Abby, you in danger, girl! At the end of last week’s Scandal episode, we learned that Abby Whelan, President Fitzgerald Grant’s chief of staff, was involved in the shooting of Jennifer Fields and Huck. This week’s episode is dedicated to showing us exactly how Abby got caught up.
The real story begins 60 days before the election, when Abby is trying to find the best site for Fitz’s presidential library. She meets with two potential donors who turn out to be—dun dun dun—Sarah and Mr. Payus (look, I spelled it how it sounds), the two bad guys who appear to be pulling all the strings related to President-elect Frankie Vargas’ assassination. They offer her a whopping $300 million to run for president.
Abby turns them down, but they’ve convinced her that her vision for the world is valuable. They get in her head so much that she’s too distracted to pay attention to her boyfriend, Leo Bergen, who’s back from wherever he’s been. Yay! Leo’s one of my favorite Scandal characters ... he’s such a jerk.
Abby’s still mulling over a presidential run, and she’s furious that all Fitz wants to do is retire to Vermont to make jam when he has so much more to give the country. So she warns Fitz that Olivia Pope is never going to Vermont with him. Ouch. Disappointed in Fitz, Abby calls Sarah and Mr. Payus and lets them know she’s in ...
... which quickly turns out to be a bad look. On election night, Sarah calls Abby immediately after Vargas is shot and tells her to go lock down the hospital and wait for further instructions. If she doesn’t, Sarah will make sure that the $300 million they gave her is traced back to some terrorist plot, which brings us back to the scene from the very first episode this season where Abby locks down Vargas’ hospital ward and confiscates his widow’s phone.
A “nurse” arrives with further instructions for Abby, and the nurse is Meg, who shot (maybe killed?) Huck in the last episode! Meg wants Abby to swap the bullets in Vargas’ body for three bullets that she hands Abby in an envelope. Abby tries to get out of it, but Meg shows Abby a video of someone beating up Leo, so Abby’s gotta do what Abby’s gotta do.
Abby tries to pressure Fitz into authorizing an autopsy, but Fitz isn’t ready to tell anyone that Vargas is dead, so Abby goes over his head. She blackmails a doctor into performing the autopsy, but when his higher-ups arrive and ask who authorized the autopsy, Abby turns on him and they remove him from the hospital room, leaving her alone with a dead body and a mission. So Abby plays a real-life game of Operation and fishes the remaining bullet out of Vargas’ stomach and replaces all the bullets with the ones Meg gave her.
When Abby gets home, she finds a battered and tattered Leo, who doesn’t remember what happened to him, but at least he’s alive.
Don’t celebrate yet ... it gets worse. Abby learns that Sarah and Payus are trying to frame Cyrus Beene for Vargas’ death. Abby tries to talk Fitz out of investigating Cyrus. She even pays a visit to her ex, Attorney General David Rosen, but before David can come to the door, Sarah shows up on the scene. “Did you think we’d let you waltz over to the AG’s house and make a plea for Cyrus Beene’s life?” she asked. She also asked Abby if she really thought she was going to be president. It was all a sham.
Abby talks tough about how David is going to see that justice is served, but when David comes outside, he wraps his arms around Sarah and introduces her to Abby as his girlfriend. Damn, damn, damn!
When Abby learns from Huck that Jennifer Fields is still alive, she takes this information to Cyrus and vows to exonerate him. Then she leads Meg to Jennifer’s hiding place, where Meg promptly shoots both Jennifer and Huck. In the final flashback, Abby asks Meg if she took care of Huck. Did Abby really order Meg to kill Huck??