Gasp! Quinn returns to Gideon’s apartment to find him gasping for breath and clinging to life. Shaken, she naturally calls Olivia-not the police- for help. Over at the White House, Billy is shaking too. He was ruthless before but now he’s a murderer and he’s trying to come up with a plan. In the Oval office, Cyrus is holding another scolding session with President Grant about last week’s late night visit to Olivia’s house.
Gideon couldn’t hold on, so now Olivia has assembled her team in his living room. They decide (Olivia decides) to go the illegal route, which is to clean up the murder scene. Why? Well, because Quinn isn’t really Quinn and the only way to protect her identity is to not have her linked to a crime scene. The team doesn’t take the news lightly. As if they all don’t have a secret, shady past the team , they gripe about the fact that Quinn is a mystery to them and something about risking going to prison for destroying evidence. Olivia stands firm: Quinn is now their client.
Desperation has it’s benefits, because Billy has come up with a plan that will allow him to get away with murder and still take down the President. He interrupts a press conference to announce his resignation effective immediately. He admits everything that Gideon was going to tell, admitting to his affair with Amanda and the pregnancy. After quoting some scriptures (yeah, he went there) he spoke of how “shocked” he was to find out about Amanda’s affair with the president. If only he had gone this route 24 hours ago he could have avoided adding murder to his list of skills.
So while the press is going crazy over the scandal du jour, things are falling apart from the inside out. The district attorney confronts Olivia’s team about scrubbing a crime scene. He knows. Following Stephen’s advice, Quinn pays Harrison a dollar and voila! She officially has counsel. They aren’t about to let the D.A. take them down like that. The president confronts the VP on how her “boy” Billy could pull a stunt like this and she not know of it. She let’s him know, she wants no part of Billy or him.
While her team is fending off the district attorney, defending Quinn, and avoiding jail, Olivia has a meeting in the men’s room. She let’s Billy know that she knows he is a murderer. He doesn’t deny it. He knows some “angel” cleaned up the crime scene. She wasn’t expecting him to know about that. So she plays the next card. She tells the D.A. the truth about Billy and he believes every word. But reminds her that since she scrubbed the scene and broke the law, he has nothing and will do nothing.
She’s got to get justice for Gideon and Amanda. Since the D.A. won’t help, she goes to her team. She makes Huck promise not to kill Billy, but ask that he makes sure he gets his. It’s not long before Huck finds his assassin friend and explains they’ll need a suicide note or something sad. Wow!
So while the Cyrus, Olivia and the president try to come up with a plan, the First Lady is way ahead of them. This time, Olivia is the one confronted. The First Lady, makes it clear that she has done her job, smiling and being supportive, but that she’s disappointed in Olivia. Not because she hasn’t been devoted to her husband’s success but because she let that girl get into his pants.
Yes, she knows about the President and Olivia. And as far as she’s concerned, Olivia fell down on the job as a mistress, so she’s taking the reigns. The plan is, she’ll say it was her on the tape, an intimate moment between husband and wife. Oh, and she’ll get pregnant to solidify the family image. A wife’s work is never done.
But there’s one last loose end: the vice president. The President needs her to get on board with her public support. But Langston isn’t having it. She gets on her moral high ground with her strong conservative convictions. That’s when the president backs down, he asks how her 13 year-old daughter is doing and how it must have been hard on her and her husband giving permission for that abortion she had last year. Then he offers a quote of his own: He who is without sin, cast the first stone. Finally, the real zinger is, Billy killed Gideon, but it was Cyrus who ordered the hit on Amanda.
Congratulations to Shonda Rhimes and the cast! Scandal has been picked up for another season.
