I’m not an effusive person, by and large, but occasionally, scandal manages to pull off something that makes me shout four-letter words out loud, in my apartment, to no one in particular. Last night, when it seemed like the story had mostly concluded, there was one last not-so-metaphorical twist of the knife that had me talking to my house plants.
The cold open to last night’s episode was…confusing. It started with Abby and Leo yelling at each other, and at first I thought I had missed something that happened at the end of last week’s show that had started the conflict, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, it was the introduction to this week’s guest stars: Lena Dunham and her bad wig. The wig was so bad that I assumed her hair should be part of the story in some way, based on the previews; instead, it seems to have been a strong indication of how the wardrobe crew felt about her.
Lena played Sue, a DC girl-about-town wanting to publish a memoir of sorts about her sexual exploits with Washington’s elite, powerful and typically married. The book proposal made its way into Abby’s hands after being distributed to every major publisher in the country, and although sue had given all 17 men in the book thinly veiled nicknames, she right away recognized The Dustbuster as her boyfriend, Leo. (Dustbustering is something I’ve previously heard Lil Wayne rap about. Don’t google it at work. Your IT man will get ideas about you.)
Abby (and her Reed Krakoff bag) went straight to Olivia, of course, and Olivia went straight to sue and her unconvincing pigtails, told her she’d be destroying a bunch of people’s lives if she published her book and thought that was that. It wasn’t, obviously, because nothing’s that easy on this show, especially when a guest star is involved. The next day, sue marched in to Olivia’s office, wearing her many convincing businesswoman attire, and demanded that Olivia come up with several million dollars to stop her from publishing the book. She also gave a really terrific speech about Olivia’s attempt to shame her for what she does with her own body; it was an episode full of terrific speeches, really.
Huck and Quinn distracted sue with that other B-613 man who’s name I can never remember, and while she was out, they made a copy of her manuscript. Her only copy was written on a typewriter to thwart hackers, a detail that Huck seemed to appreciate. through the magic of very Google, they identified all 17 men, one of whom was David Rosen. Abby sure can pick ’em.
At the same time, Huck was trying to “persuade” (that word always needs scarequotes when it concerns Huck) Rosen to grant him immunity in the B-613 investigation, for worry of retribution of some sort. The show wanted us to believe that immunity would somehow keep Huck safe from violent spies who want to put him back in his black hole of despair, but I’m not clear on exactly why they wouldn’t do that anyway, no matter whether Huck could be legally charged for what he did as part of the group. If B-613 operates outside the law, then how does immunity keep Huck safe?
Anyway, if we grant the premise that immunity would be important to Huck, time was of the essence. Olivia’s bid to get the people in Sue’s book to pony up money failed (largely because of Rosen?), and they tried to convince us that implied Rosen would have to resign when the book came out. In reality, Rosen is an appointed official with no constituency to embarrass, he was unmarried when he had his dalliance with sue and she alleged no wrongdoing against him. There is absolutely no question that Rosen would be able to keep his job. no one would even call for his resignation. There is a married us senator who has admitted doing some very fetish-y things with some women who he hired for the occasion, and he is still, like, chillin’ in Congress. Rosen would have been fine.
Abby also would have been fine, in objective reality. In Shondaland, though, we viewed her draft a letter of resignation, because her not-that-serious boyfriend, who is not a public servant, did some kooky stuff with a willing, unpaid partner at some indeterminate point in the past, before they estavam envolvidos. That line of thinking is, again, not whatsoever based in what would actually happen in Washington. It did result in a spot-on speech about how challenging and dehumanizing it can be to be a woman with a public career, though, and I’m prepared to suspend disbelief for one of this show’s grand soliloquies.
Olivia wasn’t quite down and out yet, though. With the ransom payment off the table (and with the safety it would have offered being questionable at best), she had the team dig around in Sue’s past, and of course, they found her motivation. during her job at the EPA, her boss found her kinky dating profile and much more or less sexually assaulted her. She managed to stop him, but her refusals ended her career.
Em troca de seu silêncio, Olivia ajudou Sue nos primeiros estágios de entrar com uma ação contra seu ex-chefe e a montou em algumas entrevistas de emprego, que teriam sido um final arrumado e bem-bom. Scandal não é nada, senão bagunçado, porém, então, quando Quinn e Huck foram processar em casa para trazer a papelada de terno, eles encontraram um de seus 17 homens manuscritos segurando -a à faca, parecendo que ele não tinha idéia de que fazer a seguir a seguir .
Huck e Quinn aliviaram a situação, é claro, e depois de despachar o cara pela porta da frente, Huck pegou a faca e cortou espontaneamente Sue na garganta. Ela estava morta, é claro. Huck está absolutamente além do controle neste momento, mas ele sabe a diferença entre machucar alguém e matá -lo. Teoricamente, ele matou Sue porque ela ainda podia derrubar David Rosen, mas, na verdade, ele apenas a matou porque é Huck e é isso que ele faz quando está estressado. Pessoalmente, como mussarela de mussarela da pizza perto do meu apartamento. Estamos todos em nossas próprias jornadas aqui, mas Huck, francamente, parece que ele pode estar chegando ao fim dele.
Teremos que esperar até a próxima semana para ver como Olivia lida com o assassinato de Sue e quem acabou sendo preso, mas Quinn pegou a única cópia impressa do manuscrito de Sue na saída da porta, para que, teoricamente milhões de direções diferentes. Algo me diz que Huck não está indo para um assassinato aleatório depois de finalmente garantir imunidade para todos os não tão aleatórios.
Havia apenas dois outros tópicos narrativos saindo deste episódio; Primeiro, Mellie quer concorrer ao Senado do Estado da Virgínia, onde ela e o presidente acabaram de comprar para casa para estabelecer residência. Que Mellie quer que um escritório próprio provavelmente pareça familiar para quem, como eu, recentemente assistiu à atroz terceira temporada de House of Cards, e acho que também será para Mellie. Portia de Rossi voltou para algumas cenas nesta história agora que suas costas se curou pelo que Huck fez com isso há algumas semanas, mas não me lembro, pela minha vida, por que ela ainda estaria por perto. Este show tem dois ou três personagens muito mais regulares do que eu sou capaz de catalogar com eficiência.
Em uma nota muito mais divertida, Olivia usa um pouco de tempo neste episódio para tentar se explodir de sua rotina de recuperação, colocando sua aberração, possivelmente inspirada pelas aventuras de Sue. Ela conheceu um homem muito atraente em um bar de hotel e conseguiu desinteressadamente buscá-lo com eficiência de bate-papo, mas depois teve um flashback de TEPT no banheiro e fugiu pela cozinha sem voltar para recuperá-lo.
No final do show, porém, Olivia reprisou sua residência no bar do hotel, e havia o mesmo homem, ainda sozinho, ainda querendo comprar algumas damas. Se essa fosse a zona do crepúsculo, ele teria sido um fantasma bonito que mora no bar do hotel, mas isso é escândalo, então, ele voltou para casa com Olivia e parecia incrível sem a camiseta. Os shows terminaram em piores notas.