Scandal – Beltway Unbuckled

  • Title: Scandal – Beltway Unblocked
  • tv.com: link

scandal-beltway-unbuckled

Senator Davis (Norm Lewis) brings Olivia (Kerry Washington) a pair of new clients, parents (Eve Gordon, Todd Waring) of a missing graduate student. Harrison (Columbus Short) discovers the story of the sweet angel Olivia Pope & Associates sold to the press to increase the profile of the case is far from the truth as the girl is actually an infamous blogger known for sleeping around with D.C.’s finest and brightest and blogging anonymously about how lousy each of them is in bed. As the 24-hour news cycle runs with the far more salacious promiscuous slut angle, Olivia and her team try and piece together the final days leading up to her disappearance by pulling clues from her blog.

When the young woman turns up dead after attending a State Department dinner the team is able to connect the a cultural attache who wrecked his car less than 50 feet away from where the body was found  the night the woman slowly died in a ditch by the side of the road. However, as a member of the consulate with diplomatic immunity Olivia has no recourse unless unless she can use media pressure to force the President to revoke the diplomat’s immunity.

The White House grows even more chilly for the President (Tony Goldwyn) by an increasing irate First Lady (Bellamy Young) who demands a more active role in the government, an idea neither Fitzgerald nor Cyrus (Jeff Perry) think is a particularly wise, or practical, idea. Seizing the moment, Mellie takes up the cause of Olivia’s clients and bitter rivals become unlikely allies as the First Lady finds a way to raise her public profile and publicly put the screws to her husband at the same time.

In the episodes ongoing B-story, David Rosen (Joshua Malina) continues both his investigation into Quinn’s (Katie Lowes) trial and his new relationship with Abby (Darby Stanchfield). His investigation leads him to visit the head  (Gregg Henry) of a technology company which was in constant contact one of the victims in the bombing during the days prior to his death. David’s assistant Alissa (Brenda Song) warns him not to let Abby see him crazy conspiracy wall, but when she does her reaction is far from expected.

Aside from the President finally officially ending his relationship with Olivia, the episode has quite a few big moments including Huck’s (Guillermo Díaz) continued loss of control, Abby’s reaction to seeing Rosen’s conspiracy wall, and the episode’s final scene which gives us glimpse not of the conspiracy itself, but of the conspirators who include Cyrus, Mellie, the CEO Rosen recently visited, Supreme Court Justice Thornton (Debra Mooney), and Olivia Pope.