Scandal Season 7 Episode 8 Review: Robin

This Scandal review contains spoilers.

Scandal Season 7 Episode 8

I was wrong. Rowan murdered Quinn. I thought the gunshots were more provocative than credible. Dinosaur bones and a loss of puppeteer power were motivation to assassinate a pregnant, soon to be a wife, before her wedding. In the world of Scandal, a petulant father and daughter battle each other using their darkest fears and friends as pawns. This type of chess game has no winners because it’s personal, emotional, and not logically strategic. Olivia and Rowan are all about one-upmanship, not establishing a solid organization with a few to no human casualties.

Are we dealing with warring organized crime families settling debts because someone was insulted at the farmer’s market? Quinn’s death was an avoidable disaster but it didn’t serve the show’s purpose for the winter finale.

Olivia ought to feel guilty because of her silly power play. She didn’t pull the trigger, but she may as well have. I didn’t expect Olivia to heave, snot, and cry like Annalise Keaton, but the lack of outward public and or private emotion struck a false chord. I imagine some of the craftiest assassins might attend their victims’ funeral and grieve among the family as an ideal cover. I understand the possible reasoning in the writers’ room for Olivia not falling apart, but to have her once again resort to sex with Fitz as an emotional balm left me cold.

Scandal oftentimes tests reality, and that’s saying a lot for a primetime fictional show, or maybe it’s in the overall story development and delivery. Other high-profile shows that either feature or intermittently include unknown or unbelievable to laymen characters and stories better execute similar narratives. They aren’t frothy nighttime soaps, and couldn’t get away with half of what gets greenlit on Scandal.

Viewers who remained loyal to the show know what they’ll get weekly, the Olivia/Fitz formula. They’ve come to accept a flawed love story and want it to survive despite the one-time couple’s antics and behavior to the contrary. These two aren’t star-crossed lovers, but that’s how they’re written and portrayed. They’re not meant to be together. Olivia and Fitz are addicted to the impossibility of their having a healthy relationship.

Olivia has perceived power, but that hasn’t stopped Huck, Abby, and Fitz from tiptoeing around her. I’d accept cautious and secret meetings if she were insulated and wielded actual power over people and situations.

Olivia underestimated Quinn who left breadcrumbs before she was kidnapped. All isn’t lost as it might have seemed at the beginning of tonight’s episode. Next week’s chapter is a flashback that will hopefully answer questions leading up to the off-screen gunshots. Another saving grace is the not-so-mysterious baby wailing in an upstairs bedroom at Rowan’s house. It’s undoubtedly Robin, Quinn and Charlie’s daughter thought to be dead and cremated along with her mother.