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I have several thoughts in regards to this episode. I think "The Lawn Chair" was a great episode in the same vein as "Run", I've hated this little Vice President take-over arc for the most part, and this was a nice change of pace. I agree with what you said in regards to the guest stars owning the show. The father and the police officer chewing up the scenery at the end were the obvious highlights.

I would love to hear your (expanded) thoughts in regards to the unearned privilege, just to see where your thoughts are in regards to your issues with this episode, I have a few of my own, but they are minor quibbles. I felt that this was a fairly strong showcase.

In regards to Mellie, I can't help but feel like she is just getting to big for her britches, and I don't feel like she deserves all of this deference to something that may never materialized. Her machinations shouldn't be disrupting Fitz's term and I feel like that is going to come to a head sooner or later. Fitz's can't keep doing things based on an imaginary term Mellie may or may not be successful in running and acquiescing. The whole storyline exacerbated the core issue in regards to her selfishness. I don't see why Mellie is so threatened by a Latina Vice President, and why Fitz should handicap his office so Mellie can have an express lane to the Republican Primary. I think Mellie wants it all, she wants to be First Lady, and she wants to be Presidential primary material, and that's a fantasy.

I didn't like it because they seemed to be shoe-horning that Franke/Cornelius (don't know the guys name, and won't wiki it for a two second post) was right, when he was really just looking for a Ferguson-esque incident to raise his profile. He was interrupting the process, and Olivia was fixing the situation, and she would have done what she always does, expose the truth and have everyone appropriated accordingly as seen in pretty much all of the episodes in the series. I thought it was a fantasy that the father would have walked away without cuffs and prison time. That just wouldn't happen. You don't take a shot gun on a heavily populated street, halt a crime investigation and threaten to shoot two people and get a black SUV to take you to see the President. It's just wouldn't happen in any world.

I thought the officer had a bit of a point, until he just became a racist. It brings to light the core problems within the police units, urban areas, and racial profiling. There is a natural distrust in the police system that is corrupt, and that just ends up breeding more problems and issues within the city. You shouldn't be afraid of the police, but there are substantial opportunities for abuses in power.

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It's basically what I already made a point of. Mellie and Fitz (somewhat successfully) attempting to undermine two women on the episode was just ... bad timing. I wouldn't have noticed it as much if it was not on that episode. This is a show where the FIXER and her employees are made to fix everything and most of the other characters are painted as weak at their jobs. POTUS and FLOTUS are essentially two people in power partially due to stealing and to a point due to other peoples work and here they are working together to undermine a put upon group in society for their own gain (in that episode).

In general, Fitz is the primary example of having unearned privilege. He's a pretty white male who seems to get all sorts of power - imagined or otherwise - handed to him because he's a pretty white male. We don't see him being capable as a good leader or as a good man too often but he is where he is with his primary placement in the power scheme in the world and in his primary placement with an immediate circle of people in his life. Mellie wanting to be the next President and not deducing she needs to at the least start doing productive work - for the American public (and not primarily for the Grants) that the American public can know of - to even begin to earn that speaks of feeling unearned privilege in the current scheme of things. Olivia's constant name (and vagina power) throwing has always made me think of a spoiled brat used to getting things handed to them a little too easily as well. "The President...My Father..." Manipulation, charm, name-throwing are skill sets in politics, don't get me wrong, but sometimes they can become the heavy.

VP SCANDAL! POTUS MELLIE?

Picking an experience elected politician who happened to be a female with an ethnic background would have been literally spitting on Mellie as Latina VP would have been a perfect storm candidate for the next 1-2 elections. Momentum to the umpth. Realistically, no politician is thinking I have to get myself set to run against the person who has the best chance of crushing me. Don't get me wrong, Mellie shouldn't be able to go from FLOTUS to POTUS without any time in actual office BUT that would have been driving an unnecessary ice pick into her dreams. Mellie's pick will backfire because what doesn't backfire on this chick? Mellie is aloof, calculating and rehearsed. Susan is the opposite. If Susan gets ambitious...

IMO, Fitz did the right thing in giving Mellie what she wanted though (and much like her double-edged motives I do think his action was also self serving - he's sick of overly ambitious VPs). Mellie has earned privilege with this man whether or not he asked for her sacrifices. Through all her fire, rage and ranting, she's been ride or die for him like few other people. She put everything she wanted to be aside to make him. Sure there's been agenda in her motives but there's also been love for him in those decisions. In a way, he's now trying to show her he sees her and he appreciates her and it's almost sweet. If it wasn't for her taking care of business, he'd still be dealing with Andrew as his VP. Sure somebody else could have also taken care of Andrew but she's the one who did. For me, that alone nulls the argument of him losing a crap on the VP pick for the sake of Mellie's crazy dreams. Logically and ideally for her dream, Mellie should have asked Fitz to pick a boring male, she kind of gave him an inch by keeping the VP sex female (although that serves her cause well too, it's a woman one step away from that top seat).

I do hope they give Mellie a platform though where we can see her capability to fix things with skills beyond manipulation and threats. Fitz and Mellie are both being unrealistic about FLOTUS to POTUS, sure, but that doesn't mean they can't make common sense inroads into starting to take Mellie in the right direction. I'm hoping the plan isn't to make a complete joke of it.

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Another horrible episode. I found myself asking WTF am I watching.

They also got a 2.3 in the demos down a full point from their winter premiere. Greys Anatomy is only behind them by one tenth. I'm glad HTGAWM had a short season their spring numbers would've been scary.

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Lowest 18-49 since Season 2A. Greys got more total viewers in it's ... 10th Season? This season, I have really been enjoying Greys Anatomy A LOT more than Scandal.

Scandal is uninteresting, poorly put together fan fiction this season for the most part.

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I'm not surprised in the least. This show is a hot mess. Olivia f.ucked some random dude because she wanted to be promiscuous. Forget Fitz, wasn't she supposed to be in a relationship with Jake? I'll add slut to her resume. Meanwhile Huck is creepier than ever and the characters are boring with no direction. Even Mellie's attempt to be FLOTUS is hollow. We're suppose to care that Olivia decided to put back on some stupid ring that Fitz gave her as a sign they'll be f.ucking again. Rinse. Cycle and Repeat and with the upcoming promo of Jake being thrown under the bus for no apparent reason they need to stick a fork in it. I seriously do not see this show lasting beyond a couple more years.

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Spring numbers have nothing to do with based on how well GA is holding up. Scandal's issue is quality and bad storytelling. The kidnapping arc would've been perfect for at the end of 3B (remember how the cut 4 episodes for KW's pregnancy?) Well these four episodes should have been filmed and added on then. It would've been a great S3 cliffhanger. It made zero sense to start 4B, but like most we went with it and it was a major cluster all the way around. After that horrible conclusion and then hearing what was coming up, I kissed the show goodbye. If it was on DST, the show would be making up most of the drop through DVR, but it's not (it's at lower end of it's normal S4A/B DVR boost range - 1.5). I think a lot of people are turned off that the show has drifted so far astray. Going from 3.6 demo to 2.3 in eight episodes is bad. More telling kidnapping conclusion was 3.3, then 3.0, 2.7, 2.4, 2.3. It's too bad.

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HTGAWM's numbers fluctuate with Scandal though. The 2.7's they were getting towards the end of their season were with a 3.0+ lead-in from Scandal. They would have dropped along with it. GA is a show that is a decade old and has probably reached the level where they have their core audience.

Hopefully these numbers don't continue dropping. ABC will definitely stick with the TGIT combo of Grey's/Scandal/HTGAWM next season but from there it'll be interesting. Will they want to launch a new show there and send HTGAWM to fend for itself on Tuesdays/Sundays or will Grey's be ending soon. It's up in the air but Scandal is the flagship show for the Thursday night schedule so their ratings drop has to be alarming ABC.

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