Scandal recap: 'Good People'

Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we? I’m feeling like a detective tonight. Oh, you too? Then let’s do some work.

We have seen Quinn’s baby. And you don’t get a baby without a mom. You don’t have a mom if she’s all shot up…so, we have a mystery. And by the end of this hour/this recap/my shortening wick, we’ll know the answer to that mystery.

But first, that mystery gets stranger in what looks to be a budget Bed Bath & Beyond, where Rowan has gone to purchase a…suitcase? In that same moment, we see Quinn taking the elevator down to go to her wedding before getting, well, suitcased up. Legit. Rowan puts that pregnant girl in a suitcase and then chains her up in a basement, as one does.

When Quinn comes to and sees Rowan, she demands to be let go, saying what might be the funniest line in years: “I am 700 months pregnant, it’s my wedding day, and you chained me to a wall?” That’s when Rowan admits that he’s ready to let Quinn go — in exchange for his freedom from Olivia. You know how that shook out though. Big gun booms. Olivia crying. Yeah, not great.

So he heads back upstairs and does what any reasonable person does: pulls out his automatic rifle and handgun. It doesn’t make sense because apparently there’s a B613 rule: no killing mothers and children. But I’m pretty sure we broke that rule by killing the president’s son. And that rule doesn’t seem so clear to Rowan either, who practices his angry shoot-you speech on a tiny dinosaur before giving up entirely.

Next thing you know, Rowan has returned to Makeshift Bed Bath & Beyond to pick up something else. This time? A crib. You’d think that would be a good sign, but when he heads back, he makes it clear that the crib is just a crib. And without any clear path forward, Quinn loses it on Rowan, even if he brought her cereal and a change of clothes.

Rowan heads to the bar and runs into his friend from the store. Poor Marv tries to make friends with Rowan and offers to give him a 40 percent employee discount at the store, which is definitely how you make friends. I mean, I’m practically trolling CVS trash cans looking for people’s thrown-away receipts. You give me a discount like that and I. Have. Your. Back.

While that’s happening, Quinn’s not doing so hot down in that basement — so much so that she’s having hallucinations of Charlie. But then we flash back to that little car conversation Rowan had with Jake. And that’s when I stop because this whole ordeal doesn’t make a ton of sense. I’ve nearly forgotten why all of this happened. It’s the assassination, right? Or that plane getting blow up, which was another assassination? Long story short, Olivia has to stop assassinating people.

Back in the house, Rowan constructs that crib while Quinn hallucinates again. This time it’s Huck, and he’s urging her to try harder to get free. It all turns into this back and forth that reveals that Quinn knows the truth: Olivia has changed. At that moment, Huck passes on one more big piece of advice: That crib is for the baby, not Quinn. She has to get out. Meanwhile, Rowan has headed back to Marv to get a gun, since all of his stash has been taken by someone. Apparently at this store, you can buy guns right next to the suitcases.

So, post gun run with Marv, Rowan heads home and loses his total and complete ish on that poor little purple dinosaur he keeps screaming at. All the while, it turns out Jake’s been filming Rowan, and after seeing Rowan’s entry to America’s Funniest Home Breakdowns, Olivia goes back over to Rowan’s place. We get a recap of that back and forth between Olivia and her dad, and it’s as uncomfortable this time as it was last. Down in the basement, hallucinations of Abby, Huck, Marcus, and Charlie show up. Quinn pulls a couple of boxes over with a lasso she made with sheets, but there’s nothing inside to help her. It all builds up to The Moment. (Recap continues on page 2)

Rowan goes down into the basement and closes the door behind him, but Quinn, in the short amount of time, has managed to free herself. She tries to choke him with her chain, and she does for a moment. He rings off one shot, but it hits nothing. Quinn tries to get the gun and fails, so he’s holding her at gunpoint, saying, “I can’t let her win.” (GOD, THIS FAMILY.) Quinn pleads for her life and for her baby’s life. That’s when Rowan fires a second shot. And they’re playing a long game here because we still don’t know exactly what happened. Just that Olivia has told Rowan they need to bury her.

After he tends to his cut hand, Rowan goes back downstairs to find Quinn still very much alive. He didn’t take the shot, but instead just shot beside her. We find out that she took Mrs. Truman’s hairpin and set herself free, so she also heard everything that Olivia had to say, and now she’s demanding to be let out. But all Rowan is willing to offer is a glass of wine (which, you know, I’ll take it?). And with that, Quinn goes upstairs with him.

We finish off the night upstairs with Quinn calling Olivia a bitch, which is kind of hilarious. But as the conversation unfolds, Quinn goes into labor. Rowan is strangely paternal about the entire thing. He keeps telling her that it will be fine. Rowan has decided they’re going to do it the old-fashioned way, and when Rowan drugs her (CAN YOU DO THIS TO A PREGNANT WOMAN?), she comes to and sees all of her hallucinations and MARV delivering her baby. Don’t worry, he did it in Vietnam, which should make you feel just 100 percent.

But the thing is, Marv pulls if off. HalluciCharlie looks so proud, and Quinn goes back to sleep. She wakes to find Rowan carrying her around in Olivia’s old childhood room. Rowan tells her that the doctor (who probably also got his MD at that damn store that has everything) said she checked out, and so did the baby. They’re all set up in Olivia’s room, and Quinn understands why she can’t leave, even going as far to say that he’s a good person. He says, “We’re all good people when someone gives us the chance to be.”

But as she looks around the room, she sees there are clothes for the baby to go all the way up to two years old. That’s not not being able to leave. That’s called staying for a WHILE. Quinn goes downstairs to confront Rowan to find that he’s straight-up killed Dr. Marv. But all Rowan says is “Women and children first,” so Quinn gets down on hands and knees to help him clean up the mess.

So, there it is. You have to believe this is all a lead-up to redeeming Olivia, but man are we taking a hell of a path to get there. And next week is the Intervention in Vermont™ where Olivia’s closest allies will force her to come to Jesus. It’s gonna be real, y’all. Buckle up and keep your 40 percent discounts to yourselves.

Head here for Katie Lowes’ thoughts on Quinn’s fate.