"Scandal" season 5 will be moving past Olivia and the gladiators' success in throwing Rowan Pope behind bars. However, the baddie's actor, Joe Morton, raised the odds of his character squaring off against his own daughter one more time.
After making it clear that it's all on creator Shonda Rhimes' hands, Morton still suggested that Rowan may not want to become accustomed to prison life after all, and that he won't feel his daughter's efforts to bring him to justice as much as she'd want him to.
"On the surface, it looks like a given who Rowan/ Eli is, to be in jail for extortion or for embezzlement seems like something that might be easy for him to get out of but we'll see," the actor told Deadline. "Who knows what will come out of the mind of Shonda Rhimes."
In the end, he rested Rowan's fate on Rhimes, who is responsible in drafting his future in the series. Morton then resorted to simply waiting to find out the rest of his character's story when they all "sit down at a table read," where everything will be laid out.
On the other hand, media outlets speculate that when Rowan returns, he will get a new partner in crime in the person of Huck, who will most likely be extremely unwelcomed in Liv's team and is actually on the verge of reverting back to his old, lawbreaking self.
Should Rowan come back to drag his own daughter to more deadly pickles, he will definitely lock in the title of being the "worst parent on TV," which he already did. Even without making another big, bad entrance, Morton believes that his character deserves the designation.
"It's a terrible thing if the only way your child knows that you love them is if you don't kill them. I think that's kind of where it started that ... he's gotten darker and darker because he's unable to reach her in the way that he would like," he admitted.
It is in "Scandal" season 5 that fans expect Liv and Fitz reunite. It won't be a walk in the park, though. There are bound to be challenges on the way. There always are. What and where those will originate from will unfold when the new season premieres on Sept. 24.
