Right, but since the writers are obsessed with him, I doubt they'll kill him. It better not be that they are going to try to portray him as vulnerable and hope we magically forget how horrible he is, how many people he has murdered for sport, and how much his character's plotline has ruined the show.

I agree with much of what you are saying; the thing is, I think *the show* is conflating Mellie and Olivia's views of the White House. I think the show is insisting that living in the White House/being First Lady=Prison (which has a legitimate point, but also reduces the role to hostessing and picking out china…

I agree with the "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't" idea— although, Olivia's choice to either marry Fitz when she wasn't ready or release Rowan from prison also had some of that same structure to it. I'm torn—on the one hand, I think he denied her agency in an important decision, on the other hand, there's a…

I feel like I need to see more to understand that last moment and if it amounts to malicious punishment and revenge for a crime committed, or benevolent abduction and Fitz losing it, or something else. I think we agree that he denied her agency in making that decision, although I tend to read it as she made a…

Yeah, none of it makes sense. I think they either are pushing some ridiculous narrative that Rowan is "not the bad guy now" because he's afraid, or Rowan is, as per usual, completely manipulating Olivia to get whatever he needs and wants. And now, against all reason and continuity, we have to watch Olivia protect and…

The issue is that Jake walks around pronouncing himself a good guy. Hearing him say to Olivia "I'm too good for you" was just too much. And the problem is the show and media seem to endorse that view of Jake. NY Mag ran an article about rooting for the "good guy" on TV and advanced Jake as one of their prime examples…

I'm inclined to agree with your distinction between a betrayal and a denial of agency, although I'm interested in the gender politics behind not seeing what Olivia and Mellie did as a denial of his agency. They colluded to forge his signature which certainly used or usurped his agency or identity in a specific…

I guess some of this boils down to: Olivia made a unilateral decision that hurt him, so did Fitz respond by making a unilateral decision that hurt her—she cut him out of a decision, so he cut her out of a decision? And what are the underlying gender politics of each of their decisions that perhaps makes one look worse…

I completely agree. The impeachment plotline could have been so good; I can't believe they ended it so soon. What's worse is clearly the writers think of interesting plotlines like "Dog Whistle Politics" and impeachment as mere filler on the way towards the plotline they really want to explore—freaking Rowan and B613.…

Whoa, that person is genius; the audio is so clear. Thanks for posting about it. Hmmm. I understand why they put the music over it. I don't get why Olivia says she did it because people were trying to kill Rowan—I mean we know that wasn't really why she did it. They also probably didn't want the audio there because it…

So, does anyone who is really good at lip reading understand what Olivia says in the interrogation room scene? I was able to understand her first sentence: "He was going to die." Meaning Rowan?

I see what you are saying. I guess there are two separate issues: 1) was what Fitz did "sinister" either because he was punishing her for what she did or because he wanted revenge or because he had sort of lost it and snapped, and 2) Even if he had forgiven her and was just trying to protect her from everyone who puts…

I don't think that Fitz had been looking for a reason to lock Olivia up and was relieved to finally have one. What he actually wanted was to marry her and he was happy with her essentially being co-president. He doesn't have a problem with her power; he trusts her opinions and advice above that of anyone else. Olivia,…

Since everyone is terrible—including Jake—hearing him say that he was "too good" for Olivia when he's given her a concussion, choked her, threatened to kill her, and called her a plague was disturbing.

I'm somewhat surprised that people have interpreted his monologue as one that revealed the full truth about the inner workings of Olivia Pope. There are a lot of fairly hateful things being said about her both on this board and others.

—Is powerful the same as "power hungry"?
—What if it was Mellie that someone yelled at to sit down to mansplain to her about how "entitled" she is?
—Is Jake really right that Olivia is "a plague"?
—Does anyone remember the episode "Dog-Whistle Politics"?

Mellie's drinking was also a problem—that's why they put the ice tea in the decanters. It was in the period of grief following Jerry's death.

Jake was wrong—Olivia hasn't claimed to wear the white hat for a long time now, so I don't think she needed that (drunkenly and degradingly) mansplained to her by someone who had broken into her apartment, screamed at her to sit down, and refused to leave when she asked. Also, he found a way to subtly justify all his…

So Olivia's "true" self is that she is a "plague" and she "spreads like a plague," as Jake put it? He wasn't just identifying truths in that monologue; he was also demeaning and degrading her. It's disturbing that people don't know the difference.

I don't think they need to end necessarily—although, it would really help if some of the monologues were instead dialogues. It's just given that every character has done terrible things on this show and is a hypocrite, people need to at least listen to the monologues carefully, instead of automatically accepting them…