Can Olivia Pope Redeem Herself On ‘Scandal’?

Did you ever think you’d see someone murder a disabled person on network television—in graphic detail—by bludgeoning them over the head with a chair? If not, you clearly haven’t spent much time in Shondaland, where just about anything can (and will!) happen. This particularly, um, unique death just happened on Scandal; the perpetrator was —SPOILER ALERT! — the supposed heroine of the show, Olivia Pope. But wait, let’s back up for a minute and get the background on the highly shocking scene.

Remember that time Olivia (Kerry Washington) was kidnapped, put up for auction on the black market, and, in order to save her, Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) declared war? And then Andrew Nichols (Jon Tenney), the then Vice President, was discovered to be behind the whole thing? And then Huck (Guillermo Díaz) made Andrew have a stroke as retribution for hurting Olivia? Yeah, it was a cray-cray time in Scandal-land. Well all of those plot points made a rapid reappearance in, the appropriate titled episode, “Thwack!” with the reappearance of Andrew Nichols himself.

Andrew, who is still recovering from his stroke and confined to a wheelchair, decides that it’s time for the world to know about Fitz going to war for his mistress, Mellie’s ongoing sexual relationship with Andrew himself, and every other secret he may hold. This is not okay with Olivia and, after trying to make a deal with Andrew multiple times to keep his intel under wraps and after Abby goes behind Olivia’s back to make a deal on behalf of the President, Liv puts on her thinking cap and gives it one more go. She visits Andrew is the super secret underground tunnels of the White House and tells him, “I’m sure it felt good, Abby convincing you that you could somehow rectify your terrible condition. She knows how helpless you are and she found a way to exploit that. Good for her! She probably learned that from me.”

This is the bad-ass, sass filled Olivia that viewers have come to know and love. She doesn’t let anyone walk all over her—not the President, not her dad, and certainly not Andrew Nichols. Her usual strength comes crashing down, however, the moment that Andrew starts talking about her kidnapping in a glib way and causes her to be faced with flashbacks of that trying time. In between Andrew saying things like, “Do you talk this much in bed? Are you this chatty on your hands and knees? Does that big mouth or yours work as hard as it does right now,” shots of Olivia’s hands gripping a chair tighter and tighter, and the Viewer Discretion Advised warning ABC issued at the top of the episode viewers knew things were about to get real.

And get real they did, with a highly graphic scene of Olivia bludgeoning a man in a wheelchair over the head with a chair…repeatedly. Though I couldn’t force myself to watch the whole scene (So. Much. Blood.) the truly disturbing moment came after the murder in the form of Olivia being eerily calm and accepting of the heinous act she just committed.

The A.V. Club gave the episode an F with the headline, “Scandal Just Impaled On Itself” and argued that the audience has no reason to root for Olivia anymore. While I myself thought that initially, seeing a disabled man be murdered would seem pretty unforgivable after all, upon further thinking I do think redemption is possible for Olivia.

When the show began, Olivia was a powerful fixer in D.C. who was involved in an obsessive and unhealthy relationship with the married President. Throughout the last few seasons, she has become independent of that; it’s no longer a show about a will they won’t they relationship and no longer tries to answer the question “is adultery ever okay?” Instead it is a show about a highly flawed woman who makes no apologies for who she is, doesn’t need a man to get by, and who will do anything (literally, anything) for people she cares about.

While murdering a man in cold blood is obviously wrong and awful, Olivia was pushed there due to his actions (He kidnapped her! He auctioned her off to terrorists!) and simply reached her breaking point. Is that really so hard to imagine? Everything in your life is going wrong, everything you’ve worked for is being threatened, and everyone you care about is on the chopping block; who’s to say what anyone would do when faced with that kind of pressure. This doesn’t make murder okay. It doesn’t give Olivia a pass. It’s not a justification. It’s, quite simply, a flawed character, a flawed human, and the depiction of a woman who constantly has prove she’s strong succumbing to weakness one (really bad, truly awful) time.

The act of the murder itself can be explained a little, but the unaffected behavior Olivia displays afterwards is harder to understand. Luckily for the future of Olivia’s character, in a sneak peak of next week’s episode (which you can watch below), Olivia is seen in what appears to be her childhood bedroom in a semi-catatonic state with Jake (the semi-corrupt head of the NSA) and her father (the ex-head of a secret government killing organization) taking care of her. Though those two people seem like the last two people that Olivia should be around, the fact that Olivia clearly feels some sort of remorse or regret is enough to make me believe that viewers will soon again see Olivia as she was intended. An Olivia that is strong, unafraid, and doesn’t (have to) make apologies for who she is or the actions she takes.

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