Scandal Review: “A Few Good Women” (4×21)

It wasn’t until after I had already watched this week’s episode of Scandal that I learned the episode was titled “A Few Good Women,” a play on, of course, Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men, an altogether superior tale of abuse in the military. Of course, Scandal is dealing with a different type of abuse—rape, here, as opposed to hazing in Sorkin’s film—but the problems in execution undermine any effort at serious discussion of a topic that absolutely merits discussion in this high profile of a venue. The end result, though, is a scattered story that addressed this topic with even less subtlety than (and this is quite unbelievable) House of Cards managed in its second season.

Scandal’s recent attempt at topicality, “The Lawn Chair,” was successful in large part due to its willingness to forgo the trappings of a typical episode of Scandal. In its position as the penultimate episode of the season, “A Few Good Women” has no such luxury, and so it is mired in #whatisfoxtail, the hashtag that flashes on screen literally – and I mean literally – any time anyone breathes the word Foxtail. Beyond knowing that it is some B-613 scheme, I really do not care #whatisfoxtail, and no hashtag will sway me. I can’t imagine it’s working very well on the rest of the audience, either.

Nor does the reveal that Foxtail has something to do with Mellie Grant really do anything for me either. I suppose this is some sort of payoff for the inordinate amount of time we have spent on Mellie’s incredibly unlikely run for a Senate seat in a state in which she does not reside. Considering that this story, but for the logical hole at its center, has been a lighthearted, much-needed break from the dour, torturous (and again I mean that literally) proceedings over at OPA, allowing it to be swallowed as well by B-613 seems a misstep more than anything.

Even the case of the week here is done more in service of furthering the B-613 nonsense than it is in service of actually discussing rape in the military on any serious level. Olivia, Quinn, and Mellie just spout platitudes about the issue—Mellie’s closing speech, especially, comes too easy, a pat resolution to what should be a much more complex discussion. That’s not necessarily the type of show Scandal is, but if you’re going to take on rape in the military, well, take on rape in the military. “A Few Good Women” gives us some cartoonishly villainous sailors that may as well be sitting there twirling moustaches, and the bumbling naval lawyer they assign to Olivia solely because he’s such a useless idiot. Except—surprise!—young Virgil is only pretending to be a useless idiot, apparently quite well and for quite some time, but really he’s a B-613 plant, like every minor character on this damn show.

I want to comment more about the rape case at the episode’s center, but I can’t because there is so little about which to comment. There are the token scenes of Olivia, Quinn, and Virgil interrogating the Navy admiral accused of rape. They go back and forth with sub-Sorkin pithy barbs. An unlikely, last-minute assist from Fitz gives Olivia the evidence she needs to incriminate the man. And that’s it—a furious victory for all involved. It’s just so lazy.

Elsewhere in the episode, Olivia, Huck, and Quinn are just casually torturing Russell, a sight that has become par for the course. Fuck your white hats. Between this and the absurdity of the rape case, “A Few Good Women” really lays bare my biggest issue with Scandal at this point in the show’s run. For as good as Kerry Washington is, and she really is still excellent, the character of Olivia is a pale imitation of the one we met four years ago. Some of that is intentional, and her PTSD rears its head again in this episode to remind us. She is in a situation here, as Jake uncomfortably makes clear to her, where her entire life is a construction. She has no way of knowing what is real and what is not or who to trust or who to not. Anyone can be an agent of Rowan’s.

But this only goes so far. Olivia hardly seems the competent professional she’s meant to be anymore, even in situations where she’s clearly meant to seem as such. In this episode she is shrill (god, it pains me to write that, but it’s true), intrusive, and , worst of all, ineffective. She runs around shouting orders like she is still the legendary Washington fixer Olivia Pope, but is she really? She fucks up left and right. Huck killed a girl. She doesn’t even work in the White House anymore. Huck killed a girl. The further Olivia is dragged into wacky conspiracy land, the less effective her character is.

Maybe the show recognizes this. Maybe the final will be a well-considered reflection on all these difficulties, one that will dispatch Rowan, refocus the show, and get the house that Shonda built back in order. That’s a lot to rest on one episode, and while it’s possible, I wouldn’t call it likely, at this point. The best I can say about this episode is that the season may have dragged its feet, but now, at least, the dominoes are positioned and ready to fall. One way or another, this will all be over after another hour.

Stray Observations:

• Russell and Jake trading Rowan impressions is everything. It’s a nice scene that paints both men as human—something Scandal forgets to do more often than not of late. It’s also hilarious.
• As for the men of the White House: there’s this whole attitude here of, even if the woman was raped—a claim of which Fitz and Cyrus are overly skeptical—it’s not their job to interfere with the military. There is a fetishization of systems and structures on this show (like the endless blathering about the Republic) that every character, hero or villain (if such a binary even exists here anymore), puts above common decency. You can call it a theme of the series, even if it’s a well Scandal goes to only infrequently and superficially.
• Mellie says “we’re not monsters” of a room in which every single person is, in fact, a monster—herself included.
• “I’ve seen better writing on soap operas.” Me too, Mellie. Me too.