I’m rewatching ‘Scandal,’ and my goodness is this show a hot mess. I love it all over again.
OPINION: The show that brought us Olivia Pope, gladiators, B613 and non-stop shenanigans is as much fun to watch even when I know what’s going to happen.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Back in 2013, the federal government of the United States of America shut down from Oct. 1 to Oct. 17. While government shutdowns seem like this ominous thing, as an employee of the government, I really just wanted Congress to make a decision so I knew if I needed to come into work or not — I wasn’t stressed about it at all. As it turns out, for almost two-and-a-half weeks, I did not. So I did what anybody who was on a day-to-day wait-and-see mission to see if I needed to go into the office — I binged television shows.
By the time I started watching “Scandal,” it was already a phenomenon. I hadn’t watched a single episode of the show, which debuted in April 2012, but I knew who Olivia Pope was and lots of my friends kept talking about “gladiators.” I wasn’t interested in the slightest and I had no idea. I think the rumblings I heard about the storyline between Olivia Pope (played fantastically by Kerry Washington) and Fitzgerald Grant III (Tony Goldwyn) turned me off without me giving it a chance. But I was on a federal-sanctioned vacation so I figured why not. I fired up “Scandal,” which by that point, had concluded its second season.
I was all in. What a ridiculous show. But what an entertaining show. Like, everybody on this show was like a really good bad person. Secrets, murders, spies, backroom dealings — in my soul, I imagined that show creator Shonda Rhimes was watching “Suits” one day — “Suits” is another absolutely ridiculous but riveting show — and was like, “I’ll bet lawyers love this fantasy legal show! Egads, I should make a White House rom-com, murder mystery, spy drama, television show for the folks in the White House and in D.C. to watch!” (In reality, the show was inspired by Judy Smith, a former White House deputy press secretary who went into private practice like Olivia Pope who pitched the idea to Rhimes.) This show was so good that I don’t even know if I slept while I was watching it. I just watched each episode back to back. I think I showered but I cannot confirm this.
I think, though, that when it was time to watch it in real time, with the weeklong wait, I tapped out. I must have made it through parts of the third season, but I’m guessing I moved on. I only know this because I’m rewatching “Scandal” now on Hulu, and I’m seeing people on the show that I don’t remember and watching storylines I don’t remember and I am absolutely loving it. For instance, I didn’t know that Brian White was in the show (appearing in the fourth and fifth seasons) at all, and I’m a Tyler Perry movie fanatic; I love Brian White. It’s as if I’m watching this show with new eyes. And the funniest part is that I totally forgot about Papa Pope, aka Roman aka Eli Pope aka “The Hell and the High Water” (Joe Morton), whose speeches really should be monologues that theater people use for auditions. He’s the off-and-on head of B613, the super secret agency that ensures the safety of the republic that really just takes out folks left and right, world leaders and regular folks alike. I mean, seriously, the number of people B613 has taken out on this show is quite impressive.
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Funny enough, the storyline I care the least about is the romance between Olivia and President Grant; every other storyline is enticing and engaging. By the way, if you haven’t watched this show, there are no good people on this show. There is blood on EVERYBODY’S hands. From the president on down. The president’s chief of staff, Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry), literally has the deaths of dozens of people on his hands, but then again so does the first lady of the United States, Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young). And then there’s the actual agency that Olivia Pope runs, Olivia Pope & Associates, which employs people who, well, sometimes kill or torture folks when they aren’t helping.
Look, you’ve seen this show. I’ve seen this show. There’s no need to break this down. But let me say rewatching this show has been an absolute delight. And it reminds me of the fact that good content, and in this case, television, is good content. This show pulled me back in on my second watching in such a fashion that I actually intend to finish the entire show. I don’t know why I stopped watching, but not this time; I’m going to watch all seven seasons. Not just because I didn’t before, but because I want to see where this show goes. It’s part of the reason why I enjoy binge-watching shows; I have found my impatience with waiting for the next episode will make me ignore a show altogether. That happened with “Yellowstone”; I stopped watching when I had to wait a week for episodes after I’d binged the first four seasons, and I loved that show.
“Scandal,” though, has my full attention right now. Any free minute I have, I’m watching another episode; I’m currently in the middle of the fifth season and starting to get concerned as I inch closer and closer to the series finale. This also means that folks are going to have to start dying at some point to bring the whole story home. Plus, really, every main character on this show has done enough dirt to not only warrant death but to really deserve it. And because I didn’t watch “Scandal” while it was airing — true story, I didn’t even know it had seven seasons and ended in 2019; totally blew my mind — I don’t know who is going to die or live. I assume Olivia makes it to the end and so does Papa Pope, but if you told me every other person bought the farm, I’d believe you.
So here’s to rewatching “Scandal,” a show that stole our hearts more than 10 years ago and is as much of an attention thief in 2023 as it was then. I love it.
I’m a gladiator … in a white hat.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest), but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said: “Unknown” (Blackest).
Make sure you check out the Dear Culture podcast every Thursday on theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, where I’ll be hosting some of the Blackest conversations known to humankind. You might not leave the convo with an afro, but you’ll definitely be looking for your Afro Sheen! Listen to Dear Culture on TheGrio’s app; download it here.
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