Olivia Pope Is Back

That screaming sound you hear echoing across the country right now? That is the sound of a thousand gladiators roaring, shrieking, shouting, bellowing, and wailing their approval that after almost four months of asking "Where is Olivia Pope???" Scandal has seen fit to not make us wait even one single minute after the Scandal Season 4 premiere for the return to our screens of Olivia Pope. I was half convinced they were going to make us wait until the end of the episode. Thank the great and powerful Shonda Rhimes it isn't so! Our hero returns!

Also, can I just say how nice it is to see her actually looking relaxed for a change? Our first shot of her is sitting on a beach, sporting curly hair, a copy of Gone Girl, and a shirtless Jake at her side. And it's about time something happy happened to our beloved Olivia after the non-stop heartbreak and headaches that she's had to deal with over the past three season. But even though I wish on her behalf that she could have stayed on that beach a little longer, there is only going to be so much Scandal to happen in our lives, and I for one want Olivia Pope on screen for as much of it as possible.

So as much as she deserves to stay on that beach with her brand new fancy wine and her ocean breezes forever after everything that the president and her father and Cyrus and Mellie and Pope and Associates and everyone has put her through, as much as she says she's "not even Olivia Pope anymore," we know that she is. And so when she gets a mysterious package from someone from her former life, no matter what Jake tells her about Pandora's box, she was always going to open it. And she does.

And Harrison's dead.

So here we go, gladiators. Here we go.

Image: ABC