Scandal: “The Last Supper”
(Episode 4.08)

This was another solid week for Scandal. The last few episodes have been steadily building towards a big Winter Finale, and this week we sprinted right for it. Jake is out of jail, and teamed up with Olivia and Fitz to take down Rowan. Huck, Quinn, (and unfortunately Javi) have a bloody stakeout session. Elizabeth and Cyrus compete for Olivia’s expertise, and Mellie gets her groove back.
But first, let’s jump right to that unlikely dream team of Jake, Fitz, and Olivia. They want to punish Rowan for killing Gerry and framing Jake, but how? Jake simply wants to kill Rowan immediately, while Fitz and Olivia want to put Papa Pope through a secret military-tribunal-type situation first. You know, for justice. Jake mentions all those B613 top-secret files he has stored in a locker, and everyone is on board to prove Rowan’s guilt during some form of a judicial process.
Ah, but first they have to get Rowan into custody. Fitz and Jake bicker about the safest way to barge into B613, but Olivia suggests they lure him out instead. “Your father isn’t a small child,” Fitz spits out, “you can’t just dangle a shiny object and expect him to come running.” Duh guys, Olivia is the shiny object, and she’ll lure him out with an invitation to dinner.
Did anyone else think it wouldn’t be that easy? I mean come on, this is Papa Pope. He’s Command. And you don’t take Command, Command takes you. I knew he’d slip away from that dinner unscathed. However, I didn’t know that he’d kill all those snipers and drop Olivia like a rag doll: “For the first time in your life, you are on your own,” Rowan warns Olivia. “You think the world is so terrible with me in it? Wait until you see what it’s like without me.” And then he turns on Olivia and slips out without paying the check, because ain’t nobody got time for that when there’s police on the way.
Now here’s the thing about that scene—Rowan kept saying things like, “You don’t know how they see you,” and “You don’t see who they are, what they want.” But as far as I’m concerned, Fitz, Jake, and Rowan all see Olivia the same way: as a shiny object to own. All three men desire this shiny object. They all want to possess it. Claim it. Control it.
Plus, all three men have fantasies about what they want to do with this shiny object—Fitz wants to make jam in Vermont, Jake wants to spend time in the sun, and Rowan wants to eat Sunday night dinners. Each man claims to have something unique and special with Olivia, but each of them only have a dream, a fantasy, a whisp of reality. Papa Pope may have said that he’s finished with Olivia, but we all know you can’t quit Liv that easily—eventually the fantasy will lure Rowan right back.
Papa Pope drama aside, I really enjoyed this episode because we got to see a lot of Elizabeth North. I like her character; not only is Portia de Rossi very fun to watch, but the Lizzie Bear storyline just got a whole lot more interesting this week. Last week we saw her cozying up to Mellie, and this week she saw her really cozying up with Andrew Nichols, the Vice President of the United States.