As per typical Scandal style, this episode starts out in a crisis. The episode fades into a close-up of Olivia Pope walking somewhere with a determined pace, which could only mean one thing: something must be fixed.
Olivia addresses Noah, the reporter waiting to interview the Grants, an interview which Olivia is fervently trying to get postponed. However, when Noah doesn’t relent Olivia is forced to go back to the Grants and get them ready for an interview taking place in one hour. We soon learn the interview is not with Mellie and President Grant, but with their children, Jerry and Karen. This episode is special, because Karen and Jerry have been away at boarding school.
Although this is not the happiest of family reunions and the episode soon does a rewind to 24 hours prior. Jerry and Karen’s arrival is met by some ambivalence from the president and the first lady, which come to find out, is partly because they know very little about their children. This doesn’t stop them from putting on the perfect show, even for behind closed doors.
For Olivia Pope and associates the stakes are much higher. They are in the process of taking down B6-13, the top secret spy agency that Oliva’s father Rowan used to run, until the president dismissed him and put Jake Ballard, Olivia’s ex-boyfriend in charge. Although Olivia thinks she is doing right by the American people, one of her associates, Huck, reminds her of the dangers of trying to take down the number one spy agency in the government. Huck pulls Olivia aside and warns her, “You don’t take down B6-13. You run. You hide. You die.”
As if that wasn’t clear enough, Olivia receives a call from her estranged father telling her to stop her searching before she becomes a target. Meanwhile Mellie and Andrew, the presidents vice presidential candidate, who is also his close friend, rekindle an old passion they once had for each other. It doesn’t help that the president and his wife are both carrying on affairs in the same house as their children.
While “the gladiators” are fixing the B6-13 problem, Harrison is dealing with some problems of his own. His old partner in crime, Adnan Salif, is back in town and looking to wreak some havoc alongside international terrorist Maya Lewis, who just happens to be Olivia’s mother. However, Adnan is becoming uncomfortable with this arrangement and turns to none other than Olivia Pope and associates to help get her immunity.
While trying to figure out Adnan’s immunity, Olivia gets a call from Abby with dirt on the president’s son. Apparently one of Jerry’s newfound hobbies is updating a twitter page he created against his father’s campaign. The confrontation between President Grant and his children does not end well, and both Karen and Jerry storm out. However, when Karen leaves to go find her mother, presumably, what she finds instead is that her mother is having an affair.
The president chooses to take his mind off the issues at hand by calling Jake Ballard into his office to see if B6-13 has anything to do with Dimitri, a missing terrorist that the government had been keeping tabs on. In this meeting Jake puts the president in his place and asserts his rights as “command.” At this moment Cyrus Beene storms in, picks up a vase, and proceeds to try and hit Jake in the head with it, while screaming “he killed my husband.” The president, who was unaware of this newfound information, promptly stops Cyrus and lets Jake go free. But before Jake leaves he offers his condolences to Cyrus. Cyrus fills President Grant in on the details of his husband’s mysterious death, and informs him of exactly what B6-13 is truly capable of.
Moving onto the next issue, President Grant decides to instead prep for the upcoming interview. However, no one in his family seems up to the challenge, and it is soon revealed that Mellie’s affair is the reason why. President Grant, who was previously unaware of any affair, immediately storms into a meeting Andrew is having and punches him in the face, and then goes to find Mellie.
After the fight of the century with his wife, who almost reveals the reasons she withdrew from her husband for ten years of their marriage, Olivia storms out. Luckily, she runs into Cyrus on her way out of the gates, and he convinces her to go back and fix it. Olivia does exactly that and somehow manages to get this family, who is hanging by a thread, to show up to an interview looking like the typical all American family.
Back at Pope headquarters Harrison is not so lucky. Adnan used the immunity as a way to gain access to Olivia’s offices, and after seducing Harrison; she then drugs him and steals presidential secrets from Olivia’s laptop, to bring back to Maya. All to reveal a scandal that leaves you on your seat ready for what next week shall bring.