Scandal Review: "The Key" (4×05)

While this episode is ultimately a step down from last week, by the final scenes, I can confidently say that the Scandal I know and love is finally back for a while. “The Key” is by no means a perfect episode, but whatever missteps it takes, there’s no denying just how exciting its final third is. There’s been a lot bubbling just beneath the surface this season, plot-wise, and “The Key” starts to let everything boil over.

Specifically there are two big narrative explosions this week, both spun out of Rowan’s framing of Jake. Until he confesses, Jake is a prisoner of the United States government, and his imprisonment has the dual effect of leaving Olivia completely clueless as to whereabouts, as well as keeping Mellie clueless as to Fitz’s. These two absences at the center of the episode are what finally pull the trigger on what to this point has been only dramatic potential.

When Scandal is really on point, it paints its characters as god-like, extreme both in their most deeply felt emotions and in their most petty trivialities. The show is set in Washington not because of any particular political reasoning, unlike say The West Wing, but because it gives the characters control over larger-than-life situations, placing the lives and deaths of everyone around them directly in their hands. (The very existence of B-613 is proof positive of this decision by the writers.)

Mellie Grant gets this about her own life, and so she is the character that most embodies this aspect of the show. It’s no surprise, then, that she is frequently the most compelling and interesting character on the show. Mellie has so far been a pitiable thing this season, almost difficult to watch, and certainly only a pale shadow of the character we’d gotten to know prior to her son’s death. But the knowledge that Jerry was murdered, that his death was not a freak accident but was just another part of the game she thinks she’s playing, has a peculiar effect on Mellie. The chance to ascribe meaning to Jerry’s death pulls her out of her grief, and on the one hand, it’s a triumphant moment for the character, as she emerges from the muck of despair and depression. It’s also a completely insane reaction for anyone to have, and Fitz is duly horrified and repulsed by her. This is the appropriate level of craziness for Scandal to operate at, one that acknowledges the unique and destructive lives these characters lead.

Scandal needs to operate at that level, because it’s the only foundation that will support a character like Rowan, or a story like the intricate manipulation he’s currently perpetrating. It would be oh so easy for Rowan to be a caricature, and when the rest of the show is trying to emphasize quiet character moments and reflections on morality, he does. When the rest of the show gets on that same level, though—when Mellie becomes grateful for her son’s murder, when Quinn slices a dead teenager’s corpse open to retrieve the key she swallowed, when the President of the United States kicks the living shit out of a prisoner in a secret detention room, et cetera—then Rowan just fits right in, doesn’t he? It helps that Joe Morton plays his relationship with Olivia so well. Their father/daughter chemistry has a lived-in ease to it, but both Morton and Kerry Washington physically remind us of the complicated history of this family. They’re never too close to each other, their body language is always a little stilted, their speech slower and with more pauses for thought (or, in Rowan’s case, for choosing the best lie). His lies are eerily convincing, and as he “explains” Jake’s guilt to Olivia, he hits an emotional nerve that he knows will seal the deal.

But when stories of the gods aren’t about life and death and power, they are about the passions of the gods, and good lord, are passions of the gods on full display this week. This is one department where the show maybe could use some restraint, or at least a different angle. I know this is just how the show works, but Olivia Pope is a strong, independent woman (or so we are frequently told), and the President’s son has been killed—can this not be about which of her boyfriends loves her more? Because, as Jake points out to twist the knife, Fitz is so eager to accept Jake’s guilt precisely because Olivia loves him. I don’t need or want a show about these two stupid men fighting over a helpless Olivia Pope. But Olivia is helpless this episode, wondering where her boyfriend is for much of the episode, and breaking down crying at the end of it. To her credit, she does immediately and correctly accuse Rowan of setting him up, but then she’s all too happy to accept his explanation (however convincing) and back into her corner. While reuniting Abby and Olivia is probably a good move for the ensemble, it emphasizes the love triangle in that “Pick me choose me love me” way that devalues Olivia’s agency and participation in the story. I’ve written about this before, and I haven’t changed my mind—I really wish Scandal could be a little more feminist in the way it plays out these romances. I would say that the romance between Fitz and Olivia is less toxic now than it was toward the end of season three, but given the way this week’s episode ends, I’m not sure for how long that will be the case.

For better or worse, though, this privilege of godliness belongs to only some of the show’s cast, and what’s been the most entertaining aspect of the season so far is the way we’ve seen the various supporting characters envy or covet this power, and act out these emotions in interesting ways that manage to complicate the overall story. David Rosen’s story is annoying, and caught up in the most excess B-613 baggage this show has left, but it’s central conceit is a good one, and the question “Why are we all trying to be Olivia Pope?” is one that the show should be asking at this stage. It goes hand in hand with Cyrus’s dressing down of Olivia at the White House, with catty references to her “other boyfriend” and an impassioned reminder that Jake is a murderer, however much she’s managed to ignore that fact. These people are in service of nothing and no one besides themselves, and they have committed unimaginable sins and atrocities with increasing casual coolness. It’s the common idea of Scandal as House of Cards’ pulpier cousin, but that idea is common for a reason—when it comes to Scandal, the pulpier the better.

Stray Observations:

– The investigation into Kaitlin Winslow’s death continues, as Quinn helps Olivia investigate her murderer. Aside from the wild key retrieval, this is a by-the-numbers case of the week, and the continued one-note characterization of Quinn makes it hard to be super invested in this one. The most interesting aspect of this story is Olivia’s relationship to Katherine Winslow, but Olivia is not involved with this investigation for most of the episode.

– Huck returns to his family as well, and while the shape of the story is heartbreaking, Huck is another one-note character, who is sympathetic in a supporting role and in the context of his friendship with Olivia, but he can’t really support his own stories so well. Guillermo Diaz’s acting in the role is still overly affected, distracting from whatever emotion there is in the writing.

– “The B-613 files” are on track to become this season’s “Publius,” a dumb phrase uttered so frequently as to lose any semblance of meaning.