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
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).
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