'Scandal' postmortem: What's Weiter after the shocking disappearance? | Inside TV | EW.com 

\'Scandal\' postmortem: What\'s next after the shocking disappearance?

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Thursday’s midseason finale of

Does anyone on 'Scandal' deserve a happy ending?

'Scandal' scoop: Can Olivia, Fitz and Jake work together to take down Rowan?

’s midseason finale, Olivia seemingly left D.C. once again—but this time, it wasn’t by choice.

With a type of Ghost Protocol in effect that would wipe out any loose ends from B613, Rowan (Joe Morton) faced off with his daughter once again. The now emotionally cold Olivia (Kerry Washington)—who earlier in the hour was more than happy to let her mother (Khandi Alexander) rot in jail—decidedly pulled the trigger to kill her father. Unfortunately, the gun wasn’t loaded.

But Olivia’s itchy trigger finger wasn’t the finale’s most shocking moment. When Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) decided against going to war with West Angola, power-hungry VP Andrew Nichols (Jon Tenney) made it quite clear that what was about to happen would be his fault. Olivia was then apparently kidnapped from her apartment—all while Jake (Scott Foley) was in the other room. (Some protector he is!)

“If audiences are going to have to wait a while for the next episode, I’m grateful we don’t have to,” Washington told 

on the set of the ABC political fixer drama the day of the midseason finale’s table read. “We’ll get it next week. I’m dying to know what happens next! It’s pretty intense. I wonder if Olivia’s going to be in a hole of some sort.”

boss Shonda Rhimes would never dare kill her main character, Washington stresses that anything is possible now. “She’s in pretty extraordinary danger,” she says. “

has changed the game. Maybe I’ve been really misbehaved. Maybe Shonda is mad at me. It did make me feel like, ‘Do I need to talk to Shonda?’”

On the plus side, Olivia’s disappearance could bring recent bitter rivals Fitz and Jake together. “My guess is that Fitz will really team up with Jake to save Olivia,” Goldwyn says. “I think he and Jake would really enlist each other’s help. As much as he’s got his issues with Jake, Jake’s his best ally in doing that.”

OPA will be especially devastated in the wake of losing their boss yet again. “We’ve just put all these pieces back together,” Katie Lowes says. “We finally have OPA up and running. We’re finally getting checks paid, and here we go again. It’s awful. It’s frustrating, but it’s also scary. It’s clear she’s been taken, and this is not good.”

What viewers can deduce is that Andrew and Elizabeth North (Portia de Rossi) are the No. 1 suspects behind Olivia’s disappearance. “Shame about that,” de Rossi deadpans. “This is the beginning of a larger story. It wouldn’t surprise me if I stuck around a little bit longer.”

Suffice it to say, Fitz won’t be too happy with his VP. “First, Andrew was sleeping with Mellie [Bellamy Young]. That was infuriating and awful, but at the same time, Andrew was there for Mellie when she needed someone,” Goldwyn says. “Fitz did not behave very well in the wake of that affair. The fact that Andrew was involved will make him incredibly angry. I would think he’d want to destroy Andrew.”

ABCKatie LowesKerry WashingtonPortia de RossiScandalScoopShonda RhimesSpoilersTelevisionTony GoldwynTV Scoop

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