Scandal Review: The People v. Olivia Pope (Season 7 Episode 10)
The intervention that we’ve all been waiting for has arrived! Scandal Season 7 Episode 10 “The People v. Olivia Pope” is exactly what the audience has been waiting for and it gets the ball rolling on the last half of Scandal’s final season.
We now have eight episodes left in the final season, and it’s been really hard to find an endgame. Some of the things that I thought Season 6 set up for seemed to fall by the wayside, but “The People v. Olivia Pope” pulls back a wrecking ball that should shake the rest of the season.
Olivia’s team has always been the center of her work, and OPA has been the home to those relationships. “The People v. Olivia Pope” shows just how strained those relationships have become.
KERRY WASHINGTON, TONY GOLDWYN
The scenes in Vermont are tense. Even though the intervention takes place largely with Olivia on one side of the door with her friends talking to her through it, the characters each shine through. Abby is concerned and attempting to relate, Fitz is reminiscing, Huck is fighting an old pattern, and David is…being the Attorney General.
Despite all this, when all is said and done, Olivia pulls the wool over her friends’ eyes. What’s really surprising is that they don’t see this coming. (Not!)
Did any of them really think that Olivia Pope would give up her power so easily? That all it would take were a few heart to hearts in order to get her to resign as Chief of Staff and dismantle B613?
GUILLERMO DIAZ, DARBY STANCHFIELD, CORNELIUS SMITH JR., TONY GOLDWYN
If “The People v. Olivia Pope” accomplishes anything, it’s drawing a line in the sand for the rest of the season. Olivia has declared that she’s holding onto her power and whoever crosses that line better be prepared to become a target.
This is especially evident in the shift in Olivia’s relationship with Mellie. Since taking office at the end of Season 6, we’ve seen very little of Mellie. Yes, she has the brief liaison with the President of Bashran, but we haven’t seen Mellie do anything beyond that.
“The People v. Olivia Pope” pushes that relationship in a new direction, and at the same time highlights some thinly veiled sexism. When Mellie asks Jake if Olivia was involved with the explosion, Jake says it’s because Mellie couldn’t keep her legs together and was ready to go to war over him.
It’s starting to feel like it would just be easier to replay the tape from Olivia’s kidnapping in Scandal Season 3 because when this comes up, I fight the urge to scream “her husband almost went to war with West Angola over Olivia!”
BELLAMY YOUNG, JEFF PERRY
Mellie then makes a point about Olivia and Fitz, and although their relationship likely clouded Fitz’s judgment, they didn’t have Olivia killed. So when Olivia counters the “insurrection” with a kill folder that contained every lie that Mellie’s ever told, it feels like she reached a new low.
In short, Olivia has been burning bridges left and right, and now it looks like people are finally starting to push back. Get your wine and popcorn because Scandal isn’t going down without a fight.
Stray Thoughts:
- Kerry Washington directed this episode, and it’s visually stunning. The sequences where the characters talk between closed doors were shot at some very interesting angles.
- I have to applaud how Fitz got Olivia to Vermont. If you’ve been following these reviews you know I am not really a huge fan of Olitz, but this premise seems plausible.
- Yes, Huck, we miss the old Olivia too!
- It actually feels like David sitting cross-legged, reading federal penal code is a mood that should go around the internet: “How many times do you feel like you’re talking about important things to a locked door?”
- Rowan is actually being nice, and it scares me. I am still going to savor the “Baby One More Time” dance he does with Quinn. Joe Morton doesn’t get many of those moments and this one really stands out from his time as Papa Pope.
- Charlie marveling over tiny socks is adorable, and it makes me sad that he and Quinn can’t savor this time together.
What did you think of this episode of Scandal? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
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Scandal airs Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC.
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Lauren Busser
Lauren Busser is an Associate Editor at Tell-Tale TV. She is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose work has appeared in Bitch Media, Popshot Quarterly, Brain Mill Press Voices, and The Hartford Courant.