Through a number of flashbacks, dating back five years, the reasons for the strained relationship between Olivia and her father Eli/Rowan came to light.  Olivia and her dad had an agreement where she would have Sunday dinner with her father and, in return, he would take care of her law school tuition.   None of these meals looked very warm and cozy family affairs to begin with, and, after a while, they stopped due to some revelations and a lot of intrigue and dirty business.   Olivia was dating Edison at the time, someone who her father didn’t consider a worthy partner for his daughter – more like the fact that his Senate Intelligence Committee could have stumbled upon B613.  Olivia rode the same subway everyday, and met up with Huck, who she only knew as some homeless guy and for whom she’d bring a doggy bag thanks to those Sunday dinners with Dad.  It wasn’t until he rescued her during a robbery – by nearly destroying the two very foolish crooks that the two started a different type of friendship – and where she found out that he preferred cheeseburgers over the Michelin worthy meals she’d been handing him.  After the attack, she asked Huck how he’d learned to do that kind of thing, like dropping two men to the ground without breaking a sweat.  At first, Huck dodged the question, but when she pressed further, he told her that he had been a Special Operative, a government assassin working for the CIA secret group B613.  He also told her how he’d been put in a hole until he wished he was dead,  and had lost everything, including his family.  Then he mentions the front B613 had used – a company called Acme Limited, which he knew as Wonderland.

When Olivia goes to dinner at her Dad’s, she tells him how worried she is about Huck and related what Huck had said about B613.   Eli/Rowan denies any knowledge about B613 – after all, he’s just a curator at the Smithsonian, more interested in mastodons than espionage.   His daughter, still buying his cover, asks him to use some of his contacts to look into Huck’s story.   At their next dinner, he lets his daughter know that he did try to find out about Huck and what he learned is that he was just a homeless man, a schizophrenic who’d been arrested for attacking people at Union Station.   She isn’t completely satisfied with what her Dad has to say and goes to her friend, David Rosen, to see if anyone fitting Huck’s description had been arrested.  He tells her that there was no such incident.  Needless to say, Olivia meets Dad for their weekly get together with more suspicion and questions.   The pen she’s carrying is from Acme Limited and she’s found the fake company on Wonderland Avenue.  Handing her father the pen, she asks him about the company, then what it is he actually does for a living.  His answer isn’t exactly what she was hoping for.  He tells her that he’s her father and he will explain how she’s to behave in his presence.  “You don’t know me that well, but if you push, you will know me well, and that would break my heart.  Now, pick up your menu, order your meal and tell me about your day.”  Olivia walks out of the restaurant and all future Sunday dinners with Dad – or so it seemed.

In the present, Pope and Associates are working their gladiator magic with their client, Jeanine Locke, who was named as the President’s mistress, thanks to Mellie, Cyrus and Harrison.  While they were at work, so was the White House – doing damage control over the leaked affair.   Fitz calls Olivia, supposedly to talk about Jeanine, but he starts filling her head with the usual nonsense he engages in whenever he hears her voice or sees her across a room.  His latest fantasy has them married, with four children, living in Vermont.   He really seems to enjoy this sort of useless banter, with promises of a future that shouldn’t come to be.  He doesn’t really mean it, anyway.  We saw the look he got when he watched Olivia in full gladiator mode.  The guy was drooling all over his crisp white shirt.   Leaf-peeping and apple picking aren’t going to cut it.  Olivia stops his visions of covered bridges and informs him that she is going to attack the White House with everything Pope and Associates has for Jeanine’s sake.  He tells her to go for the jugular. Yeah, I see a future of making jam and changing diapers for these two.

Cyrus and Mellie would like the President to go with the “I did Jeanine” story, but he’s not on board with them,  Instead, he thinks that since they threw her under the bus, they owe her an apology.  Mellie has another plan – no surprise there.  Cyrus tells her she’s evil and she thanks him.

Olivia has other worries, specifically what happened to Jake Ballard.  She’s been making regular visits to the morgue, looking at every body that even remotely fits his description.   When she gets back to her office, her father is waiting for her and the two go into a private room to have a talk. While her staff watches, she and Eli/Rowan argue, while smiling for their audience, about Jake and Jeanine.  Dad wants Olivia to tell America that Jeanine is the President’s side piece and she’ll do what she’s told if she ever wants to see Jake again.   Olivia calls Fitz and asks him to find Jake.  Fitz takes the question to Cyrus who, at first, denies the existence of B613.  When his boss threatens his position, Cyrus explains how B613 is set up for plausible deniability to protect the President.  Right now, they’re not happy with Fitz, and, as Cyrus tells him, they’re not the kind of people you want as enemies.

Olivia is trying to convince Jeanine that she shouldn’t lie about having an affair with the President, but Mellie has already gotten to the girl.  A promise of $2 million was the going price for the girl’s cooperation – something Olivia tells her that she’ll regret someday.   Before they can hold their own press conference, though, they’re preempted by one from the President.   As they walk towards the press room, Fitz tells Cyrus that he’s playing “let’s make a deal”.  Behind door number one is his affair with Olivia Pope and the awful truth as to how Jeanine was used by the White House for political expediency.  Behind the second door is an affair with Jeanine.  Which story he goes with depends on the release of Jake Ballard.  He then asks Cyrus, ” How presidential are my balls now, Cy?”   Good question there, Fitz.  I have one, too.  Are those the balls that Mellie holds or did you retrieve them from Olivia’s Prada bag?

Fitz has decided to go with the Jeanine as mistress version but the Vice President isn’t buying it.  When she asks the President if it’s the truth he tells her that he did Jeanine seven ways to Sunday.   He says that he’s not lying so I guess “doing” Jeanine is open to interpretation.

In one flashback, Olivia had begged her father to give Huck back to her after he’d gone missing.   He did as she asked but not without a real cost to her.  Eli/Rowan called her to tell her that Edison had been in a  terrible accident and was in the hospital with serious injuries.  She screamed that they’re done, but Dad said, “We’re family.  We’re never done.”

Back in the present, Quinn’s been digging around, looking for information about Olivia and her father.  Huck told her not to do it, warning her to be less like him and more like Olivia but she became a dog with a bone.   She’s figured out that the emails and dinners between father and daughter stopped at the same time that Huck disappeared from the subway and then reemerged.  Dumb Quinn – really dumb.  You just couldn’t leave it alone.   As Olivia goes to her car, Huck is waiting for her.  He tells her that he has exactly two questions.  The first is why she lied to him.  When she says she didn’t, he jacks her up against the car.  He then starts to scream that he had told her there was no deal.  His next question – “Is your father B613?  Is he Command?”  She says yes, he is.   Olivia lied to Huck.  She had promised him, sworn to him that he could trust her.   Quinn may have been dumb for poking around, but Olivia’s sin was much worse.

Olivia gets home, and Dad makes another call, telling her to go to her front door.  Opening it, she finds Jake, who looks as if his time in the hole and in the hands of B613 has not been pleasant.   Dinners with Dad are about to resume.   And we still don’t know what’s inside that top-secret (OMG) folder.

Empress