That Olivia Loved Jake
The idea that Olivia didn’t love Jake because she never said the words is such a remarkably simple take on such a complex character that it's astounding. I’ve never been so frustrated with part of a fandom for on-the-whole missing something blatantly obvious just because it wasn’t explicitly spelled out for them. I'm not asking all of you olitzers to convert, just be willing to open your eyes, because I was an olitz fan that just saw how attached the writers were to not committing to what eventually ended up being the better option.
Disclaimer: I haven't watched the last two seasons, only looked into specific plot points, so I might have missed some small detail in a scene or episode. If there's anything that proves what I've said wrong, I would genuinely love to know!
Firstly, we’ve seen what Olivia is like when she doesn’t really care about someone she’s seeing. Edison. Russell. It’s a STARK difference. Enough said.
Secondly, I choose to believe that when Olivia chooses not to correct things that are stated, it is very relevant. Going beyond the numerous times that “Olivia loves Jake” has been thrown around (that Olivia has never once disputed), near the beginnings of Olake in 3x12 we have these moments between Olivia and Fitz where she doesn’t try to assure him that nothing serious is happening with Jake. Of course, there’s Olivia’s “Jake by my side is for me”, but they’re both amped up—especially Olivia—and it’s political. But in a quieter moment, when Fitz calmly asks her if she has feelings for Jake, all she has for him is:
[O]: “Honestly, I don’t know.”
I wouldn’t usually put much stock in it considering it’s so ambiguous, but saying that to Fitz? The island hasn't even happened yet. He’s literally the one person she should deny anything and everything to, considering he was fairly convinced at times that he was losing her to Jake, and she wasn’t exactly proving otherwise. In season 4 when she's looking for Jake, she freely claims him as her boyfriend when speaking to Quinn, and later when she calls Fitz he refers to Jake as her boyfriend and she just…doesn't correct him.
Jake too outright calls her his girlfriend to Fitz's face (after she's done everything she can to exonerate Jake + figuratively and literally threatened her relationship with Fitz by refusing to believe that Jake killed his son and her close friend despite ample evidence based on nothing other than her faith in him, and also saying that true harm to Jake would be the end of their relationship) and she doesn't so much as shift in Fitz's direction. She is completely focused on Jake in those moments, maybe because it's the first time she hears him say that. Up until this point it's repeatedly always been:
[J]: "I'm not your boyfriend, Olivia." [O]: "I know."
Beyond that, the fact that Olivia didn’t explicitly say “I love you” to Jake doesn’t mean much in my opinion when she’s continuously demonstrated that she’s probably the biggest commitment-phobe on the show. She’ll chase the dream of love and happiness when it’s unattainable, but balks in the face of it when it’s within her reach. She does it time and time again with Fitz. She’s endlessly waiting for when they can be together, but seemingly never ready when they actually can be. Fitz himself comes to that realisation when she seems to be climbing the walls of the White House after moving in:
[F]: “Before. I was unavailable before. You liked me unavailable.”
And in another instance again:
Part of the clip’s transcript: [O]: “…so why did you do it (propose)?” [F]: “Because I love you. Because you are what I want. But obviously you don’t feel the same. Some fantasy, right?” [O]: “We’re not ready.” [F]: “You’re not ready, and you know what I think? You never will be.” [O]: “That’s not fair.” [F]: “Then answer the question, Olivia. What is it that you want?”
And when asked, she’s silent. Not because she doesn’t love him. But because for whatever reason, she can’t let herself be happy. Olivia herself knows this (points for being self-aware, I guess):
[O]: "When I was with Fitz, I was happy you [Mellie] were around too. With you around, I didn't have to…I had an out. You, you were my out, Mellie. You kept him unavailable. So I left, for the same reason you stayed. Because I was scared."
One incredible user on here @zalrb does a good job of explaining, among so many wonderful things, how there were no real obstacles to the Olitz endgame beyond Olivia herself, simply because of how often Fitz was completely committed to being with her, at which point she'd double down on something being in the way. She will go all in and be open about being in the relationship, declarations of love and all, until she actually can afford to be. Then, she turns to self-sabotage. That’s been the dynamic: Fitz pushes, and she pulls away.
And when else do we see that habit of hers in the show? Enter Jake Ballard and the relationship she can actually be in and doesn't realise she's chasing.
From the absolute start the BIGGEST difference between the relationships, romantic or otherwise, is that Jake is available. He’s present, and he can be. He and Olivia have a connection that could actually be taken further. Any moves she makes will lead to results. She’s not “stealing” any moments with him that he “should” have with someone else, they’re just…being together. She only knows him available, and progress with him probably snuck up on her as a result. Knowing her at this stage, the realer their relationship got the more scared she'd be, and she'd increasingly want to run. But they still intentionally played at being domestic, at “pretending” to come home to each other from normal lives:
[O]: "I thought we could have some dinner and talk about how our days went."
Despite this though, even when they aren’t together, they’re with each other. They're a team, a 'you and me', a 'we'. Fitz might have been her lover, but Jake was her person. They have a foundation to their relationship that stays steady, regardless of if they’re actually involved at that time or not. She confides in him. She trusts him. She brings her walls down with him. She turns to him for comfort and advice. She literally keeps her place stocked with beer just because he drinks it when he’s there. Only him. I ask this genuinely, has she ever made any attempt to accomodate literally anyone else in her life by making room for them?
[O]: "Whatever happens next, we will figure it out."
[O]: "We are very, very good together."
It’s not to say she never opens up like this with Fitz, but who else besides her "great love" is she consistently willing do this with? And not just be caught up in the moment, actually initiate it, like when she actively calls Jake and opens up about them, her mother, and her associated fears about love. Let's not even get started on the number Olivia's father did on her ability to seek and accept love she doesn't need to break herself to pursue, or view as "weak" and mediocre. At one point she's actively concerned about marrying Fitz, and whether she has the ability to be "a married person", and instead of talking about it with, I dunno, Fitz himself, she calls Jake:
[O]: “I need to know what to do, you’re who I talk to.”
There's this small moment at Harrison's funeral that really struck me. She's understandably upset, and just before had been grieving Harrison's death with the rest of OPA. But throughout it, she keeps herself composed, instead acting as a rock for Abby. But once they all leave she's stuck in it for a little bit, until Jake simply reminds her that he's there with a touch, and she suddenly loses it completely, and turns to him for support. She allows him to be her rock in that moment. Truly, how often does she just surrender to someone else without it being a battle of wills, like it so often is with Fitz?
"Olivia used Jake." In a way, yes. She was definitely selfish with him, and half the time she was fighting her own defensive instincts to not get too attached. It was so unhealthy for them both for her to continually try to lean on him and keep him close, and hold herself back in often the same breath. But to say that she didn’t care about him just undermines their relationship, in all its forms. I mean, it’s not like the things she used him for were easy-breezy for her, at times it took something out of her.
Sometimes she pushes through her own walls though. I consider it such a big moment when she talks to him about her kidnapping in season 4, because I literally cannot think of a single other instance that she truly opens up about it (bonus, when she was kidnapped, who was it she pictured rescuing her?). The scene is also such a good example of her avoidant tendencies kicking in, because she stays only long enough to say her piece, be vulnerable, then is immediately gone when the recount ends (Jake literally barely says her name before she’s up and leaving).
They had a relationship that was rooted in the day to day moments, in the reality of life, and it was always reality that broke Fitz and Olivia, whose relationship comprised of ephemeral, stolen moments where they were in their own world. She not only lets herself be upset or lost in Jake’s presence (and that’s a huge concession for someone who wields confidence, control and intelligence as weapons), she lets herself be happy. In the absolute midst of another go-around with Eli, she does something we haven’t seen her do, ever: let loose, smile widely, and dance. And it’s Jake she does it with. While they BOTH are actively beefing with her father, they make a moment of joy together. And then we never see them this happy again because she’s traumatised and generally becomes colder.
So many times throughout the show, Olivia puts Fitz on the pedestal of being her great love, the one for her, she can’t be without him, and on and on. BUT throughout the show, Olivia also happens to place Jake in a position congruent to Fitz, and makes it known to BOTH of them.
[O]: “I felt something with you last night, and that feels like betrayal.” To Jake
[O]: “I know about him the way I know about you.” To Fitz
[O]: “I want Vermont with Fitz. I also want The Sun with you.” To Jake
Not only does she group the two of them, she also establishes that some aspects of her relationship with Jake are exclusive to only them, and that no one, not even Fitz himself, can touch them. The fact that Olivia—who is always so quick to remind Jake that she loves Fitz—gets offended when Jake implies that and says:
is not talked about enough. Especially the fact that she doesn't correct his assertion to Fitz that she loves him, but chooses to correct simply referencing someone else with the sun. It’s her putting Jake and The Sun, in a position apart from everyone else (imo “another man” is an insane way to refer to the apparent love of your life, but that’s just me) in a way that almost seems she feels Jake should know better.
Fitz himself makes an observation literally just after this when she's extremely reluctant to kiss him despite them being completely alone:
[F]: "You don't want me to kiss you because of Jake. This is interesting. No, really, it is. You don't know what to do. Is it disloyal to want me or is it disloyal to want him?"
In the same way that Fitz was in the middle of her and Jake's relationship, Jake was often in the middle of her and Fitz. Ultimately though, what people (olitzers) forget is that she chose Jake. She literally makes an active decision to be with him in 5x18, and she says:
[O]: “I’m ready to be happy.”
That Olivia could admit that? Not only to herself, but to others? Keeping in mind that she started that season with Fitz? It's huge progress.
And the only reason she doesn’t go through with it is because the narrative doesn’t give her the permission to. It’s also not lost on me that the one and only time we hear her discount her feelings, actually say she doesn’t love Jake, is when she’s doing everything in her power to make him believe it so that he isn’t killed. She was devastated as she walked away, visibly sick to her stomach to have done that to Jake, and correcting his understanding was her first priority when she sees him again afterwards. It's also another time she's latched onto him when letting him go would be easier for her and Fitz, but hey.
Towards the end of the show though, the writers truly switched up or went off the deep end or started doing drugs or something, because the 5x18 erasure from the narrative and Olivia's mind was very real. There's jealousy sometimes, sure, but not the kind you'd think would follow a big decision falling through (and she's lowkey highkey always been possessive of Jake). They both stray so far from "the sun", as a pair and individually, despite how much stress they had put on standing there together. The biggest admission I can think that she ever makes to him again is in season 6, when they are far from being a couple. It's an acknowledgement that they both lost something in sacrificing their relationship:
[O]: "There has to be a reason, or else why did I do this to you? Why did I do this to myself?"
Look at the way she's looking at him. The way she always looks at him.
'Looks' are one of the biggest ways that Olivia tries to communicate with him, because so often in the place of speaking, she'll just be looking at him. And he gets it. He can read her so very easily.
I don't think anyone else in the show has the same claim to the "partner" title that Jake does, however you want to take that word. We never saw her rely on, trust and open herself up to someone quite like she did with Jake.
Whenever Olivia spoke about "standing in the sun" with Jake, she's talking about the lived experience of their fantasy. Like, yes, Olitz got the big sweeping speeches and the verbal declarations of love, the constant waxing poetic about Vermont and jam and the vague outlines of a future, but truly not the substance.
Would Fitz recognise the taste of the '94 du Bellay, or even know the name? Know what to get Olivia from Gettysburger? Has he even seen her natural hair, or her in anything close to this state of ease?
It says a lot that in order to stop Jake from being a viable option for her future, the writers wiped the closest that Olivia has come to finally settling on either of them from the narrative, basically assassinated his character and their partnership, and literally made him inaccessible to her by imprisoning only him out of everyone involved.
Yeah, all that they were and could have been haunts me.
