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Scandal's Darby Stanchfield: OPA Will Be in a State of Emergency!

The seemingly infallible Olivia Pope & Associates were wrong! Last week on Scandal, we discovered that Osborne (Kurt Fuller), the head of the CIA, was not the mole even though someone had Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) set him up to look like the mole before killing him. Naturally, this means Olivia (Kerry Washington) and her associates were actually wrong about him being the mole, and their suspicion of him could have led to his untimely death. How will they rectify this? TVGuide.com turned to Darby Stanchfield, who plays Olivia's trusted investigator Abby Whelen, to get the scoop on what lengths OPA will go to find out who the mole really is and how that will put them in danger. Plus: Stanchfield teases the future for Abby and David...

Natalie Abrams
Natalie Abrams

The seemingly infallible Olivia Pope & Associates were wrong!

Last week on Scandal, we discovered that Osborne (Kurt Fuller), the head of the CIA, was not the mole even though someone had Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) set him up to look like the mole before killing him. Naturally, this means Olivia (Kerry Washington) and her associates were actually wrong about him being the mole, and their suspicion of him could have led to his untimely death. How will they rectify this? TVGuide.com turned to Darby Stanchfield, who plays Olivia's trusted investigator Abby Whelen, to get the scoop on what lengths OPA will go to find out who the mole really is and how that will put them in danger. Plus: Stanchfield teases the future for Abby and David (Joshua Malina).

Scandal Scoop: Will Olivia discover the truth about Jake?

OPA was wrong about Osborne! What will they do to try to fix that?
Darby Stanchfield:
As we dig deeper, everything that seems to be is not. Everything you know from the last episode gets turned on its head. As we dig deeper into who the mole is, OPA ends up literally in a state of emergency by the end of the episode.

Albatross, the real mole, is a dangerous person. Will  this put OPA in danger as they try to find out who he is?
Stanchfield:
Yes. Everything is hanging by a string. Things absolutely fall apart at the episode. Out of all two seasons so far, OPA is at the most vulnerable state. There is an attack on OPA.

This means Molly (Mageina Tovah), who fingered Osborne as the mole, was actually in on it. Considering the title of the episode is, "Molly, You in Danger, Girl," what can you tease for OPA's involvement with her this week?
Stanchfield:
Molly is a tough one. Molly proves to be difficult in helping us. Molly is a stubborn cookie. There's a surprise in that plot. Your brain is just going to explode into a million pieces about halfway through the episode and as you're trying to assemble it back together, it's going to explode again. You're going to be scraping your brain off the floor by the end of the episode.

Because the mole is still out there, presumably David will be spending more time at OPA. Will David and Abby finally confront each other about everything they've been through this season?
Stachfield:
There's definitely some confrontation that goes on. Again, they're in close quarters in the office. He comes back to the office so it's hard to ignore the past. That comes bubbling up again and it's incredibly dysfunctional. They can't just come out to each other like adults, they have to hash it out and be scandalous.

Do you think David and Abby are meant to be?
Stanchfield:
I do think they're meant to be. Much like Olivia and Fitz (Tony Goldwyn), they're in a really complicated situation. They work for two opposite sides — maybe not so much anymore, but there's been so much with the politics of Defiance and the Cytron voting memory card and Abby's loyalty to Liv. All of that has really complicated everything. It continues to create a distance between them. I think they totally dig each other. I also think Abby is really dysfunctional and doesn't really know how it works with a good guy, but she wants one. In a strange way, I think they're perfect together.

Scandal Scoop: How will Quinn deal with Hollis being an OPA client?

It seems like he's on track to join OPA, but do you think they can really trust him?
Stanchfield:
Trust is one of the main themes in the series. As much as you could ask, "Could we ever really trust him?" --  [you could ask,] "Can he ever trust us?" We basically ruined his entire life. It goes both ways. OPA and David are circling each other and sniffing each other out. He has a lot to offer and has a lot of connections. He would be a great addition to OPA, but I think that both sides have trust issues. I think there's great potential and great amounts of drama if he actually does join OPA. I don't know how that would go for Abby and David. When we you work with someone you have a past with, it gets even more complicated.

Speaking of people that can't be trusted, Jake Ballard has some sort of connection to the mole. How will OPA cross paths with him?
Stanchfield:
Jake's a snake! Not too far down the line, the OPA Gladiators will get to know who he is and they interact with him and that becomes really interesting. It opens up a whole other can of worms. As he gets more involved and closer to Olivia — and cares more about her, so we think — it's unavoidable that he's going to have to deal with Huck (Guillermo Diaz), Harrison (Columbus Short), Quinn (Katie Lowes), Abby and David.

How will Abby's relationship with Harrison change after they confronted each other?
Stanchfield:
They work together every day. They're the ones who are out in the field together. It's a really weird dynamic because Harrison, Abby and David are getting lumped together a lot now. Abby and Harrison have been partners for a long time now and David tags along now so it's awkward. I feel like Abby is kind of torn. With Harrison, she is a Gladiator first, but with David, she's a person first. It creates a weird dynamic with her two worlds coming together. The walls are closing in.

Re-watch our video chat with Scandal's Darby Stanchfield and Columbus Short!

Are we going to learn more about Abby's background before the season ends?
Stanchfield:
I hope so. The fact that we recently found out that Abby was not only in an abusive marriage, but that it was a politically arranged marriage? To me, that's teasing a whole story line that would be really fun to explore. There's a lot of intrigue there. It would add so many layers to present-day Abby because it would inform why her hair is stick straight and she has such an attitude.

And it seems like there might be an indication that Olivia may have had a hand in her arranged relationship.
Stanchfield:
Yeah. There could be more about Abby not knowing. That's right! You're thinking like [executive producer] Shonda Rhimes. Have you been sitting in the writers' room? Are you the mole?

Do you think Abby and David are meant to be?

Scandal airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC.