Categories: News

'Scandal' Recap: Jake Shoots Either James Or David In Cliffhanger

This week on Scandal, Jake embraced his role as Command and shot either David or James after finding out James is Publius in “No Sun On The Horizon.”

Tensions were high for everyone in Scandal Thursday as Sally Langston (Kate Burton) went off the rails and threatened to confess her sins at the first Presidential debate. Leo (Paul Adelstein) is desperate to get Sally to stop thinking about how she murdered her husband, Daniel Douglas, and focus on the campaign, so he brings in a spiritual advisor to hopefully talk Sally down off the cliff of insanity. It backfires: after talking to her priest, Sally decides that she needs to confess publicly to be able to communicate with God once more. He used to talk to her, she says, but now she does not hear him anymore.

Leo goes to Cyrus (Jeff Perry), but Cyrus is troubled after his confrontation with Olivia (Kerry Washington). Early in the episode, David Rosen (Joshua Malina) came clean to Pope & Associates about Publius, James (Dan Bucatinsky) and about their plan to go public, exposing Sally Langston as a murderer and Mellie (Bellamy Young) and Cyrus as complicit in covering it up. Liv immediately went to Cyrus to confirm the story, but refused to help him.

Liv is devastated. She wanted to give Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) the good, clean win she promised him, and now it’s no longer possible. She refuses to help Cyrus continue to cover it up, and does not promise to keep it from Fitz. She instructs her Gladiators to stand down; they are not touching this. Unable to go to Fitz for comfort – he’s stuck in debate prep – Liv does the next best thing: she goes to Jake (Scott Foley). She doesn’t want to talk about their real lives, she wants to pretend to be happy, normal people for the night. Jake goes along with it, telling her about the paper he sold at B-613 (as a cover). He offers her one chance to run away together, leave all this behind. They can escape the lies and the murder and the horror and be together, but they have to leave. Liv’s answer is no, but they spend the night together.

Cyrus calls Charlie (George Newbern) to ask him to take care of the Sally problem before the debate, but Charlie informs him that the new Command has issued a rule: no freelance work. So, Cyrus goes directly to the source and arranges a late night meeting with Jake. Jake plays it tough, telling Cyrus that his job is not to clean up his messes, it’s not to protect the President, it is to protect “the Republic.” Cyrus makes his case, stating that if the public loses faith in Sally Langston and Fitz, their political leaders, it will lead to the Republic’s demise. Jake puts Cyrus in his place, and it seems like he won’t be doing him any favors anytime soon. That is, until he heads to B-613 the next day.

Jake has hired Quinn (Katie Lowes) on a trial basis, not as a B-613 agent, but as a glorified secretary. To ‘pay her dues, Quinn is stuck behind a desk answering phones and selling papers to keep up the B-613 cover. Frustrated with Jake, she goes off on him about Liv and the Gladiators. She thinks that the real reason he’s keeping her on lockdown is to stay on Olivia’s good side. “I bet she’s got you thinking you’re part of her family – a good little Gladiator earning Liv’s love,” she tells him.

When he goes to Liv’s apartment later that night hoping to continue their somewhat repaired relationship, he is disappointed, to say the least. Cyrus convinced Liv to visit Sally Langston, and she saw first hand what a mess she was. Liv came clean to Fitz, telling him that Sally killed her husband and that Cyrus and Mellie tried to cover it up. To keep Sally from confessing her sins to the public mid-debate, Liv has one solution: have Fitz throw the debate. If he stumbles, it could be the ‘sign from God’ Sally is looking for and make her believe that God wants her to keep the secret of her husband’s death. Seeing that Liv has chosen Fitz, Jake walks out and finally embraces his real role as Command.

No longer worried what Olivia will think of him, Jake calls in Quinn and officially takes her off duty. Her first assignment: to break into Pope & Associates and find all the information they have on the Daniel Douglas murder. Quinn sneaks in, and scans some documents easily enough and reports back with proof that James is Publius and that he is working with David. The next part of Jake’s plan is to call in his B-613 agent inside the White House, Tom (Brian Letscher), and gives him an order: if Sally Langston opens her mouth to reveal the fact that she killed her husband, he needs to kill her.

At the debate, Fitz refuses to stumble to satisfy Sally, but, watching her about to confess, he stops himself and throws the debate, saving Sally from death by sniper and saving Cyrus and Mellie from jail time.

The next day, Leo goes to Cyrus’ office to gloat – Sally won the debate, and Fitz ensured that she wouldn’t talk. He brags about his big win and then makes a quip about redecorating the office when Sally is elected. The first thing he will get rid of, he says, is that strange buzzing sound. After that comment, it doesn’t take Cyrus long to find the bug James planted in his office.

Cyrus goes home and tells James he knows he’s Publius, but he also takes responsibility for it. He’s not mad, he says, he knows he drove James to this because he manipulated him. Cyrus only says that he wants James to know that he loves him more than anything and that he’s sorry.

Turns out, the apology was all James really wanted. After receiving a text from David, James goes to meet him and tell him that he is out. David can do what he wants, but James wants nothing to do with it. During their talk, they learn that they have been set up. David never sent that text to James, it was B-613. Shots are fired, killing the two women with them, and Jake walks out of the shadows. He aims his gun at either James or David and fires.

Scandal airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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