S04E01: 'Randy, Red, Superfreak, and Julia'
Few returning shows are more anticipated than
Scandal, but I've been even more anxious for the Season 4 because I wanted to see how Shonda Rhimes and company tried to rebound from what was quite the messy, disjointed, and frantic third season. And boy
did 'Randy, Red, Superfreak, and Julia' rebound. If you're like me and thought the show took a bit of a dip amid last season's pregnancy and diminished episode order, this season premiere had to be one giant breath of fresh air, a wonderful reminder of
how fun this show can be without necessarily falling into a pit of stupidity. Most impressively, this episode managed to bring Olivia and Jake back from their self-imposed exile on the Remote Beach of Sex and Wine, re-established the handful of other key players, and set the course for a seemingly thrilling (yet manageable) story arc without seeming overstuffed or rushed.
One of the challenges in sending characters away at the end of one season is that you almost always have to bring them back in the next season's premiere and this episode smartly needled at that convention. The opening segment gave us just enough of Olivia and Jake on the beach, enjoying their lives away from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and B613, but then also constantly acknowledged that
of course Olivia would choose to stay in D.C. once she returned. Numerous characters poked at Olivia as she swore that her stint in the capital was just temporary so that she could help bury the seemingly-now-dead Harrison (Columbus Short was let go between seasons) and halfway through, Olivia herself started to recognize that all those people were correct. Similarly, over in the White House, both Cyrus and Mellie couldn't help but scoff at Fitz's assertions that he would absolutely not see his former flame.
Along with that, 'Randy, Red, Superfreak, and Julia' examined, however briefly, what Olivia's departure did to everyone in her universe-the OPA team, Fitz, and heck, D.C. itself. After everything that happened in the previous 47 episodes, it's hard to argue against her choice to run off, but it's not as if the two of them left during the most stable time. Harrison was in quite the predicament, one that apparently only got worse as time went on. Huck's reunion with his family seemingly went about as well as you might imagine. Quinn sucks no matter what. Abby found a new job as the president's press secretary, but lost contact with her co-workers and can't seem to get it right with David. While Fitz buried himself in the work, booting 12 of the 15 members of his cabinet and pushing a new-and gasp, progressive-agenda, he also tried to kill himself at least once in the aftermath of his son's death (and Olivia's fleeing). In short, nobody's doing well. And for a few moments here,
Scandal at least pondered what it would mean if Olivia took the blame for it all. But after a few admittedly great and heated arguments between she and the living ex-members of OPA, the episode instead took a much better route with Olivia's return: by giving her inspiration.
Best of all, that inspiration came via an external crisis, something that allowed
Scandal to re-engage with its procedural-y storytelling and re-install Olivia as the magnificent fixer and formidable manipulator of the public discourse that she is. I said it time and again last season, but much of what made that stretch of episodes so wobbly was the lack of standalone story engine. The serialized storytelling grew far too thrill-seeking, consuming the show from within. But not here! This episode introduced a frothy scandal perfect for the show's tone, but also one that taps into our culture's current crisis regarding sexual assault. A female senator (
True Blood's Jessica Tuck) pushed a leading male senator off the stairs after he reportedly assaulted her, only for Olivia (and Quinn, ugh) to discover that the female senator was actually covering for her aide-a young woman she dangled in front of the man in hopes of influencing President Fitz's equal wage legislation. If those aren't messy politics, on both the micro and macro levels, I'm not sure what is.
With Olivia ready to defend the victim and women's rights altogether,
Scandal has found a new thread that makes its lead character seem more heroic than she's been in ages. That's not necessarily a requirement for me to enjoy the show, but it's still cool to see Kerry Washington be able to deliver moving stump speeches with a
non-romantic undercurrent. And if that's not your bag, then take solace in the fact that Olivia's public show of support for women's rights dovetailed completely with Fitz's legislation, which means they'll be in one another's orbit sooner rather than later. For now, it's good for both characters-and the show-that they succeed in their professional lives.
That's only around half of the episode-like I said, there was so much good stuff going on here. Every regular was well-served by this premiere. The winner in the clubhouse had to be Mellie, who after the death of her son rightfully decided just to traipse around the White House wearing PJs and eating Fruit Loops. Once the Great Woman behind the Great Man, she sarcastically told Fitz 'Good for you, fight the power' in response to his new aggressive policies and later explained that she's given up shaving her pubic hair, so it's 'like 1976 down there.' I don't want to say never change because Mellie's clearly emotionally destroyed, so hey, maybe stay that way for a bit longer before seeking help.
Elsewhere, David was named the new Attorney General, which is the kind of promotion you get from Cyrus Beene when he probably knows that you're thinking of investigating him and the nefarious B613. Chances are that David and Jake try to make another run at B6 sooner rather than later, but considering Rowan's still around-and apparently still ugly enough to tell Olivia that he killed her mother, on Fitz's orders-that probably won't go too. But it'll be interesting to see what the show does with Jake now that he couldn't lure back to the magical beach with his, uh, impassioned speech about his sexual prowess. That character deserves better than to be the third leg of a creaky love triangle.
But those concerns are for another week. For now, it's time to celebrate.
Scandal is back, like
really back. Of course this is just one episode, but it truly felt like a statement effort. Let's hope that the coming weeks can follow through with all the promise on display here.
NOTES
- Okay, time for a game of Are These
Scandal Characters Really Dead?! Is Harrison
really dead? Couldn't he come back at any time if Short got his act together? And hey, is Olivia's mom
really dead? Probably not.
- There were so many great lines and monologues in this episode! I enjoyed Fitz's claim that Mellie was doing better simply because she's 'washing her hair now,' along with Olivia's dark response to Rowan's condolences over Harrison: 'You lose people, whatever.'
- Oh yeah, Portia De Rossi's here now, as a Republican National Committee leader. She's not into bipartisan politics.
- Did you catch the very brief appearance of
Parks and Recreation's Perd Hapley in one of the newscasts? Talk about stunt casting.
- And did anyone else feel like Shonda & Co. were openly trying to be more sexually explicit, given the show's earlier timeslot? Welcome to 9pm!
- This was a great episode, no doubt, but the show might want to stop trying to stage scenes that require it to use a green screen'd White House lawn. The outdoor scene with Fitz and Mellie was truly rough-looking. Previously Aired Episode
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