SCANDAL: BELTWAY UNBUCKLED (TV)
Summary
One in this drama/political thriller about the Pope & Associates crisis management firm in Washington D.C.
President Grant can no longer stand to sleep in the same bed as Mellie, and she urges him to contrive an excuse to fend off the inquisitive eyes of the press. Tensions between them continue to escalate. Huck continues to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, reaching his sixth month of “sobriety.” David and Abby continue their relationship, but secretly David is attempting to obtain information about Pope & Associates from her. Olivia receives new clients, parents of a college student named Jenny Nystrom who has recently gone missing. They are being represented by Edison, who recommended them to Olivia. She advises alerting the media as to Jenny’s disappearance in order to aid in the search for her and they construct a heartrending plea for her to come home. Meanwhile, Harrison discovers a blog called “Beltway Unbuckled” featuring written accounts from a woman sleeping with various senators and political figures. He believes that the blogger is actually Jenny, causing a complication in Olivia’s campaign to depict her as an “innocent girl next door.” News of this revelation reaches the media, intensifying the controversy surrounding her disappearance. Olivia and her team work to determine Jenny’s last known whereabouts. Mr. and Mrs. Nystrom are deeply emotionally affected by the media attention surrounding Jenny, particularly commentators who denigrate her apparent promiscuity and upbringing.
Eventually Quinn discovers that a woman matching Jenny’s description has been admitted to a hospital in Rhode Island; she is unconscious and suffering from alcohol poisoning but is in stable condition. However, this turns out to be a false lead; Olivia is called away when the police discover the body of the real Jenny in a park, covered in blood and partially decomposed. Huck finds out that Jenny attended a charity banquet hosted by the state department on the night of her disappearance. Mellie suffers from emotional distress while filming a public service announcement and Cyrus is called in as she goes into a panic after a child vomits on her. President Grant is there too as part of an effort to feign affection for her. She desires to have more of a role in the administration, but Cyrus shuts her down, saying that everyone has to make sacrifices in order to keep things in order. Harrison and Quinn investigate the autopsy report on Jenny, discovering that she may have been in some sort of accident and was alive when she was dumped, dying over a period of several hours. The coroner believes that she would have lived if she had been hospitalized.
Olivia goes to visit Supreme Court Justice Verna Thornton in the hospital; she is suffering from an unspecified terminal illness and is undergoing chemotherapy, and Olivia assisted her in keeping these facts secret from the general public. However, Olivia also seems to genuinely care about her and offers Verna emotional support. Olivia’s team come with a potential suspect in Jenny’s murder, Alexander Lavich, a guest at the party she attended. His car matches the one which Jenny supposedly rode in, and it is reported to have crashed into a tree on the night of her disappearance; furthermore, this incident occurred within the vicinity of the location where Jenny’s body was found. However, Abby discovers that Lavich has diplomatic immunity by virtue of being a cultural attaché at a foreign embassy for the Middle Eastern country of Kurkistan. The only solution they can devise is to have Kurkistan revoke his immunity, which can only be accomplished with direct action from the president himself. Olivia makes this request to Cyrus, who flatly refuses her; Kurkistan’s airspace is essential in the event of an attack on eastern Sudan. Cyrus tries to get Olivia to leave before President Grant returns, concerned that seeing her will have an adverse effect on him. However, President Grant suddenly enters and echoes Cyrus’s concerns, rebuking her and questioning her true motives for visiting. Olivia silently leaves.
Edison is outraged at Olivia’s apparent powerlessness to indict Lavich for his crimes. Olivia persuades him not to confront the president and instead to spearhead a grass-roots campaign calling for the revoking of Lavich’s diplomatic immunity, utilizing public sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Nystrom’s loss. A protest camp springs up in front of the White House, and Mr. Nystrom gives a plea broadcast on the media asking to speak to President Grant. President Grant is personally sympathetic to Mr. Nystrom, but cannot compromise his political position to imprison Lavich. Alissa obtains phone records from Quinn’s ex-boyfriend in the weeks leading up to the Cytron explosion, and passes them off to David. Alissa intuits that David is genuinely attracted to Abby despite his insistence that he is only using her for information. Abby secretly breaks into David’s apartment and is surprised to see that an entire wall has been covered in documents pertaining to Quinn and to Pope & Associates. David determines that Jesse Tyler, Quinn’s deceased boyfriend, made numerous calls to Hollis Doyle’s head of security the week before the Cytron explosion. He visits Hollis and confronts him about this information, but Hollis will not allow David to speak with the security head unless his legal team is present. David reluctantly accepts this outcome.
Olivia visits Verna again, and Verna reveals that she has deduced Olivia’s relationship with President Grant. She tries to convince Olivia that pushing President Grant away will ultimately destroy her and that the two of them belong together. However, Olivia gets distressed at this and tells Verna to stop. Mellie calls Olivia and they meet in the White House in private. She discusses the situation with Lavich and frames the conflict in terms of women’s rights, noting Kurkistan’s lack thereof. She notes that the public fervor surrounding Jenny’s death is starting to wane, and offers her personal support as a means of spurring action against Lavich. Olivia accepts, and the next day Mellie goes out to accompany the Nystroms in front of the White House and voice her support for their cause. The ensuing public pressure forces President Grant to concede to Mellie and Olivia’s political savvy. That night, Olivia paces in her office, pensive and silent. Abby confronts her, expressing her frustration at Olivia’s increasingly secretive motives and actions as of late, particularly with regards to Quinn and her trial. Olivia bluntly tells Abby that the trial is no longer her concern and demands that she move on.
Cyrus calls Olivia and they arrange to meet in a restaurant together. She is the first to arrive, and after sitting down for a minute she notices that the restaurant has emptied. Secret servicemen position themselves around the restaurant as President Grant walks in and sits down with Olivia. He tells Olivia that Lavich is to be declared persona non grata and deported back to Kurkistan. Olivia is frustrated at this outcome, unhappy that Lavich has apparently escaped justice for his crime. He notes that he is still in love with her and that he tried his utmost to bring Lavich to justice. Olivia becomes emotional and asks to leave, noting that any potential ongoing relationship they might have is doomed. President Grant replies that he is letting go of her and that he will have the charges against Edison dropped, and that he has to take responsibility over his personal life and for his leadership of the country. He and the secret servicemen leave the restaurant, leaving Olivia alone and in tears.
Mr. Nystrom is outraged at what he perceives as Olivia’s failure to bring justice for his daughter’s death. Huck believes that Mr. Nystrom plans to carry out a murder in his frustration, and warns him not to go through with it. Edison tries to provide Olivia with some comfort, but her outlook on her own fate is grim. Quinn expresses her doubts about Olivia’s motives and actions, but Harrison believes that Olivia is a good person despite her more unsavory actions. Mr. Nystrom fetches a handgun and prepares to leave to assassinate Lavich, but stops when he sees a news report about Lavich being found dead in his home, apparently from a sudden heart attack. Huck attends another Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and says he “drank a lot of whiskey,” implying that he is responsible for Lavich’s death, and that in spite of his resistance to the idea he enjoyed himself. President Grant leaves for Tokyo to attend the G8 summit, and he and Mellie continue to feign affection for each other. Abby sneaks into David’s apartment again and confronts him while he is in the shower. She tells him that she broke in earlier and asks him if their relationship means anything to him. He says that their relationship is meaningful and she says they need to talk about Olivia. David says his investigations have been misplaced, and that Hollis is likely the mastermind behind the Cytron explosion; he implies that the incident is only one component of a vast conspiracy of some sort. Abby finds it difficult to believe in David’s conspiracy theory. Unbeknownst to them, Verna, Mellie, Cyrus, and Olivia secretly meet with Hollis in his office to discuss David’s investigation. Includes commercials.
Details
- NETWORK: ABC
- DATE: October 25, 2012 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:57:56
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 109772
- 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 – “Cloud Atlas” motion picture
- TV – Commercials – AT&T phone service
- TV – Commercials – Apple computers
- TV – Commercials – Bounty paper towels
- TV – Commercials – Campbell’s soup
- TV – Commercials – Capital One credit cards
- TV – Commercials – Chanel perfume
- TV – Commercials – Cover Girl cosmetics
- TV – Commercials – Dell computers
- TV – Commercials – Hunter Douglas window dressing
- TV – Commercials – JCPenney department stores
- TV – Commercials – K-Mart department stores
- TV – Commercials – Keurig coffee machines
- TV – Commercials – Kohl’s department stores
- TV – Commercials – Marshalls apparel
- TV – Commercials – Mercedes-Benz automobiles
- TV – Commercials – Old Navy apparel
- TV – Commercials – One-A-Day multivitamin supplement
- TV – Commercials – Payless shoe stores
- TV – Commercials – Pepsi soft drinks
- TV – Commercials – Sears department stores
- TV – Commercials – V8 vegetable juice
- TV – Commercials – Windows 8 operating system
- TV – Commercials – “Lincoln” motion picture
- TV – Commercials – “Secret of the Wings” home video release
- TV – Promos – “46th Annual CMA Awards”
- TV – Promos – “All Access Nashville”
- TV – Promos – “Don’t Trust the B---- in Apt. 23”
- TV – Promos – “Gold Rush”
- TV – Promos – “Happy Endings”
- TV – Promos – “Jimmy Kimmel Live”
- TV – Promos – “Last Man Standing”
- TV – Promos – “Malibu Country”
- TV – Promos – “Modern Family”
- TV – Promos – “Once Upon a Time”
- TV – Promos – “Private Practice”
- TV – Promos – “Revenge”
- TV – Promos – “Scandal”
- TV – Promos – “The Middle”
- TV – Promos – “The Neighbors”
CREDITS
- Mark Wilding … Executive Producer
- Betsy Beers … Executive Producer
- Shonda Rhimes … Executive Producer, Created by
- Jenna Bans … Co-Executive Producer
- Tom Verica … Co-Executive Producer
- Judy Smith … Co-Executive Producer
- Mark Fish … Co-Executive Producer, Writer
- Scott Collins … Producer
- Heather Mitchell … Producer
- Merri D. Howard … Producer
- Holden Chang … Associate Producer
- Peter Noah … Consulting Producer
- Mark Tinker … Director
- Chad Fischer … Music by
- Kerry Washington … Cast, Olivia Pope
- Columbus Short … Cast, Harrison Wright
- Darby Stanchfield … Cast, Abby Whelan
- Katie Lowes … Cast, Quinn Perkins
- Guillermo Diaz … Cast, Huck
- Jeff Perry … Cast, Cyrus Beene
- Joshua Malina … Cast, David Rosen
- Bellamy Young … Cast, Mellie Grant
- Tony Goldwyn … Cast, President Fitzgerald Grant III
- Gregg Henry … Cast, Hollis Doyle
- Debra Mooney … Cast, Verna Thornton
- Brenda Song … Cast, Alissa
- Norm Lewis … Cast, Edison Davis
- Eve Gordon … Cast, Janet Nystrom
- Todd Waring … Cast, Peter Nystrom
- Wendy Davis … Cast, Kimberly Mitchell
- Steven W. Bailey … Cast, Noah Elliot
- Susan Pourfar … Cast, Becky Flynn
- Joe Holt … Cast, Defense Secretary
- Kate McGregor-Stewart … Cast, Mary
- William C. Mitchell … Cast, Police Captain Bill Sundstrom
- Kristin Carey … Cast, Brooke Foster
- Meghan Maureen McDonough … Cast, Older Female Reporter
- Ajay Vidure … Cast, Young Male Reporter
- Liz Loza … Cast, Young Female Reporter
- Jack Guzman … Cast, Secret Service Agent
- Creighton James … Cast, Alexander Lavich
- VyVy Nguyen … Cast, Hostess
- Darian Lopez … Cast, Jenny Nystrom