Scandal – Hardball

 By: Jamie Steinberg

We start the episode with Olivia (Kerry Washington) reminded Mellie (Bellamy Young) to stay away from romantic entanglements. She knows that Mellie has had some chemistry with Marcus (Cornelius Smith, Jr.) so Olivia reminds her, “Knees together Mellie.” Mellie says she still has her eye on the prize (the presidency) and retorts, “I’m not you. Or Fitz.” Okay…

At a federal prison, Nelson McClintock (Larry Sullivan) is denying he had anything to do with Vargas’ (Ricardo Chavira) murder. Of course, no one believes him and they urge him to confess. In a not so friendly fashion, he takes their confession papers and writes something not so fit for print as a response.

Mellie meets with Cyrus (Jeff Perry) and he announces that he would like her to be Vice President on a unity ticket. Mellie had an idea this was coming and isn’t interested. Cyrus feigns innocence on the Vargas assassination asserting, “I’m not the bad guy here, Mellie. Not this time at least.” Sure, Jan.

We flashback to a moment where Marcus is helping Mellie practice her pitching. It seems the former First Lady has been asked to throw the first pitch at a baseball game and things start to get steamy pretty quickly. Post pitch, Mellie and Marcus return to her hotel room where they have a hot hookup.

Abby (Darby Stanchfield) isn’t sold on McClintock’s innocence and recruits Jake (Scott Foley) to investigate. Meanwhile, Quinn (Katie Lowes) is conducting her own inquiry into new fiancé Charlie (George Newbern). She wants to know as much as she can about him before she agrees to live happily ever after together.

Back at the prison, it seems that Jake has worked his “magic” on McClintock who has now recanted and is taking responsibility for killing Vargas. When Olivia walks into the room, she sees that McClintock has wet himself. Clearly, Jake still has a strong hand when it comes to the power of persuasion. Olivia doesn’t believe McClintock’s guilt and undertakes her own efforts for info by “charming” the new FBI director Angela Webster (Saycon Sengbloh). She alludes to Angela possibly hooking up with Jake, but Angela is playing coy.

Meanwhile, David Rosen (Joshua Malina) is having a meltdown exclaiming, “The Constitution is going up in flames!” If he was only he knew what was going on in our lives…

We cut back to Mellie who is having her own issues. She is upset that Marcus has taken a job as the press secretary for the new president, but she doesn’t know that is because Olivia stepped in and made it happen. Mellie is pissed! After her hot hookup which she has just been bragging about she doesn’t know Olivia thinks she has taken her eye off the ball. Olivia wanted Marcus as far from Mellie as possible and asked Abby to offer him the job so he would be so interested he couldn’t turn the job down. Mellie expected him to be on her side and choose her. Marcus explains, “I did choose you. I would choose you. You just have to choose me.”

Thankfully, Huck (Guillermo Diaz) is able to recover data from Jenny’s (Chelsea Kuntz) laptop. Before watching the footage, Olivia meets with Mellie. Mellie knows that Olivia had a hand in breaking her and Marcus up and takes her to task over it. Olivia doesn’t want to hear it though and tells Mellie, “I did what I had to do! I did my job and made a choice for you!”

Olivia isn’t done doling out her advice though. She meets up with Quinn who is frustrated over her search for information on Charlie. Olivia is annoyed that Quinn gets to be with her prince charming and tells her, “You get to live and love and be happy!” Her advice to Quinn is to build a bridge and get over it – marry Charlie!

We watch a somber salute to Vargas as he is laid to rest. Afterwards, the Pope and Associates staff show Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) the video on Jenny’s hard drive that shows Vargas threatens Cyrus to have him jailed.