ABC’s ‘Scandal’ season 5, episode 3 review: Olivia, Fitz, Mellie, and one tangled web

Thursday night’s new episode of “Scandal” may have very well been titled “Hitting the Reset” … or at least this is how we thought the story was going at one point. It looked like Cyrus was about to get her job back with the President, and that Mellie’s demands in order to keep things civil were going to cause Fitz and Olivia to separate completely.

Then, Fitz chose to not hire Cyrus back, and this set off a chain of events that can only be described as insane, and really within the fabric of what we know about this show backwards and forwards. He told Mellie to not just revert back to the person that she was; while she may have a chance at becoming President, that is all that it was: A chance. She had fallen back into another Fitz trap so that he could get what he wants.

In the end, Mellie decided to bolt, and Fitz had to resort to having Abby go out in a press conference so that she could completely trash Olivia in front of everyone. from Olivia’s vantage point, this was the right play to ensure that she was the one who looked opportunistic, and that the President was innocent by most accounts. Then, they could have their moments still in secret. In showing him that she was willing to destroy her reputation for him, this was her choosing him. Romantic in a weird and somewhat-disturbing way.

Cyrus was to us the MVP of the episode, even though the stuff about the Louvre burning and the return of Papa Pope from prison is exciting … even though we never quite know completely what is going on with this world. Now, we just have to hope that we get something deeper for Huck and Quinn to dive into soon, given that in this episode, they had to spend the majority of their time sitting around and figuring out what to do next. Grade: B.

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