SCANDAL: IT'S HANDLED {SEASON THREE PREMIERE} (TV)
Summary
One in this drama/political thriller about the Pope & Associates crisis management firm in Washington D.C.
As news of Olivia’s affair with President Grant becomes public, her team scrambles to find an appropriate response. The Post reporter who first broke the story is interviewed and claims that her source is in a high position in the administration and is completely accurate, although she will not specify the identity of this source. Olivia rides in silence with Rowan until she asks him why he tried to have her killed; he clarifies that the target of the attempt was actually Jake. They arrive at an aircraft hangar where a private jet awaits, but Olivia refuses to go with him. He tries to convince her that she is in great danger, and that while some will be sympathetic to her at first eventually she will be “gut[ted].” Olivia believes that President Grant would not deliberately hurt her in such a manner, but Rowan believes that the “power” of the office is too strong for him to do otherwise. He mocks Olivia for believing that President Grant would actually marry her, and seems embarrassed that she did not attempt to pursue a more powerful position than that of First Lady. Rowan then outlines his plan: while the other members of Pope & Associates will be taken care of financially and the business will continue to run, Rowan has arranged a completely new identity for Olivia, complete with financial and identification records. He has done so in order to provide her with a home on an unspecified island for the next eight months, after which time he will arrange to have her “disappear” into another country. Olivia resists this plan but Rowan is adamant that she comply.
She gets on the plane and uses the stewardess’s cell phone to contact Cyrus to tell him that she is “disappearing.” Cyrus believes this is a bad idea, although Olivia suspects he needs her around in order to use her as a scapegoat. She says she merely wanted to say goodbye, although Cyrus points out that if she suddenly vanishes President Grant will believe that he had her killed, evaporating what remaining trust he has in him and leaving Cyrus unable to help him. He insists that he can quell the rumors of the affair if he is given enough time and provided that Olivia doesn’t run away. Olivia decides to get off the plane and Rowan yells at her to get back on. She insists that she is going to take control of her own life and resolve the issue herself, despite Rowan warning her that she cannot possibly resist the influence of the White House. She is taken back to her office, leaving Rowan standing in the hangar alone. Cyrus proposes that Langston make appearances for President Grant until he can determine the source of the story about the affair. However, Langston refuses, again citing her moral discomfort with President Grant’s actions. Cyrus and Langston get into a heated argument about the matter until President Grant tells Cyrus he would like to speak to Langston alone. President Grant speaks to her candidly about his infidelity, and claims that he has “failed her” by being dishonest towards her and the public. He tells her he wishes to stand before the world and admit his failings, but that he needs her to help him buy time in order for him to ready those closest to him for such a confession. Langston is touched by his desire to be honest and agrees to help him.
Olivia pulls up to the Pope & Associates office and finds herself swarmed with reporters. Huck rushes into the crowd to retrieve her from the limousine and helps her get inside. She meets with the others and tells them to go about their work as if nothing is different, although they are concerned about the media frenzy surrounding her. Abby reveals that they are losing many of their clients due to the controversy and Olivia tries communicating with some of them in order to convince them otherwise. Harrison tells the others that they will have to be the ones to resolve the situation for Olivia, even if it means doing so without her help. Cyrus speaks to James for information about how the story about the affair got revealed, and he reveals that the story was likely leaked at a local bar, Malloy’s, where reports sometimes gather, as it is known to be a drinking spot for secret service agents. Later, Mellie asks Hal if the story was leaked at Malloy’s; it turns out that Hal, while somewhat inebriated, accidentally revealed the affair to a reporter while at Malloy’s. However, he insists that he did not give the reporter Olivia’s name. David comes to visit Olivia, and tells her that she has a difficult choice ahead of her that could jeopardize the lives of everyone she cares about. Her team rushes in and turns on the news, which is broadcasting footage of President Grant leaving Olivia’s apartment building taken by a passerby with a cell phone camera. This presents the first tangible evidence of the affair, compounding the controversy. Cyrus agonizes over how to react and asks his staff to create a “kill folder” on Olivia.
Harrison takes the initiative and calls Cyrus, hoping to try to help him make it appear that President Grant was having an affair with someone other than Olivia. Cyrus tells Harrison not to call him again and hangs up. Cyrus and his staff accumulate information on Olivia, including that her mother died in a plane crash and that her father goes by the name “Eli.” Her father spent a fortune putting her through various prestigious schools, but she never returned home after her mother’s death. After college she was known as something of a party girl and had a dating preference for older men in positions of political power. Cyrus believes this can help them portray her as an “ambitious slut.” Olivia gets a call from her father in the middle of the night and they confront each other in a parking lot. He offers to help her out, but she refuses, telling him she has no need of his help. She demands to know where Jake is, but Rowan simply responds that he “refused an order” and that this is unacceptable to him. He claims that his unsavory efforts are all to ensure the safety and freedom of the American public. However, Olivia still refuses to get on his plane and insists that there is another way. She opens her sealed black folder and places a call, delivering an identification number and a password to the party on the other end. She is led by naval officers into a secure bunker and into a private sealed room where President Grant waits for her. He indicates that such a measure was given to her to be used only for extreme emergencies, and that the codes are being changed, making her unable to use it again. She gets him to talk with her about a plan to resolve the current crisis, and reveals that she has brought Mellie in as well.
Mellie and President Grant argue about their approaches to the affair controversy, and Olivia tries to get them to come up with a plan. She hopes to remove her name from the public’s view, but President Grant wishes to tell the truth about the whole thing and appeal to the nation via honesty. Olivia devises a precise procedure for how such a strategy would play out, including subtle ways of altering the public’s perceptions. However, Mellie points out that the reporters and committees interested in the affair will want more details out of them, and that she refuses to stand by her husband and act supportive in the face of the length of the affair and its elaborate and pervasive nature. President Grant summarizes Mellie’s concerns by pointing out that her real distress is that he is in love with Olivia and not her. She says that she will not be a part of the “fairy tale” version of events President Grant wishes to share and threatens to expose all of his secrets to the public. In light of this, the three of them devise an altered version of events more to Mellie’s approval. President Grant is uncomfortable with the deception, but Olivia says they are simply not telling “the whole truth.” They all agree to the plan, although not without some trepidation, and Mellie leaves. President Grant expresses concern for Olivia in light of the media attention surrounding her, although she insists that she is fine. They share an emotional embrace and she leaves in tears.
President Grant tells Langston he intends to stay with Mellie for the sake of their children, and she approves of his decision. She hints that there have been difficulties in her own family life. President Grant asks her to officially condemn him after his speech in order to make her the “moral center” of the Republican Party. She agrees, but is confused about why he would choose to help her in this manner. Mellie meets with Cyrus in private to stop the impending press conference, hoping to go back on the plan she made with Olivia and President Grant; she says she has a plan of her own. Harrison, Abby, Huck, and Quinn move forward with their own scheme, although they feel uneasy about doing so. Harrison surreptitiously passes along a disk to Cyrus, who then gives it to James. During a meeting of Cyrus’s staff, the contents of the disk are revealed on the news; it is old footage from President Grant’s campaign of communications aide Jeannine Locke, expressing her appreciation for then-Governor Grant and calling him “hot.” The news seizes upon this footage and reports that it is actually Jeannine who was the other woman in President Grant’s affair. She goes to Cyrus for help, insisting that she is innocent, and Cyrus promises her that he will handle it, although he is secretly happy that his plan is working.
Olivia soon finds out about this development and angrily confronts her team about it. President Grant is furious about it and demands to know why Cyrus did what he did. He hopes to clear up the matter at his press conference by telling the truth, but Mellie says that if he does so neither she nor Cyrus will support him. She takes credit for leaking Jeannine’s name, and she accuses President Grant of being the one to leak Olivia’s name to the press in the first place. It turns out that while Hal leaked the story about the affair to the press, it was Tom who gave the reporter Olivia’s name, doing so at President Grant’s behest. Mellie believes that President Grant engineered the situation as a means of eventually getting Olivia into the White House with him as his wife. President Grant responds that he is “at war” with her now, and reveals that he leaked Olivia’s name in order to take away Mellie’s advantage over him. Harrison tells Olivia that she is safe for the time being, and that she shouldn’t feel ashamed of the measures they took in the name of “self-preservation.” She prefers to ignore his comments by throwing herself into her work; her first new client turns out to be Jeannine. Cyrus finds himself confronted by Charlie in his home, who pulls a gun on him. He reveals that he has tranquilized James and that he is “serving a higher purpose.” He kidnaps Cyrus and brings him to face Rowan, who upgrades Cyrus’s security clearance and asks him about “Operation: Remington,” which Cyrus believes was a classified operation that President Grant undertook with Jake while the two of them served together in Iran. Rowan produces a file which contains an account of the truth about that mission, and Cyrus is shocked by what he sees. Includes commercials.
Details
- NETWORK: ABC
- DATE: October 3, 2013 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:59:56
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 114937
- GENRE: Drama, mystery/suspense
- SUBJECT HEADING: African-American Collection - Drama; LGBT Collection - Drama; Drama, mystery/suspense; Politics
- SERIES RUN: ABC - TV series, 2012-2018
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Mark Wilding … Executive Producer
- Betsy Beers … Executive Producer
- Shonda Rhimes … Executive Producer, Created by, Writer
- Peter Nowalk … Co-Executive Producer
- Mark Fish … Co-Executive Producer
- Judy Smith … Co-Executive Producer
- Tom Verica … Co-Executive Producer, Director
- Heather Mitchell … Supervising Producer
- Scott Collins … Producer
- Merri D. Howard … Producer
- Noah Esvlin … Co-Producer
- Holden Chang … Associate Producer
- Peter Noah … Consulting Producer
- Jenna Bans … Consulting Producer
- Chad Fischer … Music by
- Kerry Washington … Cast, Olivia Pope
- Columbus Short … Cast, Harrison Wright
- Scott Foley … Cast, Jake Ballard
- 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
- Kate Burton … Cast, Vice President Sally Langston
- Dan Bucatinsky … Cast, James Novak
- George Newbern … Cast, Charlie
- Brian Letscher … Cast, Tom Larsen
- Stoney Westmoreland … Cast, Hal Rimbeau
- Erin Chambers … Cast, Mara
- Joe Morton … Cast, Rowan Pope
- Samantha Sloyan … Cast, Jeannine Locke
- Vanya Asher … Cast, Ethan
- Jennifer Peo … Cast, Vanessa Chandler
- Eben Ham … Cast, Tanner Shaw
- Jay Jackson … Cast, News Anchor #1
- Dihanna Nicole Baxter … Cast, News Anchor #2
- Heather Ayers … Cast, Smug Cable Newswoman
- Tara Platt … Cast, Navy Servicewoman
- Nicole Shalhoub … Cast, Flight Attendant