Episode Report Card Kim: B- | 38 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Paint Jake Black
By Kim | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 03.13.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's debate time! Leo is freaking, because Sally has gone off the deep end and instead of prepping, she's preaching and talking about the Devil. Meanwhile, Fitz's prep is going great, except Liv's not there because she's busy being filled in about Daniel Douglas's murder by David Rosen. Liv confronts Cyrus about the cover-up, and after they have a good disbelieving giggle over all of the candidates being murderers, Cyrus tries to convince Liv to keep the murder from Fitz. Liv vows to stay out of the whole thing, which should totally work out.
Jake hires Quinn, but sticks her in the receptionist seat. Later, Liv visits his apartment to decompress from all she's learned, and Jake asks her to run away with him because he's kind of freaked out by being the head of B613. They do it instead.
Rowan pressures Leo to get Sally back on track, since he's backing that horse. Leo gets Sally's preacher to counsel her, and Sally decides that she has to confess her murder to the world to get back in the Lord's good graces. Leo asks Cyrus to call off the debate or their involvement will be revealed. Cyrus decides to ask Jake to have B613 kill Sally Langston, and Jake says no.
Cyrus asks Liv to visit Sally and see what they're dealing with. After the visit, Liv calls Fitz and tells him everything, and then asks him to throw the debate. Later when Jake asks her to share their secrets, he realizes that she's already aligned with Fitz. Jake then goes and offers Quinn a promotion, and asks her to break into OPA and find all the details on DD's murder.
And so, the debate. Before he goes on, Fitz tells Liv that he won't throw the debate and, in fact, he seemingly taunts Sally, letting her know that he knows what she did. Jake dispatches Tom of Secret Service to assassinate Sally if she seems about to confess. He nearly pulls the trigger, but Fitz purposely tanks an answer and Sally takes that as her sign from God and gets back on track. The next day, Liv visits Fitz to make out with him some more, which, gross.
Cyrus finds the bug in his digital photo frame and figures out that James is Publius. Cyrus cries and apologizes and James is like, "Okay?" He heads out to meet with David Rosen, Vanessa the journalist and the chick from NSA who gave them the tape in the first place. James tells everyone that he's decided to bail, but before they can discuss further, Jake shows up and shoots the two women, and then pulls the trigger as the episode ends, shooting one of the two men (unless they were, like, right behind one another and he killed both with one bullet). I'm guessing James is dead and maybe David Rosen is going to join B613, which sounds crazy, but look what show we're talking about.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open with Jake, in his office, delivering a speech or maybe talking to himself – we don't see who he's talking to, if anyone. He talks about how people in B613 aren't allowed to have family connections; Jake is from Indiana where his mother was a shopping channel addict, his father was a drug addict pedophile, and his sister is dead. Well, that's a cheery origin story. He goes on to say that B613 finds clay that is ready to be molded and people who have "no sun on the horizon" and no one to miss them and trains them into stone cold killers who can't imagine any other life. I don't like this Jake. I'm guessing the show is trying to show us how Rowan changed from a normal person into a monster, and how being Command changes a person, but I don't like it. And who was he talking to? Quinn? Someone else?
Flashback to Leo welcoming a reverend to Sally's house, where they are working on debate prep (Grant vs. Langston vs. Reston). The preacher isn't sure why he's there, but Leo says he needs to help Sally and reminds him that anything he's told is confidential. The preacher is still confused as to why Sally needs HIS help to prepare, and Leo doesn't really answer. He asks if the reverend is actually Sally's spiritual advisor, or if she just attends church once in a while for the photo op. Leo makes sure to get a dig in at the reverend for refusing to fly coach when Sally was paying for his plane ticket. The reverend assures Leo that he's a man of God who can influence Sally, and Leo opens a door and welcomes him to debate prep.
Inside, Sally is fake debating two underlings standing in for her opponents. Well, debating is probably the wrong word. She's excoriating Fake Fitz for being a "cloven beast" that fornicates with anything that slithers by, and has the sign of the devil burned into his flesh. She concludes her tirade by yelling, "Yum, yum, crispy piggy! Yum, yum!" So Leo doesn't think that will go over well with the American public? I wouldn't vote for her, but I would absolutely watch that debate. Anyway, Leo pats the reverend on the back and asks him to fix her.
Meanwhile, Fitz is also undergoing debate prep, with Mellie standing in for Sally (and doing a really good version of Sally's accent) and Nichols standing in for Reston. Fitz interrupts an attack on his character by "Sally" to defend himself and does a really nice pivot into his talking points. It's well done; in an actual debate, his opponent would have interrupted him by now, not allowed him to filibuster for five minutes. Fitz goes on to say that he's not proud of his personal failings – keep that in mind, because it comes up later. Regardless, Cyrus is thrilled, and he calls Liv and leaves a voice mail saying that Fitz is killing it and wonders why she's not there.