That was so weird, but we had a great time.
Tonight's Scandal showed us what would have happened to OPA and co. if Liv (Kerry Washington) hadn't agreed to rig the election to help Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) become president, and it sure was a different world.
First, after losing the election, Fitz left Mellie (Bellamy Young) pretty quickly and flew to California to propose to Liv, and suddenly they were getting married in a lavish ceremony. Fitz got his own news show, and their relationship quickly started to fall apart. Apparently Fitz and Olivia don't have quite the same amount of passion when they're allowed to be a normal couple.
Meanwhile, Abby (Darby Stanchfield) had married David Rosen (Josh Malina), and they spent their Mondays on the couch with Olivia and Huck (Guillermo Diaz), rooting for Quinn/Lindsey D. (Katie Lowes) on some version of The Bachelor that replaced roses with tiaras and made jokes about Lindsey's penchant for torturing men.
Apparently, Lindsey was then named the next Bachelorette/Princess and went on Fitz's show for an interview. Liv prepared to sign divorce papers while Lindsey hit on Fitz (and tried to do more) until he kicked her out of his dressing room.
And elsewhere, after he comforted her during Fitz and Olivia's wedding, Mellie married Cyrus (Jeff Perry). Together, they plotted Mellie's campaign for president, but Mellie got real scary after realizing that Cyrus was actually gay (and in love with a very much alive Dan Bucatinsky's James) and had been lying to her. She got even scarier when Cyrus leaked racy photos of Sally Langston's husband after she'd forbidden him from doing it.
Her issues with Cyrus drove Mellie to go to Olivia, to tell her she "saved" Fitz by preventing him from becoming president, though that does not appear to be true. Even Fitz figured out that he hadn't been the man he was supposed to be, so he went to Olivia and hoped she'd still have him.
She handed him an envelope, and instead of divorce papers, it contained a listing for a townhouse that she was finally ready to buy.
Apparently, imagining all of those things made the real Olivia decide to say yes to rigging the latest election, meaning Mellie will probably be the next president.
What did you think of Scandal's alternate universe? Sound off in the comments!
Scandal airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.