'Scandal season 5 episode 11: Olivia shocks Mellie with her brutal honesty

The claws are officially out between Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) in the upcoming episode of the hit ABC series "Scandal."

After agreeing to work on the presidential aspirant's campaign, CarterMatt reports that Olivia will not hold back in telling Mellie exactly what she thinks about her and her tell-all book. The fiction is supposed to be her ticket to getting the people's votes come election time. When Mellie first approached her with the offer, Olivia was understandably against accepting. The woman is her ex-lover's former wife and she just could not understand why Mellie wanted them to work together.

For Mellie, she would team up with the devil himself, as long as he could help her become the next president. To put it simply, Olivia is the best in her line of work and Mellie needs her and her brain in her team. It was Rowan (Joe Morton) who convinced Olivia to accept Mellie's offer. He made her see that the only way to go back to the White House and become powerful once more is to ride on Mellie's campaign.

The upcoming episode titled "The Candidate" will see the two women starting their planning together. While at first she is excited, Mellie will soon learn how tough and frank Olivia can be when it comes to work. The promo sees a confused Mellie, after Olivia tells her the secret that she needs for her book to succeed. In the clip, Olivia is demanding that Mellie change a whole chapter and replace it with a different, more explosive one. She wants the candidate to share in the book why she decided to stay with Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) after learning he had a mistress.

Mellie is shocked to hear that from the woman who destroyed her marriage. She tells Olivia that she needs to focus on business and leave their personal vendetta out of it. Olivia reminds her that she asked for "Olivia Pope." Now that she has "Olivia Pope," is Mellie having cold feet about hiring such a tough crisis manager?

"Scandal" season 5 airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST on ABC.

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