'Scandal' recap: Bad to the bone

Warning: This recap for the “Good People” episode of Scandal contains spoilers.

Fifty shades of grey? On Scandal, it’s more like a million.

Last week’s episode convinced us: 1) Quinn was dead, 2) Rowan killed her and he is definitely the worst, 3) a bullet funeral is how we want to be memorialized, and 4) Olivia has seen the error of her ways.

But of course, this is a Shonda Rhimes show, and she loves nothing more than to challenge all of our beliefs and expectations (and gleefully pull the rug out from underneath us). So, No. 1 is plain wrong. No. 2 is mostly wrong. No. 3 is still fact. And No. 4? It remains to be seen.

Rowan did not shoot Quinn dead, as we all believed. In fact, he let her live, helped her give birth, and is keeping her safe from Olivia’s machinations. Yes, he had to get rid of an innocent salesman (and his only friend) to make it happen. But as Rowan himself might say: the dinosaurs had to go to allow greater species to exist. Or something.

Here’s a rundown of what went down this week:

Rowan: He’s just like us. He goes to Lowe’s/Home Depot/Target/unbranded home stores, too! He becomes buddies with the salesperson, Marvin. And he asks Marvin for recommendations, because he needs a rolling suitcase, just like us! Well, not really. We need it to go to Disney World; he needs it to dispose of a body.

The body is to be Quinn’s. We see the missing elements from the night/morning of her wedding. She gets in the elevator at Gladiator Central; he’s lurking in the dark to kidnap her. He keeps her in the basement as leverage to gain his freedom from Olivia’s all-seeing, all-knowing, all-controlling command, and to get his dinosaur bones back, because he loves dinosaurs. In fact, he loves them so much he starts ranting and raving to a tiny purple dinosaur figurine. Has Rowan lost his damn mind? Like, even Ross from Friends wasn’t this paleo-crazy.

We see his dinner with Olivia, but from his point of view. And his perspective is he’s being reasonable. He just wants some bones! He’ll totally give back her pregnant, about-to-be-married friend/colleague. It’s just bones!

But Olivia won’t budge. So Rowan goes back to the store to chat with Marvin. This time, he doesn’t need a rolling suitcase; he needs a crib.

Because Olivia won’t negotiate, he needs to keep Quinn a bit longer, and the girl is about to pop. Back at home, Rowan informs her he bought a crib, and Quinn knows what this means: Olivia won’t play ball (bones).

Rowan and Marvin are now BFFs who meet for drinks at a local pub, apparently. They trade stories about serving in the military and working for big bad corporations. This leads to Marvin offering to buy Rowan’s pregnant daughter stuff using his employee discount. Uh oh.

Later, he meets with Jake — who, it turns out, knows that Quinn is in Rowan’s basement. And that Liv won’t negotiate. And Jake won’t do anything about it. His dog ain’t in this hunt. This totally casts a new light on his involvement in Quinn’s bullet funeral, BTW.

In the basement, Quinn isn’t doing well. She’s about to give birth. She hasn’t eaten or drank water in a long time. She finally gets out of her wedding dress, but she’s starting to hallucinate about her gladiator friends. Fake Huck needles her about not telling anyone that Liv blew up that plane with the Middle Eastern president on it, and then confronting Liv alone. The Quinn that Fake Huck knows would be trying her darndest to get out of that basement, or at the very least to save her kid. Quinn snarks that Huck wouldn’t know anything about raising kids. Oh snap!

Meanwhile, Rowan returns to the home-goods store to get Marvin to buy a gun using that employee discount. This would mean the gun is in Marvin’s name. Oh, Marvin — #SMH. He goes ahead with it for his good buddy Rowan/Eli/Command/whatever.

Rowan takes his/Marvin’s gun home and rants again to the purple dinosaur — which is broadcasting to Jake. Jake calls Olivia. Olivia heads over to dear old dad’s house.

Now, we see the confrontation between Rowan and Olivia from his point of view. When Olivia still refuses to budge, he goes downstairs and seemed to be about to shoot Quinn. But Quinn has gotten free and attacks Rowan. They scuffle; he finally gets the upper hand. She begs him to let her live long enough to have her baby. She reminds him of B613’s code of not hurting mothers and children.

And … Rowan relents! He shoots a bullet into the wall next to her. Then, he warns her to remain quiet and returns upstairs for that final conversation with Olivia. Now, we hear Liv’s cold-blooded reply — she just wants Rowan to dispose of the body in a few days so they can bury her.

Rowan then invites Quinn upstairs. They bond a bit, though Rowan refuses to call Olivia a “bitch” like Quinn does. And then, naturally, Quinn goes into labor. Rowan won’t/can’t take her to a hospital, though, so he calls up his buddy Marvin, who has delivered babies before.

Quinn wakes up to the sight of Rowan cradling her baby girl. The room is stocked with baby stuff, courtesy of Marvin, apparently. Rowan assures her that she is safe.

Quinn gushes that Rowan is actually a good person. “We’re all good people when someone gives us a chance to be,” he replies.

She asks about the other guy present at the delivery. Rowan tells her about Marvin, and then leaves Quinn so she can nurse and he can go clean up downstairs.

But as Quinn looks around the mega-stocked baby room, she gets suspicious and runs down to the basement. There she finds Rowan, cleaning up … Marvin’s dead body.

Of course he couldn’t live. There was no way he could help deliver Quinn’s baby and not be “kept quiet” (via murder).

Now, Quinn calls Rowan bad and evil. But an anguished Rowan says that Marvin was his only friend, and he killed him for Quinn’s sake … and the baby’s.

Quinn accepts this and takes a cloth to help him clean up.

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

• 10 Grammy Best New Artist winners you forgot about

• How to watch all the 2018 Best Picture Oscar nominees, from ‘Get Out’ to ‘The Shape of Water’

• 40 years ago, the Doobie Brothers’ ‘What’s Happening!!’ episode preached evils of bootlegging, joys of racial harmony