BWW Preview: Gladiator Powers Activate! It's time for SCANDAL Season Five

The long wait is finally over and SCANDAL will return on Thursday. Are Olivia and Fitz finally together? Are Cyrus and Mellie really out of Fitz's life? Are Huck and Quinn the only ones working at Pope and Associates now? Will David Rosen ever get more screen time? Before we look forward, let's look back where Season Four ended.

Season Four saw us dealing with Mellie's breakdown after the death of her son Jerry as well as Jake taking the fall for hiring Tom (Hi, Brian) to kill Jerry. Eventually, Rowan is discovered as the mastermind and disappears. Elizabeth (Portia De Rossi) is working with the Vice President, Andrew Nichols (Jon Tenney), to set up a war in West Angola, which will be the undoing of the President. Nichols is eventually discovered for his motives and suffers a stroke rendering him incapacitated. They recruit a new Vice President, Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani), thought to be a naive, innocent patsy, but who winds up being a force in the Fitzgerald administration much to the dismay of Cyrus. Abby is now Press Secretary and David Rosen is Attorney General, but Abby is now (inexplicably) dating vile political consultant Leo Bergen so that provides some nice tension. Cyrus hooks up with a male prostitute who was hired to bring him down by Elizabeth. The plot is discovered in time and Olivia spins it (as per usual) and the couple wind up getting married at the White House. Olivia is abducted and despite valiant attempts for rescue by Pope and Associates and the White House, it is former associate, Stephen Finch (Henry Ian Cusick) who comes to her rescue. Back home, she takes up with Russell, who winds up being one of her father's' employees and nearly kills Jake. (Total heart attack at that scene, not gonna lie). Jake, David and Huck were on a mission to bring down B-613 with all the evidence they had gathered, but all the jurors on the case are brutally murdered and all their evidence burned after Rowan blackmails Mellie. Olivia is finally able to bring Rowan down for embezzlement after Mama Pope advises her, "You can't take down Command, but you can bring down Eli Pope." The Capone tactic! The season ended with Fitz discovering Cyrus and Mellie's involvement and dismissing both of them. Mellie is now a Virginia senator and Fitz wants a divorce and Cyrus is fired, making Elizabeth the new Chief-of-Staff. Lastly, Jake decides to leave when Olivia chooses Fitz and he comes to get her so they can finally be together.

So clearly that is great news for the Fitz and Olivia shippers, but I don't think I have made a secret of the fact that I am 100% on Team Jake. Well, really, team Scott Foley, Jake is pretty reprehensible, but he's still super hot.

In Season Five, I have high hopes that Olivia and Jake are far from over, but it will be interesting to see if Fitz makes his relationship with Olivia public finally. Cyrus, now out of work, will be quite lost and maybe finally connect with new husband, Mike? Or maybe align himself with the devil himself, Rowan? Mellie, also now on her own, who will she cling to? She doesn't strike me as an independent person, but I for one will cheer her on as she figures out how to be one. You don't need, Fitz, Mellie!! I definitely thought Susan Ross was brought in to look incompetent so that Mellie would be vetted for VP, still haven't ruled that theory out, but enjoying the unfolding of Susan Ross as yet another strong woman in Shondaland.

Other changes to look forward to are a few recurring characters bumped up to series regulars. Marcus Walker (Cornelius Smith Jr.) a civil rights activist and Elizabeth North (Portia de Rossi) characters, the President's new Chief of Staff after she got Cyrus Beene fired at the end of last season. Both characters are gravely underused so I was thrilled to hear of their promotion. I think both offer a lot of stories to explore and it's always nice when Cyrus has a nemesis. Shonda Rhimes has also stated that she will be getting back to more action at Pope and Associates which was put a little bit on the back burner last season with the rescue of Olivia. I mean, there was a time when it was literally just Huck and Quinn running it, right? And can we get Abby involved again? She is severely disrespected at the White House. Can everyone stop calling her "red" already and define her by something more than the color of her hair? And where did we leave Huck, Quinn and David? Huck and his family? Quinn and Charlie? David was pretty broken after the B-613 trial went off the rails. May I again plead for more Joshua Malina screentime? Shondaland is not famous for slow starts or boring episodes so I have complete confidence that we will jump right into the action.

Here's a Preview for Season 5 of SCANDAL premiering Thursday, September 24th at 9:00pm on ABC:

Photo Credit: ABC

Follow me on Twitter @eponineq all season long for recaps of EMPIRE, SCANDAL, SHAMELESS and THE WALKING DEAD and follow @BWWTVWorld for all the latest updates, scoops and recaps.

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