SPOILER ALERT! (stop reading if you don’t want to know what happens in this episode)
It was an emotionally powerful episode that totally fits into what’s been going on around the country recently. Get into the recap below!
Olivia tries to talk Mr. Parker down and get the gun away and calls David to see if he’d come down there but he has a meeting. He sends the assistant attorney general but Liv wants David. A neighborhood activist, Marcus Walker, walks on the scene and tells the police they can’t shoot him because he’s recording. Olivia goes to talk to Marcus to tell him he can’t be there but Mr. Parker wants him to stay.
She tells him that the assistant attorney general is there but Marcus tells him not to trust her. He gives Mr. Parker a lawn chair and tells him to stay because if he leaves he’s giving up the only power he has in the situation. Mr. Parker takes the chair and puts it over his son as protection then sits in it as his neighbors cheer him on.
The crime scene turns into a protest led by Marcus as Liv works with Huck and Quinn to figure out what they’re working with. The protest gets huge news coverage since it’s happening less than a mile from the White House but Cyrus advices Fitz not to say anything. Olivia talks to the policeman who killed Brandon. He tells her that he heard on the radio that a kid had been shoplifting. He sees Brandon with a new cell phone box in his hand and asked where he got it. Brandon got hostile and the officer didn’t call for back up because he thought he could talk to him. Brandon charged at him reaching into his pocket and he shot him telling her he saw him reaching for a knife. The officer is very distraught over the situation and keeps thinking about had he’d feel if he was Brandon’s father.
Liv has Quinn and Huck search security footage to see if they can see what happened because if there was a knife it’s probably on Brandon’s body. Marcus tries to get the cop’s name from Liv but she tells him he just wants retribution and this is not a platform for him to be the next great black activist. He tells her her Prada purse costs more than his rent and she doesn’t know anything about the neighborhood he lives in and pretty much throws her career of supporting and getting elected a white republican twice in her face. He ends the conversation telling her that her black card won’t getting validated today so she can say she came to the hood and saved them.
David meets with Fitz and Cyrus who are trying to figure out who can replace Andrew. Fitz has two suggestions but Cyrus thinks their too old but Fitz wants them vetted because he doesn’t want any competition for Mellie who he promised could run after his term ended. Cyrus isn’t too happy about this decision and believes it’s going to be a long uphill battle for her to transition from the First Lady to the president.
The news releases officer Newton’s name to the public (thanks to Marcus leaking it) and Chief Connors panics and wants to clear the streets. Olivia tells him he’ll just make things worse and he needs to do nothing. The Governor Martinez of New Mexico makes a video about Brandon’s death telling Mr. Parker and everyone watching that they do matter. Cyrus thinks he should go with her as a candidate for Vice President.
Olivia brings Mr. Parker a hoagie and he tells her about all of the hopes and dreams he had for his son and the plans he had for his future. He tells her the only way things end is with him dead or locked up because that’s how things go down here. Olivia finds out that Chief Connors has shut down the press so that they can shut down the protesters. She tells him she’s not on their side anymore and goes and joins the protesters.
Huck tells Olivia the police have been sitting on the footage which means the shooting didn’t go down the way they said. She goes to David to try to get his help in getting the footage but David tells her he can’t help her. She tells him she can’t fix this and it’s too much and he tells her that she’s been through too much and shouldn’t be dealing with this issue. She tells him that for a week she thought she was going to die and lived in complete fear. David relents and gives her a supeona for the footage. She shows Mr. Parker the footage and he tells her that he didn’t have a knife on him. They go to turn his body and sees a knife laying under his body. Mr. Parker turns the gun on everyone and tells them that he doesn’t carry a knife. Olivia tries to talks him into lowering his gun and he takes his sit back in the lawn chair protecting his son.
Jake is upset with Huck and Quinn for letting Liv be down at the protest and they tell him it’s Olivia. They watch the footage of the shooting again seeing a shadow in the cop’s car and think that the police were holding the footage to cover something up. Huck and Quinn go down to the protest and show Olivia stills from a banks surveillance camera. The cop had made an arrest an hour before the shooting and the suspect had a knife but it hadn’t been processed and the person was sitting in the back of the cop car during the shooting.
She confronts officer Newton about the shooting but he gets upset. David shows up and is there to question the person he arrested the night before. Newton goes off and gives Olivia a monologue about how “you people” aren’t loyal and he has to go to work everyday and face people who’ve been taught since they were a baby to hate people like him (cops) who are supposed to be there to protect them from themselves. He tells her Brandon is dead because he didn’t respect him and his blood is not on his hands. They arrest him for doctoring evidence.
Olivia gives Mr. Parker what Brandon was reaching for, a receipt, and tells him that the officer who shot his son is behind bars. Mr. Parker leaves his seat protecting his son and Olivia takes him to see the president who gives him his condolences as he finally breaks down over the loss of his son.
Some takeaways…
– This was an emotional episode and I think it was done very well. It could be defined as “filler” since it didn’t really move the main plot along but I think it helped show where everyone is following Liv’s abduction.
– Next episode it looks like those B613 files resurface and a lot of people will have some questions to answer and account for. I don’t know if it will actually happen but if it does that would change everything because those files expose everyone… like everyone. Y’all know I’m always here for some good plot drama.
