President Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) has yet to arrive to the funeral with only 14 minutes left before a bomb goes off, as Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry) keeps stalling him.

Rowan (Joe Morton) is rushed into the hospital after the stabbing by Maya Pope (Khandi Alexander) and Adnan Salif (Nazanin Boniadi) is worried about the President's absence from the church.

Olivia (Kerry Washington) comes to the White House and convinces Fitz to talk to the nation, but faces trouble when the networks use a split screen showing both Fitz and Sally Langston (Kate Burton) as she helps victims outside the church after Leo Bergen (Paul Adelstein) convinced her it will help her chances of winning the election.

Harrison and Abby (Darby Stanchfield) discovers Huck (Guillermo Diaz) and Quinn's (Katie Lowes) relationship.

Fitz calls Olivia while waiting to give a last speech with his family, explaining that he can't leave Mellie for her and Vermont, not after learning about the rape.

At the same time, as Fitz gives a speech, his son Jerry (Dylan Minnette) suffers a seizure and later dies.

Huck tells Olivia that Quinn found his family, and he explains why he can't involve himself in their lives.

The episode was the last for series regular Columbus Short as Harrison Wright after it was later announced that the actor would not return for the show's fourth season for personal reasons.

[8] "The Price of Free and Fair Elections" was originally broadcast on Thursday, April 17, 2014 in the United States on ABC.

[10] The 10.57 million people tuned into the episode marked a 15 percent viewership increase from the previous season's finale (9.12 million), in addition to the installment's 3.4 Nielsen rating in the target 18–49 demographic marked a 6 percent increase from 3.2, which was from the last season's finale.

[16] Avery Thompson from the Hollywood Life called the finale "crazy" because of the numerous twists that occurred in the episode.

[17] Meredith Blake from Los Angeles Times said "Sure, this is a finale, so the stakes are necessarily going to be higher, but when the outcome of a presidential election -- on a show that is at least nominally about politics -- plays as a mere footnote, well, then you’ve got one overstuffed episode on your hands.

"[15] People's TV critic Tom Gliatto commented on how rushed the finale was, saying, "If you dared to leave the room for a glass of seltzer or to go to the bathroom, you might return and find yourself totally disoriented".

"[22] Writing for TV Fanatic, Miranda Wicker criticized the decision Olivia made when she told Fitz about the rape that Mellie had asked her not to reveal, saying, "It wasn't her truth to tell.

[13] Cory Baker expressed his disappointment that only a small part of the episode dealt with the news of the rape.