#was never invested in them until s4 came and obviously turned that right the fuck around

[charlieconwayy]

Top 50 OTPs of All Time ☆ #46. Lucas Sinclair & Max Mayfield

"Okay, look. I don't need a letter. I don't want a letter. Just talk to me, to your friends. We're right here. Okay? I'm here."

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Okay start us out with those Magicians Opinions!

the first character i ever fell in love with:  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT QUENTIN COLDWATER.  Okay, but yeah, they really introduced him in a way that worked-worked for me – that whole opening sequence that cuts between Quentin being tense and closed-off and miserable in this hollow, almost angry way in the office of the hospital, and Quentin trying to act normal at a party, making wan jokes while the misery and the anger leaks out of him and makes him just so unpalatable to be around – I mean, Jason Ralph just takes the character by the throat instantly and Goes There.  I remember thinking as I was watching it that this was the first “anxious nerd dude” character I'd ever seen who wasn't being framed as actually funny/weird/charming/vulnerable/the clear audience stand-in, but framed as if he were a real person who's really eaten up by depression and self-loathing, and just as off-putting as that is in real life.  I vividly remember just having that reaction of, “Oh. This is about someone who's really hanging on by his fingernails, not just Hollywood Depressed,” and latching on so hard, because I needed to see that so much, and I needed to root for him to find his reason, not in spite of but because as a character he was resistant to being liked by other people, by the audience. It's not loveable and charming, to hate yourself, to find your life barely tolerable.  It's not a position from which it's easy to see your way forward, and to me Quentin is the most honest expression of that reality that I had ever seen in genre tv.  So like, I get why some people didn't like him in first season – he's intentionally tough to like – but I was ultra-invested from minute one, and literally everything he ever said or did made me love him more.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I think I was kind of intrigued by Fen early on – I liked the idea that she was this naive fairy-tale girl who was going to have this harsh awakening when her Destined Prince turned out to be a real person who couldn't fulfill her fantasies, who was going to have to figure out who she was beyond “going to marry the king someday.”  That seemed like an interesting arc, and here and there they were kind of doing it – I love the realpolitik she occasionally comes out with, particularly that one scene on the boat when she's like, “The dipshits from my hometown are going to execute me because of you, so sticking with you is kind of my only option and that's just happening.”  But then...I don't know, she's really irritating, and they got this weird thing in their heads where her problem is that Eliot sucks, instead of that being The Girl Who Will Marry the King Someday is a sucky role to be forced into making a real life out of, and I just gave up trying to like her eventually.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: I liked Penny/Kady all right, until they started doing the weird thing where “in Doomed Love with Penny” was Kady's only emotional arc, like – they actually had her say that all she ever cared about was being Penny's girlfriend, and that's the kind of thing that kind of retroactively ruins the pairing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: So after everything I said up top – it's actually Eliot.  That snuck up on me!  And my love for Quentin never went away, not by any means, but.  God, Eliot.

prettiest character: If I try to take an objective stance, I'd say it's probably Margo?  Like, she's just unearthly beautiful.  But there's something about Jason Ralph's goddamn face that – I don't know, it just enthralls me; he does okay-ish at playing Normal-Looking for TV, but also if I look at him for too long it kind of hurts, he's so stupidly gorgeous.

my most hated character: Hyman.  And I thought we were supposed to hate Hyman, but then season 5 allegedly happened, and everyone was like, aw, Hyman's okay!  But – no he's not?  He's obviously not okay? He deeply sucks?  Ugh, season 5.

my OTP: Hi, I'm Milo, and welcome to my Tumblr.  But yeah, it's Quentin/Eliot, canonical soulmates and The Ditch I Will Die In.

my NOTP: You know, they kind of wore me down to the point of “fine, what the fuck ever,” but I still don't support Margo/Josh.  It's bad, it's a bad relationship, it was a bad idea.

favorite episode: I really love Be the Penny, but the actual answer is Escape From the Happy Place.  I feel allegiance to Be the Penny, I have not a negative word to say about it, but Escape from the Happy Place is just a level beyond, it's astonishingly good.

saddest death: This question is a microaggression and I will not stand for it.

favorite season: I'm about to break your brain, but – it's 4!  It's season 4!  I fucking love the first ten episodes of s4!  I love the Monster, I love Bad News Bear, I love Hard Glossy Armor, I love fucking Santa Claus.  I think s4 has this great propulsive energy where the rest of the series has always been plagued by a tendency to kind of throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks, the stakes are clear, the external villain and the emotional stuff work together for once, everyone's performances are so strong.  The collapse at the end feels so appalling to me in part because I was totally on the ride for most of the season.

least favorite season: I mean, it's season 5, but it didn't have to be.  I was never going to get over Quentin's death, per se, but I think there were ways to structure the next season that would've been workable, and honestly there are things about s5 that I do like.  I watched most of 5 feeling like it was – messy, but messy in the same way that s2 was messy, the same way The Magicians has always been a little messy, and it wasn't until the end when I really just threw up my hands and was like, okay, I get it, there was never a plan, none of this was going anywhere.  God, the last couple of episodes still frustrate me so much, because right up until that point, there was still time to salvage a lot of character work, but nope!

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: So I don't hate her, and in fact I came to kind of like her eventually, but I did actively hate Julia for a long, long time.  Just.  Like, she really – pushes my buttons in a very specific way, and if she were a real person I would absolutely love myself by having as little contact as possible with Julia, but because everyone except me loves her so much, I really kind of forced myself to delve into her and try to see what people liked about her, and I do think it was a pretty successful project.  I would definitely say at this point that I appreciate Julia as a character, and I have a pretty good sense of what Stuff she activates in me that produces that ruffled reaction, which has allowed me to go beyond Julia Sucks Actually to This Character Is Not Really For Me.  I love and support the 98% of fandom who like Julia!  In my way, I love and support Julia!  But kind of like – a sibling you're sort of forced to into a relationship with, that you love even though they drive you crazy and you're not too sure you will really ever like them.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: The Monster.  I mean, it's not that I wanted a redemption arc for him or anything (although @portraitofemmy has always been onto something with the idea that if the Monster is essentially a child, allowing Quentin to save the world by parenting him would've been a pretty clever payoff for long-term arcs), he's just the kind of villain that is just endlessly fun to watch.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: I mean, that's a pretty succinct summary of the entire Eliot Waugh Experience.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: With the caveat that I still don't believe in guilt because these are just imaginary people in imaginary stories, I definitely still think there's a great romantic tragedy right there for the taking with Eliot/Seb.  I wouldn't say the show should have done it, because that would obviously have been just a very different direction than they intended to go, but as a non-canonical ship, I think it's so potentially rich, and someday I'm going to have time to go back to that story I was writing about them, whether or not anyone else ever gives a shit about it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I never could figure out what people's issue was with Julia/Penny23, they seemed to make each other happy.  He was a sweet, supportive dude, and I like their little Wild Thornberrys Interdimensional Adventurers family at the end, although I wish they'd done it on purpose, because “guess what life-changing thing is happening to Julia's body without her consent this week!” was not a well the writers needed to go back to, in my opinion.  But I like the idea that Julia ends up with a good guy and a magic kid and is off doing quests and shit, the whole shebang, I thought that was a nice ending.  For whatever that's worth, and I imagine that from the perspective of a real Julia fan, my opinion at this point is not worth much!

[safflowerseason]

Anonymous Asked

(post #5 in the “Tumblr ate my asks” series)

“No pressure if you're short on time since I know there's a lot to say about it, but I would love to hear your thoughts on the relationship between Amy and Selina”

Hi Anon - you sent this in weeks and weeks ago, and I’m sorry it took me ages to get around to it! But the question has been on my mind recently as I’m rewatching S3 and writing the next chapter of BMTL. 

What I find kind of interesting and frustrating about Selina and Amy’s relationship as presented on the show is that it’s a bit opaque compared to Selina’s other relationships (or Amy's with Dan, her other primary emotional foil on the show). We know virtually nothing about how Amy came to work for Selina (other than that she must have been quite young) or what she did that made her so invaluable; the most evident dimension of their connection—the fact that they are two women in a heavily male-dominated workspace—is never addressed explicitly by the writers. From the very beginning of the series, Amy has to try and defend her close relationship with Selina, but since we didn’t see how they became so close…to me, it always feels a little like there is something missing, in the way their connection is laid out.

I think the pilot actually works well as a kind of microcosm of Selina and Amy’s dynamic as it plays out through the Iannucci years of the show. Amy is presented as Selina’s right-hand woman; Selina clearly regards her as the smartest person on her team and has some measure of her respect for her that she doesn’t have for, say, Mike. But by the end of the pilot, she’s also gone over Amy’s express recommendation (hiring Dan) and has no objection to Amy performing a humiliating and sexist task (go on a date with Jonah in exchange for fixing the card situation). This is the dynamic that plays out through S4—Selina turns to Amy last and often only when she feels she’s truly backed into a corner and/or can’t discuss a particular issue with the men on her team. There is something very intimate about this kind of relationship, of course, and it’s drawn in deeply emotional terms. But in exchange for this particular kind of political intimacy, Amy has to fake a miscarriage, flush Selina’s toilet, get picked last for campaign manager (and only after she sabotages Dan and thus the very campaign she wants to run), and essentially watch Selina make increasingly bad political decisions based on advice from her current favorites while ignoring whatever Amy tells her. And one might say the tragedy of Amy’s character is that she endures these indignities not because she’ll get fired if she doesn’t do them (although that is literally true in some cases), but because she clearly derives a lot of her personal and professional self-worth from doing Selina’s dirty work. To a certain degree, and in face of stark evidence to the contrary, Amy believes that her willingness to do these things means that Selina values her the most of all. 

That all sounds a bit darker than I mean it to. Of course Amy does experience small moments of genuine triumph under Selina, and she obviously wrestles with the uneven terms of their relationship during the first four seasons of the show—she thinks about jumping ship in S2, we see it dawn on her in S3 that Selina is basically her entire life in a way that probably isn’t healthy, she goes through phases of trying to develop some kind of life outside her work. Her own personal ambition is also a huge part of what’s going on. She’s very invested in the idea of being the managing force behind the first female Vice President (and President) and that helps her put up with Selina's most infuriating qualities as a politician. And of course, she does ultimately quit mid-way through S4, as she comes into this realization that she got her chosen horse into the White House and it’s a fucking disaster. 

As for Selina’s side in all this…this is where the opacity of their relationship really features for me. I admit, I don’t quite understand viewers who talk about Iannucci-Selina as if she is Amy’s endlessly supportive older gal pal. Selina says more nice things about Gary in the early seasons of the show than she does about Amy. Yes, she obviously sees Amy as someone who can perform a certain kind of emotional labor for her and she relies on her greatly for that. Selina is very isolated emotionally, and I think Amy’s presence in her entourage as a young woman who is personally and professionally devoted to her is very reassuring to her, even if she doesn’t really realize it until after Amy leaves. This is something @thebookofmaev pointed out to me and I think it's quite telling: Selina reacts to Amy’s resignation in S4 by arranging “girls night” with her old law school friends, which she obviously finds excruciating. It’s significant to me that Selina is trying to fill an emotional hole, rather than a political one. While it’s obvious Selina generally prefers the company of men, there is something in her relationship with Amy that I think she finds very uncomplicated and soothing in a way she doesn’t find any other relationship on the show. She needs Amy for the moments of emotional extremity that Ben can’t handle. But considering how she treats Amy outside of those few moments, it's hard for me to view the relationship as one between genuine equals (not to mention the literal power imbalance between them). She needs Amy when she needs her and there’s no space for anything else in their relationship. 

Amy returns to Selina in the S4 finale and it’s clearly a deeply psychological impulse more than anything else, more to do with herself than Selina, I would argue. It’s one of Amy’s most honest moments in the whole show—she can’t not be there after spending so much of her life invested in getting Selina elected. Selina collapses in her arms and wails that she should never have left and it’s genuinely moving and borderline romantic…and then she tells her supporters at the election rally that Amy took time away because she had a mental breakdown. Plus ça change. 

Unfortunately, we can’t know what Iannucci had planned for Amy and Selina…I suspect we would have seen a few more “break-ups” in their relationship as it became increasingly unstable, and Amy would continue to wrestle with the costs of remaining within Selina’s orbit. Obviously (as a Dan/Amy shipper, haha) I think Dan would have been part of that journey for her…S4 is pretty explicit (in my opinion) about the fact that Dan now officially occupies the third point of the triangle between Selina, Amy, and some semblance of a life, not to mention the fact that the Dan/Amy/Selina triangle is a major structural anchor of the show in its own right. 

Of course, one of the greatest objections fans had to Mandel as a showrunner was his approach to Amy and Selina’s relationship, largely driven by Selina’s transformation into the ultimate mysogynist. I don’t agree with this interpretation of Selina, but I do think the deterioriation of Amy and Selina’s relationship is very plausible even under Iannucci. Amy has to leave Selina at some point, like most strategists move on from their bosses if they want to remain politically relevant. But Selina's attachment to Amy is primarily emotional and not political, and Amy permanently moving on from her would be a bitter pill for her to swallow…she clearly views Dan and Amy at PKM as non-WH extensions of her staff, but Amy leaving to work for another politician, especially a female one, would be unbearable for her. Similarly, I do not think any version of Selina would react well to the news that Amy was going to have a baby. We can’t know if this was a sure thing in the Iannucci Veep universe, obviously, but considering how she reacts to Mike potentially becoming a father…I just can’t see Selina embracing the fact that someone else is going to have a superior claim on Amy’s time and energy. (But I also don’t think Iannucci-Selina would ever order Amy to have an abortion, of course.) 

My fic, Bring Me to Light, is exploring this theme to a certain degree. It imagines a future in which Amy has fully invested in a life outside of Selina, and when her old boss makes a reappearance, Amy struggles with old professional demons (and of course, because I’m the author, she has to reckon with Selina and Dan’s separate professional relationship as well 😈)

Well, this turned into quite an essay, so I’ll stop there. You’re right, Anon—there’s so much to say!

[katrinapavela]

Rowan is connected to Liv’s Kidnapping and Fitz’s Attempted Assassination?: A Theory

NB: I just wanted to post two excerpts from things I’ve written in the past. I have been holding on to the belief that Rowan is connected to both Olivia’s kidnapping and Fitz’s attempted assassination. Since S4.  With the new Mystery Woman, it seems like some of this may be relevant again. IDK.

Anyway, the  excerpts after the jump are taken from 

Scandal Season 4 Theory that’s Probably Wrong, but Still Entertaining to Me… (30th April, 2015)

The Madness of Queen Liv: #Scandal 517 Reflections (13th April, 2016)

S4:

“I’ve discussed some of these ideas with a few people and thought I’d just write them down. Yes, I’m well aware that this is written with Olitz lenses. It’s just me thinking, and most of it is probably wrong (which I’m used to), but here goes…

If Rowan is connected to Liv’s kidnapping, then… my dissatisfaction begin to make sense.

The Logistics:

How could Andrew, the VP, have the entire Secret Service replaced? How does he know ex-Special OPs guys like Ian? Sure, Andrew had motive to have Fitz trussed up by the proverbial balls for the tenure of his presidency, but why was he so adamant that Olivia remain unharmed (411)? Andrew has absolutely no investment in her physical well-being, nor do I think he was just being kind-hearted all of a sudden. How could Rowan, a man that has claimed to have done everything in his life for Olivia (407), refuse to lift a finger when Jake came to him for help(413)? He said he had no daughter. Six episodes later, he’s a papa who’s proud of his “girl” because she stopped “shining” Fitz’s shoes and is “standing on [her] own” (419)?

But then I remember that Rowan knows Special Ops and Black Ops guys. After all, he ordered Fitz to shoot down a commercial airplane in a Black Ops mission (307). Rowan had already infiltrated Secret Service with B6-13 agents (Tom) in order to keep abreast of White House goings-ons (312). So, replacing the entire team: easy.  And the only person who has ever proffered Olivia’s physical safety to the detriment of her psychological, and emotional well-being, is Rowan. But why? How could he do that to his daughter?

Actually, this is exactly the kind of thing he’s perpetrated against Olivia for years. All done to toughen her up into some kind of steely, strong black woman archetype, that is only ever subservient one thing: his black patriarchal authority. This authority, she is told over and over again, is for her protection. This is the man who let his 12 year old believe her mother was dead, while he locked that mother away in isolation for her crime, and never let her see any evidence of her daughter’s development. Not even a fucking news clipping (not until she chewed through her own wrists (308)).  He never let that daughter come back home; he sent her away (301). Sure, she received the finest education and learned a bunch of languages that have come in handy, but she is not OK. Rowan is the guy who, when Olivia was set to see Fitz again after a painful 10 month breakup (post-defiance), had his double agent, Jake Ballard, conveniently intervene in his daughter’s life. Why? To occupy her mind before she was set to see Fitz as Ella’s christening. I guess he didn’t plan on them fucking in a server closet. Woops. He sent his guy in to sleep with Olivia (405 admission), then had that evidence presented to Fitz. The purpose? A misogynistic belief that Fitz sees Olivia as his property, and since the property has been “defiled” (310) by another man, Fitz would no longer care for that property. Russell is yet another toy for Olivia to play with, and another means for extracting information in order to stay ahead of her. Rowan is also the guy who allowed his daughter’s name to be leaked by his own B6-13 agent, Tom, (301), when he obviously had the power to quash it. Why? Because it would conveniently allow him to get Olivia away from that “disappointing” (310) Fitzgerald Grant. He insisted that she would get on that plane “come hell or high water” (301). Seventeen episodes later, Olivia was checkmated into doing so (318). Bonus points for allowing her to think it was of her own volition. Lastly, Rowan is the guy who killed Fitz’s son for a dual purpose. Doing so gave his daughter another achievement under her belt because Fitz won; and it drove–what he hoped would be–a permanent wedge between them. “What love could survive that” (405), he said, as he built a rationale for the framing of Jake Ballard for his (Rowan’s) own crime.

In light of all of that, kidnapping and war actually fit perfectly with Rowan’s MO.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the kidnapping plan was  put in place the moment Liv returned to DC. Rowan told her he didn’t tell her she could leave (401)). This return to B6-13 and Rowan would make sense to me if Rowan is tied into the kidnapping. Otherwise, episodes 410-413 feel like a bizarre sweeps attempt. 

Olivia is not a woman who reaches for personal help. For her career, sure. In some ways, Olivia can’t make a full emotional recovery while instituting a Cold War with Fitz. That coldness and anger are taxing on the body and mind because they take work to maintain. But it’s a sacrifice to freedom and justice. Olivia cannot be the woman she wants to be, or command control of her life while Rowan remains free to inflict all manner of violence and abuse in her name.  She cannot fully recover, or have anything with Fitz (the person who knows her best on an emotional level), while Rowan remains unpunished. He will destroy it.  If the kidnapping is any indication, he will truly stop at nothing to make Olivia into the woman he thinks she should be. Whoever that woman is supposed to be, she isn’t to be with someone Rowan finds threatening. And Fitz is threatening because he represents actual love. Something Olivia wants, yet fears. She fears it more than the actual fear and terror her father inflicts. 

From 517:

“Lastly, the killing of Andrew has an obvious parallel with the attempted assassination of Fitz. The promo for the episode shows clips from 207/208 and 409/410 to explicitly link the two. Fitz took three bullets on Verna’s orders, but managed to survive. Verna then had the unmitigated gall to blame Fitz for the fact that she and others were “made” to love him, and therefore commit crimes in his name. It had nothing whatsoever to do with their own ambitions, which depended on Fitz’s office. Besides being an unsatisfactory answer, Verna’s reason sounds awfully reminiscent of the shit Cyrus, Mellie, and now Olivia (with Abby) have used to justify their actions. Fitz is to blame for everything they do behind his back, despite the fact that they would likely do it for anyone holding that office. Anyone who trusted them enough.  

Verna tries to upend who Fitz had imagined he was, playing on the insecurities his abusive father drilled in his head—he’ll never be good enough (213). Andrew, too, used very similar trigger buttons we’ve heard Rowan use in the past toward Olivia (301, 305, 409, 419). Discovering that the cabal of Defiance included Olivia, Fitz quickens Verna’s descent to hell. The act protects his legacy as well as the DC5 from jail, with Olivia’s being the most important freedom to protect from among the five collaborators. Here, too, Andrew blames Olivia for destroying his life though he was the one coordinating her attempted destruction through Special Ops forces (very similar to Verna with ex-B613 member, “Becky”). What is different in Olivia’s case with Andrew is that his destruction had everything to do with Olivia and no one else, not even her candidate, Mellie—though I bet she would like to imagine otherwise. By going to war, Fitz asserted that Olivia’s black life mattered to him. Now Olivia, with a metal chair that recalls the chair laid over the body of Brandon Parker by his father (414, h/t @Janekas, Twitter), asserts for herself that her black life does matter, contrary to Andrew’s words.

The Rowan Factor

I have talked around what, to me, has seemed obvious since the second half of season 4: Rowan must be connected to Olivia’s kidnapping; Andrew’s resurgence; and the attempted assassination on Fitz. There are clues in this episode that intimate Rowan’s connection, and we see symbolic representations manifested in Olivia’s memory and PTSD episodes. Those things are: the color red (pyjamas and red doors—kidnapping and Rowan’s door); the record player and records Rowan brought to her in an attempt to recall happy childhood memories (when he still believed she was his progeny?); the song playing as she attempted to shrug her father off through dance; and the spilling of the red wine (his influence on her (302). Rowan, a unisex name, means “little red one” (h/t @teawaldo​). The record player is nostalgia, but also spins ‘round and round in circles (Olivia’s direction since Rowan re-appeared in her life). And the spilling of wine indicates both blood and sacrifice (h/t @vvhallom​). Rowan is her blood and her kidnapping is a sacrifice for her greatness. You see, the kidnapping was meant to break Olivia, cause irrevocable strife between her and Fitz (who wants to be used as a pawn in a dick swinging contest?). Moreover, she was to turn cold, angry, selfish, and replace the power of love with the power of …power, one that served her instead of  “shined [Fitz’s] shoes” (419). When she couldn’t make it work in an honest way with Fitz (how could she, having paid no attention to her mental health), she defaulted right back to this position.

I know what you’re thinking: Kat, this is a bit much. You’re biased because you have never appreciated Rowan, so you want to blame him for everything. Besides, the writers aren’t smart enough to link all these things. This theory is a little out there. I also admit that, though I love Joe Morton and think Rowan is actually a great character because he stirs so much emotion in me, I cannot stand Rowan as Olivia’s father. He does not behave toward her as a father should, and never has. It  has pained me so much that outfits like Afterbuzz, other outlets, and otherwise ‘woke’ people on  Twitter have praised this man as some ‘strong black father’ figure whose abuse is seen as ‘tough love’. Get the entire fuck out of here. That kind of thinking comes from people who have justified abuse from family members in their own lives because of the shame associated with victims of abuse in our society. This is especially the case for those who don’t have physical scars to show for it. As someone who has been through emotional manipulation by a parent at various points in her life; early abandonment by her father; physical abandonment by her mother at the age of 12 due to prison, and had to eventually seek therapy years later for suppressing the effects of all of that, I know what the fuck I am talking about, even if I am biased.

Furthermore, we see Olivia doing the exact same justifications as a victim of abuse, including her repeated association with the dirty bathroom that is Jake Ballard, when she is lost. They are siblings of Rowan’s abuse, who have repeated those patterns with each other in addiction. This is why Jake is both terrible for her and also the reason why she keeps going back to him. A healthy Olivia Pope wouldn’t’ give this man the time of day. If you don’t believe our society’s penchant for blaming victims and defining them as “dumb”, look no further than to some of Scandal’s fans. Don’t say but, but, it’s the show runner who is writing Olivia as dumb because she doesn’t respect her own character enough. That’s not what my eyes see. I see a show-runner using the novelistic tradition of show-don’t-tell to portray a story about a woman trying to define herself against the struggles of various forces of patriarchy (including racism and misogynoir—all descendants of white patriarchal supremacy) wielded against her, and the influences of her own emotionally deprived upbringing.  Olivia may be brilliant, bold and beautiful, but she is still a Mis-educated Negress in America trying to find her way.  

Back to the Rowan factor. As I have mentioned before, the people who supposedly coordinated Olivia’s kidnapping (Andrew) and Fitz’s assassination (Verna) both used either Special Ops forces or ex-B6-13 members. Neither Andrew, nor Verna have cause to be associated with such people, but Rowan does. The level of coordination it took behind the scenes for both these events far-outweighed the capabilities of Andrew (a second rate politician) and Verna (the old lady judge). They didn’t have the pull. And if Rowan is as omnipotent and omniscient as he portrays himself to be, none of this could have taken place without his knowledge. Never forget that he allowed his own agent (Tom) to out Olivia’s name as Fitz’s mistress when he had the power to stop it. But he didn’t because letting Fitz out her, via, Tom (301) served Rowan’s agenda. Underneath it all, the aim of both these events was to break the emotional connection Olivia formed with Fitz.

“No family. That’s the first rule… No families, no connections. No sun on the horizon. Nothing to wish for. You’re now the property of the United States government, division B6-13… You come to work at acme limited. You fake-sell fake paper, and you run the world in a way that no one even imagines exists in real life, and then, little by little, you’ve been places… And you’ve done things, and there’s been so much blood. This becomes your home. This becomes your family. And you can’t imagine any other life” (Jake, 313).

Does the above not sound pretty much like the path Olivia has been on for the last three seasons, courtesy of the man who developed that ethos? Rowan essentially sees himself as power; the one who makes democracy possible (301). Three ex-B6-13 guys, over three seasons, have told Olivia, more or less, that she’s been treated by Rowan as a B6-13 agent: Jake (317), Tom (407), and Huck (512). She’s been in denial every time that Rowan was a father who would always love his ‘baby girl’, no matter what she did, no matter how many times she tried to shut him down, or walk away from him (304, 317, 405, 512). Contrast that with someone else to whom she’s done similar things, but, perhaps, lost hope that he could possibly still love her. Right.

With this justified homicide of Andrew on top of killing one of her previous kidnappers, letting the murderer of her lover’s son out of jail (506), aborting the only real shot at family she’s ever had (509), compelling the suicide of an innocent man (516), Olivia has now “done things” from which she, perhaps, doubts she can’t turn back. And to which “family” does she turn in the end, once she’s become a monster? Think about who encouraged her it was the only answer. And why would Andrew have any incentive right now to raise Fitz’s going to war for Olivia? Could it have anything to do with Fitz’s recent tentative involvement in Olivia’s life? Think about it. Andrew already blamed Olivia for his demise (it was her goon (Huck) who injected him with stroke medication (413)), and he’s wanted to tank Mellie’s political run since 412. He could have achieved that with the story Abby came up with—“Mellie Grant: One Affair, Many Lies” (lol). That leads me to Lillian. Why her? Recall that in 512 there was a leaked photo of Lillian in the WH parking lot after a tryst. Who has the incentive and the planted eyes (::cough:: Jake as NSA head ::cough) to get that photo? But Lillian is not just an ambitious, Pulitzer-winning journalist (511), she’s also thirsty in more ways than one, and has the connection to Fitzgerald to exploit. I’m just saying, this is all a little too convenient and smells of Rowan. He uses people who have grudges. All of this allows him to let the Republicans destroy themselves while he and his black Democrat, Edison, pop their collars.

I’ve worked hard to repair my relationship with both parents, but they put in work, too, and actually had real love for me. Because I think Rowan wears a parental mask and is not actually Olivia’s father (how could he treat her as he does?), I think he’s incapable of having an equitable relationship with Olivia wherein he can’t play Zeus with her puppet strings. That’s not a father. Rowan has always been more invested in the idea of “the formidable Olivia Pope” (310), than he has been in the actual woman. Hopefully, somewhere inside Olivia she can still imagine another life that bridges the gap between her current reality and her indulgent Vermont fantasy (410).