Scandal: Inside the Bubble Review
Many may be inside the bubble this week, but for most, their bubbles are coming too close to popping and leaving a Scandal sized mess.
It’s Jake we see being the most sneaky throughout the episode. Right before the first commercial we see him slam good ‘ol Charlie’s (yes, he’s back) head into a candy machine, cracking the glass and knocking him out. Jake is eager for answers and dirt on Rowan and by the end of the episode, it looks like that’s what he gets. Apparently, David Rosen isn’t the only one able to dig dirt up on people.
When it looks like the President’s gun control bill won’t be passed, David uses those handy dandy B613 files and finds dirt on the judge who is not willing to sway sides. Apparently, he hit and killed a woman and her daughter in his past. This was sufficient leverage to threaten the judge enough to send the bill through. They crack open the champagne at the White House; David is in the bubble, the president’s bubble! However, since the judge decides to shoot himself in the head later in the episode, it’s clear he’s not as gung-ho on gun control as he may have fooled everyone to believe. David isn’t sitting too comfortable in his bubble now.
Meanwhile, Olivia is trying to solve the case of her friend Catherine’s missing daughter. Quinn eventually tracks the daughter, Kaitlyn, down at a hotel. Soon after Huck finds out Catherine made a sex tape with her daughter’s boyfriend, Olivia begins to question Catherine’s true motives.
We soon find out Jake took Charlie and prepped him to be tortured until he basically said the only way he would talk is if he got to see Quinn for 24 hours. Of course, Quinn isn’t too keen on the idea of spending time with creepy Charlie. But, when Jake practically locks them in a dungeon-like room with no windows, I wouldn’t want to piss Charlie off at all. By the end of it they are, of course, making out on some rather uncomfortable and unsanitary looking flooring. Jake then comes bursting in, making them break their embrace quickly. Thank goodness.
Time’s up! Now Charlie has to spill.
Before we find out what information Charlie exactly has on Papa Pope, we can’t forget to check in with Mellie. When she gives up an opportunity to go to her son’s grave with Fitz, it seems almost like a turning point for her. However, Mellie is obsessing over this case about a woman accused of pushing her husband off a cliff. The footage of the fall is unclear, leaving the case unsolved and apparently leaving Mellie to feel the need to discover the truth. She invests all of her time into this story, hiring multiple officials to help break apart the case bit by bit. In the middle of her presentation, Jeff Asperton, the lead investigator, confesses hesitantly that just that morning two witnesses confirmed the man simply fell off the cliff and was not pushed by his wife. Mellie looks shocked and somewhat hurt. Finally she found something she could put meaning in and it is instantly ripped away from her. The look Fitz and Mellie exchange is heartbreaking before Abby makes an excuse for the First Lady to leave the room for another important meeting.
Nice save, Abby.
Abby may also have made her way into the President’s bubble after Fitz apologizes for how rude and inconsiderate he has been towards her. She confesses that all she wants is for him to stop calling her Gabby. They drink to that, before he asks her how Olivia is doing. Despite Olivia and Abby’s continued bitterness, Abby confesses to Fitz that she is doing really well and that’s the end of that conversation. From next week’s preview though, it looks like Olivia isn’t as far from his mind as we are made to think.
Olivia spends her time in this episode juggling the case with her friend Catherine (whose daughter ends up being shot and killed) and her struggling relationship with Jake. She really makes things better when she asks Jake to come to dinner with her and her father at his request. Jake refuses at first, but later agrees to the dinner when we realize Jake has the evidence he has been looking for on Rowan– that he killed Harrison and the president’s son. When Olivia steps out to take a call for Huck, Jake confesses that he has this information and tells Rowan to leave town now. But after a physical rejection to this plan (Rowan stabbing his steak knife between Jake’s fingers without even blinking) and his verbal rejection of, “I’m not going anywhere,” it’s clear that this won’t be as quick of a fix as Jake planned.
This episode felt almost like two parts, leaving questions like who killed Catherine’s daughter, and uneasy scenes of Mellie looking at trouble laying on her couch, Jake following Rowan, and Cyrus leaving the hotel room where he slept with the prostitute, Michael, who we met last week, and found out he is working for Elizabeth. It’s unlike Shonda Rhimes to leave so much unanswered at the end of an episode, but it’s that undeniable anticipation that will just have to satiate us until next week.
Written by
Lindsey McGhee graduated from Western Washington University with a BA in English: Creative Writing. She is grateful for her 4th grade teacher who read aloud Harry…