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 zaangażowani. 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.

W zamian za milczenie Olivia pomagała Sue na pierwszych etapach wniesienia pozwu przeciwko jej byłego szefa i ustawiła ją na kilka rozmów kwalifikacyjnych, które byłyby uporządkowanym, dobrym samopoczuciem. Skandal jest niczym, jeśli nie bałagan, więc kiedy Quinn i Huck poszli do Sue w domu, aby przynieść jej papierkową robotę, znaleźli jednego z jej 17 rękopisów trzymających ją w Knifepoint, wyglądając, jakby nie miał pojęcia, co dalej robić .

Huck i Quinn oczywiście złagodzili sytuację, a po wysłaniu kolesia przez drzwi frontowe Huck złapał nóż i spontanicznie przecisnął Sue na gardło. Oczywiście była martwa. W tym momencie Huck jest absolutnie nie do kontrolowania, ale zna różnicę między zranianiem kogoś a zabiciem go. Teoretycznie zabił Sue, ponieważ wciąż mogła obalić Davida Rosen, ale właściwie po prostu ją zabił, ponieważ jest Huckiem i to właśnie robi, kiedy jest zestresowany. Osobiście jem mozzarella z pizzy w pobliżu mojego mieszkania. Wszyscy jesteśmy tutaj na własnych podróżach, ale Huck, szczerze mówiąc, wydaje się, że może zbliżać się do końca.

Będziemy musieli poczekać do następnego tygodnia, aby zobaczyć, jak Olivia radzi sobie z morderstwem Sue i kogo ostatecznie zostaje przypięta, ale Quinn złapał jedyną twardą kopię rękopisu Sue po drodze za drzwi, więc teoretycznie może wejść w milion różnych kierunków. Coś mi mówi, że Huck nie upadnie na losowe morderstwo po tym, jak ostatecznie zabezpieczy immunitet dla wszystkich niezbyt rzadkich.

Z tego odcinka wycofywały się tylko dwa inne wątki narracyjne; Po pierwsze, Mellie chce kandydować do Senatu ze stanu Wirginia, gdzie ona i prezydent właśnie kupili dom w celu ustanowienia pobytu. To, że Mellie chce własnego biura, prawdopodobnie brzmi znajomo dla każdego, kto, podobnie jak ja, niedawno obserwował okropny trzeci sezon House of Cards, i domyślam się, że to będzie również dla Mellie. Portia de Rossi wróciła po kilka scen w tej historii, gdy jej plecy wyleczyły się z tego, co Huck zrobił kilka tygodni temu, ale nie pamiętam, że dla mnie, dlaczego nadal będzie w pobliżu. Ten program ma dwa lub trzy bardziej regularne postacie, niż jestem w stanie skutecznie katalogować.

Co więcej, Olivia wykorzystuje trochę czasu w tym odcinku, aby spróbować wysadzić się w Rut, zdobywając jej dziwak, prawdopodobnie zainspirowaną eskapadami Sue. Poznała bardzo atrakcyjnego mężczyznę w barze hotelowym i udało jej się bezinteresownie odebrać go z wydajnością snapiącego szyję, ale potem miała retrospekcję PTSD w toalecie i uciekła przez kuchnię, nie wracając, by go odzyskać.

Pod koniec pokazu Olivia powtórzyła jej pobyt w hotelowym barze, a sam był ten sam człowiek, wciąż chcący kupić ładne damskie drinki. Gdyby to była strefa Zmierzchu, byłby przystojnym duchem, który mieszka w hotelowym barze, ale jest to skandal, więc zamiast tego poszedł do domu z Olivią i wyglądał wspaniale bez włączonej koszulki. Programy zakończyły się gorszymi nutami.