Scandal Postmortem: Which Duo Did the Deed? And What's Next?

[Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Thursday night's episode of Scandal. Read at your own risk!]

David hates Quinn. Abby hates Quinn. David doesn't trust Olivia. Abby is starting not to trust Olivia. We should have seen this coming!

After David (Joshua Malina) spent the last two episodes of Scandal trying to figure out how Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) was able to rig the system in order to get Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes) cleared on murder charges, he apparently decided to go straight to the only person pissed enough to possibly let something slip: Abby (Darby Stanchfield). The two tangoed at the bar before hopping into bed together. But was this a drunken fling or is David actually after information? TVGuide.com turned to the Scandal bedfellows to get the scoop: 

Scandal Video: How will OPA deal with the Quinn issue?

Wow. You two were in bed together!
Joshua Malina: Glad you were able to identify us! That's the first good sign.
Darby Stanchfield: It was awfully dark.
Malina: It was dark by my request — and America's!

How did you guys feel when you found out that Abby and David would be hooking up?
Stanchfield: Totally shocked.
Malina: She was delighted, and I was horrified. That's the truth. [Laughs]
Stanchfield: I wasn't expecting it in the least. In fact, I had the day off when we got the script. Our line producer had read the script and she called Kerry and said, "Turn to the last page!" Kerry turned to the last page, read it and hung up on her. She was so freaked out. I got all these e-mails and mass text messages from different people, and I hadn't even read the script. I was like, "What's going on? It must be something juicy that has to do with me!" Of course, I read the last page, and it was a shock.
Malina: Every time I get an episode, I read the last page first to make sure I'm still alive, so that was the first thing I read in this episode. I was very surprised.

Joshua, you were rooting for David to get a love interest. Did you ever think it would be Abby?
Malina: She was one possibility. I wasn't really too convinced that [executive producer] Shonda Rhimes would have me involved with anyone. [Laughs] So I was surprised by it. There's really no guessing where she'll go or what she'll do. That's a losing game, trying to figure out where Shonda is going to go with the show.

Since Abby hates Quinn, might David let her in on his Beautiful Mind wall?
Malina: What becomes clear is that they have certain areas of common interest. In the coming episodes, viewers are going to figure out what their common interests are. Are they using each other? Do they just have common goals? Is it real? The situation is fluid. It's not all made immediately clear.
Stanchfield: In very Shonda Rhimes style, you get a lot more questions posed to you than you do answers. We're still asking questions. It's definitely going to be really fun for the fans because there's going to be lots to discuss with what's going on between them.
Malina: David shows up very conveniently at this bar at the end of the episode. It's a reasonable question to ask: Did he know she was going to be there? Why did he show up? What was his motivation? Was it a coincidence?
Stanchfield: My favorite theory is that David roofied Abby. [Laughs]
Malina: I don't know if you watch the show, but I wear the white hat.

It did seem like David was playing, not on the weakest link, but the angriest link of OPA because Abby is really upset with Olivia right now. Can that relationship be repaired or is sleeping with David the first step in the wrong direction?
Malina: For anyone. [Laughs]
Stanchfield: It's been a really challenging part of Abby to play. She's over-the-cliff loyal to Olivia, yet she's constantly questioning her. Her suspicions with Olivia go deeper and deeper. At the same time, in every episode, she absolutely agrees to do what Olivia asks. She's still out there gladiating away. There's a fine line there. The involvement with David only adds to that complication. It gets really juicy and way more complicated.

Scandal Postmortem: Quinn Perkins, revealed! What's next?

David is piecing together that Quinn may just be a pawn. Will he turn his focus to Olivia now?
Malina: Yeah. She's the focus of his obsession. We've already seen her do damage in two areas. He loses this slam dunk legal case, and the next thing you know he's temporarily lost his job. She's clearly gone above him. Although the Quinn of it all is so huge, it's starting to get down to Olivia and how the hell she's always one step ahead and what exactly she's involved in that motivates her to pull all these strings. The focus is shifting, for sure, to Olivia.

Because whatever this scandal is could bring down the government, should we be worried about David and Abby's safety?
Malina: Again, there's a reason why I read the last page of the script to see whether my character is still alive and work my way backwards once I've seen good news. Yes, the stakes couldn't be higher. When you throw the Shonda of it all into the equation, you know anything really could happen. For me, any episode where David doesn't fall down an elevator shaft or get shot in the back of the head, the rest is just icing. I think that he's, for lack of a better word, f---ing around with very, very, very powerful people and maybe he doesn't quite know yet how intense the situation he's putting himself in.
Stanchfield: And don't forget, Abby's got brass knuckles in her purse!
Malina: That's true. Abby is clearly able to defend herself more than David [is]. David is ill-equipped. It's possible that he's pursuing her just for protection. [Laughs]

Were you surprised by David and Abby's hookup?

Scandal airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC.