Olivia officially went up for auction and Jake, Huck and Quinn turned to her terrorist mother in an effort to get Olivia home in Scandal’s “Gladiators Don’t Run.”

Scandal 4×12 Recap:

The auction for Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) goes live on the Darknet, and before Ian can even see the first bid go through, his associate, Gus, one of the men who helped keep Olivia captive, shoots him. Just like that, Liv’s hopes of getting out alive and safe disappear. Gus isn’t in it with Olivia, he just wants the money for himself and the two hackers he enlisted.

Meanwhile, Fitz (Tony Goldwyn), Cyrus (Jeff Perry) and Mellie (Bellamy Young) are working on a plan to get rid of Vice President Andrew (Jon Tenney). First things first: fire the entire Secret Service and enlist Fitz’s friends in the Navy to protect him and the First Family. Next, make Andrew resign. Of course, Andrew is not willing to go quietly. He refuses to resign, telling Cyrus that if he goes, he’s bringing Fitz down with him. He may have committed treason and kidnapping, but Fitz went to war just to save Olivia Pope, and that will guarantee them matching cells in prison. Cyrus realizes that he needs to discredit Andrew before forcing him to resign, so he goes to Lizzie North (Portia de Rossi). North turns quickly – she never wanted anything to do with Olivia’s kidnapping in the first place – and it looks like Andrew is going down.

Mellie For President

So, Andrew turns to Mellie and threatens to reveal all the dirty little secrets of their affair to the press if he is forced to resign. When Mellie tells Fitz, he tells her that there’s no way the public would believe a man convicted of treason anyways, but Mellie knows that’s not true. A man may be able to survive a cheating scandal, but a woman cannot. Mellie tells Fitz they are going to have to let this one go, because she wants to be President of the United States. And Fitz agrees!

Meanwhile, Mellie continues to support Fitz as he enlists the US government to enter the auction to win Olivia. He can’t be seen negotiating with terrorists, so the government enlists the help of various drug cartels and foreign criminals to bid for them. Once Jake (Scott Foley) hears of their plan, he knows it’s not going to work, so he, Huck (Guillermo Díaz) and Quinn (Katie Lowes) decide to enter the auction on their own. Huck reveals he still has the $2 billion from the B-613 bank accounts, and all they have to do is find the auction on the Darknet and they’re in business.

Mama Pope Returns

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. To gain access to the auction, they need to be invited, and to be invited they need to be a vetted terrorist or criminal group. Luckily, they happen to know a terrorist: Maya Lewis (Khandi Alexander), Olivia’s mother. A little sweet-talking with David Rosen (Joshua Malina), and Jake and Quinn are let in to visit Maya. She agrees to help them gain access to the site in exchange for access to a television. She sets Huck and Jake up with a known drug dealer, but flips the script half way through the meeting. Huck and Jake are not just meeting a drug king pin to gain access to the site, they’re meeting three men the drug king pin wants dead. Huck goes a bit crazy in slaughtering the three men, and Jake is worried that Huck could be moving over into the dark side, the side that lives for blood and killing. Quinn dismisses Jake’s concerns, and for the moment they focus on the auction.

At the White House, Abby (Darby Stanchfield) finds out that Liv is missing and she tries to help Quinn and Huck, but they kick her out. Quinn is willing to let her stay, but Huck sends Abby packing, telling her she left and she’s not a Gladiator anymore. Feeling helpless, Abby turns to David and yells at him for not telling her that her own best friend was missing.

Olivia Pope: Sold

Just as more and more bidders begin to drop out of the auction, the site goes offline. Gus informs Olivia that she has already been sold to a bidder that came straight to him with a cash offer. He doesn’t tell Liv who bought her, but the President’s intelligence team informs Fitz that Iran was the lucky winner. Normally at this point the President would neutralize the threat to national security. Olivia knows too much about the inner workings of the government, and she has to be killed before Iran has a chance to gather any information from her. Fitz refuses to kill Liv, but at Pope & Associates, Huck is convinced that, no matter who has Olivia, she’s already dead. It’s over.

The episode ended with Liv being taken to her new owners, to be revealed next week! Scandal airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.