Spectacles in Script

A/N: I’m proud of this one. I won’t apologize for length. I said what I said. I hope you enjoy it. 

Boy, do I love it when writer Zahir McGhee is paired up with the talents of actor/director, Tony Goldwyn, especially for an intensely Olivia Pope-focused episode such as this one. “Thwack!” (517) did an excellent job of making me extremely tense, elevating my heart rate and causing me anxiety. An even better follow-up to the much loved “The Miseducation of Susan Ross” from last week, “Thwack!” disappointed me only in the sense that the horrible white man whose death I’ve been rooting for was not Andrews, but I praise Jesus for the elimination of all turds. He had it coming, so

spare me your hypocritically convenient sense of morality about the murder of a “disabled” man.

We don’t want no devils in the house. We want the Lord. Dassssit! Besides, as over-the-top as this show can be, it’s emotional resonance is spot on. Neither you nor I have any assurance that we can’t be driven to the point of murder, given the right (err…wrong?) circumstances.

Besides the twice thwacking of Andrew (failed handjob and sound of the chair bashing his head), throughout the episode there was a foreboding pulsation of imminent danger building from the start, something that would require confrontation, if for nothing else, it would relieve this viewer from the physiological onslaught of anxiety. It occurred to me that we were made to feel similar to what Olivia Pope was feeling as her descent into madness culminated in a do-or-die moment of sanity. @Spectaclesinscript, in her review, has already done a laudable job of summarizing the historical context, within the show, of how Olivia arrived at the point of murdering the man we know as her kidnapper, Andrew Nichols. @musesoftheminds has also done a good recap of important scenes and relationships. So as not to repeat most of that, what I will focus on are the following: specific moments wherein Olivia sees red, so to speak, and their connection to loss and powerlessness; various threats to Olivia’s crumbling sense of identity; conspiracy theory clues of Rowan’s involvement with Andrew’s resurgence and Olivia’s kidnapping; the level of white victimology that repeatedly ignores and obscures black pain in service of white privilege; and the contrasting manifestations of ‘home’ and ‘family’.

Seeing Red

scandal 5x16

I’m free-wheeling here.

I’m truly sorry for people who think O[redacted] is ‘on’ and that includes the shallow media because the show isn’t selling that. Yes, Olivia having sex twice on a Sunday with [redacted] is trite, boring and gross. It’s kinda supposed to be the latter. There is nothing empowering, desirable, or ‘grown’ about that nolationship. Their fluid exchange, lack of intimacy and future reflect the choices Olivia has made for herself. Those choices? Giving up on living in the light.  And since she is the sun (407), light itself, Olivia has given up on herself. There’s no more light in her apartment (not a coincidence that in the midst of this dark lair she finally invited daddy over for Sunday dinner); her clothes are predominately not white. She’s not even practicing white knight-hood at work. She is impotent in every way, and this is reflective in the substantive conversation she has with Huck in 512. She tells him the only winning move is not t play. That’s giving up; that’s not taking command of her life—what (to me) the S5 poster eventually signifies for her.

So, Jake is a manifestation of all the dark and nasty inside Olivia. The Olivia who thinks she is so profoundly skewed, that she would not inflict her fuckedupedness on new dick. (after all, she didn’t leave Fitz because he wasn’t enough; she left because she wasn’t enough). This is why she reaches for that same old comfort blanket with whom she doesn’t have to try; who will accept her ill treatment because he has committed worse against her. The one who has a PhD in her psychoses, as trained by the same man who programmed her. And since Jake is a profoundly monstrous person is the umbilical cord to her father. This is why she keeps “forgiving” him (508), and casting him in the role of victim, as she most recently did (512), and has done ad nauseum before. Because so long as she believes Jake isn’t making the choice to do the things he’s done, so long as his misdeeds are just programmatic damage, then she has someone to rescue.

“The secret to you is that you always have to save everyone” (410).–Ian

When she doesn’t have that, she doesn’t know who she is and she feels a profound loss of control due to that loss of identity anchoring. That rescuing forms the substantive basis of her identity, which I’ve written about since S4 (I know it’s tacky to quote yourself but it’s also very efficient):

“For nearly 15 years (she’s almost 35), Olivia created an identity for herself as ‘The Protector’ (newspaper clippings, 308). A protector depends upon objects that need protecting. If nothing and no one needs protecting, does she cease to exist as a person? Who is she outside of that superhero persona? Recall that on an African island with Jake (401), with no one to save or protect, ‘Olivia Pope’ ceased to be. She became ‘Julia Baker’… After all, for so long, indeed, it was like father like daughter. Rowan derives his whole identity from being the protector of the Republic, and Olivia was an extension of that.”–KP

The show has made it unmistakeably clear for those who did not get it in seasons 2, 3, and 4: there is no substance to Olivia and Jake. They will never be a couple. Nor is Shonda trying to sell one. They will never be a love story. Never. Be mad about it.

I hear you: but when will this end? I’ve had enough of this dysfunction! I want better for Olivia!

I want it to end and I want better for her, too. I’ve had false starts before, but I now see that Shonda needed to eliminate all of Olivia’s excuses. She needed to try and fail at the relationship with Fitzgerald so she could see that his love can’t fix her. Her love of self needs to do that. The good thing about what’s happening now is that as Olivia is purposely deluding herself about her father (he’s the lynchpin to her formation; the man who makes chaos normal), she is also surrounded by people who are tired of her antics and have begun to see through her. They calling out her denial (Abby in 510, Mellie in 511, Huck in 512). Huck however, is best placed to call Olivia out. Not only has he suffered the most from being an adopted family member, but he has also achieved something Olivia has not: he worked at overcoming his mental trigger and he won. Of Huck in 509, I wrote:

“Olivia’s only excuse is herself. I wonder if Shonda will now allow her to seek therapy, though it’s hard to imagine. Huck managed to confront his greatest trigger: Rowan. He tested himself and he prevailed. Before that, however, he spent time working on himself after looking to others to fix him proved fruitless (501, 502). Olivia has the same trigger, and I want her to prevail.  Season 5 is the season of Olivia Pope putting love on top, and that includes love of herself. I still believe she’ll put in that work, even though she’s hit a hurdle. We’re only nine episodes in, so there’s plenty of time for the confrontational work she needs to do.  If Olivia does not deal with the spectre of her dysfunction, which is the legacy of her father, she will forever remain stuck in gear. Whoever she is with, she will always be there.  She cannot be happy alone, or with anyone else until she confronts herself.”–KP

Good point about how Olivia is the only one who isn’t thinking of the future/seeking some kind of normalcy in her life. She really has given up on herself and collapsed into the Rowan-created hole as if being her father’s daughter is the only avenue available to her now, as if the person she tried to be before was a fictitious. Surrogate brother’s words to her after she freed Rowan must have done a number on her.