As We Lay

Hello Gladiators!!
Was I the only one who drank in the recap episode like it was the best. Margarita. Ever? It was like my long lost friends came back to town...and they did NOT disappoint.
Okay, so in the finale last season, Fitz chose Olivia and they shook all sorts of sheets. I believe he referred to some superpower...and it was indeed. But. All hell is breaking loose in GladiatorLand. Mellie has outed the president's affair, and she is coming off the RAILS that the president has just tossed her to the wind. Fitz has dared her to fight it, telling her exactly how it's going to go down and their relationship will slake a real debate on race. And really, Fitz. Your wife is cray. Stopping poking that bear. Anyway, she's threatening to lose her mind, Defiance (you know, that tiny town that threw the presidency) is getting known by just too many people (side note: my boss always says the only secrets that are kept are the ones you tell God. And. Word.) Anyhoo, the latest person to find out is the governor who lost the primary to Fitz. And of course, wanting to come clean just doesn't happen in Washington, he wants to be on the ticket. However, if Defiance comes out, we have no president in peril, so it turns out David Rosen really wasn't working with Billy Chambers - he dupes him into getting the card back and uses it to get his job back with the US Attorney's Office. And because I love David, it's not despicable.
Cyrus, trying to keep all do these crazy assed people in order, has a heart attack. Olivia is, uncharacteristically, still clinging to the hope that she and Fitz will finally be together, even after Cyrus telling Fitz about her getting busy with Jake, as well as Fitz going Carl Bruener on Justice Thorton. I told you, he SAID it was a superpower. But - Olivia takes one more opportunity to save Fitz...to tell him everyone has a clean slate and he needs to go, get reelected, and be the president she knows he can be. She kisses him goodbye and this is the end of Fitz and Liv. Santa Claus and the Easter bunny see her out because yeah...that's how real it was.
By the end, it is all too neat. Cue the happy montage of everyone getting their life together and getting back to normal. Olivia leaves her fab apartment to go jogging and is immediately met with reporters asking if it's true about her and the president. She's whisked into a limousine where Park Bench Guy, aka Rowan, aka Byron the jilted senator from A Different World, is waiting. She looks at him, incredulous, and says "Dad". End scene.
Okay. That was 3 paragraphs worth of one of the best finales last season. Hulu, Netflix, on demand. Go watch it if you didn't.
The premiere opened up right where last season left off. She's in the limousine giving her dad the stink eye, and he remarks that she hasn't said a word in 22 minutes and why couldn't she have been like that as a child. And ha. Rowan delivers Olivia to a plane hanger where he spells out the plan for getting her out of this, but not before delivering a speech that is laced with the special type of vitriol parents save for their adult children who have royally. Shat. The. Bed. In his mind, falling for the president was not only dangerous, it was stupid and beneath her, calling her aspirations of being FIRST LADY mediocre. And. Damn. I always thought that was a cool job to have but everyone on this show scoffs at it. Eh well...still get to go to lots of great parties. Anyway. Rowan's tirade was hurtful, stinging, and brilliant. Remember how I said last season Shonda 'busta' Rimes, never leans on the racism angle, but gets it right all the time? I don't know any one of my minority friends who hasn't gotten the twice-as-better-half-as-much speech. Granted, mine was about scholarships and jobs and not sleeping with the leader of the free world, but you get my point. For them to NOT touch on race, especially given Fitz is a conservative in super political buttoned up Washington, would be too disingenuous. Anyhoo...my friend Parrish says that Rowan getting dumped by Whitley Gilbert all those years ago seems to have turned him into a douche. And. Word.
Meanwhile, back at the White House, Cy is all about the damage control. He wants the VP to take the meetings and, in a really funny exchange, she says no. She tells him she's doing the Lord's work, and he tells her The Lord doesn't vote. And. Ha. She goes in to tell him to, essentially, stop picking on her, that she never says anything about his Godless homosexuality and the brown baby they bought into the fold. And ha ha. [those two have the best exchanges. He never explains to her just how effed up her thinking is, and she's convinced she's got The Lord on her side. Who doesn't vote.] Eventually the president and the Vice President bond over scotch because...that sh!t burns going down and you'll agree to anything to stop drinking it.
Meanwhile, Olivia gets on the plane with her tail between her legs, and calls to say good bye to Cyrus. Cy begs Olivia to get off the plane (rightly) telling her that if she disappears the president will think he ordered her killed. She tells him he's a monster and he says...but I'm your monster. And...aw. So Olivia remembers that she is OLIVIA POPE and gets off the plane, demanding the driver take her to her office. Obviously, because Pope and Associates is run by Olivia pope, she is met by throngs of press and is escorted to the office by Huck. The gladiators are all gathered around doing their usual...aw hell [side note! Damn Abby! You look good, girl] when Olivia walks in and says lets get to work, and they are all 'dafuq. Have you WATCHED the news'? Well, Olivia hasn't, but all of her clients have, because they are all...'girl. Wow. Sorry about your luck. Let me hand you over to Uncle Click.' [seriously. You know you played that game.] Olivia is learning, sadly, that you're only as good in DC as your last scandal. Olivia has stayed, I reckon, pretty scandal free, but damn she's landed in the mother of scandals.
Frustrated, Olivia calls Daddy-O, asking where Jake is. (Jake, at the end of season 2, was tossed in a hole for disobeying an order.) Rowan makes it clear that orders are just that in his business and not to be disobeyed. Actually, he goes all Colonel Jessup and tells Olivia that without him, the nation would be a big mess. Rowan repeats the White House will throw her to the wolves, explaining what Olivia already knows. This isn't about the president. It's about the power and they both know the president has none. He tells her she's out of options and she tells him...ah...no.
And she's really not because she has a secret code with a secret password, and suddenly, there's a dozen limos leaving her garage in all different directions. And I gotta tell you. Olivia has done some cool sh!t on this show, but that was cool. I very much want a code like that.
Of course a code and limos can only be delivering her to the President. In a bunker, somewhere where he gives her hell for pulling the trigger on the secret code, and that using it was for an emergency. And hello? If this isn't an emergency, what is? Because clearly, them playing loosely goosey has gotten them in trouble because there's now video of Fitz leaving Olivia's apartment. (Those damned secret service men. I don't expect the bad one (Hal) to help, but Tom? Tom should have seen that camera.) Anyhoo, clearly Olivia needs to fix this, and who should show up, but Mellie. And underneath that Steel Magnolias hair, Mellie is just gorgeous. She refers to Olivia as a whore one too many times, and Olivia is like...hold up. And here's the thing. Mellie knows she's not a whore. And because she knows, she's not okay with them handling this scandal by telling the truth, because then she knows the public will know this just wasn't an affair - she carefully details all of her humiliation - knowing he went to her inauguration night, calling out Olivia's name when he was shot (by Justice Verna's assassin), things that make it quite clear that she knows this is more than an affair, and when Fitz tells her she knows he's in love with her, my heart broke a little, just as Mellie's face crumbles. Olivia, realizing, she owes Mellie this pound of flesh, asks what story she feels comfortable telling. They decide on some of the truth [it is DC afterall] and Mellie stomps off. And they are alone...and he wants to know how she's doing. She's clearly not fine and he takes his jacket off and holds her for about 5 seconds. And the way she melts into him, without a word, is exactly why Mellie called her a whore about 50 times. And why Olivia didn't care. And damn...Tony Goldwyn. I love you.
But there is still the tiny matter of Olivia's career circling the drain, and who exactly told on Olivia. We find it's leaked in the WaPo Style section...and that it's by a columnist who hangs with the secret service guys, so of course I think it's Hal. But it's not! It's Tom! The one I thought understood what secret meant. But he knows what secret means. He does this on behalf of the PRESIDENT. Dafuq?
Mellie has figured this out, because she's a bored First Lady with a lot of time on her hands, and for real...? Quit dissing that job! And she calls Fitz romantic and idiotic. But he goes all Carl Bruner on her and tells her he did it to set Olivia free from Mellie. They have declared war on each other...and that seems like a jolly set up to the season.
But but but!! Just as they are about to come clean, just as Cyrus is using his kill folder on Olivia Pope (which isn't a literal kill folder, but kill your reputation), the gladiators, who confirm they are gladiators, and not bitches, leak to the press snippets of the Vice Presidents chief of staff saying how doable Fitz is [and girl. Holla.] The press runs with it and concedes the public owes Olivia Pope an apology. So everyone is happy. Everyone except Fitz and Olivia. Olivia takes her on as a client because she knows they are using her. She also knows that there but for the grace of God goes her, and Olivia wears a white hat, don't you know.
Turns out, Rowan has legitimate concerns about his daughter. He has Cy kidnapped from his home and a sleeping James and is delivered to B6-13, where he shows Cy a file from Fitz' days with Jake in theatre, and Cyrus says "oh my God". And for an admitted monster like Cyrus to be taken aback, you know we are on the roller coaster for season 3!
Welcome back Gladiators!!
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