If you would like to read my review of the last episode, click here.
Synopsis: The events leading up to election night are retold from Abby’s perspective, revealing a formidable thirst for power and the explosive secret she’s been keeping. (Scandal Wiki)
Writer: Severiano Canales
Director: Oliver Bokelberg
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 43mins
Last week’s episode ended with quite the revelation that Abby is involved with the conspiracy. In order to understand how it came to be, we have to go back to Election Day, again. Hopefully this will be the last time.
Fitz was nearing the end of his presidency so he decided to start looking to the future which meant his Presidential library. They argued about where it should be. Fitz wanted to do something different by building it in Vermont instead of his native California. He still wanted Abby around after his presidency to help run his foundation. When Abby went to meet some potential contributors, they were the mysterious man and woman we’ve seen plenty of times already, Theodore (David Warshofsky) and Samantha (Zoe Perry).
They were not there to donate to the library, however, they were trying to recruit Abby to their team by offering her $300 million. She thought they were crazy but they started to appeal to her wanting something more. They thought she was the future and he was interested in her ideas, they thought she she should run for President. She was flattered but she refused.
Needing advice, she turned to Cyrus. She asked if why he knew that Vargas was the one. He suspected that she was thinking of leaving Fitz to run for office. He shared his feelings about leaving Fitz to do his own thing. She then went to Fitz who told her that he decided on Vermont. It was the perfect place for him because he would get to live a normal life and get to do things he’s never done. Abby got upset since she thought he was avoiding his responsibilities. Fitz believed he has done his fair share for the country so he deserves to take time for himself. Abby finally had enough and accepted Theodore and Samantha’s offer.
During Election night, Abby got a phone call warning that something was going to happen and that she would be given further instructions. That thing was Vargas getting shot. After he was shot, Abby was shocked and then realized that she was over her head. She wanted to back out but they were blackmailing her with the fact that her money was dirty. They wanted her to go to the hospital and switch out the bullets that killed Vargas.
Unsurprisingly, Meg was their person on the inside at the Hospital and in order to make sure Abby did what she was supposed to, they took Bergen hostage and Meg showed her a video of him getting beat up. To get the bullets out, they would have to perform an autopsy and for them to perform an autopsy, the President would have to declare him dead. As we know, this didn’t come easy so Abby had to work her magic and managed to switch them out, not before having to pull one out of Vargas herself.
They gave her Bergen back but of course he doesn’t remember what happened. Once she heard about Fields’ voicemail implicating Cyrus, Abby felt guilty and so desperately wanted to prove his innocence. The first thing she tried was to go to Rosen but Samantha thought of it already seeing that they appear to be dating which surprised Abby. Huck showed up offering information in exchange for a visit with an inmate and that information was that Fields was still alive.
With this information, she went back to Theodore and Samantha and offered to tell them that Fields was alive in exchange for freeing Cyrus from prison and they agreed. This led to the end of the previous episode with Huck bringing Meg to Fields and her shooting the both of them. Abby told Cyrus that she would save his life whatever it took and she reminded him that she was a force.
Overall, this was another great episode, led by an amazing performance by Darby Stanchfield as Abby. She showed considerable range, depicting her ambition and her ruthlessness while still showing a human side. We didn’t get closure on last week’s cliffhanger but I’m sure Huck isn’t dead. I just hope that we could move on from Election Day as I think they’ve covered everybody by now.
Score: 8.5/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
