Luke I Am Your Father: A Scandal Season 2 Recap

Alicia Carroll ’16/Emertainment Monthly Staff

So much has happened in this show that is filled with endless plot twists, especially since the finale, that it has been a struggle trying to put it into words.  In just this one season so much has gone on that it will be hard to remember it all over the summer, and it would be helpful to every fan if a recap of the show’s most important plot points were provided.  So without further ado, let’s get started.

You may remember a few episodes back in “A Woman Scorned,” Mellie lost all patience for Fitz’s disloyalty to her. She threatened to go on public television and accuse him of cheating, essentially tanking his political career.  She puts a ticking time bomb on it, giving him a few days to make his decision. Cyrus goes into problem solving mode and tries to convince Fitz to give Mellie what she wants. When that doesn’t work, they resolve to threatening her with a lack of political capital that she would have if the Republican Party launched a gossip campaign about her, to ruin her influence on the hill. He offers another plan in which Mellie calls off the TV interview and Fitz supports her political career if she agrees to go peacefully.  She refuses, and insists that Fitz recommit himself to their marriage or she is going to destroy him. (Sounds like a loving wife to me, right?)
Fitz makes the conscious decision to be with Olivia no matter what. He goes to her apartment, and sits and watches time run out to save himself, proving that he doesn’t think of her as a mistress, but as someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with. (Cue: Awww)
Olivia offers to help and do what she does best, fix things, but Fitz won’t allow it.  She is then forced to watch things go up in flames and hope that Mellie doesn’t release her name.  Harrison tries to tell Olivia that she is becoming their client and they are going to fix this for her, but Olivia, being the guarded and self-reliant woman that she is, refused to let him do that.  So the team continues to focus on the albatross case, while worrying about Olivia, and David is still oblivious to the fact Olivia and Fitz are together.
Cyrus is under great stress managing the press after Mellie tells the world Fitz is a cheating bastard, and managing the falling out between him and his husband after he insults his journalistic ability. The mystery guy that was working with Jake is also revealed to be working with Cyrus.  He orders him to fire Charlie as his hit man and “take care” of Olivia Pope. When Cyrus can’t do that the man asks to talk to Olivia.  Charlie realizes that he’d been burned so he went to Olivia Pope and Associates to hire them.
Someone that isn’t Charlie was hired to kill Olivia, but Jake stops them and brings Olivia to safety. He tells her that a B613 agent tried to kill her, which means a very high profile person in the intelligence field wanted her dead.  Since Jake, himself, is a B613 agent, they will inevitably find him and punish or kill him. Jake was led to the same fate Huck had by being put in a dark pit, with no light. The mystery man, revealing that he is now the head of the B613 program, put him there.
Fitz finally accepts that he will not be running for a second term. Olivia convinces Fitz to not only run, but to win. Fitz decides to put the press corps at ease and assure them that his marriage is “none of their business” and he will be running for a second term as President.
The Gladiators are busy working on the Albatross case and see Charlie’s enlisting their help as an opportunity to find the mole. Huck dangerously goes back to his B613 ways and prepares to get information out of Charlie. Quinn shows up and stops him from killing Charlie out of revenge. Once they find out who the mole was they let Charlie go. When they get back to the office they find the Cytron card has been taken. They assume it was Charlie.  Charlie revealed that Billy Chambers was the mole. Olivia figures out that he is working with Governor Reston, who was victim of the election-fixing scheme.  Olivia warns Cyrus that Reston is in on this, as Reston is in the Oval Office as they spoke, meeting with the President. The stress becomes too much and Cyrus has a heart attack.
While Cyrus is in the hospital, Mellie visits while Fitz is there. She acts as though very little is wrong and they are going to be happy in their second term together. Fitz makes it abundantly clear that he is leaving her, and he set up a plan so that in a few years time, Olivia will be loved by the American Public and be welcomed in the White House, while Mellie jumpstarts her own political career with Fitz’s support if she cooperates.
They get a hold of Billy Chambers and Huck was going to relapse into his B613 ways to get the Cytron card. He couldn’t bring himself to do it but Quinn decides to step up and do the torturing for once. (Scary, I know.) Quinn enjoyed it just a little too much, but they got the card. They came to realize the card was a fake.  Abby realizes that David played them. He was the one that sided with them and spent months trying to figure out the safe combination.  David had the real Cytron card and personally delivered it to Cyrus in exchange for getting his job and reputation reinstated.
Fitz is overjoyed and ready to take on the world with Olivia. Cyrus is furious with the news and does everything he can to keep Fitz and Olivia apart and keep Fitz in the White House, including telling Olivia about Fitz murdering Verna and Fitz about Olivia’s relationship with Jake. Olivia decides to put their past behind him. She wants him to run with Mellie by his side to win.  Fitz was not hearing any of it and insisted that she be his first lady. Olivia then says that she can’t leave Harrison, Abby, Huck, or Quinn. She was their gladiator. Fitz is crushed, but crawls back to Mellie nevertheless.
So the mole is dead, the Cytron card is destroyed and there is no evidence that the election was fixed, so Fitz has a clean slate for his next election.  Sounds good right? It’s all neat and tied up in a bow for us? NOPE.  Olivia decides to go for a run and is greeted with every journalist on the hill asking her about Her. Affair. With. The president.
So now Olivia does need fixing. We automatically assume Cyrus or Mellie leaked her name but Olivia is then pulled into a limo outside her building, which kind of made me think Fitz was the leak. But the mystery man was in the car. Olivia, taken aback finally exclaims, “Dad?”
DAD?!? Are you kidding me? After all of the trouble he has caused everyone in her life, he is her Father!? This is worse than the big reveal in Star Wars! He has ordered a number of people to murder her; so on that basis alone he is bad news. This reveal has left gladiators around the world disillusioned, discombobulated, disordered and every other synonym for confused you can think of.
I am just as shocked as you are, trust me.  I can offer no more answers than the cast can. Even they do not know what is going to happen next season. All I can tell you is that the writing staff is already working on next season and it is supposedly going to rock our worlds-like it hasn’t already.
This whole season has been such a whirlwind; I cannot even begin to choose an MVP for this episode. If I had to choose one for the whole season though, I would have to say David Rosen, for fooling absolutely everyone. Well done, Joshua Malina.
Scandal returns to ABC in September 2013.  Fair warning: I will probably live tweet the whole event along with the cast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1KZt1wnFM4