Buy Scandal: Enemy of the State
Fourth episode of the first season sees the show falter a bit, particularly in the area of the “story of the week,” which finds Olivia and her team being tasked with helping a right-wing dictator from South America find his wife when she’s kidnapped. This is a great premise, with the team having to hold their noses and help a pretty repugnant guy and also have to face the fact that no client so far has had quite this much power at his disposal or willingness to use that power should they fail. But it’s unfortunately really predictable and I thought the way this plot wrapped up was really cheesy. But the show’s season long arc is still going strong and it continues to keep me absolutely hooked. Jeff Perry gets a couple of great scenes as the President’s Chief of Staff; in the first, he sums up the problems they’re facing and then looks into a bleak future; in the second, he goes toe to toe with Kerry Washington and the confrontation is a great moment. One really good thing here is that Cyrus hires a group of investigators to dig up dirt on Olivia’s team and we get a great scene where we finally find out some details about some of the characters and their backstories; some of them are really intriguing, such as the reveal about Katie Lowes’ Quinn Perkins, which you will NOT see coming. Anyway, this is a bit of lesser episode, I’d have to say, but it advances the season long story arc in satisfying ways and has a great cliffhanger ending. Recommended. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – story of the week is predictable and cheesy for once, but the season long story arc is still compelling and intriguing; some background on our main characters finally comes out and it doesn’t disappoint. 3 ½ stars.