Scandal - Season 3 Episode 3 - Recap - Mrs. Smith Goes To Washington

Scandal - Season 3 Episode 3 - Recap - Mrs. Smith Goes To Washington

ABC's Scandal is back and still bananas! The political thriller continues to up the ante, this week with a tense hostage situation in what is (oddly) a stand-alone episode. The show usually focuses a lot on the season arcs, so seeing a one-off like this is neat. Although, there's no telling how these events will relate to whatever happens later in the season, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Pope and Associates take on a new client. She wants to know the circumstances of her son's death, and ends up at The Capitol Building strapped with a ton of bombs what the heck whaaaaat!! So now Olivia is in a locked down Capitol right next to a lady who is about to literally explode. This lady, Mary, thinks her son, killed by the FBI as a terrorist, was innocent. Everyone scrambles to get this lady the sealed file on her son, and Olivia talks to the FBI negotiator (guest star Ernie Hudson, weirdly). Olivia gets the hostages free, save herself and one Congressman. The President orders a kill squad to go in and scnipes to take available shots, but then Olivia pulls Bomb Lady away from the window and reveals herself. Wuh oh! What now, Fitz?? The negotiators want the Congressman to go free. Stall, stall, stall. Olivia tries all her backroads to get the file, but no luck. Then, an FBI agent approaches Harrison with the bombshell news: Chris, the bomb woman's son, was a terrorist recruiter. Buuuut... this news came from a fake FBI agent, as it turns out. Deeper and deeper!

District Attorney David Rosen gets on board to help. He heads down to Cyrus with a theory: David found the agents who were working on the case, seeing that they all got a big pay increase, except for one, who was fired. This isn't correct, according to Cyrus. Next thing we know, Fitz is on the phone to Olivia. The true story is that Chris Lawrence was an undercover CIA operative, years deep in al Queda. He'd "recruited" 57 other agents, and if his identity as an agent comes out (even just to mom), those operatives are all dead. The FBI had killed him by mistake, not knowing his allegiance. Fitz makes it clear in no uncertain terms that Mary cannot know the truth about her son. Olivia hangs up the phone, and she lies. It's painful. It was really difficult to watch as Olivia destroys this woman with the necessary lie. The trio gets ready to come out, Olivia and Congressman Nameless first, then Mary. Except Mary slams the door shut and blows the bomb up on herself. Woof. This... this whole situation was pretty rough. Kerry Washington totally sells the scene, and whomever played Mary also nailed it!

There's a B-plot in among all this insanity! The episode actually starts with a dude trying to get into the Oval Office, saying he has to talk to President Grant about something called Remington. Cyrus hears that word, "Remington", and has The Secret Service let the dude go. Mysterious. Meanwhile, Huck is off the reservation. He's vanished after the violent confrontation with Olivia last week, mainly so he can go kill Olivia's dad, Eli Pope. He's about to do the deed when a convenient phone call moves his target out of the danger zone. Huck follows anyway, and Mr. Pope ends up at the house of the "Remington" guy from earlier, giving him an envelope full of cash. Huck confronts him, but we're not shown what happens right away. Then, Huck shows up late that night, after the bomb thing, surprising Olivia. There's an incredibly tense few minutes where Huck won't say if he'd killed Olivia's dad. He didn't, of course. It as much worse: Eli gives Huck a kill order on the "Remington" guy from before and Huck obeys despite himself. He absolutely does not want to, and he breaks down when he tells Olivia about it. I'm guessing all this stuff with Eli and Huck and the return of Jake Ballard is all tied together somehow, and it probably isn't good news for Olivia.

Yes, thank you ABC, this will do finely. Another week, another excellent episode of Scandal. This show is so thrilling that a good episode isn't even noteworthy. They're all compelling TV. Listen, just hop on Netflix and start watching it. Go on. I'll wait.