SPOILER ALERT! (stop reading if you don’t want to know what happens in this episode)
David’s conflicted on his relationship situation, Cyrus has some competition on his own campaign team and Liv is close to finding out just what Jake and Rowan are up to. It’s all in the recap below!
During prep VP Susan is killing it and Abby even tries to recruit Liv but she tells her she fully supports Mellie. Liv meets with Edison to confirm if he plans to run for president and he tells her he does. She tells him he’ll be a great candidate and wishes him luck.
David stops by Abby’s office for advice on what he should do two women he’s seeing. He leaves out the fact that the two women he’s juggling are Susan and Elizabeth. He tells her it’s disrupting his work and he asks her to help him choose but she kicks him out.
Liz pulls David and Susan aside and tells them that they need to go public with their relationship. David agrees to go up on stage with her at the debate.
Cyrus is experiencing a little competition with Vargas brother Alex who tries to take over the running of his campaign. Cyrus brings it up to Vargas but he asks hi if he has a problem with his brother and Cyrus tells him he doesn’t.
Mellie hears the feedback from the focus group and its not good. Liv tells her she needs to pretty much dumb it down. Mellie isn’t initially for this but she reluctantly agrees.
Susan stops by Abby’s office and sees David’s notebook. She asks about it and Abby tells her he usually stops by complaining about juggling his women. This throws Sally off and she ends up off her game during prep.
Alex stops by OPA with dirt on Sally in exchange for dirt on Edison. She tells him she doesn’t play dirty but he tells he gives her his number anyway. Liv has Huck look into Alex’s background and they find out that they’ve won every campaign by playing dirty.
They decide they need to put Mellie in the public eye sending her to Gettysburger with a trail of cameras to show she’s a people person. She makes a big blunder saying she goes every Sunday but the chain is closed on Sundays. She gets torn to shreds on the news and Mellie gets pissed telling Liv she needs to fix it.
Liv goes to Rowan and asks him if she should take the dirt on Susan. She realizes he will say she should and pretty much tells him she’s there asking for permission. Rowan tells her that Edison has been nothing but nice to her and if she traded dirt this would be her hurting someone close to her. He tells her the reason Mellie imploded was because she was trying to make her into something she wasn’t and he doesn’t want to see her make the same mistake for herself.
After not getting much information from surveillance on Jake Quinn poses as one of Vanessa’s old acquaintances to get info from her. Quinn has lunch with Vanessa who tells her she had to hand over pretty much everything for a background check due to his position. Quinn goes back to Liv and tells her that they’re using Vanessa for her bank accounts. They cloned her accounts to fund a superpack for Edison.
Liv goes to Edison and tells him that she thinks her father is secretly funding his campaign and he doesn’t want to do any favors for him. He tells her he pretty much already working with Rowan and she tells him he doesn’t want to get in bed with him but he tells her that he’s getting into bed with a monster’s father.
Fitz checks on Susan and she asks him why he cheated on his wife and why anyone would cheat. She tells him she doesn’t want to be one of the stupid woman who doesn’t want to believe they’re being cheated on. He tells her people cheat for a reason and if she thinks she’s being cheated on she probably is.
Liv interrupts Jake’s dinner with Vanessa pulling him into the bathroom and starts kissing him. He stops her and tells her Vanessa is outside but she tells him she knows he’s using her accounts to fund Edison’s superpack. She tells him to tell her father that whatever game they’re playing she will win.
Hollis takes the lead in the polls securing the center podium. Backstage Sally is freaking out because she doesn’t have notes. David finds Susan outside smoking and she tells him she’s dumping him. He asks her why and she asks him if she really needs to ask him again. He tells her that he ended it and he loves her but she tells him what he needs to do is join him onstage after the debate since Liz already told the press. She tells Liz that she broke up with David but she doesn’t know with who. Susan starts crying and hugs Liz because she thinks she cares after calling David an ass.
Mellie asks Liv what the plan is and she tells her not to worry she’s got things covered and everything will be fine. Liv meets with Alex and they exchange dirt on Susan and Edison which includes his stint in a rehab facility for an addiction to painkillers. The candidates take the stage and we end with Sally telling them it’s time to begin.
Some takeaways…
- So something is clearly going on between Tom and Cyrus which is beyond weird. First of all I never saw that coming from previous seasons. I suspected it earlier the second half of the season due to some of the scenes they had together. Now that it’s pretty much out there I’m not quite sure how I feel about it.
- Things are about to get very messy. We got whatever secrets Liv got from Alex, Rowan and Jake pulling the strings with Edison and Alex taking Cyrus place on the Vargas campaign team.
- Next week is the debate so I’m expecting a few blowups. Not quite sure if it will span the entire episode or five minutes, but it should definitely be interesting.
Which candidate are you rooting for? Let me know below and on Twitter!
