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ABC's 'Scandal' - Season Five

Source: Tony Rivetti / Getty

Olivia is still hell bent on making sure that Mellie wins the presidency (so that she can get back in the White House because, power). At the beginning of tonight’s episode of Scandal, we find Olivia still trying to convince Abby, David, and Fitz that Cyrus is responsible for Frankie Vargas’ death, but they refuse to believe her.

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Meanwhile, Nelson McClintock, the person they’ve pinned as the actual suspect, is being pressured to sign a crappy plea deal—which would allow him to rot in prison for the rest of his life, instead of getting the death penalty. McClintock refuses to sign the plea deal because he maintains his innocence. The man is racist and pretty rotten (based on what we know about his social media), but we all know how this works. He’s the fall guy, and no matter what happens, he’s probably going to lose.

Womp womp.

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In other news, Cyrus makes Mellie a deal. He wants her to be his VP as a unity ticket. This would make history as the first time a democrat and republican shared office. It’s also Cyrus’ attempt to keep an extremely divided country from falling apart (Well, doesn’t tat sound familiar?). Mellie is not impressed. Actually, she’s bitter because she feels that Cyrus doesn’t even deserve to be president, which is true given that he was never really a candidate and he’s not as experienced as she is. Mellie goes off on him and accuses him of killing Frankie Vargas. Cyrus still maintains that he didn’t do it and tries to convince her that Olivia is the bad guy this time. That’s cute and all, but it’s clear that Mellie’s decision is still up in the air leaning more toward a no.

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Mellie doesn’t always catch a break, but when she does, it’s in the form of she and Marcus finally acting on their feelings. They got it on and it’s starting to look like this is definitely more than a fling — but let’s be real, it’s fleeting. Mellie foolishly informs Olivia just how good the d is, and that she might be in love, but Olivia starts with the mind games. She warns Mellie to be careful because Marcus is most likely an opportunist. He was an activist who was sleeping with the mayor’s wife. He also didn’t hesitate to work for Olivia when she offered him the job, even after initially talking smack about her being a sell out. Plus, he’s black and from a different background, as if that would ever bode well for Mellie’s status. It’s a valid concern, but it also comes with ulterior motives coming from Liv. She wants Mellie in the White House at all costs, and doesn’t want her to lose focus. Olivia can see that Mellie wants love to the point where she might shirk her political ambitions, so she is already preparing for action. Hold that thought.

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Olivia isn’t the only one scheming. Later on we find out that Abby enlisted Jake’s help to force McClintock to confess. Whatever Jake said was convincing because he made the man pee on himself. This is a tough guy here, but as we know, Jake is tougher. So there goes that.

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Quinn and Charlie come through with a laptop from the scene of Jennifer’s murder. Remember, Jennifer is the one who left the tip that Cyrus killed Frankie. The problem is, there’s over 5,000 hours of footage, so going through that will take a while. Olivia figured that Abby was behind McClintock’s confession and confronts her about it. Abby doesn’t hide what she did, but like everyone else, she just wants Olivia to stop with the investigation.

Now that Mellie got the news of McClintock’s confession, she’s thinking about taking Cyrus up on his offer. She asks Marcus, not Olivia, what she should do. Marcus tells her to go for it and you know Olivia is going to be pissed because number two is not good enough.

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Fastfoward to the moment Olivia convinces Abby to give Marcus the press secretary job as a way to break them up. It worked. Marcus took the job, which makes it appear to Mellie that he is an opportunist. Mellie confronts Olivia about it and Olivia went on a tirade, similar to what her dad would do, about doing what was necessary to make her a president. That’s when Mellie reveals that she was offered the VP gig, but she’s so upset that she severs ties with Olivia (sure, we’ve heard that one before). Mellie then meets up with Marcus, he tells her the news about his new job and she goes off on him too. The thing is, he didn’t say a dang thing about wanting to break up with her. Olivia got in her head and she feels some type of way that he’s leaving his post with her campaign, and she’s extremely insecure, so she goes off on him and they’re done (for now).

Olivia, feeling defeated, shuts her investigation against Cyrus down now that Mellie is out and then we get to the sequence of events that ends the episode.

First, we’re at Frankie Vargas’ funeral and we see Olivia side eying the heck out of Cyrus. Then we cut to the final scene. Huck combed through the 5,000-hour footage, because that’s what he does, and he found a major key. There is a clip that features an argument between Frankie Vargas and Cyrus. Vargas is livid with Cyrus, going off on him, and promising to send him to jail once the campaign trail is over, for “what he did.”

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Fitz then decides to speak to the attorney general, but we’ll have to wait until next week to see what happens. You know Cyrus, and he’s not going down without a fight.

Anyone else holding on to hope that even Cyrus wouldn’t stoop that low?

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‘Scandal’ Recap: Olivia’s Case Against Cyrus Is Getting Real  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com