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# Fug the Show: Scandal recap, season 3, episode 1
- URL: https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/fug-the-show-scandal-episode-3-1/
- Published: 2013-10-07T18:00:09.000Z
- Updated: 2014-02-17T03:33:33.000Z
- Author: Heather
- Tags: #wp, #wp-gallery, #slideshow, #Import 2026-10-07 07:35

## Scandal!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6557-1024x768.xml)

As the show recaps that, yes, Olivia Pope's name was leaked to the press as the president's mistress, we get shots of people reacting -- like this one of Cyrus, which I love, because it looks like one of the "private" black-and-white shots that would be slotted into his hardback biography, which would be called *Beene There, Won That*. Or, depending on how the season goes and the state of his veins, *Beene There, Burst That*.

## Escándalo!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6564-1024x768.xml)

Meanwhile, Olivia's father -- the shadowy, morally ambiguous Rowan -- are in an airplane hanger, which is empty and sparkling clean and totally devoid of any equipment except a car, a plane, and an American flag, and therefore clearly has never actually housed anything mechanical. There is NOTHING in here. Not even something to loosen a lug nut.

## Le scandale!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6566-1024x768.xml)

Rowan is screaming at Liv -- still stuck in her white hoodie, because in this scene she is the wounded angel and he is her devil -- that, basically, she is lame and not as intelligent as he thought. He excoriates her judgment in sleeping with the president, but then seems only to do so because she subsequently aimed to be First Lady and not Secretary of State: "Do you HAVE to be so mediocre?" It's a great, cutting line, well-delivered. Rowan convinces her that she has to let him Disappear her, or else the White House will rip her to shreds and chew her up and then regurgitate the pieces into a wastebasket that's not even by Jonathan Adler.

## Schweinerei!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6572-1024x768.xml)

But once on the plane, Liv borrows a phone from a flight attendant who has not been paying attention, and calls Cyrus. He has the predictably measured, even-keeled reaction we've come to expect from this emotionless cipher.

She isn't sure she can trust him because he's done Bad, Murdery Things, and he spits that yeah, he's a monster, "but I'm YOUR monster," and promises to protect her. This, and the prospect of taking off what must be a chilly, smelly piece of lululemon, is enough to get Olivia off the plane.

## 丑闻!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6579-1024x768.xml)

Cyrus demands that Veep Sally do all Fitz's personal appearances, but she makes this face -- her entire White House existence can be summed up by Poked Gum With Toothpick; Rubbed With Lemon -- and insists she can't cover for him because she's a servant of the Lord and Fitz is a whore-pumping jerk. (That's almost not even a paraphrase.) Cyrus squawks, "The Lord didn't fill out a voter-registration card," and so Fitz dismisses everyone but Sally and then tells her, straight-up, that he's a cheater. And that he's going to admit it publicly, because he wants the reckoning. He apologizes for being a crappy teammate to her and then asks if she'll just fill in long enough for him to prepare his family for his truth bomb. It works, whether it's a manipulation or truth. It's probably both.

## Skandaali!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6586-1024x768.xml)

I just realized I haven't given you a FItz fix yet. Sorry, fans. He looks the same: tired, pained, full of festering longing, and Oscar bait for some actor twenty years from now in this fictional universe.

## Schandaal!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6587-1024x768.xml)

I really think this is why Kerry Washington never talks about her personal life. You don't want one of these. Scrums are for rugby fields, not sidewalks.

## Scandalum!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6588-1024x768.xml)

Hola, Gladiators. Every time they call themselves that -- indeed, frustrated with their inaction, Columbus Short asks them, "Are we GLADIATORS, or are we BITCHES?" -- I hear it in the voice of Elizabeth Taylor announcing that "Gladiator" won Best Picture. You remember: "GLAAAAAAdiatorrrrrrrrr." Anyway, so far, Abby has curlier hair and more eyeliner, and Quinn is wearing lipstick. And Columbus Short is like Saul Goodman back there, which for those of you who never watched Breaking Bad, means that he's basically EXTREMELY snazzily dressed for someone who ought to want to draw very little attention to what he's doing.

## škandal!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6589-1024x768.xml)

The Pope Flip seems a little less buoyant today. Olivia is changing into whatever her Emergency Suit is, and it involves grey, which is probably because when she's in her office she is mired in grey areas -- like, say, whether to make her team Fix It, or indeed what to do at all. It's as much reflective of the cloud in her psyche as it is the moral blurryness of her day job.

## स्कैंडल!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6592-1024x768.xml)

Cyrus promises James a juicy scoop in exchange for an idea how Olivia's name leaked -- and to a Style reporter at the Post, no less. James tells Cyrus that the Secret Service all drink at a well-known bar, and so gossip journalists go fishing there. That is hilarious. If you're in the Secret Service, I feel like part of your job description should be making it hard for people to figure out where you like to get hammered.

## Skandaal!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6593-1024x768.xml)

So then Cyrus sics Mellie -- clad in royal blue or purple, like the Queen MacB she is -- on some poor dude who just HAPPENS to be the one that told the reporter about the affair with an aide. But he didn't leak her name, so Mellie swans away again, and I guess... he doesn't get fired? Boring.

## Eskandalua!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6602-1024x768.xml)

But, too late: Someone who was peeing on a building outside Olivia's apartment, or that person's no-longer-friend (because come on, the only reason you are recording this is to put it on Facebook, and that is a party foul), happened to catch Fitz coming out of Olivia's building. To the car. Which is parked right there. Basically next to them. And NOBODY swept the area before letting Fitz swan out of there? Why is nobody discussing that the Secret Service is suddenly really awful at its job?

## Skandale!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6604-1024x768.xml)

Cyrus has now decided he needs a Kill Folder on Olivia Pope. It's not a MURDER folder -- not yet. It's just one that can kill her reputation, and they have a dossier on her (apparently her father "Eli" is still a curator of antiquities, so whether that man is also Rowan or some other fake Papa Pope is anyone's guess and probably also a plot point) and how she never lived in the family home again after her mother died in a plane crash when she was twelve. And it includes pictures of her dating almost exclusively older men, which is enough to paint her as a ladder-climbing hooooooor. Cyrus seems satisfied with this, while also mildly moved at finding out things he didn't know before about her childhood. His assistant seems grossed out by all this, but that's just because she didn't spend enough time appreciating all the actual baby pictures of Kerry Washington.

## Kasiraang-puri!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6606-1024x768.xml)

Is this Olivia's office couch? She does have one in there, right? See, this is where my memory slips me. She is still in her Gray Backup Suit of Blandness, and she's not in her bed, so I'm guessing she's licking her wounds up in her safe zone and trying not to go outside (read: home). I hope she wears this suit all season. It will be taupe by episode seven and then actually just dark brown by episode 22, with some ketchup stains.

## σκάνδαλο

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6607-1024x768.xml)

To fill time, they decide to have Olivia go to ANOTHER meeting with her father, where he can yell at her AGAIN and try to make her get on the plane AGAIN and she can tell him AGAIN that she isn't going to, and this time she decides that she is "never out of options." I want this to lead to a kicky Car Wash montage (that's what I call it when they go all 'Gladiators ENGAGE' on their new client, while '70s music plays) where she cuts her own hair and then walks into the office the next morning with her *Save The Last Dance* hair, but that doesn't happen.

## Kev txaj muag!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6608-1024x768.xml)

So Olivia decides to unlock her safe and open up her magic folder -- which I guess David Rosen never bothered to open when he broke into her safe last season, which seems, in the words of Captain Von Trapp, like an appalling lack of curiosity -- and call a Mysterious Number and give a Mysterious Passcode. She doesn't have any other clothes to change into, unfortunately...

## Qalmaqal!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6611-1024x768.xml)

... but apparently she keeps this BADASS white winter coat hanging around, and so she puts it on like armor as a bunch of unmarked black cars leave her house. It's right out of Harry Potter, where the seven Potters fly away and divert the attentions of the Death Eaters; here, it's too many cars to follow, so the reporters just snap one or two photos and then give up, and Liv ends up in this corridor of mystery...

## Hneyksli!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6613-1024x768.xml)

... and it leads to this room, where Fitz awaits. And for the second time this hour, Olivia stands there like the angel of love and peace, the woman wronged, and her opponent is in darkness. It's like a hammer that has SYMBOLISM written on the handle and the blood of our collective temples smeared on its business end. Having said that, I want her coat. And I officially have NO IDEA what season it's supposed to be anymore.

## Paskalos!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6614-1024x768.xml)

And Mellie has been summoned, too, and the scene is actually tremendous. Fitz suggests that they just tell the truth and let it set them free. Olivia spitballs a scenario in which they do just that, and -- other than inquiries into whether she ever got special favors, which she acts like is no big deal even though that's Cyrus's entire brain tumor about this situation -- she reasons that it could work and kill the issue dead within weeks. But Mellie's pride won't take it. She refuses, because the press will want details, and all those details are of a husband who's not just a cheating cad but in fact in love with another woman. "How many times?" Olivia asks, choking back tears. Mellie tells her that she'll do it if they say they slept together only twice -- once on inauguration night, just a small twist of the truth, and once after Fitz recovered from the assassination. Olivia agrees...

## Ruşine!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6616-1024x768.xml)

... while Fitz sits there looking shriveled and small as the great love affair of his life is broken down and reduced to half-recognizable bits, like a wrecking ball crumbling a mansion. Fitz is always an interesting mix of vulnerable, ineffectual, and fierce, which is one of the reasons he seems like such a terrible freaking president AND a terrible freaking boyfriend. But it means Tony Goldwyn is never low on ways to shade a scene.

## Kashfa!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6621-1024x768.xml)

Fitz then asks Olivia how she's coping with all this, and she doesn't want to talk about it. So he removes his jacket -- and some of the darkness, so that presumably we know this is Tender Fitz coming out and that he's no longer an obstacle or opposition to her but trying to be more on her side -- and enfolds her in a hug she doesn't really want but submits to anyway, because that is the tenor of almost all their intimate scenes. FItz just takes and takes, until she stops resisting. Olivia allows herself a sob before shoving him away and disappearing. I hope she had the decency to blow her nose on his shirt, or at least leave a little mascara behind. But I feel like Olivia Pope only wears waterproof.

## Bruka!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6625-1024x768.xml)

Here, Fitz has as scene with Sally where she more or less admits that her husband is ALSO a philandering git. I think so, anyway. She bitterly talks about how he's decided to become "fun" since moving to DC, and it seems like the unspoken is that the reason she abhors Fitz so much for cheating is because it hits close to home. He tells Sally that there will be window after his press conference -- the one that's in three hours, confirming his infidelity, per their plan -- for her to denounce him, and let herself shine. Basically, he's telling her to seize the day as his opponent and not his teammate, and she is flabbergasted but also more than willing to do it. And then they look upon George Washington (that IS him, right? It has to be) as Fitz drinks scotch too early in the morning, and wonder how G-Dubs would've felt about *Sleepy Hollow*.

## Vụ bê bối!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6627-1024x768.xml)

The Gladiators are debating what to do. Quinn suggests killing another intern, blithely, and Abby looks grossed out until Quinn specifies, "A bad intern. The worst." It's kind of funny. Also, Quinn is wearing a lot more makeup than I would expect from someone who's just discovered a taste for blood and torture. Maybe this means I am stereotyping lady torturers. I'm sorry, ladies. I'm sure you can love drilling into Birchboxes AND human flesh in equal measure.

## Skandāls

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6628-1024x768.xml)

And so they mobilize, beginning with procuring a DVD through unspecified means and handing it off to Cyrus. Columbus Short does the honors in a tie that looks both like victory confetti, and a teenage girl's binder. SERIOUSLY. Was he always this lively? Is Nick Cannon styling him now?

## ກະທູ້!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6629-1024x768.xml)

This girl, Jeannine, is apparently the unpopular press secretary. And the mystery DVD, which is now on the news, shows her drunkenly telling a camera that she thinks Fitz is totally freaking hot. And apparently there are e-mails to friends in which she calls him "doable." This is enough for the press to let Olivia off the hook COMPLETELY and pin the infidelity on this poor girl instead. Come ON. I feel like, if the person with that video believed any of that, they'd have released it when she got the job. And also, it's absurd that the press just went with this deflection, despite the fact that OLIVIA'S ENTIRE PROFESSION IS DOING EXACTLY THIS SORT OF STUFF. Yet NOBODY is suspicious of this cover story?

## Ostuda!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6634-1024x768.xml)

"I'm Perd Hapley, and looking into the convenient timing of this revelation is something that I am NOT going to do."

## ಹಗರಣ!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6641-1024x768.xml)

Olivia is irritated, although she should be thanking them for the fact that she got to change her clothes. It's all about perspective, Olivia.

## Cкандал!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6642-1024x768.xml)

Also, I want this table in my life so hard. ALSO, Olivia is at least still wearing those muddy grey pants that probably cost a fortune but look oddly frumpy. I am not a fan of her pantaloons. Her Popealoons.

## 추문!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6643-1024x768.xml)

Mellie gets to wear black now, because she is about to Bring The Thunder on Fitz. (Can we do a scene about how long it takes her to achieve the perfect political-spouse poof, and that flip in the back of her hair?) Because, you see, Mellie had second thoughts about this plan. And Mellie figured out something that I actually thought was sort of obvious: FItz leaked Olivia's name. The reason I called it was a) all the clothing symbolism seemed SO POINTED, and b) Olivia early in the episode insists that "Fitz would NEVER," and he is the one person she trusts; c) this show thrives on bringing Fitz and Olivia back together down the road while there is One Last Game-Changing Secret That Could Ruin Things, and without this, Fitz has nothing in his pocket and really IS just happy to see her; d) it's too obvious for it to be anyone else and this show ALSO really likes to make it that The Person Who Can Hurt You The Deepest is The One Who's Wronged You. Et cetera. But Mellie, who doesn't know she's on a show, is very pleased with herself for using her underestimated brain.

## Dedikodu!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6647-1024x768.xml)

Mellie thinks Fitz did it because he thought it would end in him still being with Olivia -- they come clean, the lie is over, and he can go about living the truth. (I also think Fitz doesn't actually want to be president that badly because he seems really intrerested in sabotaging his re-election, and also, he never does any work and daydreams through meetings and it's a miracle he hasn't accidentally bombed Canada.) But Fitz claims he did it to remove a weapon from Mellie's arsenal, because as long as she had that, she had leverage over Olivia. What I don't understand is why he thinks the weapon is gone. The weapon is still there. They DID have an affair. What's stopping Mellie from just saying, "Oh, yeah, he slept with Jeannine AND Olivia Pope"? But anyway, the two of them basically throw down the gauntlet again and declare war on each other's happiness, in exactly the same blackmail-y cocktail that's become their signature. The Grantini.

## संताप येण्याजोगे वर्तन किंवा कृती!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6649-1024x768.xml)

Meanwhile, Olivia -- after having lost all her other clients -- finds herself with a new one: her alibi, Jeannine. Columbus Short helps her swallow her bile over this. He needs a life, outside of stomping this yard. Maybe they should have a torrid affair?

## เรื่องอื้อฉาว!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6650-1024x768.xml)

Cyrus comes home and finds James -- drugged, not dead -- lying next to George Newbern, who has a gun. He wants to abduct Kimberly Williams-Paisley from "Nashville" and doesn't know how, so instead he abducts Cyrus to Parts Unknown for a meeting with Rowan.

## Hanba!

![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6654-1024x768.xml)

And Rowan digs up old military history: Whatever mission Fitz and Scott Foley -- who is, presumably, still stuck in Huck's old Tantrum Hole -- supposedly went on together had a VERY DIFFERENT SECRET ENDING AND/OR MIDDLE than what's on the record. When Cyrus reads The File, he gasps. He will never forget. It's like when Liz walks into TC's Hate Shed on Passions and discovers his dirtiest secret. The folder IS The Shed, and Cyrus will never forget The Shed. Hopefully, though, on this show, Fitz's shed has an actual good secret and not just some wrecked car from the accident that ruined his tennis career. Although if that were exactly the problem with their military mission, and some magic candles told Olivia the truth about it later, I would have a lot of respect for Shonda and her writing staff because OBVIOUSLY it would display tremendous taste.

[Fug the Show: Scandal recap, season 3, episode 1It's high time to add Olivia Pope's wardrobe to our rotation -- although, of course, there wasn't that MUCH of one in the premiere, but you'll want to see her coat. Also, I've read that they're tweaking the style of other characters as well, like Darby Stanchfield's Abby. That usually means, "Let's trash some cardigans, people." They should have a Scandal fire sale. People would come. But, two notes: 1) As always, there will be plot spoilers in here; 2) I have never previously watched Scandal with a very exacting eye, so I'm sure I've missed some nuances and maybe even some big things in past seasons, like people's taste in ties and such. Therefore I will almost CERTAINLY fumble some things. I'm sorry about that in advance, and pray that you will not thrust my severed head atop a spike.![](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/content/files/www-gofugyourself-com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/img_6557-1024x768.xml)](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/fug-the-show-scandal-episode-3-1-10-2013/)