'Scandal' Season 4 Spoilers, Episode Plot Recap: Olivia Takes Charge Of Her Own Rescue

In the last episode of "Scandal," titled "Where's the Black Lady?" shown on ABC on Thursday, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) was still being held captive but found out she still had the power to negotiate her own release.

The episode started with President Fitz Grant (Tony Goldwyn) discovering that Vice President Andrew Nichols (Jon Tenney) had the secret service working for him and had kidnapped Olivia.

Meanwhile Jake (Scott Foley), Quinn (Katie Lowes) and Huck (Guillermo Diaz) analyzed the video of Olivia sent by the kidnappers and noticed that she used a glass of water to catch a reflection of Ian (Jason Butler Harner) in it. However, this information got them nowhere nearer to finding her.

The team of "gladiators in suits" did get a break when a woman arrived searching for Olivia. She was a friend of the old woman who lived next door who was missing and she hoped that Olivia, who had a key to her apartment, could help her. This clued the team into searching the apartment next door where they found Olivia's ring. They soon tracked who had last used her router.

Back at the White House, Vice President Nichols blackmailed President Grant into starting a war with West Angola in 48 hours or else Olivia will die.

President Grant gave in to Nichols' demand, which led to the Vice President boasting about it to Elizabeth North (Portia de Rossi).

However, Huck threatened her to get information from him and subsequently whipped her when she didn't. This led to Lizzie and Mellie (Bellamy Young ) teaming up to help rescue Olivia. Mellie then seduced Nichols and then fled with his phones while he slept and gave them to Huck.

Huck tracked down where Olivia was being held, but they arrived too late as she had already convinced Ian that instead of acting as her jailor, she could make him the boss. She convinced him this would happen if he sold her on the market to anyone who wanted to use President Grant as a puppet. Ian bought this proposal and packed her off in a plane from where he phoned and informed President Grant that Olivia was being sold to anyone who wanted to use her to get to him.