Scandal’s penultimate episode before the big winter break left us seriously concerned about Papa Pope’s chances of living.

Case of the week aside, the focus of Scandal season 5, episode 8 was Fitz learning that Olivia was responsible for freeing her father from jail. And although he may be freed, his biggest troubles appear to be ahead of him.

The end of the line for Papa Pope?

In a one-on-one talk with Olivia, Rowan tells his daughter he’s no longer the devil. He believes his “sons” have turned against him and he’s worried he’s doomed. He offers a dramatic speech in which he says farewell, but this isn’t your typical Papa Pope speech. This is a defeated-sounding Papa.

For the first time ever, dad is scared. But he’s still proud of everything he’s done for Olivia.

Olivia is disturbed by this new tone coming from her father’s typically loud mouth, so she invites Jake to the Christmas-decorated (already?) White House to discuss the change. Although she firmly believes Rowan is telling the truth, Jake laughs it off — he thinks Rowan is playing his daughter again.

Olivia’s secret comes out

At the top of the hour Fitz is still refusing to tell Cyrus who’s tracking down Rowan, so Cyrus decides to alert Rosen to Rowan’s escape in order to side-step the President and get answers. (Why couldn’t Cyrus have guessed it was Jake? Of course it was Jake.)

David gets to the bottom of this in a very un-Scandal-like manner. He magically finds out that it was Olivia who freed Rowan without letting the viewer see how he got the answers. This was such a critical part of moving the plot forward that you would’ve expected more build up, but Scandal’s writers ultimately decided to just drop it on us.

This revelation is great news for Cyrus, who we know isn’t thrilled about Olivia having such a Presidential-like influence over Fitz. This is Cyrus’s opportunity to get Olivia out of the Oval!

In light of this reveal, Olivia is taken into a cell where Fitz meets her and begs for the news to not be true. She decides to come clean (after an episode full of holding off), and Fitz is deeply upset. He has the face of someone who just found out they’ve been cheated on. Interestingly, we don’t hear the words in this scene — all we hear is the smooth sounds of Carole King’s “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.”

So will Fitz still love Olivia tomorrow? Yes, maybe. In her confession she tells the President that there were people trying to kill Rowan, and for whatever reason, this supposedly makes Fitz feel less cheated on.

And then… Fitz decides to pull a lie of his own (?): He tells Jake to let him know when the matter with Rowan is “done.” While the viewer could assume this means killing Rowan, later Fitz tells Olivia that Jake won’t be killing him.

At the very end of the hour, Rowan is tied up as he comes face to face with Huck. Earlier in the episode Huck was uninterested in getting physically involved with the Rowan issue, but for whatever reason, he’s changed his mind.

We suppose Huck is about to become his old self again?

Next week is the winter finale, and ABC is already promoting the episode as a can’t-miss event. Could Rowan finally die? We’ve speculated about him being doomed before, but this time, it truly seems like he’s out of options. I believe the character has reached a point where his story is now complete, and he can leave the show without causing too many shockwaves (other than all of us being upset about finally losing a major character).

What do you think ‘Scandal’s’ winter finale will be bringing us?