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Scandal (TV series)
Scandal (2012–) is an American television show, airing on ABC, about a former White House Communications Director who opens a crisis management firm and works to protect the secrets of the country's elite while simultaneously trying to fix her own.
- 1 Season 1
- 2 Season 2
- 2.1 White Hat's Off [2.01]
- 2.2 The Other Woman [2.02]
- 2.3 Hunting Season [2.03]
- 2.4 Beltway Unbuckled [2.04]
- 2.5 All Roads Lead to Fitz [2.05]
- 2.6 Spies Like Us [2.06]
- 2.7 Defiance [2.07]
- 2.8 Happy Birthday, Mr. President [2.8]
- 2.9 Blown Away [2.09]
- 2.10 One For the Dog [2.10]
- 2.11 A Criminal, A Whore, An Idiot and A Liar [2.11]
- 2.12 Truth or Consequences [2.12]
- 2.13 Nobody Likes Babies [2.13]
- 2.14 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot [2.14]
- 2.15 Boom Goes the Dynamite [2.15]
- 2.16 Top of the Hour [2.16]
- 2.17 Snake in the Garden [2.17]
- 2.18 Molly, You In Danger, Girl [2.18]
- 2.19 Seven Fifty-Two [2.19]
- 2.20 A Woman Scorned [2.20]
- 2.21 Any Questions [2.21]
- 2.22 White Hat's Back On [2.22]
- 3 Season 3
- 3.1 It's Handled [3.01]
- 3.2 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner [3.02]
- 3.3 Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington [3.03]
- 3.4 Say Hello to My Little Friend [3.04]
- 3.5 More Cattle, Less Bull [3.05]
- 3.6 Icarus [3.06]
- 3.7 Everything's Coming Up Mellie [3.07]
- 3.8 Vermont is for Lovers, Too [3.08]
- 3.10 A Door Marked Exit [3.10]
- 3.11 Ride Sally, Ride [3.11]
- 3.12 We Do Not Touch the First Ladies [3.12]
- 3.13 No Sun on the Horizon [3.13]
- 3.14 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang [3.14]
- 3.15 Mama Said Knock You Out [3.15]
- 3.16 The Fluffer [3.16]
- 3.17 Flesh and Blood [3.17]
- 3.18 The Price of Free and Fair Elections [3.18]
- 4 Season 4
- 4.1 Randy, Red, Superfreak and Julia [4.01]
- 4.2 The State of the Union [4.02]
- 4.3 Inside the Bubble [4.03]
- 4.4 Like Father, Like Daughter [4.04]
- 4.5 The Key [4.05]
- 4.6 An Innocent Man [4.06]
- 4.7 Baby Made A Mess [4.07]
- 4.8 The Last Supper [4.08]
- 4.9 Where the Sun Don't Shine [4.09]
- 4.10 Run [4.10]
- 4.11 Where's the Black Lady? [4.11]
- 4.12 Gladiators Don't Run [4.12]
- 4.13 No More Blood [4.13]
- 4.14 The Lawn Chair [4.14]
- 4.15 The Testimony of Diego Muñoz [4.16]
- 4.16 It's Good to Be Kink [4.16]
- 4.17 Put a Ring on It [4.17]
- 4.18 Honor Thy Father [4.18]
- 4.19 I'm Just a Bill [4.19]
- 4.20 First Lady Sings the Blues [4.20]
- 4.21 A Few Good Women [4.21]
- 4.22 You Can't Take Command [4.22]
- 5 Season 5
- 5.1 Heavy Is The Head [5.01]
- 5.2 Yes [5.02]
- 5.3 Paris is Burning [5.03]
- 5.4 Dog-Whistle Politics [5.04]
- 5.5 You Got Served [5.05]
- 5.6 Get Out of Jail, Free [5.06]
- 5.7 Even the Devil Deserves a Second Chance [5.07]
- 5.8 Rasputin [5.08]
- 5.9 Baby, It's Cold Outside [5.09]
- 5.10 It's Hard Out Here for a General [5.10]
- 5.11 The Candidate [5.11]
- 5.12 Wild Card [5.12]
- 5.13 The Fish Rots from the Head [5.13]
- 5.14 I See You [5.14]
- 5.15 Pencil's Down [5.15]
- 5.16 The Miseducation of Susan Ross [5.16]
- 6 Cast
- 7 External links
Season 1[edit]
Sweet Baby [1.01][edit]
- Harrison: Do you wanna be a Gladiator?
- Quinn: Yes.
- Harrison: You have to say it.
- Quinn: I wanna be a Gladiator in a suit.
- Quinn: Ms. Pope... Can I just say I'm a huge fan? I so admire your work in the White House. It's an honor to work for your law firm.
- Olivia: We're not a law firm. We're lawyers, but this is not a law firm.
- Stephen: Law firms are for pansies.
- Olivia: Harrison feed you a line about being a gladiator in a suit?
- Harrison: Liv...
- Quinn: He did. And I'm ready. To gladiate. Or...whatever.
- Olivia: I can have a reporter out here in twenty minutes. With cameras. Asking why you are persecuting an innocent, handicapped, Congressional Medal of Honor winner. Perhaps because he's a well-known conservative Republican and you are considering a bid on the Democratic ticket next year? Just to be clear? That was me threatening you.
- David: You have until morning.
- Olivia: 36 hours.
- David: 24 hours.
- Olivia: Sold. Pleasure to see you again.
- Quinn: So I read you guys don't try cases? You don't go to court?
- Harrison: If we do our job right, we never need to go to court. Look, the reason we're not a law firm? We don't have to play within the rules of the law. We're fixers, crisis managers. We make the problems of our clients go away. Big or small. It's not about solving some crime. It's not about justice. It's about our client.
- Olivia: He's not wooing me. We're friends.
- Stephen: You and I are friends. He's the leader of the Free World.
- Olivia: We may never know who killed Paige. But this isn't about you not going to jail for Paige's murder. This is about you not living a lie. Not hiding. This is about you standing up and being who you are. That's honorable. That's brave. That's heroic. And that's who you are, Sully. You're a hero. You fought a war and you were braver than I can ever imagine being. This is just another war. For every gay person who ever wore a uniform. Be brave now.
- Quinn: You said we were the good guys.
- Harrison: We are.
- Quinn: Really? I mean... Is Olivia? Is she one of the good guys?
- Harrison: No. She's not one of the good guys. She's the best guy. It's not enough to say it. You gotta believe it.
- Quinn: Gladiators. In suits.
Dirty Little Secrets [1.02][edit]
- David: I'm the good guy. The law is on my side. I am the law. The law is me. I work for justice. I uphold the Constitution of these United States. I am a knight for the people. I wear the white hat, and you, Olivia Carolyn Pope, you are a pain in my ass. I had a search warrant for that house, but by the time I got to use it, there was nothing there. Because your people took whatever there was to find.
- Olivia: Hello, David. Good to see you. Did you get a haircut? It's nice.
- Fitz: Look, you misunderstood what you saw...
- Cyrus: I did not misunderstand. It may be a long while since I had an angry lover on my hands, but I do remember what it looks like.
- Billy: Maybe this won't come out.
- Olivia: It's a dirty little secret. And dirty little secrets always come out.
- Fitz: You think they'll get past this?
- Olivia: I don't know how they can.
- Fitz: I think that those two people want to be together. I think that love, at the end of the day, is stronger than some mistake somebody made. Something they did that they regret. I think that love allows for forgiveness.
Hell Hath No Fury [1.03][edit]
- Helen: If you were me, how much would it take you to be able to forget? To forget you'd been strangled, had your clothes ripped off, had some guy pin you down while he forced his fist inside your mouth so hard, you could taste your own blood? How much would it take you to be able to forget all that? To be able to even think of having sex with somebody again? To wake up every morning and not want to kill yourself when you realize it wasn't just a dream, it actually happened? How much would it take you to forget all that? Ten million? Twenty? How much would you be worth?
- Quinn: So we lost? I mean what happens when we lose? We're just done?
- Olivia: We're never done. If we lose this round, we prep him for appeal. If we lose that, we prep him for a second appeal, because whatever happens, there's always another move. Whatever happens, we do not give up. It is my name on that door, and I do not give up.
- Cyrus: I never took you for the "hell hath no fury" type. It's a little trashy, but... So is having an affair with a married man.
- Olivia: You want to be careful, Cyrus, with how you speak to me. Because I might forget that we are friends.
Enemy of the State [1.04][edit]
- Stephen: Whatever it is, we will fix it.
- Olivia: You should have seen me forcing water down her throat to make her pee. It was like something out of Abu Ghraib.
- Stephen: Let me get this clear. Amanda Tanner is...?
- Olivia: Pregnant with the President's baby. Yes.
- James: He doesn't work on Sunday unless there's a war. Is there a war?
- Olivia: Somewhere in the world, there's always a war.
- James: When my husband's dead, I'm blaming you.
- Cyrus: We employ the best speechwriters in the western world.
- Fitz: Are there better ones in the eastern world?
- Cyrus: Nobody likes a smart-ass, Mr. President.
- Cyrus: You know who sent me here? The President of the United States sent me here, to this office, to deliver these piles of dirt. I'm not the general. I'm not the bad guy. I'm just an errand boy who doesn't have to garden anymore. President Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III has declared war on you, Olivia, and he does so with the full force of the White House and the legion of men and women who work in the United States Government. May God have mercy on your soul.
Crash and Burn [1.05][edit]
- Quinn: We should be doing things. Things should be happening. Shouldn't we at least file a missing persons report?
- Harrison: Just 'cause you don't see things happening... doesn't mean things aren't happening. With Olivia, things are always happening.
- Fitz: For God sakes, Cy, show some respect.
- Cyrus: 128 innocent Americans – children, mommies and daddies and best friends and husbands and wives – died in that plane crash yesterday. That's sad. We lost one of the few sane, and worthy, members of the senate yesterday. That's sad. Four Navy SEALs died in Afghanistan... and that doesn't even touch Sudan, Congo, Northern Mexico. That's sad. But the disturbed girl who made it her life's mission to take down this administration, the one who was happily – no, gleefully – carrying your illegitimate bastard child, she's no longer with us? Well, I'm sorry if I'm not sitting Shiva.
The Trail [1.06][edit]
- Olivia: [lecturing Fitz after watching him practice for the New Hampshire debate] People want to like who they're voting for. People thought Al Gore was a big stiff until he stuck his tongue down Tipper's throat. They put George W. in office because he and Laura seemed like a fun couple to have a beer with. People have to want to invite you in for dinner. Right now, you and your wife are standing in their doorway, three feet apart, not looking at each other, letting in the cold air. That's why you lost Iowa. It's why you'll lose New Hampshire.
- Fitz: And you are?
- Olivia: Olivia. Pope.
- Cyrus: Let's be clear about something. I run a sausage factory.
- Fitz: Which makes me… sausage?
- Cyrus: Handsome, highly qualified, smart, idealistic, and energetic sausage. The stump, the electrifying speeches, the baby kissing... That's all you. The nitty-gritty, morally bankrupt, back-alley-brawling rest of the game... that's me. It's filthy and thankless, and it's my hallelujah, heroin, and reason to breathe. And you, you don't have half the stomach for it, so you go and you make nice with Olivia Pope. Get her back, or you can find another sausage maker.
- Sally Who in the holy hell is running that campaign?
- Billy: As far as I know, they haven't made any official changes.
- Sally: Oh, yeah? That is a big, old pile of dung, Billy Chambers, and you know it. That is not the Fitzgerald Grant I ran against in Iowa. That is a candidate, Billy. A down-home, charming, red-blooded candidate who's stealing my votes. Hell, I'm halfway to voting for him. Now I want to find out who's responsible so we can see what we're dealing with here.
- Fitz: Just say my name.
- Olivia: That's crossing the line. It would be inappropriate.
- Fitz: Then let's be inappropriate. Say my name.
- Olivia: [after a long beat] Fitz.
- Sally: Matthew 13:24. There's a parable about a group of enemies who plant bad seeds amongst the good ones to ruin the crops. The farmer notices weeds growing amongst the fruit. The servants ask the farmer if they should round up the weeds before the harvest... and what does the farmer say?
- Billy: Let them grow together.
- Sally: One day, God will burn the weeds and save the fruit, Billy. But for now, let 'em grow.
Grant: For the People [1.07][edit]
- Olivia: What happened?
- Mellie: You let that girl get into his pants! You left the team, Liv! You fell down on the job! You broke his heart, and you left him open and vulnerable and helpless. And that is how that snake Billy Chambers got that shiny red Amanda apple right into Fitz's hand. I do my job. I smile, and I push him, and I make sure he has what he needs. I do my job. Why couldn't you do yours?
- Morris: Ms. Pope, you did it again.
- Olivia: The President has a great team.
- Morris: Nah. Don't give me that. Listen, I don't exactly know what you do or how you do it. But when you walk through these gates, things start happening. The press starts falling in line, the Secret Service gets extra secret, and the problems... they just kinda disappear. And when you go back out, everyone's breathing a little bit easier.
Season 2[edit]
White Hat's Off [2.01][edit]
- Fitz: You're not the president! You don't weigh in on foreign policy! Your opinion doesn't matter! You are the First Lady. Your job is to plant gardens and decorate rooms and let them blog about your clothes. You're ornamental. Not functional. So, don't come into the Oval and try to use your brain because no one cares.
- Olivia I don't do lost causes or tilt at windmills. I don't perform miracles or do the impossible. I make cold calculations about difficult situations and I do not take on anything I know I won't win. And I will win this. I just need you to trust me. I promise you. I will not let you die in here.
- Harrison: Gladiators in suits, remember? You know I've gotta make you say it.
- Quinn: Gladiators in suits.
The Other Woman [2.02][edit]
- Olivia: How are you?
- Fitz: I'm serving out my sentence in the crown jewel of the American prison system. How are you?
- David: You just expect me to bend the law for you once again out of blind faith and admiration. You pour a good bourbon, Olivia, but so does the dive bar down the street.
- Cyrus: I can't have a baby with you. Because I already have a baby and his name is Fitzgerald Grant. And my baby is troubled and angry and exhausting, and brilliant and he might actually change the world if I can keep my eyes on him every minute and make sure he eats his vegetables and so I don't have time or the energy or extra space in my soul for another baby, James. I'm sorry. I don't. I can't. I don't have it in me to take care of someone else. Because I'm busy taking care of the United States of America.
Hunting Season [2.03][edit]
- Edison: I took an oath to do the exact opposite of what you're asking me to do.
- Olivia: You always did put your career above all.
- Edison: Takes one to know one.
- David: What's the one thing we know about Olivia Pope?
- Alissa: Well, she's well-dressed. She's a workaholic...
- David: Olivia Pope doesn't use her magic for evil. She uses it for good. Olivia Pope doesn't move Heaven and Earth and further corrupt the justice system unless she knows at the end of the day she can put on the white hat and ride out of town.
- Quinn: I am not a murderer and I am not a liar, and I'm not going anywhere. So the sooner you get over it, the better. And I go by one name now and it's not Lindsay.
- Olivia: Huck, you didn't...
- Huck: I didn't hurt him. Much.
Beltway Unbuckled [2.04][edit]
- Mellie: I want a seat at the table.
- Cyrus: You have a seat at the table.
- Mellie: The kiddie table. I want a seat at the adult's table like I was during the election. Or have you forgotten how things worked back then?
- Cyrus: We've all made sacrifices. Me as much as anyone. That was the election. This is the White House and, in the White House, this is the way things work.
- Verna: Liv, I've seen you two together. You breathe in sync.
- Olivia: You have a very active imagination.
- Quinn: I'm trying to be just another associate at Pope and Associates, but every time I look at Olivia... I think, "This woman saved my life and she won't tell me how and she won't tell me why." And I know she's done things for all of us, fixed all of us, but no one asks her any questions. We all just do whatever she says, and... Doesn't that ever bother you?
- Harrison: You know what I think about when I look at Olivia? My bookkeeping degree. That's what you do, right? When you spend eight years in federal prison? That's what I was facing... for insider trading. Eight years of my life wasted if she hadn't saved me. So, the way I see it, Liv's a good person. And if a good person has to do something bad for the right reasons, I'm down with that. So I don't want to know the how's. I don't want to know the why's. I just want to come to work every day thankful that I didn't have to earn a bookkeeping degree.
- Huck: Earlier tonight I went out. I went out hard. I drank a lot of whiskey. I wish I could say I didn't enjoy it, that I felt sick to my stomach, couldn't even look at myself in the mirror afterward, but I can't say that. Because it was perfect. And that kind of perfection doesn't make me feel weak. It makes me feel strong. I looked at myself in the mirror and I finally recognized that person I once knew so well. That person who went out all the time, sometimes just for fun. And, now that I've seen that person again, I don't know if I could ever go back.
All Roads Lead to Fitz [2.05][edit]
- Harrison: Women like going to a nice restaurant, it's a universal truth.
- Huck: Will I need a reservation? It's tomorrow. That's too late to make a reservation.
- Harrison: You just hacked into the NSA's mainframe and you don't think you can make yourself a dinner reservation?
- Huck: Good point.
- Verna: The stuff we did, it never goes away, does it? Like one big, bloody hospital gown.
- Olivia: I prefer to think that anything can be fixed.
- Verna: Then you're a fool.
- Mellie: He's your husband.
- Cyrus: He's a journalist. Inside this building he's a journalist and you know it and you know how I know you know it? Because you're a terrifying political animal who would eat off her own foot if it meant you could get ahead. A trait I respect. But the President is at the G8 in Tokyo and what is the rule when the President is out of the country? All roads...
- Mellie: All roads lead to Fitz.
- Mellie: Like you said, I am a terrifying, political animal. So, I want to be clear. I will not attend any more of those meetings again. If any of this comes up, I will deny, deny, deny. And if anyone ever asks me about Defiance...
- Cyrus: Ok. First of all, you will attend whatever meetings you need to attend. They are not optional. Not for me, not for you, not for anyone else. Two, if this ever comes up, you won't have time to deny because that means we are already going down in flames. Three, You may be an animal, but I am a monster. And I am much more terrifying than you can ever imagine. And while I respect your position as First Lady, I will do whatever is necessary to make sure things go accordingly. So, Mellie, do not ever speak the word Defiance in my presence again..
- Edison: I can stop dropping by, I can stop calling, I can stop asking. But you never tell me to stop.
- Olivia: Edison, I don't want you to stop. I want you to keep asking. But I'm not ready to say yes.
- Olivia: I don't like it when the bad guys get away.
- Cyrus: Then you shouldn't have come to Washington.
Spies Like Us [2.06][edit]
- Abby: Spies listen to the radio?
- Huck: Anything high-tech you can break into. With a radio, you can't trace where it comes from, you can't trace who's listening. The radio is how we talk to each other, how all spies talk to each other. All around the world. You listen every day and every day there's no message. Years go by and decades and there's no message and then one day you listen and the code word comes.
- Abby: And then what happens?
- Huck: It's time to come home.
- Harrison: What do you need? Whatever it is that's going on, whatever it is that you're thinking about when you're sitting in here all by yourself, tell me what you need and I will do it, no matter what.
- Olivia: You don't want to get involved.
Defiance [2.07][edit]
- Fitz: I thought I said I didn't want a big party?
- Mellie: Well, we can't always get what we want, can we?
- Olivia: You want Edison to win, why?
- Cyrus: Because that means he's over you. I get my president back. Hey, you asked.
Happy Birthday, Mr. President [2.8][edit]
- Olivia: I smile at her and take off my clothes for you. I wait for you. I watch for you. My whole life is you. I can't breathe because I'm waiting for you. You own me, you control me, I belong to you-
- Fitz: You own me! You control me. I belong to you. You think I don't want to be a better man? You think that I don't want to dedicate myself to my marriage? You don't think I want to be honorable? To be the man you voted for? I love you. I'm in love with you. You're the love of my life. My every feeling is controlled by the look on your face. I can't breathe without you. I can't sleep without you. I wait for you, I watch for you. I exist for you. If I could escape all of this and run away with you? There's no Sally and Thomas here. You're nobody's victim, Liv. I belong to you. We're in this together.
Blown Away [2.09][edit]
- Becky: You like to kill people. It's what you do. It's who you are. Look, you're mad right now because I had you. Because you let your guard down and I fooled you. But. Huck, you're missing the point. We're alike. You're like me. We're the same. We're built for each other. So you can sit here every night and watch your little family eat their sandwiches, or... you can come with me. Come with me. I'm leaving town. We can go on the run and do the whole Bonnie and Clyde for hire thing. Just you and me. Think about it, Huck.
- Olivia: Mellie's let me visit him exactly once and then she revoked my privileges. I might not even get to say goodbye.
- Cyrus: I'm going to say this once, and I better not ever have to say it again. Don't you ever again suggest to me that Fitzgerald Thomas Grant the Third is going to die. That is unacceptable coming from you. He calls you the love of his life. Don't you dare give up on him.
- Olivia: He's lying in a hospital room fighting for his life and he had nothing to do with how he got elected. He's a patriot and he's legitimate.
- Verna: We're both in hospital rooms. Karma is a funny thing. We're paying the price for what we did.
- Cyrus: A baby was born at County General this evening at 5:42 p.m. A girl. Five pounds, eleven ounces. She's ours. She's our daughter. We can bring her home in a week if you say yes.
- James: You stole a baby?
- Cyrus: I did not...
- James: You bought a baby?
- Cyrus: I pulled some strings and got us to the front of the line. It wasn't that hard, just a well-placed phone call, which is wrong. Very wrong. But like I said, I'm a Republican overlord and your dream is a baby, so... and now you're thinking "Why now?" when I didn't want a baby before. Why now? Someone shot my best friend. He's lying in a hospital bed dying. Which makes me denying us a chance to start a family seem ludicrous. So there's a baby girl in County General, and if you say yes, in one week, she could be our daughter. We could be her fathers. If you say yes.
- James: Yes.
One For the Dog [2.10][edit]
- Mellie: We have to protect secrets. We all got in bed with the Devil together and nobody wants to go to Federal prison. So I wrote a letter and I signed it. I broke the law. I broke the Constitution. And I would do it again.
- Edison: Olivia, if that letter from President Grant was forged, there will be joint congressional hearings and letters of impeachment. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will turn the Senate chamber into a courtroom, and you will be the star witness for the prosecution. Forging that letter, or helping whoever did, would be staging a coo. It is an act of domestic terrorism.
- Olivia: You have no idea what you're talking about.
- Edison: I am the leader of the Senate. If my job description requires, I won't hesitate to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. And guess what? I make the law. So you talk it over with whomever you need to talk it over with and you let me know when the President is ready to see me.
- Olivia: Goodbye, Edison.
A Criminal, A Whore, An Idiot and A Liar [2.11][edit]
- Olivia: Five: That's sexist and insulting. You'd never suggest Scooter Libby was screwing Dick Cheney. Four: The lengths you're going to try to twist this into a conspiracy are cause for concern. You should speak to someone about that. Three: The President is awake and talking, and the suggestion that he isn't is partisan political crap that I thought you had enough integrity to rise above. Two: In the past three minutes, you've called me a criminal, a whore, an idiot, and a liar... so this pretty much the last time we'll be speaking. So One: Who I am or am not screwing, what I am or am not doing, is no longer any of your damn business.
- Mellie: What do you think? What do you want? If you could have anything...
- Fitz: I want a divorce.
- Cyrus : Let's not play innocent here. Fitz is clean. Fitz walks on water. Fitz makes the fishes and the loaves, and people like Hollis, me, and you... Don't roll your eyes at me. You are one of us Olivia. We march behind him, We sing his happy tune. And then we pick up our hatchets and we chop the Judases into bloody little pieces and dance around the corpses because that's our job. That is what we do. We take care of Fitz. And we don't do it because we are believers, which we are. We don't do it for the rush or the high or the power, which we are most certainly junkies for. We do it because Fitz can't. He can't do it. If he could do it, we wouldn't worship at his altar. People like Fitz, they go down in history. People like us, we create the history. We run this world so he can lead it.
Truth or Consequences [2.12][edit]
- David: This doesn't make us even. Not even close. And it won't stop me from coming after you, guns blazing, both barrels, if it looks, as I strongly suspect, that you were involved in illegal activity, or worse, if you try to screw me again. In that case, God help you.
- Cyrus: You're willing to bring down the whole Republic because you feel guilty. You know what our electoral process is? It's magical! It's like believing in Santa or the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny Magical... as long as they believe. What you're doing is telling the people that the shiny presents and the bulging stockings on Christmas morning are just mom and dad staying up all night to do the work. You're telling them we're Santa, we're the Easter Bunny, we're the Tooth Fairy. You're taking the magic away! You're ruining Christmas morning, and the whole Republic is gonna come crumbling down because you're not tough enough to do what needs to be done!
- Mellie: I found him. I cleaned him up after that monster who raised him damaged his spirit. I am the one who told him he was someone. I am the one who cheered him on and listened to him ramble about his hopes and his dreams. I am the one who focused him. I did all the work. I did all the work. And now she gets to reap the benefits? No. No, I made him. He exists because I say he exists.
Nobody Likes Babies [2.13][edit]
- Mellie: Cyrus, if Fitz goes public with this divorce, I will go nuclear. I will walk out in front of the press and I will explain to them that my marriage is over because while I was pregnant with his child, my husband was having an affair with Olivia Pope. I will leave him, and I will take his children with me. I will take every penny he has in the bank and every dollar of political capital that he has in this town. I will court feminist groups and mothers groups and religious groups. I will bury him. And I will dance on his grave. And then? I will run for office.
- Cyrus: I was made to be the President of the United States. I was made to lead the nation. I was made to ensure this country's place in the world for generations to come. I would've been great at that. I have the stones. I have backbone. I have the will. I would have been a great President. But guess what? I'm fairly short, and I'm not so pretty, and I really like having sex with men. So, instead of being President of this land, that I love, I get to be the guy behind the President of the United States. And sure I have power. I influence decisions. I help steer the country. But I'll never be in the history books. My name will never be on an airport or a doctrine. Being the guy behind the guy is as far as my road goes.
- Harrison: You know who you are. You know what this is. And don't pretend you don't. We do what needs to be done and we don't question why. We put the personal to the left. Doesn't matter who gets hurt. Doesn't matter what gets broke. It's not the thing that needs fixing, it does not matter. You want to cry about your feelings? Hmm? Really? Here? We don't get to have feelings. That's the job. Gladiators don't get to have feelings. We rush into battle. We're soldiers. We get hurt in the fight we suck it up and we hold the line and we don't question. And you know it, Abby.
- Huck: If I kill Hollis Doyle for you, you can't come back here. You can't work for Pope and Associates anymore. You can't be a gladiator.
- Quinn: Why not?
- Huck: Because you want Hollis dead for revenge and we don't do revenge. We solve problems. So you can be Lindsey Dwyer and get revenge on Hollis or you can be Quinn Perkins and move on with your life. You can't have your new life and also keep your old life. It doesn't work that way. So which is it?
- Olivia: I'll wait for you, Fitz. For as long as you need.
- Fitz: I changed my mind about that. Don't wait for me.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot [2.14][edit]
- Olivia: Work helps. So does exercise. Stuff that numbs you, keeps you from thinking too much. :Dating also helps, but, it also helps to remember that he hates you and it helps to try to hate him too.
- Abby: And that works for you?
- Olivia: I was talking about you and David.
- David: How much do I owe you?
- Olivia: What?
- David: For your services? Or did you take a commission when I sold my soul to the Devil?
- Fitz: I may not be able to control my erections around you, but that does not mean I want you. We are done.
Boom Goes the Dynamite [2.15][edit]
- Jake: It's a date.
- Olivia: What?
- Jake: It's a date. You said meeting. I'm not a client. I don't have a problem. I don't need fixing. I asked you out. You said yes. We dressed up. At the end of the evening, if all goes well, there will be kissing. This is not a meeting. This is a date. And I don't want to insult you. You chose this restaurant. I'm sure the food is very good, but this is not a date restaurant. You can't have a date here. This is where dates go to die. You look extraordinary, by the way.
- Quinn: Does Huck...
- Harrison: Stink? Yeah. To high heaven. Like he hasn't showered in days.
- Abby: At least David will always know where he is.
- Cyrus: This is Mellie we're talking about.
- Olivia: Let Mellie be. That's how you fight her. Don't over think it. Just let her be. Let Mellie do what Mellie's going to do. When it comes to Fitz, Mellie's her own worst enemy. Eventually she's going to go too far and cross him. You just need to be there when she does.
- Olivia: You have nothing. You have a pile of secrets and lies, and you're calling it love. And in the meantime you're letting your whole life pass you by while they raise children and celebrate anniversaries and grow old together. You're frozen in time. You're holding your breath. You're a statue waiting for something that's never going to happen. Living for stolen moments in hotel hallways and coat closets and you keep telling yourself they all add up to something real because in your mind they have to but they don't. They won't. They never will. Because stolen moments aren't a life. So you have nothing. You have no one. End it now.
Top of the Hour [2.16][edit]
- Olivia: I'm apolitical you know that.
- Cyrus: Is your vagina apolitical?
- Sarah: You have some job. Fixer. How do you fix betrayal?
- Olivia: Sarah, you betrayed him. You did. You messed up, and there's a price. Betrayal always has a price. But let me ask you something. Is he a good dad?
- Sarah: He is a great dad.
- Olivia: You did what you thought was best at the time. Even if it was wrong, you thought it was best. You can't change the choice you made. All you can do is not let it ruin you.
Snake in the Garden [2.17][edit]
- Cyrus: Yes, I am currently on the outside looking in. My nose is pressed up to the glass of life right now. And I want to thank you for that. I do. Because you know, it reminded me never to let my guard down. Not when something Mellie this way comes. So, don't you worry about me. I will once again be his warrior. I will once again sit at the right hand of the father. I'm on it. My guard is up. And as a friend of mine likes to say, "It's handled."
- Huck: It's just math.
- David: Math?
- Huck: You hire us. We negotiate the ransom. Make an untraceable payment. Retrieve the victim. Safe and sound. We've never lost a client. Not once. You call the cops you get a rescue team, dogs, body armor, the works. Now, you don't spend any of your own money but the victim's chance of survival drops to 50% in a rescue scenario. So if I wanted to see my loved one alive, I wouldn't call the cops. I'd call us. Every time.
- Harrison: Hey Liv, let me ask you a question. Why are we helping Doyle? Why is the devil our client?
- Olivia: Because even the devil loves his kids.
Molly, You In Danger, Girl [2.18][edit]
- David: Gladiators in helmets, right?
- Harrison: Suits.
- Quinn: Listen, Zeke. "Darling" has a law degree from Stanford and the Chief of Police on speed dial. I sat outside here for an hour and watched three ladies enter with three gentlemen, each of whom departed with a spring in his step and probably $200 bucks poorer. So I suggest you go ahead and let 'darling' take a look at the damn security cams.
- James: Therapy requires telling the truth, Cy. And you don't tell the truth.
- Cyrus: You wanted to know who I am? This is who I am. Defiance is who I am. This is me. This is who you married. This is who you love. You made a choice. You did this. This is the man you are. And guess what? I love you anyway. Because that is the man I am.
- Cyrus: Why are you calling sir.
- Fitz: I killed Verna Thorton. Would she forgive me if she knew?
- Cyrus: There are things we don't tell them. Things we bury. Things we hide. That's the job. You did something, sir. It doesn't mean you don't deserve to be happy.
Seven Fifty-Two [2.19][edit]
- Cyrus: You know what happens if a bored nurse or arrogant doctor tweets that the President, same one who was shot in the head ten months ago, is in the hospital in the middle of the night? Markets panic. Reporters swarm. DEFCON levels change.
- Fitz: Cats and dogs will finally get along?
- Quinn: Hollis Doyle stole my future and that I could have let that get to me. I could have let that eat me alive. You didn't let me. I don't know why being locked in that crate got you. I don't know what it means or what happened or why. But you're letting it eat you alive. You're letting it steal your life and you can't do that. You have to just let it go. Whatever it was. you have to let it go. You're a gladiator. You can do this. You can fight this. I will help you.
- Abby: That's how she gets you. She saves you. She saves you and then turns you in a gladiator. A soldier. And then we live and die for her. We are blindly loyal. No questions asked, morals be damned. Because she loves us. And this is who we are. Gladiators. And it's amazing and it's wonderful and it ruins everything. So I went into David's safe and I stole the Cytron card and now... he'll never love me like that again.
- Harrison: So... I don't know what to say. I gotta spend my whole life trying to get out of homework while you live life a warrior. A man. A real-deal gladiator. So I have no idea what to say here. Because you make me realize pretty much every day, and especially right now, that all I am, all I've ever been was talk. So I'll just sit here and I won't run my mouth with a lot of noise that's not worthy. So you be as full-on crazy as you want for as long as you need. And I'm gonna be right here with you.
- Olivia: Harrison and Abby and Quinn... we take care of them. We love them. But they don't live on the dark side of the moon. They're different. So, Huck, I need you to snap out of this, whatever this is. Whatever happened to you, you have to come back to me. I need you. You are all I have. You are everything. Because I didn't save you in that Metro station. You saved me.
A Woman Scorned [2.20][edit]
- Cyrus: I'm asking you to be an adult. Stop holding your breath. Quit stomping your feet. It's time to pick up your toys like a good girl and act like the First Lady of the United States of America.
- Mellie: Tell Fitz he has 36 hours to convince me in person that he regrets the unfortunate choices he's made and truly wants to recommit himself to his wife and children. If he doesn't, he will have the pleasure of seeing the First Lady of the United States call her husband a whore-loving bastard on national television.
- Fitz: You can't fix the fact that I love you. That I love you more than I love being President. I have told you that I'd give it all up for you again and again, and you know what I think? i think you don't believe me. I think you believe that I will never choose you. Well, this time, I'm fixing things. Sit with me and watch me choose you. Watch me earn you.
Any Questions [2.21][edit]
- Sally: I just cannot believe, after everything the President has survived... That sad little bout with Amanda Tanner and Billy Chambers, an assassination attempt? Who would have thought it would be his own wife who finally brings him down? Well, you know what the Bible says.
- Cyrus: No, I don't.
- Sally: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
- Cyrus: That's not in the bible. Not everything is from the Bible, Sally.
- Harrisson: You're not the fixer here, Liv. You're the problem. You're the client. You're my client. Like it or not. So I'm not asking for the truth. I know the truth. I know enough. At any minute, any second now, so will the rest of planet Earth. So what I'm asking you is... What is your end game? Because the eye will pass, the winds will kick up, and you are not tethered to anything.
White Hat's Back On [2.22][edit]
- Cyrus: Let me get this straight. Highly trained Black Ops assassins broke into your home and tried to kill you and instead of, oh, making a run toward reason, instead of the possibility of death making you decide that maybe it's better to be single, you have decided that the killers were merely firing heart-shaped bullets made out of bubbles and candy to signify that you and your boyfriend Fitzy are MFEO, made for each other?
- Olivia: Cyrus, you're being dramatic.
- Cyrus: I've moved Heaven and Earth to save you from yourselves. I have lied for you. I have stolen for you. I have cheated for you. I have killed for you. I have almost died for you. And you, you two are so stupid and romantic and high on your own doomed love, Romeo and Juliet, Dear Diary nonsense that you won't even save your own lives, but I am being dramatic? The love of your life is a red-handed, cold-blooded killer. That is what you're dealing with. That is who you love.
- Olivia: We went too far. My people – Huck and Harrison and Abby and Quinn... I took them too far over the wrong cliff. We went so far that I don't know that we can get back, but you can get back. Run with Mellie by your side. You can win with Mellie by your side.
- Fitz: You are going to be my First Lady.
- Olivia: I can't leave them. They need me. I'm their Gladiator.
Season 3[edit]
It's Handled [3.01][edit]
- Rowan: You're not rare. You're not special. Your story's no different than a thousand other stories in this town, so you know how this goes. You could call this in your sleep. First they'll smile, be warm, sympathetic, on your side, letting you know that they will fight for you. They will lull you into a false sense of security. And then, once your belly is exposed, they will gut you and everyone you know. And they will be swift about it. And by the time you realize you should be fighting back... well, you're already bleeding to death. That is the presidency versus you. Whose victory do you think they will fight for? Whose body do you think they will bury? That is the presidency versus you.
- Mellie: They want to go public.
- Cyrus: Aren't you part of they now? One-third of some secret, unholy political trinity.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner [3.02][edit]
- Fitz: Somewhere, in another life, another reality, we're married. And we have four kids. And we live in Vermont, and I'm the Mayor...
- Olivia: And I make jam.
- Fitz: And you make jam.
- Olivia: What do you do for a living? And don't tell me it's fossils or exhibitions or publishing papers. Don't lie. What do you do for a living, Dad? Do you teach people how to kill? Do you throw them in a hole until they go insane? Do you work in Wonderland?
- Rowan: I'm your father. So I'm going to explain to you how you are to behave in my presence. You do not ask questions that you cannot handle the answer to. You do not make judgments about things you cannot imagine. You don't know me that way. You don't ever want to know me that way. But if you push, you will know me well, and that would break my heart, because I'm enjoying these Sunday dinners that you make me pay for. Now you are on my dime. Pick up your menu, order your meal, and tell me about your day.
- Fitz: It's a simple choice, Cy. Door number one, I tell the truth and the both of us get kicked out of this White House. Door number two, I admit to the Jeannine affair and Jake gets released. What's it going to be? Because I'm about to go on live television and I need to know what to say. How Presidential are my balls now, Cy?
Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington [3.03][edit]
- Cyrus: Now you listen to me...
- David: No, you listen to me. I may not have the Cytron card anymore, but I do have my conscience. And there's a hell of a lot of noise I can make if I don't think you're worthy of the moral sacrifice I made.
- Mellie: I am spectacular, but I can't compete with religious fervor, but no, I was not praying that she'd be blown up today. I am not miserable. I'm celebrating. Because Olivia Pope still walks this Earth. She's still alive. And as long as she's still alive, well, she's your flaw. Your Achilles heel. Which makes her my weapon. She's the strings that if need be I will pull to make my puppet husband dance. So cheers, baby. Drink up. I live to fight another day.
- Huck: All this time, I've wondered who Command is. I've banged my head against a wall trying to get a name and then I got one. For you. A name is something you can trace, Liv. It's something you can tie to a chair and question. And after you've questioned it, after you've drilled some answers out of it, like whether or not you have a family, it's something you can kill. You can wrap it in plastic and put it in a dumpster so it never bothers you again.
- Jake: I never thought I'd get out of that hole. Never. It's not just the dirt floor and the darkness that gets you. It's the isolation. It's the silence. It breaks something in you. I just kept picturing your face. Your face saved me. I'm here because you saved me.
Say Hello to My Little Friend [3.04][edit]
- Quinn: Are we really going to..
- Abby: Slut-shame a dead girl? All aboard.
- Quinn: Where were you?
- Huck: You have to stop asking questions.
- Quinn: Look, I am worried about you.
- Huck: You have to stop asking questions! You're not worried about me. You're interested. You want to know what it feels like to do the things that I do. I see you. I see that look in your eye every time you ask me one of your questions about where I was and what I've been doing. You're interested. And maybe that's because you're able to see me, to... How my mouth has been dry for months, how I've been squirming and vibrating and it wouldn't stop until the other night when everything just stopped and I wasn't thirsty anymore.
More Cattle, Less Bull [3.05][edit]
- Quinn: What about me?
- Harrison: Baby Huck it.
- Mellie: He needs you, Olivia. He is tired and broken and it isn't the job. It's doing the job without you. He's not alive when you're not here. He can't breathe when you're not here. He doesn't have the will to run much less win when you're not here because you... You're everything to him, Liv. He needs you. So I need you to come back.
Icarus [3.06][edit]
- Olivia: There's probably only two people in this world who can tell me if this really happened. One of those people is my father and I can't ask him because he'll probably kill both of you or maybe even all three of us to teach me some kind of sick lesson. And the other is the President.
- Olivia: I have so many questions I want to ask you. But I'm afraid you'll kill my friends if I do. So, you know, let's just talk about the weather or how I can't form attachments to people because my mother is dead and my father is that thing that goes bump in the night or… You pick a topic.
Everything's Coming Up Mellie [3.07][edit]
- Mellie: I just don't understand why I have to apologize for his affair.
- Cyrus: Because that's how it works.
- James: You control everything. Which is precisely why I want to kill you... and have sex with you at the same time.
- Mellie: You don't have to love me, but we are in this hell together and the flames are burning both of us with equal intensity, baby, so the least you can do is be my friend. Just a little bit. The least you could do is show up. Show up for me. Show up for me, Fitz, instead of being like some stranger.
Vermont is for Lovers, Too [3.08][edit]
- Candace: So you're here to babysit me now?
- Harrison: If you're good, I'll let you stay up past your bedtime.
- Cyrus: You're worried about James cheating on me? That's...oddly sweet.
- Mellie: Once you open that door, Cyrus, you cannot close it again. It changes you. Changes everything.
- Cyrus: My husband's not your husband, Mellie.
YOLO [3.09][edit]
- Huck: I'm disappointed in you, Quinn. You've been a bad girl and I need to know exactly what you've been up to. But before we start, I need to say I'm sorry. I'm so sorry because I'm going to enjoy this. I'm going to love it and I don't want to. What's that stupid thing the kids are saying? YOLO? YOLO, Quinn.
- Abby: Normal boyfriends do favors for their girlfriends.
- David: Normal girlfriends don't dabble in aiding and abetting.
A Door Marked Exit [3.10][edit]
- Fitz: Here's the thing about power, Rowan. It's always hard to admit when you've lost it.
- Rowan: Or to admit you've never had any at all.
- Cyrus: We are the devil. I am actually the devil. You should have seen me handle it. There's a dead closeted hillbilly on the floor and there I am – "Give me your sin, Sally" – without blinking. The devil is at the top of his game.
Ride Sally, Ride [3.11][edit]
- Rowan: You're skipping around in a field full of bombs and mistaking them for daisies… What is currently happening is that President Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III has made an enemy, the worst kind of enemy, because I know all his secrets. I know where every body is buried, and the greatest weapon I can use against him calls me Dad.
- Mellie: I came up with a list of men. Eligible bachelors. Prominent, smart. Pick one.
- Olivia: Pick one?
- Mellie: Any one of them, it's an equal opportunity list. Tall, short, black, white, Republican, Democrat. I don't care who, just pick one and start dating him. Publicly. So the everyone can stop thinking that you're screwing my husband. Smile, Olivia. The world is watching.
- Abby: Are you serious? You're stealing my gun.
- Harrison: Borrowing it.
- Abby: Harrison, you do not need to act all crazy just because everyone else here is. We are the normal ones. You and me. If we need to borrow a gun, we ask. Also, why do you need it?
- Cyrus: I'll give you exactly one second to get your feet off my desk.
- Leo: Or what?
- Cyrus: Or I'll cut 'em off and shove 'em down your throat.
- Leo: I'm a size 11 1/2. I seriously doubt my feet would fit down my throat.
- Cyrus: I'm not talking about your feet, you baby-faced twit. I'm talking about your balls.
- James: My husband's a monster, David. He's brilliant, and egomaniacal, and has done more to thwart the rule of law than you and I will ever know. He's a monster. And he's powerful. And he thinks he doesn't have a weakness. But he does. Me. And I will do whatever it takes, stand on the podium, play the good soldier, sleep beside him for as long as it takes, to bring that monster down.
- Olivia: I always thought it was a good thing. A great thing. True service. A calling. Now I think...I think it eats at you until you are not you anymore, until you are lost. Until you can't remember who you were. Until you forget yourself and all you can see is the greater good. All you can see is God and country and you're so busy being a patriot that you forget to be a person.
We Do Not Touch the First Ladies [3.12][edit]
- Olivia: I didn't do this for you. I did not do this for you. I did this for me, so I could work on the campaign. So I could walk down the street and not be whispered about. So I could stop being known as the woman who screwed the President, so the scarlet "A" on my chest could be invisible! So I could stop being a joke. I am a person. I am not a hen! I am not a prize!
- Jake: And one more thing...
- Olivia: What?
- Jake: Stock...your damn...fridge. If I'm going to be your fake boyfriend all day, I'm going to come home at the end of it and drink real beer and eat real food. Wine is not beer and popcorn is not food.
- Olivia: You went too far with Quinn.
- Huck: No. You went too far.
- Olivia: Excuse me?
- Huck: You took in a wild monster and you groomed me and petted me and trained me to sit at your feet. But that doesn't mean I'm a puppy, Liv. That just makes me a very loyal monster. So I didn't go too far. I went exactly as far as my leash allows, and you hold the leash. You ruined her life and then you made me save her and then you gave her to me to take under my wing.
No Sun on the Horizon [3.13][edit]
- Cyrus: What are you gonna do? You're on our side. You cannot let this out.
- Olivia: I can't do this again. I want to walk into the light and feel the sun on my face, Cyrus. You're on your own. I'm sorry.
- Sally: I must confess my sins to the world so he will take me back into his flock so that he will speak to me once again, so that he will show me a sign of his love.
- Leo: I can't let you do that to yourself.
- Sally: "Thou shalt not kill," Leo. I must confess to the world the breaking of his commandment. It is the only way I will hear his voice again!
- Cyrus: Sally Langston goes down for murder, and ma and pa kettle's hearts break because how could the president not know that the first lady and chief of staff covered it up using taxpayer money. But forget about the three of us going off to prison. Faith in government will be dead. People will stop paying their taxes. Economic systems, institutions that have lasted for centuries will begin to falter while our enemies pounce on our crippled nation and hack away until the great American experiment is no more. Whatever issues I may have had with your predecessor, he would have taken care of this by now. No qualms, no questions, just action. I expect you to wisen up and do the same.
- Sally: I have prayed to God over and over. And where there once was his voice, the warmth of his love, there is now only cold silence. You are not a woman of God. I don't condemn you for that. It just means that you cannot understand. Without him, without the sign of his love, I am worse than dead.
- Fitz: You keep everything from me.
- Olivia: To protect you! And don't ask me to apologize for it or punish me when I tell you the truth. This is what we do! This is how it works! This is how it's always worked. There is no clean. Just like there is no Vermont. No. This isn't how I want it to be, how either of us want it to be. This is what it is. Let's stop pretending. Let's just be here.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang [3.14][edit]
- Adnan: You blew up a plane.
- Maya: That was personal. Terrorists use violence to advance their convictions. God. Country. And since I'm not burdened by those, I'm more of a facilitator. I don't make bombs. I make money.
- Olivia: I want to know. Who? Who made you do this? You tell me. Who made you do this?
- Jake: Who?! This was my call. I am protecting the Republic. I keep this country running. I do what needs to be done. I am Command.
- Olivia: I don't know what the point is of this, of democracy and freedom and patriotism. If there are no white hats. If everyone is evil. If the deck is always stacked. If everyone I love is a monster. If no one is worth saving. What's the point?
- Rowan : There is, incidentally, a point. If there are no more white hats, if the deck is always stacked, and if everyone you love is a monster, there is, in fact, someone worth saving.
- Olivia : Who?
- Rowan: Everyone is worth saving. Everyone. In the face of darkness, you drag everyone into the light. That is the point. At least I'd like to think that is the point of you.
Mama Said Knock You Out [3.15][edit]
- Huck: It's suicide.
- Olivia: What are you talking about?
- Huck: Taking down B613. You don't take down B613. You run you hide. Or you die. And B613 survives. It always survives.
- Fitz: I'm the Commander in Chief.
- Jake: And I am Command. Which means you don't tell me to do anything because I'm not your bitch. Your job is to shake hands, hold babies, pose with prime ministers, and sit down to interviews with your family. You comfort people, and you look pretty, and you talk tough. You don't do anything. I decide if there is a war. I decide if a world leader dies. I decide what to do with the Dmitris and the Ivans. I decide if America sleeps at night. I decide if America endures. This is not a game, Mr. President, and you're not getting your ball back.
- Maya: I know you think you're on the right side of this, but you're not. Believe me, you're not.
- Olivia: What I know is that you are a terrorist, a traitor to your own country.
- Maya: Maybe. But I'd rather be a traitor than what you are, Livvie. Cleaning up those people's messes. Fixing up their lives. You think you're family. But you're nothing but the help. And you don't even know it.
- Cyrus: You know the job, Olivia. You know what we do.
- Olivia: Don't you resent it?
- Cyrus: Of course I resent it. But somewhere in this head of mine, behind the fog, behind the anger, is my faint recollection that what we do is important, that my husband died for a reason, that his death matters. So, instead of going home and crying about it like I'm going to do, I need you to get back in there, back in that little white building with all those miserable people inside of it and do the job for both of us. Because it's not just that family you're putting back together. It's the whole damn country.
The Fluffer [3.16][edit]
- Fitz: You are being disgusting, petty and jealous.
- Olivia: What else am I supposed to be? I lie in bed every night and I play our relationship over and over again in my head like a movie. We meet. We fall in love. We can't stop ourselves. We're meant to be. I give up everything inside me and then it stops. The movie just stops. I don't know how it ends. It's just me waiting for a house in Vermont that I can't live in and a man who makes me promises he can't keep.
- Andrew: Tell me something. 'Cause I've always been curious. What's it like?
- Olivia: What?
- Andrew: Being you? Cutting people's throats and calling it politics? Appealing to the lowest, basest part of humanity, scraping the bottom of a person's soul, carrying out these little emotional assassinations?
- Olivia: Governor...
- Andrew: I'm in love with her! I love her.
- Olivia: So choose Mellie. I wish you would. It would restore my faith in humanity. But, if there's one thing I know, it's that, given the choice between power and love, men like you will always, always choose power.
- Olivia: B613 is your life. Helping me destroy it
- Rowan: I'm helping you put down an animal, a dog that isn't mine anymore, a dog that is sick and malnourished because its new master doesn't know how to care for it. So rather than sit here and watch it starve to death, I've chosen to euthanize it, to show it mercy, not because I hate it, but because I love it.
- Olivia: What would Olivia Pope say?
- Abby: You don't get to run. You're a gladiator. Gladiators don't run. They fight. They slay dragons. The wipe off the blood. They stitch up their wounds, and they live to fight another day. You don't get to run. How was that?
- Olivia: That was good.
Flesh and Blood [3.17][edit]
- Olivia: I didn't make sacrifices and endanger my people to end up right back where we started!
- Jake: You mean the sacrifice of sleeping with me so you could hack into my phone? Crazy, right? All these years of thinking B613 is untouchable. And all it takes to kill us is a good, quick tug on a zipper.
- Jake: He will reel you in with a trail of warmth and kindness. He will hold you in his arms and tell you that he loves you. And once you are comfortable, once you feel safe, he will take everything that matters from you, and he will leave you with nothing. He will break your bones and step over your body on his way out. Do you know how I know that? Because that's what he taught me to do.
- Olivia: The one thing he wants more than anything is to bring my mother in to stop her. He'll do that.
- Jake: Fine. I'm out. I'm free. You're on your own.
- Olivia: Jake...
- Jake: You think he's your dad, but that's just a part he's playing. A costume he puts on. A mask. Liv, once his mask comes off... Run.
- Mellie : I want his head in the fire and I want to see him burn. I want to hand him the one piece of news that will destroy him and I want to watch his face when it happens. I have kept this secret for 15 years. I have lost my life for 15 years. I have lived this lie for 15 years and all the while I have watched him walk away from me. I have been destroyed while I have made him President. It is my turn! He suffers. He hurts. He burns. I'm tired of carrying the cross. Let him pick it up now. Big Jerry isn't something I want to be nailed to anymore.
- Huck: It wasn't safe.
- Quinn: It was safer than bringing along two bickering little bitches. What do you want Huck?
The Price of Free and Fair Elections [3.18][edit]
- Rowan: I do not like him, but Olivia, I do love you, and I want you to have everything, everything you deserve. So, when I say I wish I could help, I do wish I could help. I wish I could help you.
- Jake: Rosen, I killed three people right in front of you. I am not a good guy.
- David: Deep down, I think you are.
- Leo: Any words of advice?
- Cyrus: Nope. Well, maybe. Try and protect your soul if you still have one. It's futile, but you should still try.
- Olivia: How did we get like this? When did we stop being people?
- Cyrus: Were we ever people? Or did serving at the pleasure of the President just help us to shed our pesky skins and unmask us as the monsters we really are?
- Olivia: It's me. Everything that's happened... None of it would be happening if it weren't for me. My mother, my father, the man I love, an innocent boy dying, churches being blown up, you being thrown in the hole. The only common denominator is me. I'm at the center. I'm the eye of the storm.
- Jake: So you're the devil, is that it? And this is your pity party?
- Olivia: This is me doing what I do best. I'm handling this. I'm fixing this. I have been over every option. I have looked at it from every angle, and I have hoped and prayed that I was wrong. I have tried to pretend that I didn't know what the answer is, but I do. So now it's time for me to stand in my truth. It's me. I'm the thing that needs to be fixed. I'm the thing that needs to be handled. I'm the scandal. And the best way to deal with a scandal is to shut it down.
Season 4[edit]
Randy, Red, Superfreak and Julia [4.01][edit]
- Olivia: I know you're mad at me. But we both care about Harrison. And he would want us to...
- Abby: Harrison would've wanted all kinds of things. He would've wanted you to not get on that plane. He would've wanted you to not leave his side so that God knows what could happen to him. He would've wanted you to care about him before someone put a bullet in his brain. He would've wanted his champion, his gladiator to be here, fighting for him when there was still a chance he could've been found alive. But now he's dead. Harrison doesn't want anything now!
- Huck: I am Randy, the Smart Guy. That is who I am now. That is all I am now. And you are messing with that. When you walk in here, you make me hope. Randy doesn't hope. Randy works and he goes home and he plays video games and he goes to bed and he wakes up, and he does it all over again the next day. Hoping is bad for Randy. So do not come back here unless you are back for good. Next customer!
- Olivia: You abandoned them too, Abby. Huck and Quinn and Harrison. You abandoned them, too. You moved four blocks away into the most powerful house on the planet, and you left them out in the cold. I was on the other side of the world, but you were right here. And all you have to give is three minutes? What kind of champion, what kind of gladiator does that make you?
The State of the Union [4.02][edit]
- Olivia: Cyrus, you know I'm not afraid of the I.R.S.
- Cyrus: I'll tell him you call every day. I'll tell him you call, asking about him every day, that you're pining for him. Sorry to be such a bastard, Liv. Craving meat really brings out the worst in me.
- Mellie: It's not the same. My child. Your husband. It's not the same.
- Cyrus: I keep hearing that. The loss of a child is greater. I resent that, never having lost a child. I resent having to feel like losing the love of my life, the only someone who ever made me feel like I was truly me, is less of a loss, is smaller than your loss. I am now broken. I'm not me. I'm forever changed. I'm undone. A broken heart is a broken heart. To take a measure is cruelty.
- Quinn: We were never a normal couple. You're always going to be the guy who pulled my teeth out.
- Huck: I pulled your teeth out because you couldn't mind your own business. You can never mind your own business, Quinn. And, if I had to do it all again to teach you that one valuable lesson, I would.
Inside the Bubble [4.03][edit]
- Rowan: Re-entry is always hard. You emerged from deep cover. I mean, it wasn't covert ops. You weren't a spy. But I know the feeling. I know it very well. You come back, you re-enter to find the world kept spinning without you. You go to the places you used to go and you see the people you used to see and it's like something is missing. But really, everything is missing. Somehow everything is different. Everything is...
- Olivia: Colder. Everything is colder.
- Fitz: I need this all to mean something. This seal, this office... It has to mean something. I've lost too much. I've given up too much. I'm not even a person anymore. I am a statue. A monument. If I don't get to be some soccer dad in Vermont, then I need this all to have a point.
- Quinn: I spent three whole months keeping tabs on this office. I went to see you every day at the computer store. I constantly checked in with Abby at the White House. I found you halfway across the world. I'm the one who made sure this place didn't die. And I go M.I.A. for a whole day and no one even bats an eye. That is unacceptable. That is how Harrison died. We weren't vigilant. We didn't pay attention. So when one of us goes missing for twenty-four hours, the other ones freakin' look for them.
- Fitz: I yelled at you. I owe you an apology for that.
- Abby: You do owe me an apology, but not for yelling at me. You owe me an apology for not bothering to learn my name. I'm Abby, Mr. President. Abby Whelan. I'm Scottish, by the way.
Like Father, Like Daughter [4.04][edit]
- Fitz: Maybe I find a convent in Switzerland and stick her in it.
- Olivia: That did not work when my father tried it with me.
- Abby: You make it hard for me to do my job. You undermine me here with Olivia Pope at every turn. You keep secrets from me. You make me feel...small.
- Cyrus: Red, there are things that happen here in this big White House with this particular President that you will never, ever know about. Some of those things, many of those things, will involve Olivia Pope. Several of those things will make it hard for you to do your job, but you are a patriot. You are a fighter. And so you will soldier on. As for feeling small, I don't do that to you. I suspect jealousy does that to you. My advice on that is this. You are not Olivia. You will never be Olivia. Hating Olivia for your own shortcomings will not change that fact.
- Fitz: I have dealt with Drunk Mellie, Bad Hygeine Mellie... No, wait. I got it. Smelly Mellie. I have dealt with Drunk Mellie and Smelly Mellie and Screw-Everything-to-Hell Mellie and Cry-baby Mellie and Eat-Everything-That's-Not-Nailed-Down Mellie. And I have not complained. But I will not put up with whatever righteous History-Rewriting Mellie you have going on right here, right now. This is not your family. You are not the mother. Not since Jerry died. Since Jerry died, you have abdicated your role. You have mothered no one. You hold nothing together. You pick up no pieces.
- Olivia: Burying yourself in work isn't always the best thing when you lose someone.
- Fitz: Running away isn't the best thing either.
The Key [4.05][edit]
- Olivia: I'm working. I'm gladiating.
- Quinn: You're getting your expensive pants dirty. What are you doing here?
- Rowan: We're not normal...
- Olivia: Even if we were, normal people don't talk about...normal fathers and daughters don't...
- Huck: I pinged all of Jake's IP interfaces for the last two days which landed me in a geo-location data stream. Then I ran that through my QR-9 knock off and from there it was easy. He might of been wearing a cowbell.
- Olivia: There's not a single word in that sentence I understood. Except cowbell.
- Fitz: You killed my son. I am going to have you destroyed. I'm going to watch you fry in the electric chair and I'm going to have a party when it happens.
- Jake: You are a decent human being. You are a good person. I know this because she loves you. If you were not a good person you would be down here pummeling my face in. I would not be in the possession of a government agency. I would be in a ditch somewhere. No one would be worried about the timeline of my food and drink. I would be in an unmarked grave by now.
- Cyrus: Jake Ballard is a predator, an animal, a killing machine. And just because you've decided to turn a blind eye to that doesn't make it any less true. So, your boyfriend – your other boyfriend – is currently being interrogated in the bowels of the Pentagon, where he will eventually confess to his crimes after which, it is my profound hope, he will be executed. And the next time you need me, the next time you want to chat, you will find me dancing on his grave.
- Abby: You ruined David Rosen. You took a good man – an honest, decent man – and you made him think that to do any good in this world, he had to be like you. A liar. A cheater. Poison. Because that's what you are, Liv. You are poison. And everyone who touches you pays the price.
An Innocent Man [4.06][edit]
- Abby: I am overstepping the hell out of my world right now, but if you love her at all, do her the courtesy of telling her what is going on. You may have never heard what it sounds like when Olivia wakes up screaming from a nightmare, but I have. And it's awful.
- Olivia: I know him. I know about him the way I know about you.
- Fitz: No, you don't know him the way you know me.
- Jake: I could sit here and rattle on about being framed and your father being behind the whole thing but really that's just my word and why should you trust my word? I've been lying to you ever since we met, right? My word's not going to change anything, it can't. We both know in the end you're not going to choose me. That's okay, Olivia. I want you to know, I need you to know... not choosing me is okay.
Baby Made A Mess [4.07][edit]
- Abby: I cannot cry in the White House.
- Olivia: You can cry if you want to.
- Abby: Press secretaries can't cry! It's, like, a rule!
- Mellie: When a woman is president, they'll suddenly make first lady an official paid position. They will hire someone to do it. The minute a man has to do it, it'll become a real job.
- Olivia: I need you to get me into super-max.
- David: Liv, it's a super-max prison. They added the word "super" to the already quite clear "maximum security. " Dahmer was in super-max. That place holds people who eat people. And you want to what, just waltz in there wearing all your white stuff, have a seat in one of the cells, and drink tea with Jake? This isn't jailhousemingle.com. You can't just visit Jake. Hell no. There are clearances, protocols, rules. You already have a plan, don't you? I've been Poped and I don't know it.
- Tom: You think you have a father? I am so sorry but you don't have a father. You have Command. You were raised by Command. Command doesn't have a family. Command has soliders. You take orders like any other soldier. You've been taking orders from Command since the day you were born.
- Olivia: My father is not a God. He is a man.
The Last Supper [4.08][edit]
- Jake: Captain Ballard. Jake is what my friends call me. You're not my friend, Mr. President. Friends don't put you in prison for crimes you didn't commit. They don't refuse to hear you when you're telling them the truth. They don't hit you when you can't hit back. So, when you refer to me from this point forward. it will be as Captain Ballard. Is that understood?
- Olivia: I wasn't aware we were on speaking terms, Dad, let alone having dinner.
- Rowan: We are family, Olivia. Families fight. That's what they do. That doesn't mean you stop calling. That doesn't mean you stop showing up for dinner. When we fight, we forgive and forget.
- Jake: You could let me rot in here. Be easy. Solve all your problems. I mean, I did tell him that you loved me too, but I was just messing with his head. All you have to do is just turn your head and then you and that Fitz guy can just dance off into the sun.
- Olivia: Don't ever talk about me and the sun and another man again. Don't ever do that. Okay?
- Rowan: I tried, Olivia. I tried my best. For the first time in your life, you are on your own. You think the world is so terrible with me in it? Wait 'till you see what it's like without me.
Where the Sun Don't Shine [4.09][edit]
- Elizabeth North: There's a special place in Hell for women who don't support other women.
- Olivia: There's a special place in Hell for women who spout that tired quote to justify their bad behavior.
- Olivia: You're not leaving. You were never leaving. You can never leave me alone because you have no place to go. The only life you have is the sad, twisted one you built here. The one where you lurk int he shadows, pull puppet strings, and pretend the world couldn't exist without your protection. You can't disappear, become a normal person, because Dad, you are not normal. You are a sick, lonely man who only knows how to lie and call it love.
- Rowan: Could you be more ungrateful? You're my flesh. There would be no Olivia Pope if not for me.
- Olivia: Who are you, Cy?
- Cyrus: Liv...
- Olivia: Who are you, Cy?!
- Cyrus: Liv!
- Olivia: Who are you, Cy?
- Cyrus: I am one of the most powerful men in the world.
- Olivia: Who are you!?
- Cyrus: I am one of the most powerful men in the world.
- Olivia: Oh, yeah? So you're not a bitch baby?
- Cyrus: I run this country. I'm nobody's bitch baby.
- Olivia: I don't know. You still sound like a little bitch baby to me.
- Cyrus: I am not a little bitch baby!
- Olivia: Then show me! Prove it to me right now! Show me who you are, Cyrus Beene!
- Andrew: So tell me, Mr. President. What's the one thing in the world that you can't live without? The one thing that you'd do everything in your power to get back?
- Fitz: What did you do to her? What did you do?
- Andrew: Tell me, Mr. President. How you liking that war now?
Run [4.10][edit]
- Olivia: Ian, I know everything looks really bad right now and you don't know me, but I'm gonna tell you something and I need you to believe me. I'm gonna save us.
- Abby: Jake and Fitz can't help you. There is no man to rescue you. Do you hear me? No one. No one is going to help you. You are the only gladiator in the place. You are all you've got. You have to rescue yourself.
Where's the Black Lady? [4.11][edit]
- Tom: He was a nice boy. But he was a boy. And you are a man, a great man, and I had to choose between a nice boy and a great man, and I chose the great man, and I am not sorry about that. I am proud of that. He was a sacrifice. I am a sacrifice. There are sacrifices that need to be made for greatness, brush that needs to be cleared for the path of history.
- Fitz: I need to know who I can trust in the White House.
- Tom: Is that why you're here?
- Fitz: Yes. In my detail, who can I trust? Where can I speak privately?
- Tom: The face that launched a thousand ships.
- Fitz: What?
- Tom: Helen of Troy. Menelaus got her back, but it took him ten years of war. Will you launch a thousand ships to save Ms. Pope?
- Quinn: Why aren't you calling the White House?
- Jake: If I call the White House, they'll kill Olivia. They can't go get her.
- Quinn: Then...it's the three of us? We bust in there and take on god knows how many armed mercenaries ourselves? All right. I'm down.
Gladiators Don't Run [4.12][edit]
- Mellie: The irony is he chose you because he thought you would be loyal.
- Andrew: Probably the same reason he chose you.
- Olivia: The two of you don't belong here, not with Gus, not trapped in this place with him. You don't deserve what's going to happen to you. What are you, 24, 25? You've got your entire lives ahead of you, the whole world ahead of you, and with your skills, those minds, the potential you havem the chance you have. You did not lie in bed at night dreaming of being kidnappers, human traffickers, terrorists. You didn't dream of life in a Supermax prison, or on the run, or doing whatever the hell Gus tells you to do which is actually the worst option. You dreamed of power, of being successful, of running companies, of building something great. You should be getting wined and dined by venture capitalists, not working with some gun-wielding lunatic. Which one of you do you think he'll shoot first so he only has to split the money two ways instead of three?
- Abby: I don't have friends. I have Liv and... something bad has happened to her and I didn't even get a chance to be her gladiator because no one bothered to let me know that she was missing, that she was in trouble, that she needed me. All the times... All the times that she saves me. All the times. I would save her, David. I would go over a cliff for her.
- Fitz: We have to get Olivia back, not just because I love her, not just because having her out there is a threat to national security. There are soldiers who are never coming home because I tried to get her back. Someone's father, someone's husband. I have killed so many mothers' sons trying to get her back. The flags placed on the coffins where they lay are there because they had the courage to give their lives and I did not have the courage to give Liv's, so she has to come back because their sacrifice damn well has to mean something. They cannot have died for nothing. They cannot have gone to their death for no other reason than I asked them to.
- Cyrus: We will get her back. I promise you sir, I will do everything in my power to make sure we get her back.
No More Blood [4.13][edit]
- Jake: Hey, I was calling you. Why didn't you answer?
- Quinn: Did you have a different, stirring interpretation of the "Your Boss is Dead" monologue that you wanted to perform? Because I already caught the Broadway version that Huck did.
- Cyrus: I made you a warrior. I made you a king! I made you a leader of men and THIS? This is what you leave me with? No! No! I'm done. I quit! And you can take your flowers and daisies, and your "love conquers all" and your hope, and you can choke on it. Because I don't work here anymore.
- Jake: They warped me too. They added a beast inside me too and he's a really good guy. He's so much fun. You'd like him. But I do not let him out. Ever. Not when I fight. Not when I kill. Not when I hurt. Because he's not allowed out to play. He's not invited. He's behind lock and key. You have to keep your guy in, Huck. You have to lock him in all the time. Otherwise one day he will be strong enough to lock you in and you'll never get out.
- Quinn: If we lose, if we lose Liv for good, I know what she is to you. I know how important she is. I know you need her. But I need you. You may be Liv's...puppy, but...I'm kind of yours.
- Huck: It won't happen again.
- Cyrus: She is precious to him, you understand? She is his beating heart in the hands of his enemies. With her they can bend him, they can break him, they can make the President of the United States dance like a monkey at a county fair. And as long as his heart is out there, beating in the hands of China, North Korea, drug lords, Russia, God knows who else, we are screwed. We stop it. We stop that beating heart. And that, my friends, is what your President would want us to do, it is what he would demand that we do, if his heart were not out there. If it were in here he would do it himself. So we do what he cannot do. We may need to neutralize the asset.
- Olivia: If you gave up the Presidency, what did I do all this for? Everything we did, I did, all of it, if you gave up the Presidency it would be a waste. Everything I've sacrificed to get you here, to keep you here, so you could be the best, so you could make history, so you could be the President you were meant to be. And you were. You were the President you were meant to be and then, when the true test came along, when I was taken because of you, you go to war? You sent thousands of innocent soldiers into harms way, some of them to their deaths, for one person.
- Fitz: I had to save you.
- Olivia: You didn't save me. I'm on my own.
The Lawn Chair [4.14][edit]
- Marcus: Help us get justice.
- Olivia: You don't want justice. You want anger. You want outrage. You want retribution.
- Marcus: You're right. I do. So should you.
- Olivia: There is a dead child lying in the street in front of their homes. What would you do if there was a dead child, a child you knew, in front of your home? The fact that they stand in groups and say things you do not like does not make them a mob. It makes them Americans.
The Testimony of Diego Muñoz [4.16][edit]
- Abby: He's good at his job.
- Cyrus: I didn't say he wasn't. You date him? Really, Red? That turns you on?
- Olivia: It's okay to be afraid. Sometimes fear keeps us safe. Sometimes it holds us back... I want her and every other child in this country to grow up in a nation that will allow them to fulfill their dreams just like I'm doing right now... You can do this job and keep your integrity. Just be honest. Be yourself.
- Huck: [describing the hole that B613 used as a form of punishment] It's important to have a routine. I ate lunch at the same time every day, even when I didn't have any food, even though I had no idea what time it was. I built things in the afternoon a bookshelf, a desk. I watched the sunset. That was important. I listened to the birds. I cleaned up files on my computer after dinner, then I slept. I tried not to dream. And every morning after I woke up, I wrote a letter to my wife and son. And I folded the letter up, and I put it on the bookshelf. And then I measured the walls.
It's Good to Be Kink [4.16][edit]
- Huck: Where's Jake?
- David: It's just the two of us. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid] You can be Newman. I'm fine with Redford.
- Suzanne: When did you become so weak?
- Olivia: Weak?
- Suzanne: Weak. Afraid. You're Olivia Pope. In political circles, that's like saying you've been to the moon. You've stood on the mountaintop. You make Rumsfeld look like a nanny that's how badass you are. You and Ruth Bader Ginsburg... that's it. That's all we got. The power you wield in this town, Olivia, it's legend. You used to exude it. It came out of every pore. It gave other women a contact high. So, I must admit I'm a little disappointed by your behavior towards me.
- Olivia: I'm trying to protect you.
- Suzanne: Protect me? That's... that's awful. I thought you'd be brave.
- Olivia: Sue...
- Suzanne: What happened to you? Where did your power go? When did you become so afraid of life? I'm not ashamed. This is my life, my body, my story to sell or tell or anyway, it's all I've got now. Okay? So, go ahead and call me a whore. Everyone who writes a memoir is a whore. You can also call me an author, an artist, a businesswoman. You can call me smart, and pretty soon, you can call me successful.
- Mellie: I'm running for Senator of Virginia.
- Abby: Well, that's...history making. Good for you. Good for Virginia, ma'am.
- Cyrus: You think so, Red?
- Olivia: It's all in the rear view for me. I need to move forward. I am moving forward.
- Cyrus: Moving forward? Towards what?
Put a Ring on It [4.17][edit]
- Cyrus: It sounds like a shotgun wedding.
- Olivia: It is. And you're the pregnant bride.
- Huck: I pulled Michael's cell records, did a search for most-called numbers, came up with Phillip. Triangulated the cell phone towers to track him to the vicinity of his office servers and then hacked into their email. How did you find out?
- Abby: I listened to all of Leo's voicemails while he was in the bathroom.
- Huck: Well, that's one way to do it.
- Cyrus: You see me for what I am. A filthy monster desperately trying to hold on to the last shreds of its humanity. You are a good person. I know that. Ella could use a good person in her life. I'm not promising much, but I will promise this. I may not do it well, but I will do my best to be your someone so you're not alone. Okay? You're not alone.
Honor Thy Father [4.18][edit]
- Olivia: Cyrus must be loving this.
- Abby: He's like a stormchaser in a van hurling down the highway, face pressed up against the windshield, grinning wildly, waiting for everything to go to Hell and wanting to be there when it does.
- Olivia: I've been in that van.
- Charlie: We gotta kill Jake.
- Quinn: No way.
- Charlie: Why not? Because Mr. Peabody out there says so? Or because, if we do, your boss will be sad?
- David: Does this mean you're in?
- Jake: I was never out, Rosen. But this means war, you know that, right? We're the good guys, but you won't always be able to tell. That's what it's going to take.
I'm Just a Bill [4.19][edit]
- Rowan: It is your friends who do not know you, but I do. You are a warrior. Never reckless, never naive. Too smart to let fear drive you. Precise, quiet, calculating. You will wait for the right time, you will look at all the possible outcomes, you will understand what needs to be done. I know you. Because the apple does not fall far from the tree, Olivia, poison though it may be.
- Olivia: The mayor's wife is upstairs lying in a pool of blood while my team erases evidence of a crime scene so I'd say it takes a lot to surprise me because this is my job. This is what I do. Now you know what I'm about. Justice or your career. I can only get you one. So what do you want?
First Lady Sings the Blues [4.20][edit]
- Abby: So Mellie Grant's run for Senate is legal because of misogyny. In this instance, misogyny is our friend. Is that what you're saying?
- David: No. No, I'm saying something less controversial and something less likely to get me stoned to death by my feminist sisters.
- Olivia: That's why you're calling? To ask for my advice about your wife?
- Fitz: I want to hear what you think.
- Olivia: What I think? I think you're supposed to be an optimist.
A Few Good Women [4.21][edit]
- Olivia : No one is going to kill you, Russell. I know that sounds comforting. But trust me. It's not. You don't get off so easily. You don't get to die
- Mellie: A story broke about a young naval officer who had been raped. And now the only thing people want to ask me about is whether or not my husband is going to intervene on her behalf. Can I assume, because we're not monsters, that the answer is yes? Fitz?
- Fitz: I can't intervene. It would send the wrong message.
- Mellie: It would tell the world that we don't condone rape.
You Can't Take Command [4.22][edit]
- Olivia: We have one goal. To bring down my father and to shut down B613 for good. To do what is right. So you tell the truth and you tell the whole truth. No matter what happens. No matter who gets hurt
- Maya Pope: Boo, I'm living out the rest of my days in this cell. You call that winning?
- Olivia: You could have killed him if you wanted to. So I want to know. How did you do it?
- Maya Pope: You sure do love a problem.
- Olivia: I don't know what you're...
- Maya Pope: You're so vain. It's always about you, isn't it? The problems you create so that you can solve them. The power you have to wield so that you can feel important. Did your father and I not tell you you were special enough when you were little? Did we not give you enough hugs? Aww, baby. This uppity fantasy world you've decided to be a part of it's not real, boo. Now you need to come on back down to this planet. Where the world doesn't revolve around you.
- David: You can't threaten me like that.
- Cyrus: Actually, I can. You see, when you know someone's pressure point, you can make them do just about anything.
- Jake: You are owed, Olivia. You want what's yours? Go and take it. B613 is gone. Command is in jail. I have delivered you home safe and sound. My mission is complete. And it has been my pleasure. Take care, Liv.
Season 5[edit]
Heavy Is The Head [5.01][edit]
- Sally: Tonight, my flag waves and my patriotic fires burn, because tonight, over in the White House, the man who calls himself our president is throwing a party. He's making a mockery of what our fine nation stands for. He has betrayed honor and virtue. And tonight, he celebrates that betrayal. Tonight, he bathes in his filthy glory. Tonight, he has the audacity to ask us patriots, Americans to join him in his jubilation, to skip with him down the road to Sodom and Gomorrah.
- Princess Emily: For most of the world I'm not a real person anymore. I stopped being a real person for people the moment the world found out I was marrying Richard. To them, I'm not human. I'm just a spectacle.
- Fitz: You have so many qualities I despise, but I do admire your brilliance. So do the math, Mel. Fighting this, fighting me, will mean both of us deploy every weapon in our arsenals. Every lie, every secret, every juror on that bus. Mutually assured destruction. We'll be ruined. Now me, I'm a war hero, governor, two-time President. My bucket list is done. You? Your biggest accomplishment so far is breathing and smiling.
- Olivia: I want you. I want us. But I want to slow down. I want our business handled. I want our problems fixed. I want to be ready before the world is watching. Once we're in that spotlight, being picked at and scrubbed and stretched in every direction, we will never get the chance to make things right. If we are broken going in, we're not getting out, not together. They will destroy us. That's reality, Fitz.
Yes [5.02][edit]
- Mellie: You placed Olivia in a dangerous position. You outed her. You thought by throwing me out of the White House and moving her in you'd be making this grand gesture. Finally she wouldn't be just a mistress anymore. But the minute she stepped foot through these doors, the minute she moved in here, she became what we all become when we live here and what is that? Yes, a statue. Inhuman. Discussed from every angle, viewed, exposed. She's not just a mistress now. She's America's mistress.
- Jake: How does a guy facing a murder charge even get bail?
- Quinn: By being rich and white.
- Cyrus: Red, how does leadership come? Is it given to you? No. You want to lead, be the leader. Everyone else will automatically become the followers. You want POTUS to fall in line, to behave. Be the adult. He'll become the child. That's the secret of the Oval Office, Red. You want the power? You want to be the kingmaker? You want to be the hand that rules? You are the adult. He is the child.
- Quinn: I dispose of bodies and I get turned on by crime scenes. Hacking is hot. I am not your all-American girl and I don't want to be.
- Huck: You're not wrong...about me. Something's wrong with me.
- Quinn: That's my point. Something's wrong with me too.
- Huck: I missed you. I missed you a lot.
- Fitz: It's me. I know you said not to call but I just wanted you to know...I get it. All this time I've been waiting to hear from you so you could tell me what you wanted, but it's what you don't want, isn't it? You don't want this. I'm going to deny Sally's story and bring Mellie back to the White House because I don't want you to throw away your whole life just for me. I love you too much for that.
- Reporter: Olivia Pope, are you the President's mistress?
- Olivia: [after a long pause] Yes.
Paris is Burning [5.03][edit]
- Mellie: I want to destroy Olivia Pope. I want her to suffer like I have suffered. I want to make them bleed. I want their every breath to reek of poison.
- Cyrus: Mellie, this is a very important moment. Don't waste it being human. Your answer will define your future. Think like a champion. Think like a warrior.
- Mellie: I want the Oval.
- Jake: You know why you don't know about any plan? Because you are not a part of any plan. The plan already happened. The plan was Olivia Pope standing on that sidewalk and with one word obliterating any life she's ever known.
Dog-Whistle Politics [5.04][edit]
- Cyrus: They want to impeach a man for having an affair?
- Mellie: They want to impeach a man for having an affair that everyone just shrugs about because a man having an affair is a daily occurrence. They want to impeach a man because all we ever hear is how women are controlled by their hormones but what is more hormonal than a man who can't keep it in his damn pants? They want to impeach a man because he broke his vows and disturbed the office of the Presidency and distracted the country with his libido and the only person who gets raked over the coals is the woman he screwed. That's why.
- Quinn: You went off-script.
- Marcus: This. Is. War. There is no script. You can choose the battle, but if you send me out, I'm fighting my way. I don't play. I don't hide. I don't hold back or look for exits... and I sure as hell don't lean on the ropes and take it. I swing because that's me. That's who I am. That is how I gladiate.
- Fitz: It's Olivia's job as a fixer to be smart. To be practical and unemotional. She makes the the smart move. In her office, the smart move is the only move that counts, but you know what? We don't work for Liv. I'm president of the United States. We work for the American people. The playbook is the constitution. In my office, it's not about doing the smart thing. It's about doing the right thing.
You Got Served [5.05][edit]
- David: This isn't a normal trial, Mr. President. It's a political trial. Congress is prosecutor and judge and jury. They decide what an impeachable offense is, and they decide if you've committed one. If you survive these hearings, you're still president. If you don't, you're not. You need to talk to a lawyer.
- Edison: If you want me to help you, you're gonna be honest with me. You're gonna admit to my face that you were never in love with me, that you never had any intention of marrying me, that you tried to make a fool of me for seeing you as exactly what you are. A criminal, a whore, an idiot, and a liar. You want me to lie? You owe me the truth.
- Interviewer: And what about getting involved with the president in the first place? Do you regret that?
- Olivia: I wish I never laid eyes on him.
- Fitz: It's good to have you back, Cy.
- Cyrus: I serve at the pleasure of the President. The honor is all mine.
Get Out of Jail, Free [5.06][edit]
- Abby: If you take the stand, you could end up going to jail.
- Olivia: And if I get married? What in the hell do you think this is?
- Fitz: You know how embarrassing that was? How awkward I felt asking my valets to scatter rose petals everywhere? Telling them to light all these damn candles? Can you honestly stand there and tell me that you think that I actually wanted to do this? Nobody wants to do this! No man ever wants to do this. Of course no man ever wants to do this.
- Olivia: So why did you do it?
- Fitz: Because I love you. Because you are what I want. But obviously, you don't feel the same.
- Mellie: You are not my enemy. You are my freedom. You are my white knight. You are my challenger, my push to greatness, my savior. I was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. You are gonna make me President of the United States.
Even the Devil Deserves a Second Chance [5.07][edit]
- Jake: You just let a murderer out of prison, not for the good of the Republic, but because you wanted to. Because it personally served you and I don't see any impeachment hearings and I don't see a wedding ring on that finger. You are Rowan's greatest achievement. You have become exactly the woman he raised you to be. Power hungry, entitled, dangerous, and the beauty of it is you don't even know it.
- Liz: This. This isn't you. You're a weasly little troll, and I don't like you, and I don't respect you, and I think you're pathetic.
- David: Is there a point here, or...
- Liz: But you believe in the law. I believe you believe in the law. And instead of following the law, you're just doing the bidding of that sweaty, red-faced monster who stole my job. That man is contemptible.
- Olivia: Cyrus, Fitz and I together... we have an actual relationship. This is what a couple looks like.
- Cyrus: You have the Oval. This is what power looks like. He's not the President anymore, Olivia. You are.
Rasputin [5.08][edit]
- Cyrus: We're living in a new world, Red. A world where Olivia Pope is judge, jury, and executioner. She has his world, our world hoisted on her shoulders. That is a fact. There's no changing it.
- Rowan: As long as I am alive, I will do my best to make sure that you are protected, but in the event of my death I have already given you everything you need to survive. I hope you know. I did my best for you Olivia. I take tremendous pride in who you have become.
- Olivia: I believe him. My gut says he is telling the truth.
- Jake: Of course you do. Otherwise you'd just be a fool with daddy issues.
Baby, It's Cold Outside [5.09][edit]
- Marcus: Everybody loves a good holiday party, right? What'd you guys do last year?
- Quinn: We passed around a bottle of vodka on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. And then we went to work because that's what Gladiators do.
- Marcus: Bah, humbug.
- Huck: You took my family from me. But Javi's fine. He's a good kid. He'll be a good man. And by staying away, I've been a good father. But your daughter? You failed. The sad part is that you know it, and you're not doing anything about it. So, like I said, you are nobody's father. I know what you want. And knowing that you want to die? Oh, it's almost better than killing you.
- Olivia: Wow. A liberal female democrat who thinks defending planned parenthood is a mockery?
- Senator Moskowitz: Mellie Grant is political quicksand, and I refuse to go down with her.
- Mellie: I can't do this. I just I can't. I don't even know why I'm doing this. I'm a republican. I just didn't like Gibson telling me what I can't do.
- Olivia: You're the biggest bitch I know. Don't tell me you can't do this.
- Fitz: I hate that you're always right.
- Olivia: Me too.
- Fitz: We tried.
- Olivia: We did.
It's Hard Out Here for a General [5.10][edit]
The Candidate [5.11][edit]
- Olivia: You were mean.
- Mellie: Of course I was. You were my husband's mistress. Was I supposed to be friendly?
- Olivia: You were really awful. I'm telling you, you were nasty, and I took it.
- Mellie: Why? I wanted to fight and you never fought.
- Olivia: I was your husband's mistress. I was in the wrong.
- Mellie: Truth is, I was glad you were there. You were a good mistress. Probably a great one. You know what I mean?
- Olivia: Well, I am an overachiever. Once I put my mind to something, I commit.
(Mellie and Olivia laugh, drunkenly.)
- Mellie: It was working.
- Olivia: I'm sorry?
- Mellie: It was working. That's why I stayed. It was working. Fitz and I and you. It was working. You know what I mean?
- Olivia: I'm not sure I do what you ...
- Mellie: Hold on a minute. (takes a sip from her jar of booze) I used to wonder if it was all men or just Fitz that sucked the life out of you. Now, I think it's all the powerful men. They've been told their whole lives they deserve everything, that they should have everything, and it makes them so weak. They think that everything belongs to them by default, and if they don't get it, they just fall apart. Fitz didn't have any fight in him. He didn't know how to stand on his own two feet. I mean, I saw the potential. We all saw it. But I had to work at it. I held his hand, I fluffed, I bled, and I got nothing in return. Except for you. You showed up. I wasn't devastated, Olivia, or numb or empty. I was deserving. I deserved you. I was a 37-year-old governor's wife with two kids, and that was all. I was somebody's wife and somebody's mother. Not my own anything. I deserved you. I warranted you. I justified you. I had lost myself, and in return, I got you. You are my retribution. And it was humiliating. I couldn't even hate you. I couldn't even pretend to. I hated myself. But then I turned a corner. It was quick. Effortless, really. You had become the beautiful kept thing he lusted after. Where you went, he went. Which meant that I ... I suddenly had space. I had air of my own that I could breathe, time to think and plan, and I started liking myself again because I was alone and I was relieved. And I was free. Freedom, baby. I stayed because it was working. I stood by and I allowed the affair to continue because it was working for all of us. He was occupied, thanks to you. He was happy. You lit his fire. We made it all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And one day, it was gonna be my turn. Fitz would make me President of the United States because he owed me at least that much. And so I stayed. Because the three of us, ugh. We worked! So, what do you say, Olivia? That deep enough for you? Is that honest enough?
- Olivia: Mellie, you can't actually write that anywhere. If you want to be President, you can never, ever tell anyone any of that.
- Mellie: Oh yeah, I know. I know I can't. That's the problem.
- Olivia: I was happy you were around, too. When I was with Fitz, I was happy you were around, too. With you around, I didn't have to ... I had an out. You--you were my out, Mellie. You kept him unavailable.
- Mellie: Okay.
- Olivia: And, so, I left for the same reason you stayed. Because I was scared.
- Mellie: Okay.
- Olivia: Mellie. That's what you write. You write that you were scared. You write that you never could have imagined standing up in front of the entire Senate for as long as you did, filibustering the hell out of that bill, protecting every woman's constitutional right to make her own decision about her own body because you never thought you would be able to do any of that on your own. You write that you didn't need Fitz. You didn't need some man to give you the power. You had the power the whole time. It just took you a little longer to realize. That is what you write.
(Olivia appears as if she's about to break down, crying. Mellie doesn't know what to do.)
- Olivia: Get out your laptop. Start writing.
(after finishing their burger-and-fries meal at Gettysburger on a date)
- Susan: That was ... incredible.
- David: What do you think their secret sauce is made out of?
- Susan: Crack. I think it's made out of crack.
- David: You would be an amazing President.
- Susan: David, do you know why I was chosen to be VP? It wasn't because I am amazing. It's because Mellie Grant lacks character. She was picking her competition for the next Republican Primary, and instead of having the guts to go toe-to-toe with a worthy warrior for a true battle, she turned coward. She picked me. She picked someone useless, unthreatening, unpolished, unelectable. She picked a bug she can crush in one blow. I don't stand a chance in a primary against Mellie, so why would I put myself, my daughter, through the agony of a campaign? Why would I uproot us for months on end--
(David kisses Susan.)
- David: Don't you ever call yourself names in my presence again. You are not a bug. You are a warrior. You could win this. You could win, Susan. I really believe that.
Wild Card [5.12][edit]
The Fish Rots from the Head [5.13][edit]
I See You [5.14][edit]
Pencil's Down [5.15][edit]
The Miseducation of Susan Ross [5.16][edit]
- Susan: My husband, John, served in the U.S. Army. He was a lieutenant in the 116th Infantry Brigade. Served all over the world, including Afghanistan, where his platoon was tasked with the rather onerous job of patrolling a 20-mile stretch of desert along the Kandahar-Herat highway. He called me one night while he was over there, and when he told me what their assignment was, I said, "Well, what is it about this 20-mile stretch of desert that's so important to our country? Is it a village that needs protecting from the Taliban, a prison where we're holding terrorists?" "No," he says. "It's a pipeline." A pipeline that the Afghani government, in exchange for billions of dollars, was allowing American companies to build on its land. One of those companies – Doyle Energy.
- Doyle: [laughs] Okay. This...
- Susan: I'm talking now. Hearing my husband say that... it made my blood boil. Here he was, putting his life at risk so American businessmen could line their pockets. I wanted to say something, voice my rage, tell my husband to get the hell out of there... but I didn't. I bit my tongue because we are not our husbands' keepers. 14 hours later, a Taliban sniper put a bullet through my husband's neck, severed his carotid artery, killed him almost instantly. I didn't blame the shooter. I didn't even blame the government or the energy companies. I blamed myself. I had an opinion, and I didn't voice it. I kept my mouth shut, and I swore that day that I would never again be silent. I became a United States Senator, I became the Vice President of the United States of America, and I plan to become the President of the United States, because no, we are not our husbands' keepers, but maybe we should be America's. Next question.
- Kerry Washington as Olivia "Liv" Carolyn Pope
- Scott Foley as Captain Jacob "Jake" Ballard
- Darby Stanchfield as Abigail "Abby" Whelan
- Katie Lowes as Quinn Perkins/Lindsay Dwyer
- Guillermo Diaz as Huck/Diego Muñoz
- Jeff Perry as Cyrus Rutherford Beene
- 'Joshua Malina as David Rosen
- Bellamy Young as Melody "Mellie" Grant
- Portia de Rossi as Elizabeth "Lizzie" North
- Joe Morton as Elijah "Eli/Rowan" Pope
- Cornelius Smith Jr. as Marcus Walker
- Tony Goldwyn as Fitzgerald "Fitz" Thomas Grant III
- Columbus Short as Harrison Wright (2012-2014)
- Henry Ian Cusick as Stephen Finch (2012)