Our Scandal season 3, episode 16 recap breaks down the major events of the storyline, like Olivia’s potentially very big mistake.

B613 is closing in on Olivia’s mother, though the thought of killing her initially takes Quinn aback. Later that night Jake drunkenly arrives at Olivia’s door and says that he misses her. She says that they can’t be together because he kills her friends. Simple enough!

Abby comes into the White House as Olivia’s new proxy while she meets with her father about how B613 is funded. After a long-winded answer, Olivia says they want to get into it, but first there’s a code they need to crack. Olivia tries ordering Huck to help her, but he refuses… at first.

Huck ends up cracking the code, but as it turns out there’s another code that only Jake knows. To get it, Huck needs Olivia to put a little device on Jake’s phone for thirty seconds. In order for her to do it, she pays Jake a romantic visit. She tires him out with some sex then does what Huck asked while Jakes sleeps beside her.

Huck starts chipping away and successfully penetrates B613. He asks if she should shut down B613 right now, and Olivia says yes. Pope and Associates celebrate, but the joy only lasts for a moment because Jake bursts in and grabs Olivia by the neck.

He says that Olivia just killed the President. Why? In a preview for next week, we see Marie is using the bomb on Fitz. This is partially Jake’s fault because Quinn wanted to kill Marie but the boss insisted that they don’t make any big moves.

So long Andrew?

Fitz wants to take Andrew off the ticket, but Olivia advises against it. Once again the relationship between she and the President comes up. Fitz insists that he’s not the bad guy. Later he says he needs Andrew to stop “screwing” Mellie. “Consider it handled,” Olivia tells him.

She has a one on one talk with Andrew and gives him a choice: Fitz or Mellie? He can’t have both and gives him 24 hours to decide. Earlier in the episode we saw Andrew and Mellie have a private conversation in which the VP candidate begged the First Lady to stop being with a man who doesn’t respect her.

At the end of the episode, it’s clear Andrew has made his decision: He wants to be loyal to Fitz. Mellie tries making a move on Andrew and he refuses, so she goes straight to Fitz and slaps him. “You take everything from me!” she yells at him.

Other notes

– Rowan and Olivia are at dinner when a third guest makes a surprise visit: Olivia’s mother. Mama Pope asks her daughter to find a safer line of work. Harrison calls and informs Olivia of Claire’s death. “I hope you learned your lesson,” Marie tells her.

– Jeannine Lock has a new memoir out about her supposed relationship with the President (remember earlier this season?). She starts speaking to the media about it. It looks like Langston is behind the latest PR nightmare.

– We see in the second half of the episode that Mellie is trying to be friendly towards Fitz, but he’s still disgusted with her.

Your ‘Scandal’ recap: What’d you think of ‘The Fluffer’?

Next week’s episode of Scandal – the penultimate of season 3 – airs Thursday, April 10 at 10 p.m. eastern/pacific on ABC.