Gladiators in Dirty White Hats

"We're all bad people. That's the only thing we have in common."

-Bonnie (How to Get Away with Murder)

      I borrowed this quote from last night's HTGAM, but it very accurately relates to fellow Shondaland lead-in, Scandal. In tonight's episode, The Fish Rots From the Head, the distinct lack of conscience among the cast becomes blatantly obvious. Scandal has spent a long time diving into government conspiracies, election rigging, campaigns, secret spy organizations, and the inner workings of the White House. But this week, Olivia (Kerry Washington) and OP Associates have gone back to a good old fashioned fixing. It's a crime scene cover-up. At first glace, it looks like a prostitute OD's on drugs at a swanky hotel party with the secret service. On second, thought it could be murder, or at least manslaughter. What will the team do? 

     At this point, one must begin to wonder, does anyone on the show have a shred of morals, or do they all live in a gray area. First of all, President Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) is spiraling after his breakup with Olivia. He cares little about policy and spends his time bedding any journalist he can get his secret service to bring up to his residence. The secret service, meanwhile, is having parties with hookers. No big deal, right? At the heart of this conflict is Abby. Poor Abby wanted to be the press secretary, but she didn't know her job would include NDAs and phone holding for the president's floozies. Now she has now become the moral center of the show, but perhaps just until this week's episode is over.

     Olivia can't be bothered with the cases because she's still spiraling from the breakup with the president and her secret abortion, and her recent secret trysts with Scott Foley's Capt. Jake Ballard. Important to note here, Jake killed a bunch of people to get the President to name him the head of the NSA. Olivia is very bothered by this for obvious reasons and stalks jake when they're not having secret boots calls. After all, Jake is the same guy a few years back who was using all sort of spying equipment on Olivia before they fell for each other. Now he is the top government spy! Who can change this situation? Abby snaps Olivia back to reality during a Jake stakeout. Finally the OPA group figures out the real story  about the secret service and they seem to be a hair more moral than before (it's been a while since Huck killed anyone).) Olivia plans to bring the secret service to justice by going to speak to Fitz about his and their behavior and the bad culture he has set up for the ss. Then, just to make things even more odd, Olivia invites herself over to her father's house to see Jake, only to meet Jake's brand new fiancee, who he has only been out with 9 times.

     Senator Mellie Grant (aka Lady MacBeth in Louboutins, Bellamy Young) takes her son (Teddy, a.k.a. America's baby) to visit  his daddy in the hopes of getting his support for her campaign to be the Republican party front runner in the presidential primary. She breezes in with kisses, hugs and mushy family stuff (clearly not your typical Mellie) ans after spying one of the journalists in a robe, hugs Fitz and tells him to keep his whores away from the children, then delightfully escorts little Teddy out of the residency.  For those of us that's can't think of anything weirder than Mellie and Olivia getting along, they're actually becoming friends. Yes, they drink wine and lament about their past experiences (but  they never mention their vote rigging scandal that first got Fitz elected).

     On the other side, VP Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani) does not want the President's approval because she knows he is complete scum. Susan's boyfriend, Attorney general David Rosen (Josh Malina) tries to convince her to get the approval anyway. He only is doing this because his secret other girlfriend Elizabeth North (Portia de Rossi) happens to be running Susan's campaign and she's another particular type of shrew. Speaking of shrews, how could we leave out Cyrus Beene? He is the true Macbeth of this show,with no scruples as far back as the election fixing scandal. He has killed (even if its not with his hands) many people, all int eh name of protecting America and Fitz. He has been cast out several times by Fitz, and despite being chief of staff, his power hunger has him looking for the next great candidate after being turned down by Mellie and Susan to run their campaigns.  He recently sent a shooter to the Pennsylvania state capitol so the governor (Francisco Vargas, played by Ricardo Chavras) could come out a hero. this week, Cyrus got the governor to run (even though the poor man has a child battling cancer) by telling a story about his fake disabled brother. Remember, Cyrus is the guy who was caught with a male gay prostitute and married him to keep up appearances.

     In summation, the fish rotted from Fitz's poor actions. But really, this fish was split open the moment Olivia, Mellie, Cyrus and other came in to fix Fitz's first election. All of the scandals are built on a central lie. Then there's the whole secret government group B-613 issue, which has caused a lot of drama (Mama Pope!). Scandal breeds scandal, and everyone  has added their own misdeeds to the fire, and it's going to combust.  #'Merica