SCANDAL Finale Recap: Bombs and Bacteria and Elections, Oh My!

All right Gladiators, put on your white hats and buckle your seatbelts, because tonight's third season finale all the twists and turns than you would expect from a SCANDAL season finale. In the end, I was really proud of Shonda Rhimes that after last year's "Dad?" Season Finale, she seemingly went in a completely different way with this year's cliffhanger. I'm going to try and chronicle EVERYTHING that happened in this episode (while throwing in some observations and snark where I can), so grab yourself a glass of red wine, this is going to be a long one...

When last we left our favorite group of politicos, spies, and terrorists, President Fitzgerald Grant's Chief of Staff, Cyrus Beene had just ignored a report that there was a bomb at the National Cathedral that was set to detonate during the funeral of a respected US Senator, with hundreds in attendance, including Vice President (and reelection opponent) Sally Langston.

As the finale opens we see interspersed scenes of Olivia's father being wheeled in on a gurney having recently been stabbed by his ex-wife and internationally wanted terrorist Maya and the President being delayed from leaving for the funeral by Cyrus until Jake Ballard, former head of super-secret black-ops group B613, comes into the Oval and informs him that he must evacuate the church because there is a bomb inside ready to go off. Since Jake is the one that first told Cyrus, the Chief of Staff is alternatingly relieved and terrified that his cover might be blown (no pun intended).

After nearly everyone gets out of the church just before the building blows, evil campaign manager Leo tells equally evil VP Sally to seize the opportunity to look presidential just days before the election and tend to the wounded. In an effort to appeal to the Southern Christian Conservative that she is, Leo gives her the pep talk, "Be Jesus, go in there and be Jesus." Granted he forgets that she did murder her closeted husband just a few weeks ago. I don't think that's what Jesus would do.

From the White House, Olivia is frantically trying to convince news directors not to split-screen the President's press conference in favor of the Veep's Florence Nightingale routine.

After the networks drop Fitz on-by-one, Liv tells Cyrus, "We're gonna lose the election on Tuesday."

To which the Chief of Staff replies, "Let's be honest, we lost the election today." Cy is clearly upset, but we aren't sure if it is because the man he has sacrificed his entire life for is about to lose, or that he nearly sacrificed the lives of hundreds of innocent people for political gain.

After Olivia's second-in-command, Harrison, convinces his kidnapper/ex-girlfriend Adnan Salif to spare his life in exchange for him burying the evidence he has to capture her and Maya, he and Abby walk into OPA and are disgusted to find Huck and Quinn going at it mere feet from Poppa Pope's still wet blood stain.

With the realization that his presidency is over, Fitz and Olivia talk about moving to Vermont and having children. Olivia tries to convince him that he can't divorce his wife, to which he angrily replies, "She never loved me, she loved what I could give her."

Knowing that the man she loves deserves the truth, Liv spills the beans that his father, Big Jerry, raped Mellie 15 years ago. After the President tells his wife that he knows what happened the First Lady confirms that their eldest son is in fact the President's (and not his half-brother).

In one of the finale's many honest and vulnerable moments Cyrus tells Leo, who is now all but assured to take over his job, to "Protect your soul if you've still got one. It's futile, but still you should try." Well played Jeff Perry, well played.

After her boyfriend/assassin-trainer Charlie finds out about Quinn's relationship with Huck, he hands her an envelope with information that he says will prevent them from ever being happy. Having looked at the documents, Quinn takes Huck to the home of his wife and son, who appear to be living a happy life in suburbia, believing that he is dead. In typical emotionally destroyed Huck fashion, he tells Quinn to never speak a word to him again, before storming off.

At a last ditch campaign stop in Springfield, Virginia, Fitz and Liv have one of their old moments of silence after she tells him that he can't leave his wife now. And she says, ""I wouldn't want you if, knowing what you know, you left her now."

As he walks to the stage, with his wife and two eldest children behind him, Fitz realizes that not only is his political career over, but so is his relationship with the love of his life.

As the President gives his speech, Olivia returns to her father' hospital room to see her terrorist-mother sitting there. Maya tells her daughter that everything she did, she did for her. She says that the President simply uses Olivia, and she wanted her daughter to be free of that burden.

As Maya walks out of the room, we see Jerry IV begin coughing up blood on stage before quickly collapses.

Amidst scenes of Fitz carrying his unconscious son into an ambulance, and the subsequent news that Jerry died of bacterial meningitis, Olivia and Cyrus know that this means that their boss will now certainly win the election.

Overwhelmed, Cyrus admits that he was going to let the church blowup and Olivia asks, "When did we stop being people?"

It turns out that Jerry's meningitis was traced to a strain recently stolen from a secure government facility. Rowan convinces Fitz to let him go after Maya, who obviously is behind this, to get revenge for them both. Seriously, the President's been shot, the Second Gentleman had a "heart attack," the Press Secretary was shot in a "carjacking," a bomb blew up the church where the President was supposed to be, and his eldest son dies of meningitis (among other things)? Is no one getting suspicious of these people yet?

After Huck admits that his "death" is the best thing to ever happen to his family, Olivia asks if her father's offer to give her a new life still stands.

Then Poppa Pope shows Harrison pictures of Adnan with a bullet hole in her head, and he agrees to give his boss' father the information to track down his boss' mother.

While Olivia is packing, Jack shows up at her apartment and tells her that she can't leave because she feels bad about herself.

She then replies, "This is not a pity party... this is me fixing this...I'm the scandal, and the best thing to do with a scandal is shut it down." So, Jake tells Olivia that if she is leaving her life behind, she should leave her love for Fitz behind as well, and take him with her.

Next, as Momma Pope comes out of a bank with a briefcase full of cash, she is swarmed by men with machine guns as we hear Rowan telling the President that she is dead. The move results in him being reinstated as B613 Command, but it is Harrison who puts all of the pieces together to realize that Rowan was actually the one who killed the President's son. His actions brought to fruition three promises that he made to his daughter, that she would get on that plane "come hell, or high water," that he "wouldn't harm a hair on [the President's] head," and that he would help her get him reelected. Then right before we see a B613 agent put a gun to Harrison's head, Rowan tells him, "No one can take Command."

While his staff is celebrating an imminent victory, Fitz walks to the Oval Office all by himself as he flashes back to the toughest moments of the season before falling to his knees on the Presidential Seal. He tells Mellie that he wants to talk to Liv, but she sends his call to voicemail as she sits next to Jake and her private plane takes off.

Meanwhile, Rosen receives boxes upon boxes of B613 information with a note from Jake telling him to go get the bad guys. Huck goes and sees his wife, and we learn that Maya is, in fact, not dead, but instead at the bottom of the legendary B613 hole.

Yet another crazy action-packed Scandal finale, but I liked that this one didn't attempt the replicate the "What the $%!&?" moment from last year, and instead left us with an untenable amount of loose ends in need of tying up.

So Gladiators, has your jaw returned to its proper facial position yet? Are you angry that you now have at least five months to wait to see what's next for Pope & Associates? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, or on Twitter @BWWMatt. I need a shower after all of that.