Fitz delivered the State of the Union while David Rosen took a page out of Liv’s book and blackmailed a Senator to ensure his confirmation as White House Attorney General on Scandal’s “The State of the Union.”

Liv, Quinn And Huck Work For The White House

Photos of Mellie (Bellamy Young) sitting by her son’s grave and eating potato chips in her pajamas have hit the papers, and the tabloids are having a field day, calling her mental state into question. They think she’s gone crazy, and Abby (Darby Stanchfield) is getting bombarded with questions regarding Mellie’s mental health during the White House Press Briefing. From her office, watching on the television, Liv (Kerry Washington) calls Cyrus (Jeff Perry) and tells her that Abby needs to pull the ‘personal’ card, but when Liv later says the same thing on TV, Abby is pissed because she feels micromanaged. Abby calls Liv and tells her that she isn’t in control anymore, there is no Olivia Pope & Associates, and Abby doesn’t work for her. Oh, and, she also mentions that Quinn (Katie Lowes) and Huck (Guillermo Diaz) had been having sex all over the office before Liv left and she never even noticed.

Meanwhile, Jake (Scott Foley) has announced that he will not be living with Liv in her apartment. He’s getting a hotel room instead, and he will be available for booty calls. Otherwise, he’s not interested in pretending to be in a relationship when she’s in love with Fitz (Tony Goldwyn). The hotel room also provides Jake with some much-needed privacy. After seeing Rowan outside Harrison’s funeral, Jake can’t help but think that B613 orchestrated Harrison’s death. One night of research, and Jake finds video surveillance of Charlie (George Newbern) eating at a restaurant where Harrison reportedly ate before he was found dead.

Cyrus persuades Liv to help out the White House to get a famous gun control advocate couple to the State of the Union. James Elliot (Josh Randall), a survivor of a Taliban POW camp and his wife, Lisa Elliot (Mary McCormack), a teacher who was paralyzed while saving schoolchildren from a crazy gunman, are the perfect couple, and the President had intended to parade them in front of the nation during his speech. However, the Elliots never made their flight, so Cyrus sends Liv to New Mexico to get them.

When Liv arrives, she finds that the Elliots are far from the happy couple they pretend to be, and are clearly on the brink of divorce. Liv convinces them to play nice and come to DC, encouraging them to put their mission for the country over their marital troubles. Once back in Washington, Liv sets them up in adjoining rooms at a nice hotel and gets Huck and Quinn to babysit. Huck refuses to speak to Quinn, despite her attempts at being friendly. He’s angry with her for telling him about his family, though it’s still unclear what happened. Instead of dealing with his feelings, Huck decides to get drunk with James Elliot while Lisa spills her guts to Quinn in the other room, admitting that before she was paralyzed, she and her husband had been madly in love. When James and Huck begin drunkenly singing army songs, Quinn steps in and asks to speak with Huck alone. She yells at him for not doing his job and informs him that she’s done trying to do nice things for him, and he needs to move on from whatever grudge he’s holding. Their argument is cut short when, in the other room, Lisa and James get into another argument and Lisa stabs James with a corkscrew.

Liv steps in and tells the Elliots that they need to get a divorce, which will mean losing their house and their book deals and, perhaps, their good names. However, if they attend the State of the Union and play the happy couple as originally planned, she will personally represent them to the press and make sure they come out of their divorce looking great. With one crisis averted, Liv turns to Huck and tries to talk to him about his relationship with Quinn, but he just walks away.

Mellie Attends The State Of The Union

Over at the White House, Fitz and Cyrus both try to ask Mellie to attend the State of the Union, but she can’t play the happy First Lady anymore. She’s lost too much, and she doesn’t care about what people think of her – including Fitz. Cyrus tries to relate to Mellie. He does know grief, after all, having lost his husband last season. Mellie insists that the loss of a spouse and the loss of a child are not the same, and Cyrus backs down.

It’s Abby who manages to get Mellie to the event. She goes to Mellie and gives her some tough love: hundreds of people across the nation have lost a child and not been given the freedom to grieve as she has. They have bills to pay and had to get back to work, and that’s what Mellie needs to do now: get back to work as the First Lady.

When Liv went to the White House to deliver the Elliots, Fitz asked for a moment alone. He didn’t want to seduce her; he just asked her to look over his speech. Liv encouraged him to acknowledge his own loss in the speech. The nation wants to know how he and Mellie are doing after Jerry Jr.’s death, and a bit of emotion will help Fitz earn some good will for his gun control agenda.

Cyrus Finds Company

Cyrus wasn’t trying to play Mellie when he brought up James’ death. The White House Chief of Staff is struggling with his grief, and finds himself drunk and seeking comfort with a man he meets at a bar. Once upstairs in a hotel room, the man (Matthew Del Negro) who hit on Cy at the bar reveals that he’s a prostitute. Cyrus is tempted to keep going, but hits the breaks. Still, the man knows that Cyrus is lonely, and he tells Lizzie (Portia de Rossi) so when he goes to meet her. The man is working for Lizzie, who is looking to bring down the President and put an end to his bipartisan ways.

David Rosen Resorts To Blackmail

Finally, David’s confirmation hearing hit a bump when the Pope & Associates fabricated scandal that David (Joshua Malina) beat an ex girlfriend resurfaced, courtesy of Lizzie, who says she got the information from a Senator. Harrison had paid a girl to say David beat her way back in season 1, and now it’s coming back to haunt him. But David isn’t going to take this lying down. He decides that he should take after Liv to ensure he gets what he wants for once. He goes digging in his B613 files and finds dirt on the Senator who knows about his alleged past as an abuser and blackmails him into supporting him for Attorney General.

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9 pm on ABC.