Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is in BIG trouble in episode 12 of “Scandal.” Last week she made a deal with her captor, Ian (Jason Butler Harner), in order to get out of her cell. The deal was that he’d auction her off to the highest bidder on the black market. This week the situation completely backfired on her.

Episode 12 kicked off with Abby (Darby Stanchfield) visiting the Pope & Associates office looking for Olivia. With all the drama going on at the White House, Abby was worried -- and a pit stop at her apartment didn't help. However Quinn (Katie Lowes) and Huck (Guillermo Diaz) refused to fill her in on Olivia’s situation. “We can’t trust the White House,” Huck explained to Quinn when their former colleague left. “Abby is the White House.”

In order to regain order in the White House, Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) enlisted the help of Jake (Scott Foley) and Cyrus (Jeff Perry) to clean house. With trustworthy people back in power they were able to work on getting Olivia back – which meant that they had to join forces with terrorists in a black market bid to win her back.

Huck tried hacking into the auction, but discovered that he had to be “invited.” Since the auction only wanted to deal with an “all star international terrorist,” the group had to find someone dangerous. Fortunately, Jake knew just the person to go to -- Mama Pope (Khandi Alexander).

Mama Pope was locked up in maximum security, but David Rosen (Joshua Malina) was able to get Jake, Huck and Quinn in to see her. They explained the situation, and Mama Pope agreed to help -- but she wasn’t doing it for free. After a list of demands that included having her sentence dropped, a move to a medium security facility and a courtyard with grass, Mama Pope settled on a flat-screen TV outside of her cell.

Fitz and Jake were able to take one step forward, and Andrew (Jon Tenney) took one giant step back. When he called Ian to check on Olivia, Ian broke the news that she’s “not your project anymore … she’s mine now.” Andrew pleaded with Ian, telling him that the President has to get Olivia back. But Ian only hung up the phone on him. Things only got worse for Ian when Fitz found out. Cyrus tried to force him to resign, but Andrew refused. That’s when Fitz hatched a plan to expose Andrew’s lie about getting attacked by West Angola. Andrew mislead the country into war, and they just needed to prove it.

Meanwhile, Ian’s henchman, Gus, was not happy with the change of plans – especially when Ian said that Olivia would be working with them. Gus didn’t have time to argue because the auction kicked off. Ian was just making another deal with Olivia to allow her to choose between the final bidders when Gus returned and put a bullet in Ian’s head. “I’m in charge now,” he warned everyone.

With Ian dead and the auction bids rising, Olivia tried to reason with the other henchmen who were running the computer. She explained that Gus was unstable and a danger to them, and promised that they’d stay “free, alive and generously compensated.” They didn’t bite though.

Fitz moved forward with his plan to get rid of Andrew. Cyrus convinced Elizabeth (Portia de Rossi) to talk in order to save her own skin, but Andrew caught on. He went to Mellie (Bellamy Young) and revealed that if Elizabeth moved forward with exposing his secret he’d tell the world that they slept together. Mellie told Fitz about Andrew’s threat and begged him to let Andrew walk. “I want to be the President of the United States,” she told Fitz. “I want to run the world.” Fitz agreed that they’d let Andrew walk free.

As Olivia’s auction continued, Huck had to do some dirty work for one of Maya’s terrorist friend – murder three men. But Huck didn’t just kill them … he mutilated them. “Maya said take them out,” Jake said when he walked into the crime scene. “Not this.” Huck’s actions got the password to the auction though. After creating a fake browser history for Maya Pope, they entered the bid … but the auction was suspended. An outside buyer offered Gus cash – Iran.

“Smash my head open then you kill my best friend,” Gus teased Olivia. “Who’d you think I was going to sell you to?”

Olivia was horrified, but Fitz wasn’t giving up hope. He told the team to extract Olivia – but he was told that wasn’t possible. “Standard protocol is neutralizing the asset,” they told Fitz. However he refused to even allow that to be considered as an option.

Episode 12 of “Scandal” concluded with Gus delivering Olivia to the auction bidder.

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