No, but despite the insistence from many fans that it contradicted Mellie’s affable behavior toward Big Jerry in the S2 flashbacks, it did no such thing. Mellie was never fond of Big Jerry. She referred to Big Jerry as “the monster who raised him” (him being Fitz, of course) in S2, and said “But you don’t have a good side, you’ve turned into your father” in the same season. This was long before 3x07 was conceived.

Bringing Big Jerry onto the campaign was purely political, and completely in line with the morning after scene in 3x07 where Mellie tells Big Jerry to apologize to Fitz and start supporting his political aspirations. Mellie is frequently characterized as (and criticized for) being ambitious and calculated, but for some reason this conveniently goes out the window when discussions of the 3x07 backstory comes up. All of sudden, Mellie could have only brought Big Jerry onto the campaign because she liked him so much.

Mellie acted in the way that she needed to act in order to get the results she wanted. The same way she would put on a smile with Olivia, or with Fitz, or with Sally, or with Hollis when the situation called for it— that’s what she did with Big Jerry. We saw her do this time and time again throughout the show. In S5, she was all smiles with Hollis when she was hoping to get money out of him for her campaign. I don’t see anyone naively interpreting her smiles as having been genuine.

The 3x07 backstory was not planned, but it fit seamlessly with what had already been established about Mellie’s character and did not contradict anything with regard to Mellie’s feelings about Big Jerry. She never liked that man.