‘Scandal,’ Washington D.C.’s OTHER Fever Dream, Comes To An End

‘Scandal,’ Washington D.C.’s OTHER Fever Dream, Comes To An End

Last May, when ABC announced this season would be Scandal’s last, Shonda Rhimes promises to go “all out” with “white hats on, gladiators running full speed over the cliff.”

Related
Jimmy Kimmel: 'Scandal' Marks First Time Show Ended Because World Jumped The Shark

Here’s how it went. SPOILERS:

Final episode, fittingly called Over the Cliff, starts with special prosecutor Lonnie Mencken wanting to make sure if he Olivia Pope the Senate hearing she seeks as part of her image rehab, POTUS Mellie Grant will make gun control a priority.

Lonnie previously had agreed to work with Creepy Veep Cyrus to impeach Mellie because he lost his son during a mass-shooting at a mall and holds President Grant’s ‘love of guns’ against her.

“Yes I can promise you gun control will move to the top of the agenda,” Olivia stage whispers.

Lonnie pulls out a gun; Olivia naturally asks what he’s doing.

“I’m getting you your senate hearing,” Lonnie explains as he puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

That’s about as topical as it gets in the series finale. While everything in Actual Washington D.C. seems random and erratic, in this comforting view, effective, competent, if a little kill-crazy people quietly run everything behind the scenes.

In other highlights, Mellie’s portrait for the National Portrait Gallery is with her because it’s unveiling has been postponed. She throws back a few stiff drinks, believing she’s going to be impeached and then the powerful Dems in the Senate will throw her out. That’s how we know it’s fiction.

The hearing is a doozy, highlighted by Olivia telling the senators, “I know he killed because I ordered him to do it,” in marked contrast to all the “I do not recalls” of our actual Senate hearings.

After it’s over, they’re advised to spend 24 hours getting their lives in order. So Olivia arranges for Quinn to marry baby-daddy Charlie in prison; he’s in the hoosegow after being framed by Veep.

Attorney General David Rosen is in an underground garage where he’s accosted by White House Chief of Staff Jake Ballard. Ballard, who at least seems to be taking more meetings with important players than John Kelly these days – if only to threaten to plot or threaten murder – points his gun at Rosen’s head. Rosen is no Jeff Sessions recusing himself from this and that. Instead, he boldly tells chief of staff, “I am not your bitch…I am the Attorney General of the United States. I am the bitch of the United States!” This guy is more like Jim Comey, only without the prim demeanor. Anyway, no gunfire is heard.

Back at the Naval Observatory, Veep Cyrus is non too happy when he realizes Ballard hasn’t offed the AG. Rosen, however, feels good about the parking lot exchange. So good that, when Cryus phones in the dead of night and says he wants to confess, Rosen heads to Cyrus’s digs, signs the paper and accepts a drink from Veep, while, across Shondaland, millions of people yell at their screens, “DON’T take that drink!”

RIP Attorney General David Rosen.

Olivia is understandably upset because it looks like Mellie is going to be impeached, they’re all going to jail and that creep Cyrus is going to “get the Oval.”

“You’re grieving; you’re not thinking clearly” former POTUS Fitz says, kicking the world’s most credulity stretching Washington seduction scene, in which Olivia keeps arguing with him to choose Option A or B, A or B, A or B – B being “sex.” Fitz sets a record for the least seduceable politician of the modern era, but finally gets her drift and tells her “Take your clothes off!”

In a final Senate testimony scene that suggests there’s a rational explanation for everything you see in Washington, instead of the whirling pit of confusion it is in Donald Trump World, Olivia’s dad, Rowan testifies that “a black man has been running the country for the past 30 years” via his B316 agency, while the complacent white men in the Senate only think they have.

Dad saves the day, Olivia and pals aren’t going to jail, all their damning testimony will be redacted, and the good guys won. Olivia cows Cyrus into signing a letter of resignation, but only after he gives a lengthy soliloquy about his drinking which, sadly, does not lead to his demise.

White House Chief of Staff, however, is heading to prison. And, in a farewell speech straight out of Hollywood, he bemoans that he is going to a maximum security prison in Illinois saying, “I spent m whole life trying to get the hell out of the Corn Belt and now it’s come full circle

Meanwhile, Mellie wants Olivia to stay to help her run the country. But Olivia has decided it’s time for her to leave after fixing everyone’s problems. Finally free, she celebrates by doing the runway model walk all over D.C. in a fabulous white trench coat.

Series ends with adorable little African American girls in the National Portrait Gallery gazing impressed at one of the paintings. Which turns out to be Olivia Pope. Asked about that on Jimmy Kimmel’s show after the airing, creator Shonda Rhimes declined to say whether it meant Future Olivia Pope became First Lady, or President of the United States, saying the script leaves it uncertain for viewers, but crystal-clear to her.