SCANDAL: SWEET BABY {SERIES PREMIERE} (TV)
Summary
The premiere of this drama/political thriller about the Pope & Associates crisis management firm in Washington D.C.
Quinn Perkins, a young lawyer, is hired by famous Washington D.C. crisis manager Olivia Pope via Harrison Wright, a young lawyer she believed she was on a blind date with. She is taken aback at this and quite excited to be working with Pope & Associates. Meanwhile, Olivia tries to negotiate with a pair of Ukrainian mobsters trying to collect money from an ambassador, and they react poorly when she reveals that she has brought only half of their requested payment. She threatens them into accepting by threatening to report them to Homeland Security before they can leave the country for Kiev. She and Stephen leave with a box in exchange. Harrison brings in Quinn and shows her around the office. Harrison introduces her to Huck, Pope & Associates’ technology specialist and an ex-CIA member, Abby Whelan, a lawyer, and Stephen Finch, an investigator. She becomes star-struck when she meets Olivia herself, and is told that while many members of the staff are lawyers Pope & Associates are not a law firm but a crisis management center, specializing in “saving reputations.” Olivia reveals that the box she secured from the mobsters contains an infant child, the son of the Polish ambassador. He and his wife arrive to collect the child and thank Olivia for saving him.
Everyone prepares to go home for the night but are interrupted when a man stumbles into the office covered in blood. He begs for help, claiming that his girlfriend is dead and that the police believe he is responsible. They discover that the man is Lt. Col. Sullivan “Sully” St. James, a highly-decorated Iraq War veteran who makes a living via political endorsements for conservative politicians, embodying an extremely right-wing viewpoint. His girlfriend Page was killed via multiple gunshots to the head; Sully called the police but fled his apartment before they arrived. Quinn, quite perplexed and overwhelmed by the situation, asks what is to be done about it. Olivia starts by interviewing Sully, who claims that he was about to propose to Page and that she was extremely important to him. He also claims that he panicked after calling the police, fearing what the police might think due to his frequent media appearances. They ask him his whereabouts at the time of the murder and he recounts walking around the neighborhood and stopping briefly in a pub before going to see Page; he also says he does not own a handgun since he left the military. Olivia and her staff discuss the matter in private and vote on whether or not to take the case; Olivia carefully explains every step of the process to Quinn and ultimately decides to try to help Sully. To protect him she instructs him to stay in Stephen’s office and forbids him access to phones or any communications devices for the time being. Above all, she cautions him not to lie to her, else “all bets are off.”
Olivia begins her work by waking up a police official in the middle of the night and cajoling him into delaying Sully’s arrest by twenty-four hours. Abby visits the crime scene and takes photographs of the apartment and Page’s dead body. Harrison explains to Quinn that as “crisis managers,” Pope & Associates avoids taking issues into court, preferring to make problems “disappear” for their clients beforehand. Stephen uses his prior relationship with a police coroner in order to secretly obtain Page’s autopsy report. They all reconvene and assemble their various evidence, but Olivia is not satisfied and says they need more information in order to reach a conclusion. Olivia is called away to speak to the White House Chief of Staff Cyrus Beene, who says that the president requires a favor from her. She refuses and says she no longer works for him, but hears out Cyrus anyway. He says that a young White House aide claims that she is sleeping with the president, and Cyrus insists that this is not true, asking Olivia to “shut her down.” She only agrees to do so if she is able to speak to the president in person, as she wants to ascertain his guilt or innocence firsthand.
She leaves to go to Camp David and meet with the president there, asking the rest of her staff to keep on the Sully case. Quinn reviews Page’s email communications on the night of the murder and discovers that she and her friend were supposed to attend a party at the French consulate, but did not go. Abby interviews the friend, Ariel, who says that Page cancelled at the last minute for unknown reasons. She claims that she and Page used to be “party girls,” but that Page changed her lifestyle when she met Sully. Ariel starts crying, but Abby believes she is concealing something from her. At Camp David Olivia is received warmly by the president, Fitzgerald Grant III, as well as his wife Mellie. He and Cyrus brief Olivia on the situation with the aide, Amanda Tanner, and it is believed that she has not yet gone to the press with her story. They wish to stop her before she can do so, and cannot simply fire her due to the inevitable media complications. President Grant insists that he did not sleep with Amanda, and Olivia agrees to help him; he wishes that she would come work for the White House again, but Olivia says she prefers her independence. Olivia returns to her office just as Abby excitedly runs in, explaining that she has found evidence that Page was cheating on Sully with another man named Tom Henderson, who they identify as another suspect in her killing. Olivia assigns Quinn to find out more about Amanda.
Olivia has Quinn accompany her as she tracks down Amanda and speaks to her on a bench near the Washington Monument while she is out walking her dog. Olivia warns her that going to the press about her story could make her life extremely difficult and draw unwanted attention towards her. Olivia rattles off various embarrassing secrets about Amanda’s life, including her sexual promiscuity and her mother’s mental illness. She advises Amanda to resign and move to a different city, warning her that her career in Washington is all-but over. Quinn is shocked by Olivia’s seemingly callous behavior as Amanda walks off in tears. Quinn hides in the bathroom at Olivia’s office and cries until Huck finds her there, claiming that Olivia “doesn’t believe in crying” and that she shouldn’t be seen doing so. Quinn asks him why Olivia chose her, and Huck gives her a speech about Quinn’s desire to seek a “higher purpose” with her life by allying herself with Olivia. He claims that Olivia specializes in “fixing things” and that everyone in the office “needs fixing” in some fashion.
The president returns to the White House and Olivia starts to express doubts about her initial assessment of his relationship with Amanda. Abby reveals that Henderson was working as a bouncer at a club at the time of the murder and thus his whereabouts are well-accounted for. Furthermore, Henderson claims that Sully was aware of Page’s affair with him, thus giving Sully a possible motive for murdering her. Harrison also reports that the handgun found near Page’s body has Sully’s fingerprints on it. An enraged Olivia confronts Sully and asks him if he was aware of Page’s affair. She and Stephen manage to get him to admit that he knew of the affair, but claims that he was also aware of Page’s promiscuous past and would have forgiven her, still insisting that he did not kill her. He also claims that his fingerprints are on the handgun because he picked it up after he found Page’s body. Olivia believes him and asks Abby to locate any witnesses who could account for Sully’s whereabouts at the time of the murder. Periodically Olivia keeps trying to convince Stephen to marry his girlfriend Georgia, a teacher, and produces a sample of engagement rings for him to choose. He expresses reluctance about doing so, but Olivia convinces him otherwise.
Amanda unexpectedly arrives at Olivia’s office demanding that she send a message to the president. Olivia and Quinn send her away as she argues with Olivia, threatening to expose the truth. Simultaneously the police arrive with a warrant for Sully’s arrest, but Olivia points out that their agreement does not expire for another forty minutes. She calls Abby and tells her that they have been “invaded” and that they require evidence immediately. Stephen and Abby are unable to find any witnesses at the bar where Sully claimed to have been, but Stephen notices several security cameras on the exterior of an adjacent bank. Abby, Stephen, and Harrison bribe the security guard into showing them the camera’s footage from the previous night, discovering something surprising. Olivia and her staff all gather to confront Sully with the footage, showing him meeting another man in front of the bar and kissing him. Olivia points out that Sully kept referring to Page as his “best friend,” and determines that they were not sexually intimate because he is secretly gay. Furthermore, she deduces that Page knew that he was gay and demands to know the name of the man he was with, although Sully repeatedly insists that they cannot show the tape to anyone. He believes that if the public learned that he was gay it would be irreparably damaging to his reputation, particularly due to his public persona as a highly conservative, anti-gay Republican. Olivia points out that the tape represents his only alibi to prevent him from being arrested for Page’s murder. Sully refuses and turns himself into the police rather than publicly admit that he is gay.
Quinn prepares to join Olivia at the police station to help Sully, but before she can leave she learns that Amanda has been hospitalized after a suicide attempt. Olivia and Stephen leave Abby and Harrison at the police station to try to get Sully to change his mind; the former leaves to join Quinn and the latter leaves to propose to Georgia. Quinn informs Olivia that Amanda attempted to slash her wrists and has spoken to no one except her. Quinn believes that Amanda is telling the truth but Olivia still refuses to do so due to her experiences with the president. However, Quinn believes that Amanda attempted suicide so that she could inform Olivia about it and thus indirectly contact the president, alerting him to her plight. Quinn mentions that Amanda said the president would call her “sweet baby,” and this piques Olivia’s attention. She immediately leaves to visit President Grant in the Oval Office during an important diplomatic reception. President Grant asks to be left alone in the room with Olivia for a few minutes. They step out of the line of sight of the surveillance cameras in the office and Olivia confronts him over what she discovered from Quinn. It turns out that she had an affair with President Grant during her time at the White House but left because she felt guilty about interfering with his marriage and felt that as president he should be held to a higher standard. Olivia becomes quite emotional and starts crying, and President Grant holds her close to him and claims that he still loves her. She pushes him away and slaps him, accusing him of manipulating her and impairing her judgment about Amanda’s story. He kisses her as Cyrus walks in on them, and he asks the president to go clean up and return to the reception. Cyrus is visibly shocked at what he has seen and Olivia is surprised that he did not know about their affair, as he is the president’s closest confidante. Olivia, feeling indignant and still quite emotional, leaves.
Stephen, hiding in a coat check area, feels that he cannot go through with proposing to Georgia. Olivia arrives and again tries to convince him to do so. Stephen, feeling a new surge of confidence, marches up to Georgia and proposes to her on the spot, eliciting cheers from the other restaurant patrons. Olivia watches from afar, touched by this display. She goes to visit Sully and advises him that he can no longer “live a lie” about his sexuality and says that being gay doesn’t make him any more or less of a hero. Drawing upon her own experiences, she says that “who you love shouldn’t have to be a secret.” Sully reveals the name of the other man in the video, John Latimer, and admits that he does indeed love him. Sully is released from police custody after being cleared of murder charges, and gives a press conference revealing his homosexuality, garnering massive media attention. Quinn is still curious about who killed Page, but Harrison and Huck note that discovering the identity of her killer was not their job, and that their only concern was Sully. Cyrus visits Olivia and says that President Grant wants to speak with her. She refuses and says that Amanda has just become her newest client. Includes commercials.
Details
- NETWORK: ABC
- DATE: April 5, 2012 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:57:37
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 108463
- GENRE: Drama, mystery/suspense
- SUBJECT HEADING: LGBT Collection - Drama; African-American Collection - Drama; Drama, mystery/suspense; Politics
- SERIES RUN: ABC - TV series, 2012-2018
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV – Commercials – Air Wick air fresheners
- TV – Commercials – Allegra antihistamine
- TV – Commercials – Chevrolet automobiles
- TV – Commercials – Chrysler automobiles
- TV – Commercials – ConAgra foods
- TV – Commercials – Kohl’s department stores
- TV – Commercials – Listerine mouthwash
- TV – Commercials – Old Navy apparel
- TV – Commercials – PetSmart pet foods
- TV – Commercials – Subway restaurants
- TV – Commercials – Target department stores
- TV – Commercials – Truth or Dare perfume
- TV – Commercials – Tums antacid
- TV – Commercials – Verizon phone service
- TV – Commercials – Victoria’s Secret women’s underwear
- TV – Commercials – Zyrtec antihistamine
- TV – Commercials – “Mirror, Mirror” motion picture
- TV – Commercials – “Think Like a Man” motion picture
- TV – Promos – “Dancing with the Stars”
- TV – Promos – “Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23”
- TV – Promos – “GCB”
- TV – Promos – “Grey’s Anatomy”
- TV – Promos – “Jimmy Kimmel Live”
- TV – Promos – “Private Practice”
- TV – Promos – “Revenge”
- TV – Promos – “Scandal”
CREDITS
- Shonda Rhimes … Executive Producer, Created by, Writer
- Betsy Beers … Executive Producer
- Judy Smith … Co-Executive Producer
- Scott Collins … Producer
- Merri D. Howard … Producer
- Chris Van Dusen … Co-Producer
- Paul McGuigan … Director
- Chad Fischer … Music by
- Kerry Washington … Cast, Olivia Pope
- Henry Ian Cusick … Cast, Stephen Finch
- Columbus Short … Cast, Harrison Wright
- Darby Stanchfield … Cast, Abby Wright
- Katie Lowes … Cast, Quinn Whelan
- Guillermo Diaz … Cast, Huck
- Jeff Perry … Cast, Cyrus Beene
- Tony Goldwyn … Cast, President Fitzgerald Grant III
- Wes Brown … Cast, Sully St. James
- Liza Weil … Cast, Amanda Tanner
- Joshua Malina … Cast, David Rosen
- Bellamy Young … Cast, Mellie Grant
- Leslie Grossman … Cast, Lisa
- Bryan Rasmussen … Cast, Howie
- Amy K. Harmon … Cast, Ariel Masse
- Allan Kolman … Cast, Vlad
- Matthew Iott … Cast, Wally
- Marek Probosz … Cast, Oscar
- Kristof Konrad … Cast, Polish Ambassador
- Julia Minova … Cast, Polish Ambassador's Wife
- Laila Ayad … Cast, Aide