"Scandal" series finale: Closing the door on a White House fantasy

As Shonda Rhimes' ABC hit comes to an end, we consider its service as an alternate vision of the presidency

By Melanie McFarland

Senior Critic

Published April 19, 2018 6:15PM (EDT)

Kerry Washington on "Scandal;" Donald Trump (Getty/Chris Kleponis/ABC/Richard Cartwright)
Kerry Washington on "Scandal;" Donald Trump (Getty/Chris Kleponis/ABC/Richard Cartwright)

To reflect on ABC’s “Scandal” on the occasion of its series finale and say that its White House operates like a well-oiled machine in comparison to its real-world counterpart, sounds flat-out nuts. It’s also not too far from the truth.

The Oval Office of Hillary Clinton stand-in Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young), like the administration of her ex-husband Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) is a tangled web made of puppet string. Some of that thread is spun by their adversaries – which at various points refers to each other – and some they’ve unspooled themselves.

Between both and yet not quite at the center, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) sits as both game-master and servant of republic, the controller who struggled and quite publicly failed to fully grasp command. At the series beginning she was Fitz’s secret lover and the bane of Mellie’s existence. Now she’s her staunchest ally, ready to tumble off a cliff in defense of the first female president.

Much has changed since 2012, when “Scandal” debuted. But as the thwarted Democratic hopes of 2016 and the nightmare sideshow that is Donald Trump’s administration shows us, much more has not. Women still struggle to gain equal consideration at all levels of power and in all realms.  Only lately has this long-standing truth been acknowledged along with the admission, still waiting to be backed up with action, that society’s acceptance of patriarchy must shift.

Series creator Shonda Rhimes was very upfront about her support of Clinton’s candidacy in the 2016 presidential election and wrote a parallel campaign cycle into “Scandal.” But when Clinton didn’t win, Rhimes was forced to recalibrate the outcome of the show’s election and, ultimately its endgame.

“Scandal," which airs its finale on Thursday at 10 p.m., was never going to serve as a fantasy alternative to a disappointing  real world presidency,  in the way “The West Wing” was credited for doing during the eight years George W. Bush was in office. In this era of reboots, you may be pained to hear that NBC series’ creator Aaron Sorkin has shot down the hope of a revival. For now.

Not even the White House of fellow ABC drama “Designated Survivor” serves as an escape. And that series shows us what happens when a decent and honorable man who has the presidency thrust upon him. Of course, his presidency is held in place by the derring-do of action heroes wearing the shields of the government agencies, operatives working in the full light of the sun. But still.

Of course, “Scandal” was never about any particular election, or the intricacies of governance. It’s a long story about power. Indeed, Rhimes used both Olivia and her father Rowan (Joe Morton, who will be missed in this role) to state hard truths about power, even if those who could benefit the most from that wisdom probably weren't watching.

Take this gem from the penultimate episode: “If you have to tell me how powerful you are, you ain’t nobody!" he tells his agent Jake (Scott Foley). "You got nothing! You have nooooo power! Real power is silent. Real power is hidden. Real power was there all along. Real power cannot be gained and can never be lost. It is not a commodity. It is who you are.”

Mellie Grant, in her way, has a sense of this. She eventually ascends to the office of the president, unlike Clinton.  The challenges she faces in the final season aren’t all too unbelievable, either.  Not only is Mellie forced to deal with a cancer in her administration, in the form of her vice president Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry) but cancer within that cancer: the “Scandal” Deep State organ as B613, a spy agency that is the show's de facto shadow government.

That such a turn doesn’t seem totally unreal in these days of in-fighting between the actual U.S. president and government intelligence agencies is astonishing, frankly.

“Scandal” began as a show about the behind-closed-door workings of a presidency, not to mention a tortured affair and a dead political marriage, but it ends as something else.  A spy thriller, in part, also a soap where the fancy mansion happens to be located at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

But Rhimes  designed “Scandal” to be more devious, ferocious and quietly dangerous than all of this from its first episode. Olivia Pope and her gladiators aren’t afraid to bloody their knuckles to get what they want and what their version of power, the one she used to say is run by the “white hats” of the world, needs to keep going.  They make deep state conspiracies and counter-conspiracies look nearly heroic.

The public is abuzz about whether a certain intelligence dossier is real and the possible existence of other “kompromat.” Our former F.B.I. director is making the rounds to promote his new book and telling various journalists and talk show hosts that he cannot say, with certainty, that our president didn’t hire Russian hookers to urinate on a hotel bed in Moscow.

Now, compare that to Rhimes’ fictional subplot in which power-hungry, Illuminati-level spooks are running the world from inside a forgotten space under the White House and are, effectively, the executive branch of the government. That is now totally plausible.

And yet, the world of “Scandal” doesn’t seem to be a place where the public is at each other's throats. It’s deeply partisan, but presumably not holding its breath at the thought the world might end.  Or maybe the “Scandal” version of the public chooses to drown its sorrows in red wine and popcorn. Maybe the goalpost of abnormal has moved on the drama’s audience.

Could it be that Rhimes’ Washington D.C., with its crazy body count and hot-and-frigid crises, is somewhat better than ours? Not really.

The White House of Fitz, Mellie and Olivia remains a swamp full of vipers capable of operating in land and water. Some might say that much is consistent with the inner workings of the real Washington. But the administration officials and “un”-officials in “Scandal” operate with a level of malignant sophistication we’re not seeing in the current White House.

The White House and Washington of “Scandal” is anything but ideal. But it is an odd notion to realize that given the fresh frights served up on a daily basis by the actual president, that these fictional versions who have been accessories to fraud or even committed murder, might be preferable.

Mind you, what continues to hook “Scandal” viewers is that one-two caress of power and sex. Rhimes’ treated these time-honored plot devices as intoxicants as opposed to journeys toward a desirable ending. For Olivia, romance is a hunger too dangerous to completely swoon into. The endlessly quotable Rowan bludgeoned into her that love is deceptive and illusory, a weakness.

And yet, for all of his brutal lessons, the one that ends up determining how Olivia's story comes to a close is that shunning love isn't the same as being heartless. If there are no more white hats, he poses, if the deck is always stacked, and if everyone you love is a monster, there is in fact someone worth saving. The answer is, everyone.

Our current commander-in-chief would likely posit that the only person worth saving is oneself. That, in the end, is the difference between the actual president and this imperfect and seductive fantasy to which we're saying goodbye.


By Melanie McFarland

Melanie McFarland is Salon's award-winning senior culture critic. Follow her on Twitter: @McTelevision

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