- [first lines]
- Quinn Perkins: [finding Jake unconscious] Jake? Make some noise for me. Anything. Jake. Come on. Make some noise for me. Oh, they got you. Ohh, we let them get you.
- Mellie Grant: It is an absolute honor to serve as the nation's first lady, but let's be honest, it's a privilege, not a job.
- Ilya: [to Rosen] Now, you, scared man with glasses, we flip him over. Now. Right now. We flip, he scream. We flip anyway.
- [Jake screams in pain]
- Mary Peterson: Have another. Pryaniki. Russian spice cookies. I tell my grandkids I had a neighbor growing up who used to make them for me. They think Nana's from Wisconsin.
- Olivia Pope: Must be interesting, lying to everyone you know, including your own family.
- Mary Peterson: Growing up, we were poor. Really poor. Not American poor. My little brother starved to death because we didn't have enough food. That kind of poor. Russian poor. The KGB were recruiting, and it turned out I was gifted. I had the eye of a sniper, and I would kill anything with my bare hands without asking questions. They said I'd have all the food I wanted, a warm bed to sleep in, shoes. I'd have shoes. All I had to do was learn English, go to America, and murder people when ordered. Why would I say no to that? It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
- Abby Whelan: We need you to weigh in on whether it's legal for someone to run for senate while married to the president.
- David Rosen: Well, uh, yes, it's legal, but only because no one ever considered the idea that a first lady would ever run for office. I'm betting if they had, there'd be a law on the books. The ethical implications alone...
- Abby Whelan: But it is legal?
- David Rosen: Yes.
- Abby Whelan: Because no one ever imagined that a woman would ever get an idea in her pretty, little head to run for office?
- David Rosen: Yes, Abby.
- Abby Whelan: So, Mellie Grant's run for senate is legal because of misogyny. In this instance, misogyny is our friend. That's what you're saying?
- David Rosen: No, no, I'm saying something less controversial and less likely to get me stoned to death by my feminist sisters. I am saying there's no legal issue with Mellie Grant's run for Senate.
- Franklin Russell: Ballard has been eliminated.
- Rowan Pope: Untrue. False. A figment of your imagination, a vision of what you assume happened versus what actually happened. Jake Ballard is very much alive.
- Franklin Russell: Not possible.
- Rowan Pope: If he were dead, if you actually completed the task I entrusted to you, believed you were capable of executing, I would have found myself on the other end of a phone call with my daughter, a call full of venom, vitriol, and, sadly, tears. But most significantly, promises of white-hot vengeance. Instead, silence. Instead, she has gone underground. You failed, and Jake Ballard is very much alive.
- Franklin Russell: If he's alive, he's hanging on by a thread.
- Rowan Pope: Then find him and cut the thread.
- Olivia Pope: Release Mary Peterson from duty, to forget she exists, to allow her to go on with her life.
- Kostya Pasternak: [cutting meat] Mary Peterson? Does she buy meat here?
- Olivia Pope: You probably don't know who I am, but...
- Kostya Pasternak: I don't care to know who you are.
- Olivia Pope: But this can go one of two ways. The first way, the easy way, involves you saying a number, $100,000, maybe $200,000, although I wouldn't push your luck, just some number that makes you comfortable and allows my client to enjoy her retirement. The other way, the complicated way, involves me calling in favors with the Attorney General, my friends at the CIA, and people far darker, dirtier, and deeper underground to make your life a living hell. But the result is always the same: Mary Peterson doesn't work for you or your government anymore. Some people have bark, some people have bite. I have both. So which is it, Kostya?
- Kostya Pasternak: Are you familiar with the town of Verkhoyansk? No reason you would, I guess. It's a small town in Russia where they send political exiles to die for their crimes. It's the coldest place on earth. It's also my home. As a kid, I used to help the KGB drag the frozen bodies out of the prison. I know what happens to traitors. So, you have to pardon me if I'm not afraid of some lady and her mutt. Traitors die, Ms. Olivia. As they should. Be sure you remind your client of this.
- [wipes the blood from his knife]
- Sally Langston: [interviewing Cyrus on her television show] But Mrs. Grant has a job. Being a mother is the hardest job in the world, and she...
- Cyrus Beene: You know I know people love to say that. I do. And it's well-meaning, but being a mother isn't a job. Being a mother is who someone *is*. It's not a job. You can quit a job. You can resign, as you did when you decided to quit being Vice President. But you are a mother forever. Being a mother is incredibly difficult. Let's not diminish it by calling it a job.
- Sally Langston: If you would let me finish my sentence, Cyrus, you would have heard me say that Mrs. Grant is the mother of our country. And as such, her true job is being first lady.
- Cyrus Beene: Still, not a job. People get paid for jobs. Don't they, Sally?
- Sally Langston: The first lady gets any number of perks a clothing allowance.
- Cyrus Beene: That's a myth. First ladies pay for their own clothes.
- Sally Langston: A private chef? Now, I've tasted that fried chicken myself, and I can personally vouch for its value.
- Cyrus Beene: So, you're saying that women should get paid in fried chicken now?
- [lowering his voice]
- Cyrus Beene: Are you being paid in fried chicken to host this show?
- Rowan Pope: [to Olivia on the phone] What have I always told you, Olivia? Against me, you will never win.
- David Rosen: [about witnesses] We have Huck and Charlie!
- Charlie: You don't have me. I have me. And the me I have enjoys being alive.
- David Rosen: No. We have Huck. We have Quinn.
- Charlie: She was in B-613 for like five minutes. She barely qualified for the health plan.
- [last lines]
- Olivia Pope: [holding a gun to his head] I couldn't figure it out. How did my dad know about the Russians? Then I realized it was you. You were there. You were sent to kill Jake. You're B-613, and now you're gonna tell me what the hell foxtail is.
- Franklin Russell: You're making a mistake, Alex. Aaah!
- Olivia Pope: It's Olivia! And this is definitely going to hurt.