Never letting go of the fast pace, tonight’s episode of Scandal season 3 featured new dirt coming out about Fitz’s days as California governor, and a whole lot more.

Fake boyfriend, real drugs: The episode begins with Fitz and Olivia having a fight in a hotel room because she’s selected Jake to be her fake boyfriend at Mellie’s request so the media stay off the reports of an affair. It’s a strong departure from the start of last week’s episode when Olivia and Fitz were making out happily. They’re fighting over Jake because Fitz can’t trust him around Olivia.

But there’s a bigger fish to fry: Reporter Carla has learned that drugs were being used within the Governor’s quarters during Fitz’s time as the head of California. Olivia wants to quickly start denying these reports, but new VP candidate Andrew says they’re actually true.

Pope and Associates start working to cover up the drug problem. Andrew explains that he needed pain relievers for bad back pain and didn’t want to go to a doctor because he was campaigning against drugs at the time. Olivia tries threatening Carla but it doesn’t work because she has hard evidence.

But who was behind Carla’s search? They don’t think it was Leo – Olivia thinks it was her father, who wants to tank Fitz’s campaign. She calls Jake and asks for help in seeing if it was him. Jake asks Charlie to dig into it.

Later in the episode the drug story gets called off when the source gets discredited (though it wasn’t really). Olivia knows it was Mellie who was at the center of that story and tries to sympathize with the First Lady. Mellie won’t have it however, and points out how Olivia doesn’t know what it’s like to really say no to a man.

Father/daughter time. Not one to let others handle her problems, Olivia meets with her father at a restaurant and asks about the threat against the President. On her way out, she spots Quinn spying on her (Quinn had been spying on Charlie at first). Olivia lectures Quinn in the car and invites her back to the team, but she says she can’t see Huck again (“He licked my face.”). Olivia pleads and says B613 is not the place for her. Not having it, Quinn pulls a gun to make her leave her car.

Olivia yells at Jake for putting Quinn on her father. He denies he did so (he actually enlisted Charlie to do the job). While he’s visiting her place, he complains that if he’s going to be the fake boyfriend, he wants food in the fridge. Then he goes to get ready for real sex with his pretend girlfriend.

Jake yells at Quinn because he doesn’t think she’s capable of being in his organization. But to prove her strength, she shows him the photographical evidence of Rowan and Charlie meeting (as seen in last episode) which suggests trouble and went undetected within B613’s ranks until now. See? She’s good for something.

Mellie and Andrew. At the top of the episode Mellie meets with VP candidate Andrew, who appears interested in getting back with her (they had a fling a long time ago – or so we think). “Nothing’s going to happen here, Andrew.”

Flashback: 14 years ago in Santa Barbara when Mellie and Fitz are having an argument during his time as Governor, Mellie still won’t touch her man following his father raping her. Andrew overhears the entire fight and sees her as she storms out. Later, Andrew finds Mellie passed out on the floor after overdosing on prescription pills. It was an attempted suicide. He helps her purge them.

Later in the episode we flashback again to a night when Mellie and Andrew are together while Fitz is away in San Diego. They get talking openly about missing one another and it looks like they may hook up – but Mellie turns him down. It turns out they never had an affair after all. Go Mellie!

… But her loyalty to Fitz doesn’t last forever and ever. After a fundraising event, Mellie and Andrew meet again. They talk for a bit and then make out under a portrait of Jackie Kennedy in the White House. Mellie quickly regrets this decision and runs out of the room.

The return of Mama Pope. Harrison talks with Adnan Salif after an evening spent romantically together. Does Olivia know about Clearwater, she asks? No, he says. That really put a damper on things. Later, he calls Grant Campaign HQ to make a donation. Adnan approaches Cyrus at a fundraiser event the next day and wants to help him out. We still don’t know how this all fits together, but at the very end of the episode we see Adnan being asked by someone if they’re “in.” Who is it? Olivia’s mother! They’re now connected to the White House, but their intentions aren’t known yet.

Pubilus almost revealed. James is afraid that Cyrus is going to find out who Pubilus is. Cyrus asks his husband to set up an interview between Vanessa (the reporter who was fed the info last episode) and the President to please her so she can cough up her source. To keep Cyrus off the trail, James offers to be the one to ask how she got her dirt.

James and Cyrus meet later, and the latter isn’t happy to hear that the interview is scheduled for a month from now. He decides to search for answers himself. James calls David in a panic, who suggests giving the smoking gun tape to the reporter and have her write about it.

Too nervous about being revealed as Pubilus, James talks David into being the one to meet the reporter to pass along the tape. Good thing, because Cyrus intercepts the texts that set up the meeting, and plans to meet whoever Pubilus is at the rendezvous spot.

David gets kidnapped right before meeting the reporter. Was it Cyrus’ who nabbed him? He calls Abby to tell her he loves her. The car that he was kidnapped in stops – it turns out it was Abby and Huck who grabbed him so he wouldn’t get caught. Safe!

Other notes:

– Jake has the highest security access – even higher than the President’s. This affords him the opportunity to spy on what’s happening in the Oval Office, and he hears Olivia tell Fitz that she’s not sure about her feelings for Jake (this was one of the episode’s cliffhangers).

– Fitz asks Mellie to stay away from Olivia. Will it work?

– Sally is meeting with Leo and Hollis Doyle (the energy lobbyist from Texas) who are organizing her campaign, but she’s a little too hung up on murdering her husband to focus on the conversation at hand. The next day, Cyrus asks Hollis to come to his fundraiser, and suggests they may be able to appoint him head of energy.

– Huck apologizes to Olivia with numerous coffees (even though she doesn’t drink coffee).

What did you think of tonight’s ‘Scandal’?

And did you see the promo for next week’s? It looks huge: