Scandal spring premiere recap: “Ride, Sally, Ride”

Scandal spring premiere recap: “Ride, Sally, Ride”

Coming off the surprising ending to the first part of this season — where we only learned that Daniel Douglas (Jack Coleman) was murdered by Sally Langston (Kate Burton) with the cover-up help from Cyrus Beane (Jeff Perry); Eli Pope (Joe Morton) was replaced from his long time operation, B613 pretty boy Jake Ballard (Scott Foley); and Maya Lewis (Khandi Alexander) was free even though she lied about the bomb on the original flight with over 300 passengers, shot down by President Grant (Tony Goldwyn) — with the spring season’s storylines set up, I’m assuming that these will be the only plot points as the season works its way through.

Oh, sarcasm.

scandal-spring-premiere

Thankfully, Scandal is amazing, and decided to cover new storylines like the intrigue of Adnan Salif, referenced by the rare appearances from Harrison Wright (Columbus Short). Harrison mentions to David Rosen (Joshua Malina) that Salif is still in the United States, and has to be deported. In his research, Rosen learned that, despite his best efforts, Salif had authorization to be a citizen by a higher-up, so deportation was impossible. We learn Salif also killed three of Harrison’s friends on a trip to Dubai, revealing the interest in wanting them dead. However, Salif makes an appearance to Pope and Associates and we learn she’s a woman, a woman who wants Harrison bad (sexually). So they just have sex.

On the Quinn Perkins (Lindsay Dwyer) front, Charlie is still up to his secret plans involving her. They coordinate in fooling and picking up a child from school, and then secretly return him to his mom, the one who filed the coroner’s report. What the plans actually are is kind of blurry, but it has to do with Daniel Douglas’s death.

Sally Langston is still in her all-out presidency mode, doing anything to take Grant’s spot and split the party. Unfortunately, it looks like my prediction of Eli potentially being an ally were mistaken; he would rather shoot down President Grant for usurping him from being head of B613 rather than helping his looking-for-anyone-on-her-side daughter, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington).

President Grant is looking for a new vice-president candidate due to Sally leaving, so he decided to pick his former California running mate, Nichols, to fulfill the role. Unfortunately, he is a flirt and has had many relationships with Hollywood actors; more importantly, his one true love escaped him, so it’s been flings for him ever since — his one love being Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young). We’ll see soon how their past love affair unfolded and how it will affect the race.

Potential Stories for Next Episode

  • The hostage situation with Quinn and Charlie (George Newbern)
  • How vice president Nichols will handle working with his former lover Mellie Grant
  • Eli’s role in the election

Memorable Quotes

Sally to her campaign advisor:

“The devil murdered my husband. I let him inside of me.”

Eli to Olivia:

“The greatest weapon I have calls me dad.”

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ABC/Nicole Wilder