'Scandal' Recap S05E15: Olivia Faces Jake & Rowan Poe as Primary Gets Dirty [SPOILERS] : MStarsNews

While the U.S. goes through its own election cycle, Shondaland's Scandal has more players joining the primaries on the Democratic and Republican side -- and S05E15 shows all players are willing to get their hands dirty. In this recap with spoilers, Olivia finds out what Jake and Rowan have been up to; David has to choose between his women and Cyrus gets relegated in his new job.

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is running Mellie Grant's (Bellamy Young) campaign ahead of the first primary debate. Focus groups show that, while people know Mellie's smart, she comes off as too smart: basically, short of her filibuster, voters think she's a disconnected know-it-all.

Olivia tells Mellie that she needs to dumb things down for the voters -- particularly considering she's standing in front of woman-of-the-people Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani). After training, Mellie goes for the ultimate test: casually getting a burger at a beloved restaurant chain. Things go great until Mellie puts her foot in her mouth, saying she drops by the chain every Sunday ... and it turns out it doesn't open on Sundays.

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In the meantime, Olivia has continued to obsess over what Jake Ballard and her father, Rowan (Scott Foley and Joe Morton) are up to now that Jake's head of the NSA and engaged to a woman named Vanessa (Joelle Carter). Unable to track Jake's steps thoroughly, Quinn (Katie Lowes) befriends Vanessa to find out more, hitting jackpot: she's rich and Jake is using her money to back a candidate.

It turns out that Senator Edison Davis (Norm Lewis), Olivia's ex, is running for President. At first, he begs Olivia not to spill the beans on his stint at rehab ... but when Olivia realizes he's working with Rowan, she ultimately gives the dirt to the team opposing his candidacy.

Across the aisle, Cyrus (Jeff Perry) is now working on a new campaign, Frankie Vargas' (Ricardo Chavira), who already has someone to do the dirty work for him: his brother Alex (Danny Pino), who got him elected. Cyrus feels left out, and that can't lead anywhere good: at some point, he sends his henchman, Tom Larsen (Brian Letscher) to look into Alex.

Elsewhere, Olivia, decided to bring her father down, hands Alex the dirt on Edison -- and in exchange, he gives her something to bring Susan down.

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Susan's at the top of her game during debate rehearsals, madly in love with David Rosen (Joshua Malina) and guided by Liz North (Portia De Rossi), with whom he's cheating. The Attorney General's going nuts between the two women and tells so to Abby (Darby Stanchfield) ... and as he says no names, she actually tells Susan he's with two women at a time.

Susan confronts him about cheating and David lies, but later dumps Liz because he's in love with the VP. Still, Susan's too sure he's seeing someone else and ultimately leaves him anyway.