Frankly, I thought the season was going to end with him impeached for going to war. But there are a few facts here that could be more precise, like he was given military orders to shoot down the plane, and he didn't actively work to cover it up. And "side slam piece" is a weird, degrading way to talk about Olivia. But…

All good points. I guess for me, I feel like I'm reserving my judgement about whether or not their relationship is toxic for when I see how the it functions with Olivia no longer in the role of "mistress," but in a role of her own choosing. Because I do believe the relationship could only be toxic/hurtful to Olivia…

I read that line, but the subtitle still counts as actual text since it frames the entire recap. I guess I'm not sure why this episode is a D/D- and that episode a little awhile ago that ripped off "The Americans" and did it really incoherently and badly was a C+, or any episode with that god awful auction was a C.…

I don't entirely disagree with your assessment—the episode was marred by all the same logical (usually B613-derived) inconsistencies regardless of which characters are together or apart.

Well, the subtitle "oh, to be back on that island again," would suggest otherwise, but it's still odd to give an episode an F for a line totally non-integral to the plot. This episode wasn't qualitatively worse than any of the 'C' range episodes before it. And, thankfully, instead of just being stuck in the B613 rut…

It's petulant for the recapper to give the episode an 'F' because he disagreed with the romantic pairing that happened in its last thirty seconds, but once everyone calms down and gains some critical distance, maybe it will become clear that this episode accomplished two big things:

Ah, I guess that makes sense. Actually, isn't the Truman balcony where they found bullet holes a few years ago?

About your above question about the plausibility of B613: yeah, no, absolutely nothing makes logical sense about the B613 plot line. Also, I thought there was a law that requires prosecutors to avoid discussing classified government information in a trial, wouldn't that have pertained to the grand jury testimony as…

The show never addressed that Mellie would have needed to have some sort of residency in Virginia—but as long as she had that as well, then she would have been eligible.

Yes, tantrum is such an accurate description.

Good point about the balcony, but its not like the press had pictures of Mellie sitting in her robe eating fried chicken on the balcony either, so I guess we could say the Scandal writers have been consistent in forgetting that detail.

That's really interesting and makes so much sense. It again makes me wonder what exactly is going on in the writers' room of this show.

Yeah, the show ended up ignoring the actual dynamics and huge problems facing women in the military by rushing the plotline along and trying to wrap it all up with a little bow at the end—and part of the problem is they did it in the service of being feminist, but it was actually "bad" feminism in a way. If I'm taking…

Yes It is so helpful to hear the perspective of someone with actual military service brought to bear on this discussion and thank you for your service. The more I think about how the show handled this plot line, the more problematic it becomes. I also have no idea how to understand this show's treatment of violence…

See below—Shonda confirmed it in a tweet.

Yeah, it really makes no sense, but I'm going to quote Shonda Rhimes' tweet from this morning: "Fun Fact: I left the writers room and when I came back, Mellie's Secret Service code name had become Foxtail. Which is a very pretty weed."

Yes, I also had mixed feelings about how the military rape was handled by the show. On the one hand, it's such an important topic for them to cover and in some respects it was a sensitive, bold treatment of it. However, on the other hand, it was too important a topic for them to place in the penultimate episode of the…

Shonda Rhimes confirmed in a tweet that it's Mellie's secret service codename. So apparently it is so. But, yeah, any of the secret service agents could also be B613. What with the coup that happened a few episodes back and was never discussed again.

Yes, it makes no sense. I mean Olivia or someone else at OPA probably would or should have known it was Mellie's secret service name, right?

It's Mellie's secret service codename.