Liv, Fitz and Jake formed an unholy alliance to bring down Rowan once and for all, and Quinn and Huck may have uncovered a conspiracy on Scandal’s “The Last Supper.”

‘SCANDAL’ Recap: Jake, Liv And Fitz Plan to Arrest Rowan

Jake (Scott Foley), Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) and Liv (Kerry Washington) hold a secret meeting in the prison where Jake is still being held. Now that Fitz finally believes Jake is innocent of killing his son, Jake demands to be released from prison and that he be given the all clear to kill Rowan (Joe Morton). However, releasing Jake would only let Rowan know that they know he is the guilty party, show their hand before they have a chance to make a play. Liv and Fitz want to take Rowan down through legal channels.

Jake goes along with the plan, reluctantly, and tells them where to find his B613 files, so they can send an unmarked car flanked by super-secret army personnel to take them in and hand them over to David Rosen (Joshua Malina), who will then try to form a case against Rowan in a military tribunal – that way, the blackmail files won’t become public and bring down the government. After Jake and Fitz’s first stand off at the prison, Fitz kissed Liv, telling her that after all this was over, he’d take her away for a weekend, just the two of them.

The next time the trio meets up for a secret meeting, it’s to finalize plans on how exactly to capture Rowan. Fitz wants to send a team of special forces to storm B613 headquarters, but Jake is sure there’s no way they’d be able to take Rowan down. The only way a team could possibly attack B613 and win is if Jake leads a team of actual B613 agents, he says. But Liv has a better, and hopefully less bloody, plan: she’ll invite her father for dinner and they’ll take him at the restaurant.

Liv calls her father in tears and tells him that he was right: Jake and Fitz never cared about her; it was all just some kind of macho game. What she needs is to have dinner with her father, something Rowan has been telling her for weeks. When they meet, everything appears to be going according to plan. A whole team of special forces, snipers and other officials surround the area. Snipers are in place, ready to shoot Rowan in the head if need be, but before anyone even gets close to arresting Rowan, he reveals to Liv that he knows about the set up, and informs her that she’s lost.

Fitz and Jake watch on security cameras as all the soldiers are shot outside. David gathers trusted assistants to go through the B613 files – they have already been color coded, he says – only to find that they are full of blank paper. And Rowan leaves his daughter, telling her that she will regret choosing Fitz and Jake over him – he will no longer be looking out for her. “You have forsaken me. Your father, your family,” Rowan says ominously.

Mellie Revives Her Affair With Andrew

At Pope & Associates, Liv received a visit from Lizzie North (Portia de Rossi). Someone has hacked her cell phone, she says, and she needs Liv to find out who they are and what information they’ve discovered from it. As head of the Republican party, she has many enemies, but the digital trail leads the team straight to Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry). Cyrus admits he bugged Lizzie’s phone, and tells Liv about how Lizzie appears to have gotten secret information from him. Liv decides to hold off on helping her client – Lizzie – in order to help her friend, and discovers that the only thing Lizzie has on Cyrus other than the few news items about the military bases, is proof of his affair with Michael (Matthew Del Negro) the prostitute. Liv also realizes that Michael must be working with Liz, and she goes to confront him about it. He had access to Cyrus’ phone, he could have given Liz more damning state secrets, but he didn’t. He must have feelings for Cyrus beyond what he’s being paid for.

After telling Liz that her phone was the victim of a common internet virus, Liv continues to dig into the sneaky politician. Huck (Guillermo Diaz) uncovered a secret apartment Liz keeps under an assumed name and he sets up cameras and bugs and sets up a surveillance van outside. Javi (Jaden Betts) has been swinging by his workplace to get to know Huck, so Huck lets him tag along on a stakeout, despite the fact that it’s clear Javi’s mother wouldn’t approve of them seeing each other at all. Lizzie is in the apartment, and Huck sends Javi out for ice cream when a man shows up – letting his son watch two people have sex is probably not the best idea. As soon as Javi leaves, Quinn (Katie Lowes) appears. She has been shadowing the security guard who killed the two teenage girls and is somehow involved in a conspiracy to spy on Olivia, and he’s the man who just showed up at Lizzie’s apartment. At first, it looks like they might be having an affair, or, are at least in cahoots, but then Vice President Andrew shows up and demands 20 minutes alone with Lizzie.

Andrew (Jon Tenney), who just rekindled his affair with Mellie (Bellamy Young) after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt (which may or may not have been committed by the West Angolan Liberation front), is sleeping with Lizzie, who is somehow connected to the conspiracy to spy on Liv.

As Quinn and Huck struggle to connect the dots in the surveillance van, the security man breaks through the window and grabs Huck, choking him. Quinn tries to fight him off Huck, but Huck is able to free himself by forcing the man down on the broken glass window, slitting his throat in the process. Just as it seems things couldn’t get any worse, Huck looks up and spots Javi staring; afraid, Javi runs away.

Scandal’s winter finale airs Thursday at 9 p.m. on ABC.

Article by Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Olivia Truffaut-Wong was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where she developed her love of all things entertainment. After moving to New York City to earn her degree in Film Studies, she stayed on the East Coast to follow her passion and become an entertainment writer. She lives on a diet of television, movies and food.