It could just be that I watched Scandal late this week, and after a stellar night for HBO's dramas, but color me underwhelmed by “Gladiators Don't Run,” which is a scattered, confusing mess of an episode, one that twists and contorts the plots into braided pretzels so intricate that even the writers themselves seem to lose the thread by the end. (Not unlike this opening sentence…)
By the end of this episode, Olivia has been sold at auction to the highest bidder (Iran), Andrew Nichol has gotten away scot-free (due to his manipulation of Mellie), and I honestly have no idea what on earth the plot mechanics were to get us here. At the beginning of the episode Olivia is sharing champagne with Ian and negotiating her own auction. But in short order, henchman Gus shoots Ian dead and Olivia is back to being a prisoner (how she lost this status in the first place is a mystery to me, unless I missed something last week somehow). Who exactly is behind this whole thing? Who are the actors involved? How did Olivia get to the point of working with Ian? How did Andrew Nichol get boxed out of his own conspiracy? Where did this cabal of young hot hacker terrorist kidnappers even come from in the first place?
Scandal doesn't see fit to answer any of these questions. Stuff just happens, and that's that. Now, since the “stuff” in question is the kidnapping of Olivia Pope, the fallout at least has some inherent dramatic interest. But that gut, emotional reaction will only carry the show so far, and there's no escaping the fact that if you stop to think about any one aspect of the show's plot right now, the whole enterprise falls apart.
That's a problem for an episode like “Gladiators Don't Run,” which is concerned entirely with the progression and contortion of said plot. Who is on whose side, who knows what about whom at any given time—these are the sorts of shifts that the episode delves into, but since 1) it is impossible to keep track without some sort of flow chart and 2) any such flow chart would immediately reveal that none of this makes any sense, an episode with such a project just feels aimless and silly.
It's a shame, because moments here really do land. Kerry Washington continues to be fantastic, though she has a noticeably diminished presence this week in terms of screen time. Olivia goes through so many situational changes in this episode alone, and Washington skillfully navigates her emotional state through each. Tony Goldwyn as well is inspired, imbuing Fitz's search for Olivia with the sort of romantic passion that hadn't been seen in the character for a while, until recently. This is also an uncommonly funny episode, with a few zingers and setups that had me laughing out loud. The obvious winner is Quinn (“It doesn't matter how many times you re-invent your identity, Sallie Mae will find you.”), but pretty much everyone gets a good moment or two in.
But despite the moments of levity and some further attempts at characterization in light of Olivia's disappearance (Abby shoulders much of this weight, being the literal last person in Washington to learn of Olivia's current situation), this is an episode that is killing time until what will surely be a shocking reveal next week as to who, really, has won Olivia Pope at auction. (Might it be Harrison? It would explain why we spent so much time mourning him in the early season.) “Gladiators Don't Run” is an occurrence of plot without story, incidence without import. Even Maya Pope's return is essentially an excuse for a fetch quest, a way for Jake and Huck and Quinn to mark time until another aspect of the plot resolves itself. We spend most of the episode watching characters watching the auction, being unable to do anything about it, and then having none of it matter, because Iran swoops in from outside of the auction anyway. That's entirely too much time to spend on what amounts to a red herring.
When you're telling a heavily serialized story such as Scandal's, there are bound to be bits and pieces of your story that will suffer from this. But there's no excuse for basically an entire episode of it. “Gladiators Don't Run” continues to run with what's been successful this season, but it's mired in boring, confusing, plotty nonsense from beginning to end.
Stray Observations:
- So Huck just happens to have $2 billion laying around, which is so improbable that they actually felt the need to flash back to Rowan explaining his ridiculous, Office Space scheme to siphon money from the treasury in order to justify it.
- The self-referential use of “gladiator” by the characters feels kind of twee to me, especially as ABC continues to use the term to refer to the show's fans. I wish they'd stop doing it.
- What do the Grants want most in the world? Fitz wants Jerry alive again; Mellie wants to be president. If this is a long-term direction for Mellie, I'm intrigued.
- Runner-up for best joke of the episode: Fitz asks, rhetorically, “Who has more money than the United States of America?” Cy and Mellie shrug and start rattling off countries.
- I thought for sure the violent content disclaimer would involve Maya more directly, but the grisly violence we got sure was unsettling enough.
Michael Wampler is a graduate of The College of New Jersey, where he completed both B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature. He currently lives and works in Princeton, NJ while he shops around his debut novel and slowly picks away at his second. Favorite shows include Weeds, Lost, Hannibal and Mad Men (among many more). When not watching or writing about television, he enjoys reading, going for runs, and building his record collection.