'Scandal' Recap: Liv And Fitz Spend The Night Together; Liv Reunites With Her Mother

by uInterviewNovember 22, 2013, 12:00 amNews >

Liv came face to face with her mother and Huck found out Quinn’s dirty secret in Scandal’s “Vermont Is For Lovers, Too.”

Scandal Recap: Daddy Pope Confronts Mama Pope

Command/Rowman/Daddy Pope (Joe Morton) is talking to Mama Pope (Khandi Alexander) in her dark prison cell. He informs her that, due to Liv’s insistent questioning about her mother’s death, he is moving her to a different prison, far away form D.C. Mama Pope, who has clearly been living in this cell for twenty years, accepts it, but she want sone thing first: to see her daughter. Rowan is not impressed and reminds her that she is at fault for her separation from her daughter.

Fitz And Liv Back Together

Meanwhile, Fitz (Tony Goldwyn), after realizing last week that Command is Liv’s father, is desperately trying to get a hold of his one true love, but Olivia is dodging his calls. With her Presidential phone ringing off the hook, Liv smashes it to pieces in her office, something Jake (Scott Foley) reminds her won’t do much good: if the President wants to talk to you, he’s going to talk to you eventually. And, he’s right. When Liv returns home after a long day at work with Congresswoman Josie Marcus (Lisa Kudrow), Olivia returns home and finds a Secret Service agent at her door. A helicopter takes Liv to a house in Vermont, where Fitz is waiting for her. Liv just wants to yell at him and leave, but all Fitz does is talk about the unfinished mansion they stand in. It’s her house, theirs, he tells her. This is the house he built for her when he was ready to give up everything, leave his wife and (Kerry Washington) start a family with her. Just like that, Liv is done fighting and Liv and Fitz get to spend one romantic night away from the world. Fitz says he wanted Liv to see the house once before he sells it, but, after their night, she tells him to hold off, at least for a little while.

Mama Pope is not having nearly as much fun as her daughter. She spent her night gnawing at her own wrists in a suicide attempt that was almost successful. After being transferred to an extremely un-sanitized looking hospital room, Mamma Pope wakes up and is surprised to see Rowan standing over her with newspaper clippings of Olivia. In a strange gesture of goodwill, Rowan has brought all the press clippings of their daughter, that he has kept instead of the traditional family photos. Of course, the sweet moment only lasts so long. Once Mama Pope notices the absence of real photos, she gets angry at Rowan, reminding him that he had promised to take care of their daughter, emotionally as well as financially.

At Pope & Associates, time is slowly running out for Quinn (Katie Lowes). Quinn is trying her best to hide her newfound allegiance with B-613 from Huck (Guillermo Díaz), but that becomes close to impossible when the entire team focuses on finding the person who murdered the security guard (Quinn.) Desperate to get to security footage before Huck and Jake, Quinn goes out on her own to sweet-talk a security guard. She almost gets away with it, but is busted by Jake and is forced to share the footage with Huck. At first, it looks like a dead end, but Huck, being Huck, finds a very grainy reflection of the killer woman in the glass door. He has a program he can run to clear the photo, but it will take some time.

Harrison (Columbus Short), Abby (Darby Stanchfield) and David (Joshua Molina), meanwhile, are working on a case for Congresswoman Marcus. Her sister/daughter, Candace (Sally Pressman) reports that her laptop, filled with campaign strategy and speeches, was stolen during a burglary. She suspects the Reston campaign and, despite Liv’s advice, goes on television and openly accuses the Reston campaign of stealing her laptop. The whole Marcus campaign continues to fall apart when Abby realizes Candace set the entire thing up, whipping her computer drive before planting it inside Reston headquarters.

Knowing it’s only a matter of time before the story leaks, Liv urges Josie to fire her sister/daughter. Instead, at the press conference, Marcus announces that she was the one who planted the laptop and that she is withdrawing her name from the race. She has already put her sister/daughter through enough with this Presidential bid, and she wants to protect her daughter.

James Cheats On Cyrus

With Liv once again on the market to run a Presidential campaign, Mellie (Bellamy Young) goes to Fitz and mentions hiring her again even though she knows the two of them were together the other night. Mellie is trying to be at peace with Fitz’s affair. As long as he respects her, Mellie’s somewhat satisfied, and she knows there’s no going back for her – she’ll never forget that he cheated and that he wants to cheat more. Mellie tries to impart her wisdom to Cyrus (Jeff Perry) who is determined to dangle his husband as bait for the Vice President’s closeted husband. Cyrus manipulates James (Dan Bucatinsky) so that the reporter finds himself alone with the Vice President’s husband, Daniel Douglas (Jack Coleman), in his “man cave.” Slightly drunk, Daniel hits on James, who is shocked to find out that Mellie told Daniel he had an open relationship with Cy and realizes that Cyrus set him up. Cyrus has a photographer outside to take a photo of Daniel attempting something with James, but he is confident that James would never cheat on him.

Once James realizes what is going on, however, all bets are off. James returns home after midnight, worrying Cy, and heads straight for a shower. It looks like James might be playing Cyrus, and if he is, he is a very dedicated prankster. Moments after he walks through the door, Cy receives pictures of Douglas and James hooking up on his phone.

Finally, the episode ended with two jaw droppers: Liv’s mother escapes from B-613 and goes to find her daughter. And Quinn gets home to find Huck waiting for her. He told Pope & Associates that the program he ran on the security footage didn’t give him a clear enough picture. He lied. “We need to talk about who you’re working for,” Huck says as Quinn looks at all his torture tools lined up neatly on her apartment floor.

Scandal returns Thursday Dec. 5 at 10 p.m. on ABC.