Scandal Winter Finale: Secrets Are Revealed, Shots Are Fired, Wine Is Spilled

Are you ready? You'll never be ready. We weren't ready. Last night was the winter finale for Scandal (and How To Get Away With Murder, if you're into that), and they left us with quite the cliffhanger. Most notably, we've got Papa Pope on the loose. Snipers are looking for him. Jake is on the hunt. And Olivia has joined in, enlisting Mama Pope to help. Remember, she's been locked up in a hole for the past few episodes, at the very hands of Rowan himself. When she's faced with Liv, Mama (Maya? I'm terrible with names) thinks her daughter has come to her rescue. "Tell them Livvy. Handle them," says Mama Pope. After all, she's been locked up without being charged. But Liv has got a few crimes in mind: "Murder, terrorism, treason," says Liv. "Charge her and lock her up. As for my father. Find him and kill him." Well all righty then! Meanwhile, Jake is back on the street and he's killed someone secret agent style in an alley. When he gets closer to the dead body, it turns out it was some sort of super killer (not so super after all) who has a card with a pic of Jake in his pocket. It's a kill card. Rowannnnn! (I'm shaking my fist in the air.) Jake's theory is that Rowan now has everyone in B613 on the hit list. And Liv might be on the list too, so Jake has brought her a gun. "You know as much as any agent. So you're a threat just the same," he rationalizes. Liv says she knows how to shoot a gun but has gone her whole career without doing so. "My father wouldn't kill me," she says. "I'm sure he thinks the same thing about you," says Jake. Then he gets behind her for a gun lesson and we zoned out -- Great Scott! -- and when we came back he was suggesting they leave and "go back to the sun." "The sun went down a long time ago and it's not coming back up," says Liv. Awww. Then she cocks that gun (is that the word?) and we know she means biz-nass. You know who else has a kill card? Quinn. Know how she found out? She met her would-be killer. Three guesses who it is. Quinn meets up with Charlie to warn him that there's a B613 hit list. "Oh snap. You like me," he says, because guys are ridiculous. Why does everybody have to like you. He tries to kiss her. She pushes him away. Then actually, they start kissing. OK, so maybe he was right. Next thing ya know, she's in bed, he's in the bathroom, his phone rings, and when she grabs it, she spots her kill card. And to the tune of "Endless Love," they proceed to beat the hell out of each other. Actually, before we cut to commercial, Quinn was getting the better of him. Punching, punching, foot to the face. We all should take self-defense classes from Quinn."The worst part is you wanted to screw me before you did it," she says. Boo. In the end, bloodied with black eyes, Quinn says she should call more. (?) They're reconciling and Charlie should do something nice for Huck. Charlie has the B613 files and he agrees to turn them over to Huck's ex/Javi's mom to prove that he really was an agent and it wasn't something he made up. Remember, last week Javi saw Huck kill Kubiak and ran off. So when Huck tracks Javi to his house, his ex reads him the riot act. By the end of the episode, the files are on her doorstep. So let's go back to this Rowan situation. We think for a minute he'is at a safe house in Roanoke, VA. But we see Papa Pope opening a bottle of wine. He's in Liv's house popping corks, holding his copy of Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life," walking down memory lane. He tells her to sit. She says leave. He pulls a gun. Damn! It's #PopevsPope. And it's a real war of words! He says he's going to leave. "You can never leave," says Liv, "because you have no place to go." He needs to be somewhere where he thinks he's the puppet master. "You're a sick lonely man... " "Could you be more ungrateful!," he thunders. "There would be no Olivia Pope if not for me... As difficult as it is for me to admit, I have failed as a father." They're telling each other that they're not normal. Liv smirks then grabs the gun from the table. DAMN! She would've killed him except there were dummy bullets. "Are you kidding me?" Rowan yells to the heavens. "Never in a million years did I think that you would be able to pull the trigger." Now he remembers her as a child listening to that record. "No matter how hard you try to deny it. You will miss me when I'm gone." Exit Rowan, stage right. So Liv heads right on back to Supermax to visit Mama. Liv shouting insists that she must know something. "You have a PhD in his crazy," Liv says. (Haha.) "You're just like one another... ," is Mama's response. "You're both running around with B613 boys, you're both coming to visit me every day..." Hmm. She's got a point. Liv starts to cry. "Cry me a river," Mama Pope. Liv bucks up and exits stage right. Another thing they have in common! The other big story was this craziness with Cyrus. Remember, he's seeing sex worker Michael and there's a link between that ill-fated relationship and Elizabeth North. Lizzy shows up at Liv's office to let her know she's figured out Cyrus bugged her phone and Liv must've known about it. "There's a special place in hell for women who don't support other women," says Lizzy. "There's a special place in hell for women who use that line to cover up their bad behavior," replies Liv. (True...) Now Lizzy is on the warpath. You'll recall those racy pics of Cyrus and sex worker Michael? "I just got a call from the Times about photos of you. Sexy time photos," says Press Sec Abby to Cyrus. Then the blurb goes public. Then the photos hit the wires. "Do we fight this. Mr. President," Liv asks. "We fight this." Liv as a plan: "Marriage is the only way to sell this." Sex worker Michael is all about it. But Cyrus says he spent 40 unhappy years having sex with women. He's had sex with two men -- James, "the love of his life," and the hooker. He's not on board with this plan. Bad move, Cyrus. Who doesn’t love a hooker with a heart of gold? #Scandal — Portia de Rossi (@portiaderossi) November 21, 2014 People are calling for Cyrus to resign, and he decides that's what he wants to do. "Build yourself up by knocking me down," he tells Fitz. "Today sir, I'm a joke, a punchline. I'm no help to you." Noooooooooo. When next we see poor Cyrus, he's packing up to leave, maybe to Europe. "They're calling me a gay stereotype," he laments. That's when we get the Olivia locker room pep talk we all could use. "When did you decide to let them ruin you? So they're mean girling you in the press... Well so what. You lost the one person who felt like family. So what. Grow the hell up." "Who are you Cy?" "I'm one of the most powerful men in the world." "So you're not a little bitch baby?" Haha! No! He's one of the most powerful men in the world! And he's marrying a hooker! "I was scared. I'm still scared. But I can't hide anymore. I can apologize for breaking the law. I can apologize for disgracing the president. But I can't apologize for falling in love," Cyrus tells the press. America is all about it according to the polls. "Love" and PR conquer all! This brings us to the cliffhanger. Why exactly is Lizzy so obsessed with Fitz going into West Angola? Why is she working with the now-dead Kubiak and VP Andrew? (At this point, everyone knows that that trio was up to something.) With her plan against Cyrus foiled, Lizzy approaches Mellie, who had been kind of working together. Mellie is being cold because her lover (the VP) is also Lizzy's lover. "I thought we were on the same page," Lizzy asks. "Why because we're both screwing Andrew? It just means we're both at risk of getting the same STDs." After some choice words in which Mellie confirms that Andrew isn't presidential material though he is generous in bed, she advises Lizzy to chill out. Because, Mellie says, she's not as generous. "From me it will hurt." At this point if one person had Gonorrhea the entire West Wing would shut down. #Scandal — Portia de Rossi (@portiaderossi) November 21, 2014 By the time we reach the end of our one-hour journey, things seem sorted, but they can't be. We start shifting between the White House and Liv's house: Jake is drinking a beer with Liv who has started up the record player and has turned her living room into a dance floor. She admits that she wants both he and Fitz, but she's choosing herself and she just wants to have a little fun. The VP has gone to visit Fitz. Jake and Liv have a 10-minute dance party before they decide to get it on on top of the piano. The VP insists that action must be taken in retaliation for the assassination attempt against him. (A video tape shows that the VP clearly knew about the attack and it was staged.) Jake goes to the bedroom for pillows and comes back... Liv is gone! Her wine is spilled on her white couch and the front door is open. That's when the VP lets Fitz know that if he doesn't go to war, something that he cares a whole lot about could be in danger. DUN DUN! Who's got Liv?! We have to wait until January 29th to find out. Which gives us plenty of time to recover from all that. As a parting note, here's your product placement tweet of the night: Seen on ABC's #Scandal, the Camille wine glass has a bubble bowl perfect for cradling in hand: http://t.co/CGBpuriP2G pic.twitter.com/14TGFzKmYu — Crate and Barrel (@CrateandBarrel) November 21, 2014

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Scandal Winter Finale: Secrets Are Revealed, Shots Are Fired, Wine Is Spilled

It's a major cliffhanger! And Liv's white couch might be ruined.

Tonya Garcia

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Tonya Garcia