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Drama continues in the most recent episode of Shonda Rhimes' Scandal as the never-ending love triangle between Kerry Washington's Olivia Pope, Tony Goldwyn's Fitzgerald Grant and Scott Foley's Jake Ballard begins to unravel, the roles changed since the Gladiator left the White House. In this S05E13 recap with spoilers, life takes a turn for Jake, while Fitz's personal life spirals out of control.
Since that awkward conversation in the previous episode between Abby (Darby Stanchfield) and Fitz, the two have created a new protocol for his lady friends entering the White House. Along with the Secret Service, the experience is now like clockwork: the women go in through the service elevator, anything that can take photos or record videos is taken from them, and they're made to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Fitz is certainly taking advantage of his newfound bachelor status, parading women around the White House after discreetly coming on to them at public events. The public is unaware, but Susan (Artemis Pebdani) knows this will eventually come back to haunt him, so she doesn't want him to publicly support her presidential bid in the fear of her hard work blowing up in her face.
While Fitz entertains new women in his life, a Secret Service agent called Sam (Jared Canfield) comes to Abby with a problem: A party spiraled out of control. Abby hires Olivia to fix it, and the team realizes what's going on: the Secret Service was having a party at a hotel and a prostitute called Megan ended up dead. Another prostitute at the scene, Erin (Amy Holland Pennell), confirms the weird story that Megan was dancing on a table, fell off and died, OD included.
The whole thing sounds too fishy, but when Marcus (Cornelius Smith Jr.) and Huck (Guillermo Diaz) point out the inconsistencies of the Secret Service to Olivia (backed by an autopsy), she says they were hired to do a job and they can't turn their backs on the client.
A couple of scenes later, Olivia finds out about Fitz's philandering from Mellie (Bellamy Young). The Senator and former First Lady wanted to ask Fitz not to support Susan's campaign, plus leave their youngest child with his dad, when she realized there was a random woman only wearing a bathrobe in the White House. Understandably annoyed, Mellie leaves and then tells Olivia the story, having found out this is now common practice at the White House.
Part good American and part jealous ex, Olivia decides to take action about the dead prostitute case, telling Abby the story of the Secret Service covering up the murder. When Abby can't decide how to act, Olivia goes up the Oval and speaks to Fitz for the first time since their brutal breakup.
Of course, the conversation is tense, but it doesn't feel like a lovers' quarrel so much as a friend-to-friend conversation. Besides briefing in the President on the Secret Service's wrongdoing, Olivia has one extra piece of advice: the fish rots from the head, Fitz. They're only behaving in a morally ambiguous way because that's what they see from their boss, bringing random women into the White House.
Fitz ultimately does the right thing, handing the Secret Service men to authorities in public. By the end of the episode, he also sits down with Susan (who's still being controlled by Portia De Rossi's Liz North and Joshua Malina's unwilling David Rosen) and says he'll support her campaign, but only when he becomes the man she'd like to see supporting her.
On the Jake side, Olivia is acting a little like a crazy ex-girlfriend, spying on Jake and his new girlfriend, Vanessa (Joelle Carter). Sure, considering the history with her father, Rowan (Joe Morton), the fact Jake's staying with him now and how he killed someone to become head of the NSA, there's reason for concern, but Olivia's still acting a little psycho, which Abby points out.
Jake, being the director of the National Security Agency, realizes his ex-girlfriend/ongoing booty call is spying on him, so he creepily shows up at Olivia's house while she's sleeping. She confronts him, but, as usual, they just end up fooling around instead.
Later on, Olivia goes up to her father's house to visit and finds a celebration: Jake and Vanessa are getting married -- in other words, Olivia's officially back to square one as someone's mistress.
In other relevant events, Cyrus (Jeff Perry), who's been building a President in the shadow for the past couple of episodes, finally talks to Francisco Vargas (Ricardo Chavira) in person, advising him to go on The Liberty Report, the show hosted by Sally Langston (Kate Burton), where he builds up his story as a hero.
Cyrus finds Vargas is holding back his campaign, and Tom (Brian Letscher) finds out why: Vargas' young daughter has cancer and he wants to be with her as much as he can, something he's kept a secret. Cyrus, ever the man of evil, tells Vargas the (completely fabricated) story of his sick brother convincing him to go to Harvard, which makes Vargas reconsider his presidential run -- and ultimately ask Cyrus to run his campaign, without knowing he was the one who had him shot to be turned into a hero.
The next episode of Scandal will air on March 17.
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