‘Scandal' Season 3 premiere recap

Eric McCandless/ABC

She's back! Olivia Pope was down but not even close to being out in Thursday's season premiere of 'Scandal.'

Scandal is back in all its plot-twisting, jaw-dropping, shock-worthy glory.

Last we left Olivia Pope her name was leaked as President Grant's mistress and she was being whisked away into a car face to face with Rowan, the head of the CIA branch B316 and, oh yeah, her father.

The famed fixer was now the center of D.C's biggest scandal and found herself as her own client.

Her father suggests that she disappears into thin air but Olivia decides to face the problem head on.

Olivia's next move is to call a secret meeting in a bunker with Fitz and the First Lady, Mellie, so the three of them can come up with a plan on how they are going to face the press and the American people in light of the news.

Fitz, who finds himself in quite the uncomfortable situation with his wife and his mistress, suggests that they simply tell the truth.

While both woman agree, Mellie shuts down idea of revealing the whole truth about the affair as it will only show that it wasn't just a mistake, a one time slip-up, that it was a man in love.

They decide to omit all the lustful details and agree Mellie and Fitz will hold a press conference the following day and say Olivia and the President were only together twice.

As Mellie exits, Fitz embraces Olivia and fans get to see a side of her they haven't seen before, where the usual put together gladiator shows she's only human and sobs in his arms.

For the first time in two seasons we're left wondering, can this really be handled?

Enter the political animals and the remaining gladiators to throw a wrench in Fitz and Oliva's plan to come clean.

The scheme to reveal the President's brief fling stays the same, however, the main player in the story changes as the affair was pinned on a 26-year-old Communications aide named Janine Locke, instead of Olivia.

Tensions are high as the scene cuts to the Oval office where the panicked Fitz tries to change his speech to clear Janine's name while his calm, cool and collected wife reveals it was in fact her idea to take Olivia out of the eye of the scandal.

Mellie then drops the bomb that she knows it was Fitz who leaked Olivia's name in hopes that he could eventually bring Liv into the White House one day as his First Lady.

As Mellie calls him her "idealistic, romantic, optimistic idiotic husband" he admits it was him and tells her he did it because without Olivia's name out there she was at Mellie's mercy, and now she's free.

In the final scene of the episode, Cyrus is forced into a room with Rowan where he shows him a folder regarding a mission involving Captain Jake Ballard and the President when they served together in the Navy. What's inside? We don't know, but Cyrus' facial expression is worth a thousand words.

Oh, did we mention Liv got a new client? It's Janine.

White hat back on.