Thoughts

• Did anyone catch the Victoria Woodhull poster, hanging in Mellie’s new oval office is. Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to ever run for President in 1872, and she was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement. She’s scandalous (haha, pun!), psychic, and mostly forgotten by history. If anyone is curious about her, I highly recommend this article from Broadly.
• Fitz and Olivia’s final goodbye isn’t really going to be final is it? Fitz’s kids are in DC and I am pretty sure there will be excuses for him to visit Washington on the premise of seeing them, if not some official business. I’m not a fan of the Fitz and Olivia relationship, mostly because I think she prefers power over love, and I think that will be a theme in Season 7 as they explore Olivia’s dark side.
• I am looking for meaning in how Eli Pope can’t get rid of his dinosaur, and I think it’s going to come back to B613 or Olivia. Probably both now that she’s running the organization.
• Does anyone else think the clear liquor in the decanter in Mellie’s Oval Office was her moonshine classed up? I really would have preferred if she just had the mason jar on the desk, but I guess it’s easier to pour from the decanter. Thoughts?
• I am glad Abby and Quinn have repaired their relationship a little. I am not saying Abby isn’t at fault for her role in Frankie’s assassination, but she was a pawn and she’s trying to repent. Seeing her crack the case by observing how power dynamics are really the thing to look really show that she’s learned something from her power grab, and the subsequent terrible results.
• Quinn is having a baby, and her anxiety feels so genuine. I panicked for a second thinking, “No you can’t leave, you just go this job, like a minute ago!” Then Quinn decided to stay with the help of Abby. I think this kid is going to have a village of at least four awesome people to help raise it.

What did you think of these episodes of Scandal? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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