"Scandal" delivered its best episode of the season by far as it had viewers on the edge of their seats wondering what would happen with Olivia once her past actions started taking a toll on her, but as we've already learned many times, "you can't take command."

What I enjoyed most about it is that after weeks of what felt like lazy writing, with Rowan throwing a tantrum over dinosaur bones or Olivia trusting her father's words and choosing not to see Quinn's body just because it serves the plot of her faked death among many other examples, Thursday's episode brought one twist after another, building up the tension the entire hour in a way that was well written and organic.

Olivia's time in the white house is done and she is left with no one in her corner and thus the title "Army of One." With only seven episodes left until the series finale, at last it seems as though the final chapter is upon us.

'You have to go'

The episode picked up right after last week's events in the Oval Office with Mellie asking Liz to go and giving her an ultimatum to hold a press conference announcing her resignation or else they would announce her termination. Over at QPA, formerly known as OPA, the gladiators take on a new case, and, even though it appeared as if it would be just a filler story that would happen in the background of everything going on at the white house it ended up being part of all the drama, with Olivia as the mastermind behind it all as the first step in an attempt to get her job back as Chief Of Staff.

Near the end of the hour, Cyrus digs some dirt up on Mellie and presents Olivia with the opportunity to take her down so he can be president. Liz is not sure whether she should move forward with it, as it would get Mellie impeached when all she wants is her power back. She responds: "If there's going to be a snake in the oval, it might as well be me," demonstrating once again how hungry for power he truly is and the lengths he is willing to go to to get it.

A press conference is held, and, as predictable as it was, Liz chooses not to bring down the first female president, and, most importantly, one she built up from scratch, announcing her resignation instead and leaving Cyrus astonished as he watches from his office.

The beginning of the end

Even if Ms. Pope chose to finally start wearing her white hat, the same can't be said about Cyrus.

He is the one who manipulated Luna Vargas into getting her own husband killed just to have a shot at becoming president, after all. What I think will happen is B613 will stop him before he goes anywhere with this information and put him down for good. Its been a while since we've had a major character death, with Quinn's ordeal turning out to be nothing but an attempt at recycling a story that's been done one too many times on this show. But that raises another question: Who will be sitting in the vice president seat? Jake is clearly out of the picture as he's taken Liz's job as both chief of staff and command, and there's no way Mellie will nominate Olivia after just firing her. It all leads me to a few viable candidates, both of which have served as press secretary in the past: Abbie Whelan or Marcus Walker.

"Scandal" airs Thursdays at 9 ET on ABC.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED