Scandal ‘Mrs. Smith goes to Washington’ Recap – Episode 03.03

The Breakdown

Olivia is thinking about the event of asking her father about if he trains people how to kill. While calling Huck he tells her that he needs some time, he is following Eli.

A new client comes into the office, Mary Lawrence who wants representation by Olivia’s firm. She leaves the office claiming that she has a meeting at the hill. At the white house Cyrus wants Fitz and Mellie to go to camp David to mend their marriage and get press coverage of it. Quinn finds out that Mary Lawrence cleaned out her bank account to pay the firm for representation. A white house tour is going on and one of the visitors  leaves the tour and runs through the white house to the oval office. The secret service is called and tracks him down. While in the oval office the man’s screaming “I need to talk to the president”. Olivia goes to capitol hill to track Mrs. Lawrence down. When she finally gets to where Mary is she finds her with a bomb strapped to her chest.

Mary Lawrence’s son was killed by the FBI and his file is classified. This is why she is at the capitol hill in her senator’s office with a bomb strapped to his chest. Mary says that she has written letters, tried to get TV coverage and everything else imaginable to get her questions answered. The phone rings and Mary only wants Olivia to talk. Olivia tells the FBI what Mary wants and that she has every intention to use the bomb if she doesn’t get what she wants. Huck is following Eli down the street, with gun out when Cyrus calls Eli and Huck backs away. The man trying to get to the president is not connected with the woman at capitol hill with the bomb. The man’s name is Peter Foster and Cyrus tells Eli that they have a Remington problem. Cyrus tells the secret service to let Foster go.

As Olivia has her team to try to hack the FBI database in order to get Chris Lawrence’s file, Olivia persuaded Mary to release 6 of the hostages. The FBI wants Mary to give herself up in order to read the file. The president gets a call from the FBI head that is leading the hostage situation telling Fitz that they have a shot at Mary. He tells them to take it if they get a chance. While Mary is standing in the window, FBI agents rush to the office where they are being held. Olivia pushes Mary from the slight of the sniper and stands in the window. Fitz tells the team to stand down.

Jake calls Fitz about the file and Fitz tells him they don’t negotiate with terrorists. Huck has followed Eli to a trailer where a man lives that was involved with Remington. Eli wants this man to keep his side of the deal. While leaving the trailer Huck comes up to Eli and points a gun with a silencer to his head. Eli tells Huck that he is getting sloppy and he should have killed him earlier. Quinn is having no luck hacking the FBI database and calls Huck, who doesn’t answer. Abby goes to David Rosen’s office also to get access to the file to no avail. Harrison is outside of the hostage scene screaming at the FBI agent in charge when a woman comes up to him and shows him a video of Chris. It turns out Chris was a recruiter for a terrorist organization. She labels Chris as a terrorist and also his mother.

Harrison watches the woman who showed him the videos. Her name is Laura Kinney and has Abby go back to David Rosen’s office to pull up her file. David doesn’t find her in the database so they get suspicious. David Rosen walks into Cyrus’ office demanding to see the file. Cyrus doesn’t budge until David brings up the names of all the FBI agents on the case that were given promotions after Chris Lawrence was murdered. Back at capitol hill Fitz calls Olivia and tells her that Chris Lawrence was actually a CIA agent who was undercover as an Al-Qaeda recruiter and recruited 57 members as government operatives. Olivia can not tell Mary this info because it will put the lives of the 57 agents still in the field in danger. Olivia tells Mary that Chris was actually a terrorist. Mary falls to the ground crying and Olivia embraces her and tells her that there work is not over because Olivia will keep defending her. The congressman and Olivia are leaving the office escorted by military, after Olivia gets out of the office Mary shuts the door and detonates the bomb and an explosion goes off.

The President announced that no one other than the victim (Mary who was killed) was hurt in the blast. At the white house Mellie is drinking moonshine and pours Fitz a glass. Mellie says that she is celebrating and Fitz asks is she disappointed that Olivia wasn’t killed in the blast. Mellie says that it would have been hell had Olivia been killed because Fitz would have placed on her a pedestal and Mellie wouldn’t be able to deal with that. Mellie says that as long as Olivia is alive she can use her to make Fitz her puppet and control him. Olivia walks into her office where Huck is sitting in the dark. Olivia wants to know if Huck killed her father. Huck tells Olivia that Eli told him to kill the man that he was visiting in the trailer. Huck did what Eli told him to do claiming that Eli still controls him. Olivia goes home and Jake is there. Olivia wants to know why he is still alive. Jake claims that he doesn’t know. Olivia says that Eli wouldn’t have kept Jake alive unless he still found him useful. Olivia shares the same sentiment that Huck felt, Eli controls them too.

The Analyst

The conversation between Mellie and Fitz was interesting. It makes me wonder what exactly does Mellie plan to do to or with Olivia to get Fitz in line when she needs to. Before the season started we were told that there would be more detail and backstory given to Harrison. I wonder has that plan gone out the window with the side story being more about Huck and Eli. Every member of Olivia’s teams past have been explored in great detail except Harrison. It would still be interesting to see more about exactly who he is and how did Olivia actually save him. Last week as the show ended ABC asked viewers to text #GoodJake or #Bad Jake to gauge where the viewers think his motivate is. At this point it has me wondering too. The reason he gave to Olivia seemed very weak and I think we all want to know the same thing Olivia does. Why is Jake free?