SCANDAL: TOP OF THE HOUR (TV)
Summary
One in this drama/political thriller about the Pope & Associates crisis management firm in Washington D.C.
Sarah Stanner, a noted CEO, is under intense media attention due to a story she had an affair fifteen years ago with Murray Randall, President Grant’s latest nominee for Supreme Court Justice. Mrs. Stanner’s lawyer recommends her to Olivia in order to deal with the frenzy. Olivia excuses herself from her date with Jake in order to tend to the Stanners. Before she leaves she gives Jake the information she obtained about the CIA leak, but urges him not to reveal who it is from. Olivia, Harrison, and Abby try to wait out the dozens of news people surrounding the Stanner household in order to get inside, and Olivia receives a call from Cyrus telling her that the accusations are untrue and that the nominee’s presence on the Supreme Court is vital. Olivia points out that Sarah is her client and she will only act in her best interest. She, Harrison, and Abby make their move and lock down the Stanner household, arranging for the Stanner children to be kept safe and explaining their safety precautions to Sarah and her husband Phil. Olivia asks for complete disclosure about Sarah’s relationship with Randall, who was her professor at Harvard Law School. Sarah meekly admits to Olivia that “it’s all true,” much to Phil’s shock.
Meanwhile, Huck and Quinn spy on Osborne and Huck explains that he is constantly being followed by men designed to guard him at all times. He believes Osborne will try to connect with his contacts in public somewhere, and he proposes that they wait for an opportunity to present itself. Cyrus informs President Grant of the story about Randall’s affair, but he is still focused on the hostage situation in Kashfar and orders Cyrus to resolve the situation. Olivia advises Sarah to confess to the affair as soon as she can, hoping that it will stem the media frenzy and convince other women Randall may have slept with to come forward as well. Phil agrees with Olivia’s advice, and Sarah decides to go along with it, giving a press conference discussing her brief affair with Randall during her time at Harvard. Cyrus is furious at Olivia, believing that she is trying to indirectly get back at President Grant, but Olivia continues to insist upon supporting her client’s well-being over all else. He warns her that the White House is preparing to combat her efforts, and she dares him to do so. To that end, Cyrus assembles his staff and orders them to paint Sarah as mentally unhinged and obsessed with Randall to the point of stalking him. Randall himself admits to President Grant that the affair occurred and admires Sarah, unwilling to injure her character. However, President Grant says the matter is out of his hands and that he must be held to a higher standard if he is to serve on the Supreme Court. Cyrus and his staff produce emails of an inappropriate nature sent to Randall by Sarah, as well as testimony from one of her classmates attesting to inappropriate behavior on her part. The situation becomes compounded when Sarah’s company, RyoCorp, claims that her behavior has breached their “morality clause,” giving them the authority to sue her and take away her shares in the company, effectively firing her as CEO.
Mellie tries to find out about a number of secret meetings President Grant holds in the Oval Office several times a week, but his secretary Lauren says she doesn’t know who he is meeting with, and that it is possibly a phone meeting. Randall’s nomination becomes secured, much to the relief of Cyrus and his staff. Mellie believes President Grant is seeing Olivia again and relays her accusations to Cyrus, but he does not wish to listen to her, satisfied that he has finally gotten back in President Grant’s good graces by resolving the nomination fiasco. Jake finds Olivia at the Stanner house and confronts her about the information she gave him, comprising faxes sent to Kashfar about the hostages. He wishes to know the exact source of the information, as if he attempts to bring it to his superiors he could be in great danger. Olivia still refuses to reveal her sources and asks Jake to trust her. A reporter suddenly appears and takes photographs of the two of them before running off, but Olivia is unconcerned with this interruption. Harrison confronts one of the RyoCorp representatives and tries to argue on behalf of Sarah. She threatens that Harrison will be unable to stand against her “army of lawyers,” but Harrison argues that the company’s reactions towards her represent a highly sexist attitude which could be exploited against them in the public eye. This proves to be convincing enough to get RyoCorp to drop their charges of violation of the morality clause.
Abby finds video footage of Sarah and Randall together, proving that he did return her affections. However, the date on the footage indicates that their encounter took place a year after the time when the affair supposedly took place. At that moment the news media gets hold of the story and reports it. Sarah admits that this is true and Phil feels betrayed and angry, and feels he can no longer trust or believe her. Phil realizes that the time of Sarah and Randall’s sexual encounter roughly coincides with the conception of their daughter Annie, raising doubts in his mind over whether he is actually her father. Phil decides he has had enough and leaves the house despite the mass of press outside. Harrison rushes out to try to stop him as he knocks over cameras and assaults a reporter; he gets Phil to go back inside the house. Quinn follows Osborne and tries to determine where he will make the drop. However, her efforts are stymied when she follows him to the dry cleaner’s and her cover is nearly blown. Harrison receives a call from RyoCorp indicating that they have found out about Sarah’s continuing affair and that they wish to re-invoke the morality clause.
Cyrus tells President Grant that Randall’s nomination is all-but impossible now, and that he will be dropping his bid the following morning. He blames the situation on Olivia’s representation of Sarah; President Grant is shocked to discover that Sarah was Olivia’s client. Olivia assigns Abby and Harrison to try to sway the opinions of the RyoCorp board of trustees, who are voting the following day to determine whether or not to fire Sarah. President Grant calls Olivia while Phil and Sarah argue about her deception involving the affair. He makes vague comments about how Olivia has been dishonest with him and that she failed him; he initially wanted to tell her to back off of Randall but then says that she “ruined” him. They hang up on each other, each one feeling miserable and hurt. Phil believes that his marriage to Sarah in unsalvageable and wants a paternity test done to ascertain Annie’s true parentage. Jake comes in for his meeting and presents President Grant with the information Olivia gave him, claiming that it was sent by an anonymous source. He has tracked the informant described in the files to a known terrorist haven and has a team standing by to infiltrate the location at President Grant’s behest. Mellie sees Jake coming out of the Oval Office and grows suspicious about his presence.
Olivia finds Sarah drinking wine alone in her kitchen, and Sarah insists that Olivia join her for a drink. She recounts that at the time of the affair she was young and lacked perspective, and her marriage was going through a difficult time. Sarah notes that while the affair was a mistake, she feels that it was worse that she didn’t tell Phil the truth about it for so many years, allowing Phil to believe that he was Annie’s father even though she was uncertain of this fact herself. Olivia points out that Sarah did what she thought was best at the time and that she will have to figure out how to forgive herself for betraying Phil. Quinn and Huck figure out how Osborne passed on information via concealing it in his dry cleaning, and they manage to obtain his suit from there and discover an envelope of money within, comprising over twenty thousand dollars. They return the suits to the dry cleaner’s and play it off as an accident in order to prevent Osborne from finding out about them. Annie stays home from school and asks Olivia who her real father is; she has been following the stories about her mother on the news and is quite distressed at the implications. Olivia tells her that no matter what happens, Phil will always be her father.
President Grant tells Cyrus that an operation is under way to rescue the hostages in Kashfar, and Cyrus is surprised that he was not informed of it. Jake infiltrates a facility to obtain the photographs taken of himself and Olivia. The SEAL team sent to recover the hostages accomplish their mission without any difficulty, gunning down the terrorists and freeing the frightened but unharmed hostages. President Grant delivers an address to the nation reporting on the success of the hostage recovery mission. Jake reports back to President Grant, who congratulates him on his success. Abby and Harrison discuss the situation with the morality clause and Abby remarks about how Harrison turned her against David, pointing out that he is a “gladiator first and a person second.” Their conversation gives Abby the spark of inspiration, and the next day she and Harrison insinuate themselves into the RyoCorp board meeting just before they are to decide what to do with Sarah. He claims that they have brought a box filled with incriminating evidence about the board’s own illicit proclivities, which would subject them all to the company’s morality clause. They threaten to open the box and read aloud its contents, although the entire thing is a bluff and the box is empty. Their bluff works and RyoCorp decides not to enforce the morality clause.
Olivia gives Sarah and Phil the results of the paternity tests in a sealed envelope, telling him that they will not alter the years he has spent raising his daughter and caring for her; she also notes that time is the only thing that will help them recover from the events of the past week. Phil decides not to look at the paternity test results as a first step to reestablishing his relationship with Sarah. The press leaves the Stanner household, more occupied with the successful resolution of the hostage crisis. Cyrus expresses frustration about being kept out of President Grant’s decisions, and Mellie informs him of President Grant’s newfound association with Jake. Jake goes to see Olivia, still sporting injuries from a fistfight that occurred during his infiltration. Osborne secures photographs of Quinn from the operator of the dry cleaner’s and seems to realize that she is following him. Includes commercials.
Details
- NETWORK: ABC
- DATE: March 21, 2013 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:57:56
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 112383
- GENRE: Drama, mystery/suspense
- SUBJECT HEADING: LGBT Collection - Drama; African-American Collection - Drama; Drama, mystery/suspense; Politics
- SERIES RUN: ABC - TV series, 2012-2018
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV – Commercials – AT&T phone service
- TV – Commercials – Apple smartphones
- TV – Commercials – Arby’s restaurants
- TV – Commercials – Chase credit cards
- TV – Commercials – Chevrolet automobiles
- TV – Commercials – Estee Lauder cosmetics
- TV – Commercials – Home Depot home improvement stores
- TV – Commercials – Kohl’s department stores
- TV – Commercials – Listerine mouthwash
- TV – Commercials – Marshalls apparel
- TV – Commercials – Mazda automobiles
- TV – Commercials – Milano cookies
- TV – Commercials – Neutrogena cosmetics
- TV – Commercials – Old Navy apparel
- TV – Commercials – Olive Garden restaurants
- TV – Commercials – PediaSure nutrition shakes
- TV – Commercials – PetSmart pet stores
- TV – Commercials – Sears department stores
- TV – Commercials – Subway restaurants
- TV – Commercials – Toys ‘R’ Us toy stores
- TV – Commercials – Tropicana fruit juice
- TV – Commercials – V8 vegetable juice
- TV – Commercials – Volva automobiles
- TV – Commercials – Zyrtec antihistamine
- TV – Commercials – “42” motion picture
- TV – Commercials – “Lincoln” home video release
- TV – Promos – “Dancing With the Stars”
- TV – Promos – “How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)”
- TV – Promos – “Jimmy Kimmel Live”
- TV – Promos – “Last Man Standing”
- TV – Promos – “Nashville”
- TV – Promos – “Once Upon a Time”
- TV – Promos – “Revenge”
- TV – Promos – “Scandal”
- TV – Promos – “Splash”
CREDITS
- Mark Wilding … Executive Producer
- Betsy Beers … Executive Producer
- Shonda Rhimes … Executive Producer, Created by
- Jenna Bans … Co-Executive Producer
- Tom Verica … Co-Executive Producer
- Mark Fish … Co-Executive Producer
- Judy Smith … Co-Executive Producer
- Heather Mitchell … Producer, Writer
- Scott Collins … Producer
- Merri D. Howard … Producer
- Noah Esvlin … Co-Producer
- Holden Chang … Associate Producer
- Peter Noah … Consulting Producer
- Steve Robin … Director
- Chad Fischer … Music by
- Kerry Washington … Cast, Olivia Pope
- Columbus Short … Cast, Harrison Wright
- Darby Stanchfield … Cast, Abby Whelan
- Katie Lowes … Cast, Quinn Perkins
- Guillermo Diaz … Cast, Huck
- Jeff Perry … Cast, Cyrus Beene
- Joshua Malina … Cast, David Rosen
- Bellamy Young … Cast, Mellie Grant
- Tony Goldwyn … Cast, President Fitzgerald Grant III
- Scott Foley … Cast, Jake Ballard
- Jay Karnes … Cast, Phil Stanner
- Kurt Fuller … Cast, Grayden Osborne
- Sharmila Devar … Cast, Lauren
- Saidah Arrika Ekulona … Cast, Samantha
- Michael Patrick McGill … Cast, Clerk
- Lisa Edelstein … Cast, Sarah Stanner
- Ross MacKenzie … Cast, Larry Thomas
- Alan Brooks … Cast, Chairman
- Mandalynn Carson … Cast, Annie Stanner
- Tim Halligan … Cast, Judge Murray Randall
- Samantha Sloyan … Cast, Jeanine
- Jay Jackson … Cast, News Anchor
- Reece Rios … Cast, Reporter Peter
- Dinora Walcott … Cast, Reporter Carol
- Keith Chandler … Cast, Local Newscaster #1
- Michelle Wong … Cast, Local Newscaster #2
- Ursula Burton … Cast, Female Classmate
- Lincoln Melcher … Cast, Emmett Stanner
- Alexander Greer … Cast, Male Operative
- Kurtis James … Cast, Young Male Operative
- Steven Stone … Cast, Photographer
- Sarah Jane McKay … Cast, Clerk #2
- Gregory Mikurak … Cast, Boyish SEAL
- Alex Marshall-Brown … Cast, Hostage #1
- Eugene West … Cast, Hostage #2
- Gabriel Rissa … Cast, Hostage #3