Scandal season 4, Episode 16: “You and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that’s it. That’s all we got.”

I’m not an effusive person, by and large, but occasionally, scandal manages to pull off something that makes me shout four-letter words out loud, in my apartment, to no one in particular. Last night, when it seemed like the story had mostly concluded, there was one last not-so-metaphorical twist of the knife that had me talking to my house plants.

The cold open to last night’s episode was…confusing. It started with Abby and Leo yelling at each other, and at first I thought I had missed something that happened at the end of last week’s show that had started the conflict, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, it was the introduction to this week’s guest stars: Lena Dunham and her bad wig. The wig was so bad that I assumed her hair should be part of the story in some way, based on the previews; instead, it seems to have been a strong indication of how the wardrobe crew felt about her.

Lena played Sue, a DC girl-about-town wanting to publish a memoir of sorts about her sexual exploits with Washington’s elite, powerful and typically married. The book proposal made its way into Abby’s hands after being distributed to every major publisher in the country, and although sue had given all 17 men in the book thinly veiled nicknames, she right away recognized The Dustbuster as her boyfriend, Leo. (Dustbustering is something I’ve previously heard Lil Wayne rap about. Don’t google it at work. Your IT man will get ideas about you.)

Abby (and her Reed Krakoff bag) went straight to Olivia, of course, and Olivia went straight to sue and her unconvincing pigtails, told her she’d be destroying a bunch of people’s lives if she published her book and thought that was that. It wasn’t, obviously, because nothing’s that easy on this show, especially when a guest star is involved. The next day, sue marched in to Olivia’s office, wearing her many convincing businesswoman attire, and demanded that Olivia come up with several million dollars to stop her from publishing the book. She also gave a really terrific speech about Olivia’s attempt to shame her for what she does with her own body; it was an episode full of terrific speeches, really.

Huck and Quinn distracted sue with that other B-613 man who’s name I can never remember, and while she was out, they made a copy of her manuscript. Her only copy was written on a typewriter to thwart hackers, a detail that Huck seemed to appreciate. through the magic of very Google, they identified all 17 men, one of whom was David Rosen. Abby sure can pick ’em.

At the same time, Huck was trying to “persuade” (that word always needs scarequotes when it concerns Huck) Rosen to grant him immunity in the B-613 investigation, for worry of retribution of some sort. The show wanted us to believe that immunity would somehow keep Huck safe from violent spies who want to put him back in his black hole of despair, but I’m not clear on exactly why they wouldn’t do that anyway, no matter whether Huck could be legally charged for what he did as part of the group. If B-613 operates outside the law, then how does immunity keep Huck safe?

Anyway, if we grant the premise that immunity would be important to Huck, time was of the essence. Olivia’s bid to get the people in Sue’s book to pony up money failed (largely because of Rosen?), and they tried to convince us that implied Rosen would have to resign when the book came out. In reality, Rosen is an appointed official with no constituency to embarrass, he was unmarried when he had his dalliance with sue and she alleged no wrongdoing against him. There is absolutely no question that Rosen would be able to keep his job. no one would even call for his resignation. There is a married us senator who has admitted doing some very fetish-y things with some women who he hired for the occasion, and he is still, like, chillin’ in Congress. Rosen would have been fine.

Abby also would have been fine, in objective reality. In Shondaland, though, we viewed her draft a letter of resignation, because her not-that-serious boyfriend, who is not a public servant, did some kooky stuff with a willing, unpaid partner at some indeterminate point in the past, before they byli zapojeni. That line of thinking is, again, not whatsoever based in what would actually happen in Washington. It did result in a spot-on speech about how challenging and dehumanizing it can be to be a woman with a public career, though, and I’m prepared to suspend disbelief for one of this show’s grand soliloquies.

Olivia wasn’t quite down and out yet, though. With the ransom payment off the table (and with the safety it would have offered being questionable at best), she had the team dig around in Sue’s past, and of course, they found her motivation. during her job at the EPA, her boss found her kinky dating profile and much more or less sexually assaulted her. She managed to stop him, but her refusals ended her career.

Výměnou za své ticho pomohla Olivia Sue v první fázi podání žaloby proti svému bývalému šéfovi a postavila ji na pár pracovních pohovorů, což by bylo opravdu uklizené, pocit dobrého konce. Skandál však není nic, pokud není chaotický, takže když Quinn a Huck šli doma Sue, aby jí přinesli nějaké papírování obleku, našli jeden z jejích 17 rukopisových mužů, kteří ji drželi v knifepoint, a vypadal, jako by neměl skutečnou představu, co dělat dál dál .

Huck a Quinn samozřejmě uvolnili situaci a po odeslání vole z předních dveří popadl Huck nůž a spontánně sekl Sue přes krk. Samozřejmě byla mrtvá. Huck je v tomto bodě naprosto mimo kontrolu, ale zná rozdíl mezi zraněním někoho a zabitím. Teoreticky zabil Sue, protože mohla stále svrhnout Davida Rosena, ale vlastně ji jen zabil, protože je Huck a to je to, co dělá, když je zdůrazněn. Osobně jím mozzarella tyčinky z pizzy poblíž mého bytu. Všichni jsme na našich vlastních cestách, ale Huck, upřímně řečeno, vypadá, že by se mohl blížit ke konci jeho.

Budeme muset počkat do příštího týdne, abychom zjistili, jak se Olivia vypořádá s Sueovou vraždou a na koho se nakonec připne, ale Quinn popadl jedinou tištěnou kopii Sueho rukopisu na cestě ze dveří, takže teoreticky by to mohlo jít do milion různých směrů. Něco mi říká, že Huck neklouzne na náhodnou vraždu poté, co konečně zajistil imunitu pro všechny ne-náhodné.

Z této epizody vyčnívaly jen dvě další narativní vlákna; Za prvé, Mellie chce kandidovat na Senát ze státu Virginie, kde ona a prezident právě koupili domov, aby vytvořili pobyt. Že Mellie chce, aby byla její vlastní kancelář, bude pravděpodobně znít povědomě každému, kdo, stejně jako já, nedávno sledoval krutou třetí sezónu House of Cards, a myslím, že to bude také pro Mellie. Portia de Rossi se vrátila na několik scén v tomto příběhu oblouku, když se její záda uzdravila z toho, co k tomu Huck udělal před několika týdny, ale nemohu si vzpomenout na život, proč by stále byla kolem. Tato show má dva nebo tři mnohem běžnější postavy, než jsem schopen efektivně katalogizovat.

Na mnohem zábavnější poznámce Olivia v této epizodě využívá trochu času, aby se pokusila vystřelit ze své zotavovací koleje tím, že se její šílenec dostane, možná inspirovaná Sueovými eskapádami. Setkala se s velmi atraktivním mužem v hotelovém baru a podařilo se mu nezajímavě vyzvednout s účinností snižování krku, ale pak měla v toaletě flashback PTSD a uprchla do kuchyně, aniž by se vrátila, aby ho získala.

Na konci představení však Olivia znovu přehodnotila svou pobyt v hotelovém baru a ten samý muž, stále sám, stále chtěl koupit pěkné dámy nějaké nápoje. Kdyby to byla zóna Twilight, byl by to hezký duch, který žije v hotelovém baru, ale tohle je skandál, takže místo toho šel domů s Olivií a vypadal skvěle bez jeho trička. Přehlídky skončily horšími poznámkami.