Jake learned the consequences of trying to take down Command when Papa Pope returned to stop the prosecution of B613 in Scandal’s “I’m Just A Bill.”

Papa Pope Returns

Picking up where we left off two weeks ago, Rowan (Joe Morton) has returned to pay Liv (Kerry Washington) a visit. Though he appeared at Liv’s door with Russell (Brian White) by his side, it turns out he gave Russell a sedative to knock him out – so Russell wasn’t working with him after all (at least, that’s what Shonda Rhimes wants us to believe). With Russell lying unconscious and tied up on the floor, Rowan tells Liv that he knows what she’s up to with David Rosen (Joshua Malina), Jake (Scott Foley), Quinn (Katie Lowes) and Huck (Guillermo Díaz), and that she’s going to have to choose a side. Either she helps him shut it down in the next 48 hours, or all bets are off.

Before he leaves, Rowan reminds Olivia how exposing B613 will also put Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) and his White House at risk. He tries to convince her that taking down B613 will also shake confidence in the government and could end up bringing destruction to their beloved “Republic.”

Liv takes her father’s warning to the gang, but they all agree that they want to move forward with their plan to get justice for all those hurt by B613, despite any risks to Fitz. Those risks quickly become a reality for Liv, who watches as Jake testifies to David that Rowan as Command had ordered that a commercial flight be shot down, and that the pilot who followed those orders is Fitzgerald Grant. For fans who might not remember: Rowan ordered Fitz to shoot down the plane, but Fitz didn’t know it was filled with innocent people, he thought he was taking down a terrorist threat, when in fact Rowan simply needed to create the plane crash to ‘kill’ Liv’s mother.

Susan Ross Saves The Day, Mellie Kicks Off Her Campaign

At the White House, Fitz is working hard to push through the Brandon Bill, a bill that asks for more government oversight on police departments across the country to try to bring a stop to racial bias and police brutality. Down one vote, they ask their new Vice President, Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani), to cast a vote for the bill, but she doesn’t do so quietly. She’ll vote on the Bill once she’s read it – all 1,2000 pages of it. Over the course of the day it takes her to go over the entire bill, she determines that it’s not a good bill. It’s filled with requests for police departments, not orders, and there’s no way to enforce it. After beating down Cyrus (Jeff Perry), Mellie (Bellamy Young) and David, Ross finally convinces Fitz that they must re-write the bill.

To distract the press from their failed Brandon Bill, the Grants launch Mellie’s campaign for Senate. Let #MellieForPresident begin!

Liv Helps Marcus Get Justice

Meanwhile, Pope & Associates has a case. DC mayoral candidate Marcus (Cornelius Smith Jr.) – the activist from the Brandon shooting who challenged Liv – was having an affair with the current DC Mayor Verrno’s wife and witnessed her get murdered by three masked men. The men left the scene to make it look like a robbery while Marcus stood in shock, hiding in a closet. Once they determine that Marcus is telling them the truth, Liv decides to turn the case into a missing persons case, not a murder, and sneak Marcus out without looking back. Huck and Quinn get to work cleaning the crime scene and disposing the body, which consisted of the two breaking her bones with hammers and fitting her into a small, carry-on suitcase.

All that work is thrown out the window, however, when Marcus gets taken into the police station. They found a series of threatening emails that appear to have been sent from Marcus to the Mayor’s wife, making him suspect number one. Liv manages to get him out of the police station unscathed, but now they have a new problem: someone is hell bent on framing Marcus for the murder, and they need to find out who. The only clue they have to go on is that Marcus heard the other men call the man that killed the Mayor’s wife ‘Mickey.’

Liv and Quinn figure out that Mickey is actually the Mayor’s security guard and determine that it was Mayor Verrano who arranged to kill his wife. Marcus and Liv decide to use the information to blackmail Verrano into pulling out of the race, giving Marcus the career he wants at the cost of justice. At the last second, Marcus can’t go through with it, and he tells the truth about the murder, getting justice for the Mayor’s wife and losing his career in the process.

When she wasn’t on the case, Liv took refuge from her busy life by engaging in some sexy times with Russell, her new boy toy. He showed up at her apartment with a few questions about the other night, when he was drugged by Papa Pope – the drugs caused amnesia, and Liv played it off as if they had just had too much to drink – but Liv, or ‘Alex,’ doesn’t want to talk.

RIP Jake Ballard

The next night, Rowan returns to Liv’s apartment and asks for her decision: will she choose to help him, or will she attempt to defy him. After her talks with Marcus, Liv has decided to stand on the side of Justice. And, she doesn’t want anybody else to die. If Rowan wants a fight, she’ll give him one, but she wants it to be a fair fight – no murders on either side.

Of course, Rowan has no intention of letting them live. At Pope & Associates, Russell baits Jake with a text from Olivia and attacks him, stabbing him repeatedly in the abdomen and leaving him bleeding on the floor. (Russell was evil after all.)

In the words of Scott Foley:

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.