TV Photo Recap: Scandal, ‘YOLO’

Hello kiddies! So I decided to try something new this week, my very first photo recap. Basically every week recapping Scandal I have wished I was doing a photo recap, inspired by the great Price Peterson. So this week I finally decided to just do it. Because as the title of the episode states, YOLO!

I will say this episode was rather intense. It was quite a doozy. You know sometimes you go into these things thinking, “I wish I had watched this last night instead of The Sound of Music crapfest that aired,” and you are always correct? Because this was the episode where Scandal got its mojo back. It’s been an odd season so far, and though I’ve been totally into it, I’ve felt it was lacking and I wasn’t really sure where it was going. I had a lot of trouble with the Josie Marcus plot because for many reasons, I wanted her to be the next president. And that made me feel no compassion or pull towards Fitz’s storyline at all. I wasn’t rooting for him.

I guess that should have been my hint. I should have seen it coming that she wouldn’t last in the presidential race. And though I enjoyed Josie Marcus and her part in all of this, I have the say the show feels a lot more focused without her.

Well anyway, “YOLO” was a fantastic episode. So without further ado, here is my very first PHOTO RECAP!

Yeah. Last week ended with the reveal that Huck saw the tape of Baby Huck shooting that guy up with whatever mumbo jumbo caused him to die. So naturally he tortured her to get information. Now… we’ve known Huck has done some bad things. We’ve seen him do some bad things. But this — This was beyond. Huck was the most ridiculously creepy mofo I’ve maybe ever seen outside of Hannibal. Like he seriously straight up licked her face after telling her how EXCITED he was to be able to torture someone he loves. What the balls? I’m scarred for life.

The best part is when he got interrupted by Liv calling because her mom is still alive. He had to go deal with that, but before he left, he thought, “What the hell. We have time for one more!”

And yeah, I kinda loved it. SUE ME.

Olivia and the gang (sans Quinn cause, well… uh… Quinn was tied up. Get it???? GET IT??? Actually she was duct taped. #Details.) gathered at a safe house they apparently just have in case of instances like this to protect the whereabouts of Olivia’s mom. Abby was a total superwoman and asked mom where she’s been for the past 22 years. Basically mom claimed she found out how terrible dad is, tried to turn him in, and instead he came up with the elaborate plan to lock her up. He’s such a lovely man, ain’t he.

I dunno, I wasn’t really sure if I was buying her story. Like, I wanted her to be good cause she’s Liv’s mom, and the most amazingly wonderful Olivia Pope deserves at least one good parent. But there was that whole gnawing incident last week that was practically inhuman and lead me to believe there might be something more to her story.

True sidebar right now: If you don’t know me personally, allow me to explain to you that I am one of the most squeamish people I know. This is not an exaggeration. I wish I could stomach things, but I just can’t. Especially blood. I’m really bad with blood. My blood, your blood, lamb’s blood, whatever. Logically I know that losing a certain amount of blood (like for instance, the amount they take out when you’re getting a routine blood test) is 100% never going to kill you. But for some reason I CANNOT handle it. Loosing blood, or watching others loose blood, makes me fainty and nauseous. Just talking about it does.

So with that knowledge, let me tell you how for an entire week after I watched the last episode, I could not get the image of Mom gnawing at her arm out of my head. It. Was. AWFUL.

This chick showed up just to make Harrison seem interesting I guess. She said something mysterious, pretended Abby wasn’t in the room, and then was gone. At this point the gang is in full blown mode trying to figure out a way to get Mom safely out of the country before Dad figures them out.

This was another thing that was kind of fishy. Woman, you’ve been locked up in a prison for 22 years with what I would assume is minimal if any human contact – and now you’re just acting like a totally normal mother. YOU’RE MAKING MY OLIVIA UNCOMFORTABLE. Because you’re too damn normal and her life is a hot mess, okay? She still wears the white hat and we love her.

Naturally these two decided they have to take down Dad. Like actually kill him. Pft. Like that was ever gonna work. Certainly not this early in the season!

This naturally lead to another argument between Jake and Fitz about which one loves Olivia more. The answer is neither. I love her the most.

Aye carumba, will these two crazy kids ever just be honest with each other? Cyrus is a TERRIBLE husband. The worst. James deserves 300x better. James was manipulating Cyrus here, trying to get him to admit that he set James up to sleep with Sally Langston’s hubby (aka that guy from Heroes) for his own political gain. But neither one of them were admitting yet what either one knew.

Olivia and her gladiators in suits were just about ready to send good ole Mom off safely to Hong Kong when they found out she’d been placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list under a false name with a bunch of fake terrorism charges. It became incredibly doubtful she’d be able to get on a plane. Abby tried to get David to have her removed from the list, and he reluctantly complied, but he couldn’t make it happen.

I did actually feel very sympathetic toward Cyrus in this scene. That is the Shonda way, after all. Minutes before this, Cyrus and James finally had their big blowout fight, and James wrote a WHOLE PAGE full of the words “I WANT A DIVORCE” which really, really, really had to sting, ya know? He did kinda put it on himself and everything. But then three seconds later he comes into the oval office to get yelled at because he hadn’t managed to put a kibosh on the whole Sally Langston running 4 prez thing. Timing, people. Timing. Plus, seriously, does Fitz ever do anything for himself? He just blames everyone else for the shit that happens to him. I wanted to squeeze Cyrus and tell him everything was going to be okay.

Mellie did it for me! Thx, Mellie! Incidentally, Mellie is very good at giving speeches that make people feel better about their husbands cheating on them, while simultaneously getting them to back up her husband’s presidency.

So Charlie came to check up on Quinn because she wasn’t answering her phone and found her, well, duct taped. And bloody. Cause of the whole ‘Huck pulled her teeth out’ thing. Fun stuff! He got her out, cleaned her up, then she cried a bunch. Ugh, us ladies and our estrogen. We always be crying. I’m serious, I would 100% cry in this situation, and like a LOT more than she did. Then when she was done crying she was basically like, “even though you tricked me into becoming a super secret scary spy and I can never get out of it, let’s be luverz now.”*

*Not a direct quote.

And I was SHOCKED that Quinn not only got into bed with the guy, but then went and helped him. She changed sides! I mean, it totally made sense with her whole breakdown about how Huck was the only person she had and he hurt her. Literally. And I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I were Quinn. But Charlie also hurt her, just in a different way. He pretended to flirt with her while actually luring her into becoming as asset for B613. Honestly if I were Quinn I’d probably just kill myself and be done with it at this point. Girl has been through A LOT.

So yeah. Cyrus showed Sally the pictures, and she totally PWNED him! It turned out he ruined his marriage for absolutely no reason, because Sally called his bullshit. She knew he would never release the photos because it would ruin his life as well, not just hers. She was basically like “I’m running for president, BITCH! TRY AND STOP ME.”*

*Again, not a direct quote.

Unfortunately Liv remembered something right after they put her Mom on the plane to Hong Kong. Something important. A name she once heard someone call her mom. The name on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Yeah. Olivia’s mom is a terrorist who did some TERRIBLE things. 🙁 🙁 🙁

I totally called it, though!

Quinn didn’t change sides after all! Before Charlie came to set her free she conspired with Huck! YAY!!!!!!!! Good twist, Shonda. Good twist.

And then Sally killed her husband. The end!

Seriously. How good was this episode?

And what did you guys think of my first photo recap? They take a lot more effort, but I think it’s worth it! Let me know if you think so, too! 🙂