Mellie & Olivia Finally Have A Heart To Heart

Remember how it seemed like Mellie and Olivia were about to become best friends on Scandal last week? Mellie wants to become the first female president and write a book that will help get her elected, and if anyone knows the right way to convince the public to like you, it's Olivia Pope. But as soon as this Thursday's episode kicked off, it seemed like that alliance was coming to a screeching halt. But finally, Olivia and Mellie had the heart to heart that's been five seasons in the making, and in the end, they actually seemed to make some progress.

At first, Mellie realized that even though neither of them are with Fitz anymore, they were still (and would always be) in competition with each other. She still wanted to compare what she and Fitz had to what Olivia and Fitz had, and in Mellie's eyes, their years of marriage and children made it so Olivia's relationship with him couldn't stack up. And by the time the argument was over, it looked like all bets of them putting their differences aside and making this book happen were off. It's a sad thing, too, because Mellie's presidency would basically be a lock with Olivia's help.

But for Mellie, the biggest problem in all of this is that she can't ever tell her real story to anyone, how she and Olivia and Fitz conquered the world together as the perfect team... involving some dirty dealings that the public can't ever know about, of course. But for some reason, their talk — and a lot of booze — actually seemed to help them understand each other better. For Olivia, Mellie was the thing that let her avoid committing to Fitz out of fear, and Olivia was the one who took Mellie from governor's wife to first lady.

Being that Mellie and Olivia are two of the strongest female characters on TV right now, it's good to see them getting the screentime they deserve. And if they can ever learn to work together? They'd truly be unstoppable.

Image: Giphy, Eric McCandless