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“There’s hope.” This is what I’m feeling after watching last night’s episode, “An Innocent Man.” It was leaps and bounds better than last week, and is allowing the fallout from Jerry’s death to build to a slow burn for everyone involved. It’s not perfect, but it’s nice to see the beats of a storyline being played out versus chewed and discarded. Also, this week Bitsy Cooper made her debut. I sincerely hope she’s back at some point in the future because she stole the episode from the word go. Meanwhile, Olivia’s gut is still broken, Cyrus’ junk should be broken at this point, and Abby slowly finding her voice.
Bitsy Cooper Steals The Show
Bitsy Cooper played by the pint-sized but larger than life, Carol Locatell, arrives at the White House to plan her husband’s funeral. President Cooper has finally succumbed to a stroke after his attempted assassination years before. Bitsy’s perfection southern gentile public persona and private take-no-prisoners is everything Mellie aspires to be when she grows up. As Bitsy says to Mellie, “Since us bitches have to get through this dog and pony show, I’m going to need you sit down, shut up and follow my lead.” It’s all very Nancy Regan-esque, because these two First Ladies are the iron hands behind the men in office.
It is funny to me that Mellie seems to have some memory loss regarding Fitz and Olivia as she talks it over with Bitsy. Mellie mentions that Fitz only listens to Olivia, but leaves out that she begged Olivia on more than one occasion to either stay or come back to Fitz to help him. Oh. Ok.
Also, the lines “You go crochet or vaccinate fat kids” and “I have a joint in my purse and it’s not gonna smoke itself,” made me bust out laughing. I really need Bitsy to come back in the spring. In the end, Bitsy helps Mellie get her groove back and Smelly Mellie appears to have left the White House for the moment, which is good because it appears Fitz stole her robe and seat on the balcony.
Olivia’s New Case
Leonard Francis Carnahan (Private Practice alumna, Brian Benben) was locked up for his assassination attempt on President Cooper years ago. Since he’s now dead, Olivia comes up with a plan to legally retrieve the bullet from the former president’s brain to exonerate Carnahan. It involves tricking David Rosen, which is basically any day ending in “-y.” They run ballistics on the bullet and it matches Carnahan’s gun, sooooo Olivia has been played by a psychopath.
The only important thing to take away from the case is to realize that Olivia took the case because she “looked in his eyes and thought he was innocent.” Her gut was wrong. And when Olivia can’t trust her gut she’s blowing in the wind, unable to trust anything or anyone. See season three for 18 episodes of evidence of this. Also, David Rosen won a battle not a war here. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.
The Triangle Continues
Olivia is having nightmares, and by nightmares I mean dreaming of hot sweaty sex with both Jake and Fitz. If only my nightmares were this subject matter and not the ones where all your teeth fall out, but I digress. Anyway, with a twist on season three Grey’s Anatomy Derek/Meredith/Finn scene, the dream sequence is supposed to demonstrate Olivia’s confliction over the two men in her life. It’s an anvil of symbolism, but it does get the point across. However, I’m still pretty tired of this merry-go-round and it’s far from over.
Thanks to Abby’s big mouth, Fitz goes to see Olivia at her apartment to show her the evidence against Jake. Anyone else notice the complete conversation they had at her door without saying a single word? Mmmhmm. Olivia and Fitz get into it over Jake, which is par for course. I’m still irritated that Jake is being framed for all of this because it’s just the same argument for Olivia and Fitz to have every episode ad nauseum while Jake can’t move forward as a character.
Fitz relents and lets Olivia visit Jake, who looks about 1,000 times worse than Fitz’s knuckles. I will say it was a strong scene between Jake and Olivia, because Fitz realizes that Jake does love her. I’m not saying that Olivia loves him back with the same degree, but the way this triangle is being written, she’s struggling with growing feelings for Jake and her unwavering connection to Fitz. It’s important to note that Olivia is the one who brings up the future with Fitz, not him. She may try to move forward with Jake, but her two words of “there’s hope,” for Fitz mean it’s not over with them, not by a longshot. You knew as soon as Olivia said there was hope Fitz would jump through 20,847,721 more hoops to get her back, including moving Jake back out of Rowan’s reach because she asked him to. I’d also like to point out that Jake, who singlehandedly figured out Rowan is the mastermind of all these murders, has a password of “Emily.” Step up your game, sir.
As for Rowan, I’m getting really tired of the monologues that stem from his unhealthy obsession over his daughter’s vagina. He killed Fitz’s son because Fitz “took” his daughter, he set Jake up for all of this because Jake wouldn’t bow down to him when he got involved with Olivia. Sir, take up a hobby, bang a hooker, take up target practice with baby bunnies. I don’t care, just leave Olivia’s vagina to her. I’d prefer we discuss Olivia’s brains, but I guess her ladybits are more important on the show at the moment.
Cyrus Is An Idiot
He’s so busy getting laid, he’s gone soft in the brain. Cyrus’ boy toy is setting him up with Elizabeth for god only knows what, but in the meantime, Cyrus is opening checking accounts and renting townhouses for him. When did Cyrus become this blubbering idiot? He’s not that guy, he sees the double cross coming 15 miles away. James is not amused in heaven right now, for multiple reasons.
Abby is holding it all together
Shout out to Abby for sleeping over at Olivia’s house to keep her company, getting Fitz to update Olivia about Jake’s whereabouts, and figuring out that the leak in the White House is coming from none other than Cyrus’ boy toy. Abby is never going to be Olivia, but she’s making her own path at the White House. Side note: I still laugh whenever Fitz gets irritated with her and calls her Gabby, it’s childish and funny every time.
Like I said, it was better than last week, even if we’re stuck in this triangle like a sophomore who keeps failing geometry. It was a great parallel to show Rowan AND Bitsy pulling the strings behind the scenes, without getting the “credit.” Also, Olivia wasn’t wrong about a woman being called a “bitch” while men are described as assertive. On the other hand, bitches get stuff done, just like Abby did, so I’m ok with using the word as a positive. I am a little concerned that we end an episode with Olivia basically gloating that she’s using her vagina as a weapon, but not any more concerned than when she slept with Jake to get those passwords last season. It’s all a little icky. One last thought, big “Awwwww” to Huck playing video games with Javi, it was predictable, but still super sweet.
Great recap!! It was a great episode…. hope they keep the flow going
This episode was good and yes a lot better than last week. The opening sequence in my opinion was kind of a shade to those who thought Liv had chosen Jake. It was always implied even through Shonda Rhimes interviews that Liv thought she was ruined and went away with Jake through necessity not love. And the fact that Liv had her Island natural hair in the “dream” while flip flopping back to Fitz, proved to me that the writers are saying that even while Liv was on “vacation” with Jake, she wanted him to be Fitz. They could have easily had that scene with Kerry’s natural hair like she wears it on the show, but no…they took it back to the island with the natural look when she was alone with Jake, proving that even when she’s with someone else, Fitz will always be her first choice. I also see an Olitz love scene coming. It always happens during November sweeps…208, 308…right in the middle of sweeps…The show is kind of predictable in that regard.
Also, the last scene with Liv and Fitz I loved because Fitz was the one who yelled that him and Liv were over and they didn’t have a chance given her parents killed his son. But, Liv was the one who told him that there’s hope. He wanted her to repeat that their love still had a chance and she did. The final scene where she said she saved the both of them, Fitz and Jake…with Fitz she saved the love of her life from killing an innocent man and having to carry that burden the rest of his life because she knows Fitz would carry it and she saved Jake’s life in general because like the Prisoner who Shot Cooper, Liv always tries to saving the underdog. That’s who she is.
Rowan and Fitz, I’ve always loved their scenes and I loved how Fitz turned against him in the end. Tony and Joe are great actors. I predict Tom will die next week because now Tom really is the only guy that can truly take down Command. He knows Jake didn’t do it, so Rowan will kill Tom IMO.
Many other interesting things happened, but this is getting too long. Fitz calling Abby a bitch was forced and stupid because he’s not that kind of guy to insult women like that. I hate when they throw Faux feminist bull in the writing. Shonda needs to stop that. Not all guys are like that and she makes sure to lower men to lowest scum and upgrade her women on the show.