Scandal Fall Finale: What Happened to Quinn?

[Warning: This post contains spoilers from Episode 7 of Scandal,"Something Borrowed." Read at your own risk.]

The wait for Scandal to return will be a long one.

Thursday's heart-stopping episode addressed what happened to Quinn (Katie Lowes) after she was kidnapped in the elevator on the way to her wedding... and then dropped a huge bombshell. If you'll recall, Quinn figured out that Olivia (Kerry Washington) was behind President Rashad's assassination before she mysteriously disappeared.

Team QPA doesn't know that and is going full bore in the search for their missing pregnant friend. Charlie (George Newbern) receives the scare of his life when a tip on a dead pregnant woman leads him to Germantown. Thankfully, it's not her.

It turns out that Papa Pope himself, Eli (Joe Morton), has her and he's using her for leverage. If Olivia (Kerry Washington) gives him back his precious dinosaur bones, he'll return young Perkins unharmed. But when you're the head of a secretive organization with the power to kill at the snap of a finger, this feels like child's play. Olivia laughs in his face, believing he won't actually kill her. "You stay put and you wait to be told what to do," she tells him.

Olivia, gurl, what are you doing? Do you remember who your father is? "I am not bluffing," he responds. And true to his word, he doesn't back down. With her options limited, Olivia goes to see Mama Pope (Khandi Alexander) who finds the whole standoff between Eli and Olivia hilarious. (Meanwhile, Quinn's life and that of her unborn child are hanging in the balance.) Olivia asks her for help and Mama Pope obliges, though it's not what Olivia wants to hear. She suggests letting Quinn die in order to beat Eli at his own game and Olivia walks out on her.

Here's How Scandal Was Originally Supposed to End

Though she's putting up a good front, the stress of Quinn's kidnapping is getting to Olivia and she has a panic attack in bed. What's the head of B613 to do? It's a good thing she has her trusted ally Jake (Scott Foley) to offer some much-needed moral support... except he doesn't. He's upfront about what she needs to do in order to win this battle with her father.

"I'm very sorry, but you do not get to have it all," he tells her. It looks like Olivia is 0 for 2 in uplifting pep talks. "Are you command or are you not?" he asks before noting that the solution to all of her problems is to kill Eli. Wait, what? Before you start reaching for the panic button, Olivia immediately shoots that idea down. However, she still needs to figure out how to best her father without losing her friend in the process.

It all comes down to one final showdown. The clock runs out and Olivia must decide: Return the bones or let her friend die. Olivia calls his bluff, putting out a kill order on dear old dad. This can all go away if he just backs down. Unfortunately, he doesn't. In the most stressful game of cat-and-mouse ever, Eli calls her bluff and walks outside. Seconds later, we hear a woman pleading for her life and then gunshots.

Was that really Quinn? Olivia, who nearly collapses from the shock and grief of the possibility that her cold-blooded father who once ran the nefarious organization she now leads just killed her friend, surely thinks so. But before Eli can see her weak and distressed, Olivia pulls it together and stands firm. "Do you want to see the body?" he asks her. And that's where it ends (NOOOOOOOOO!).

So who was the screaming woman? Are we sure it's Quinn? Is she dead? You're going to have to wait eight long, tortuous weeks to find out.

Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder will return Thursday, Jan. 18 beginning at 8/7c on ABC.