Scandal Scoop: Kerry Washington Previews New Episode – ‘You Get To See How The Team Came Together!’

“Scandal” has a big episode on the way this Thursday and it’s not just about President Fitzgerald Grant waking from his coma.

The ABC drama, starring Kerry Washington as fixer Olivia Pope, goes back in time (it’s titled, “A Criminal, a Whore, an Idiot and a Liar”), revealing some crucial character relationships and some major drama from Fitz’s campaign trail.

“It’s another flashback episode, which is really exciting and it’s a flashback episode closer to the campaign, closer to the election [of Fitz],” Kerry told AccessHollywood.com during a reporters scrum on the set of “Scandal” last week in Hollywood.”

“You get to see how the team came together, which I think is really, really fun,” Kerry raved over the upcoming storyline that will finally show how Olivia, Abby (Darby Stanchfield), Huck (Guillermo Diaz) and Harrison (Columbus Short) first came together.

Kerry said the table read for this week’s episode was exciting for the actors when they first went through it weeks ago.

“I remember when we were reading it, we were like, ‘Ahhh! This is the time — the first time — we’re all in the same room together,’” she recounted. “It’s really exciting.”

At the end of last week’s episode, Fitz woke up from his coma, after nearly dying from that assassination attempt, and Tony Goldwyn, who plays the “Scandal” President said his character is not in fighting form.

“Fitz has woken. He’s profoundly debilitated — by no means a well man — and he will be instrumental in saving [his wife] Mellie’s a**, basically. He will protect his wife and make sure that she doesn’t go to jail,” Tony told Access.

(Mellie, of course, just committed treason by forging a then coma-bound Fitz’s signature on a document asking Vice President Sally Langston to reinstate him as President, following the VP’s highest office power grab.)

Although some head injuries can cause personality changes, Tony told Access that Fitz will be the same man, if not one who is more determined.

“I think it’s the same Fitz, it’s just a clearer Fitz,” Tony said. “I think he’s not gonna be so buffeted by — so easily manipulated and he’s done playing games.”

“Scandal” airs Thursday nights at 10/9c on ABC.

— Jolie Lash