Scandal helped define the Obama era, but may have also predicted the rise of Trump

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http://time.com/5245048/scandal-series-finale/

Scandal outlived its own era, the Obama era, and was effectively made irrelevant by Trump's victory, says Daniel D'Addario. "Along with Mad Men and Girls, Scandal will be on the very short list of series that defined the Obama years, both for its willingness to engage deep conversations on issues of race and its escapist vision of a world in which scandal was still fun," he says. On Scandal, Kerry Washington's "Olivia Pope was not incidentally black but specifically black," he says. "Her affair with a white President whom she also served was written, more and more as the show was emboldened by success, to explicitly reference Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. It was a pairing that was touched by the dynamics of power, and a white man in Scandal’s universe, as ours, has more of it than a black woman." He adds: "Scandal’s unique status as a broadcast-TV drama with a black female protagonist, and the way it made that protagonist a complicated woman who had real conversations about what race meant to her, was well-suited to a time in which the President was, for the first time, able to have similar conversations with the nation. The show came along at the right moment, extending a discussion that was at last happening on America’s most visible stages." But Scandal exits tonight amid a Trump administration that is mired in real-life scandal. "The thing is, there are no real scandals on Scandal; the word implies a public reaction of disgust and disapprobation," says D'Addario. "Scandal spends almost no time with the public, and the resolution of each case—from an untidy murder to an election swinging to the candidate the voters didn’t choose—is, as far as we the viewers can tell, acquiescence. Because everything is breaking all the time, nothing sinks in. In Scandal’s universe, the unending stream of news that might once have seemed unbelievable has become background noise. Scandal got, on some level, that occasional dramas are lots of fun but a news cycle that’s only dramas becomes endurable only by tuning out. It was a show whose time passed, in part because it saw too clearly what it’d be like to live through our own."

ALSO:

• Shonda Rhimes still wonders why Scandal only received a seven-episode Season 1 order: "To me it spoke to a lack of faith in the idea that a black woman could be the lead of a television show. And I found that to be insulting"
  Scandal was "a little miracle of genre fusion, somehow managing to be several seemingly incompatible shows at the same time"
  Rhimes on Olivia Pope's legacy: "Now it feels very normal and obvious that female characters can be antiheroes, and it feels normal and obvious that women of color can lead shows"
  Inside the Scandal writers' room: Shonda Rhimes & Co. recall ABC initially asking that Olivia not sleep with the president
  Scandal was a social-media game-changer, inspiring Twitter to launch boot camps for other TV shows
  Scandal brought Black Twitter to life every Thursday
  Executive producer Betsy Beers realized Scandal was a massive hit after Fitz was shot
  Before Olivia Pope, it was rare to see a black woman portrayed as such a potent symbol of desire in television and film
  Rhimes turned what should've been a limited series into TV immortality by blowing up the plot almost every week
  Kerry Washington on leaving Scandal: “I am not in complete denial, but I don’t think the processing will be complete for a while"
  Rhimes' original Scandal ending was upended by the 2016 election
  "I've always said I'm more Team Olivia than every other team," says Rhimes
  Scandal's success was proof of the power of female viewers, especially black women
  Does Olivia’s white hat still have any meaning at this point?
  The Season 2 episode “Spies Like Us" is where scandal went off the rails, forever altering its DNA
  Here are the 23 greatest Scandal monologues
  The Season 3 finale “The Price of Free and Fair Elections" illustrated Scandal's early promise and its worst impulses
  Scandal cast and crew discuss their favorite scenes
  Scandal was always about Olivia and Mellie finding each other
  Katie Lowes and Guillermo Diaz agree "The Lawn Chair" is the most important episode in establishing Scandal's legacy
  Ranking the Scandal characters by how shady they are
  The Music of Scandal: Shonda Rhimes made it a point to highlight black music icons
  How costume designer Lyn Paolo's own Prada bag ended up becoming an iconic part of Scandal
  Olivia Pope's best speeches, ranked
  Scandal finale to feature a brand-new song by an R&B legend
  What's next for the Scandal stars?

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SPECIAL COMMENTARY: Scandal - A Cautionary Tale

Scandal ends tonight on ABC after seven seasons and 124 episodes and I have been all over the map with this show.

I don't remember being super excited about Scandal when it was first announced at the 2011 Upfronts. Despite being a political drama, which I am generally interested in, I wasn't too excited about the idea of a "fixer" (remember, this was well before the Trump presidency when that was an everyday term). When it premiered in April 2012, I gave lots of praise to Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in my pilot review, but I didn't think it was a runaway blockbuster and viewers agreed as it premiered to decent but still modest numbers.

Then came Season 2 and Scandal morphed from a fairly tame show that mostly followed a case of the week to a twist-filled, "OMG" moment drama that became must see TV every Thursday night. The show started a meteoric rise in the ratings and became one of the most talked about shows on TV. There was a time in its second season where I probably would have said Scandal was my favorite show on TV. The breakneck pace of storytelling and the constant ability to surprise was so exciting and the diverse cast was dynamite. I think in the back of my head, I knew it was not sustainable over many seasons but I was going to enjoy the ride while it lasted.

Phase three of Scandal came over the next couple years where Scandal did not maintain the consistently strong storytelling but it was still capable of being one of TV's best. Episodes like "The Lawn Chair" or storylines like the Republican Primary with Mellie Grant, Susan Ross, and Hollis Doyle were as good as anything Scandal ever offered. But it was clear that this show didn't always know where it was going and as stories got convoluted and twisted around, it started to all feel like a lot of "the same." Sometimes I'll think back and realize I don't even remember what happened to certain characters who were major players at one point while other characters like Olivia's mother and father just kept having stories that went in circles. I can remember almost everything about that wild second season but I feel like I can barely remember any details from some of the later seasons even though they happened more recently.

The final, sad phase of Scandal happened this year where it became a show I could care less about. I found it becoming one of those Modern Family-like shows where I'm watching it out of obligation. There's a few other shows ending this year that I'm still watching: I still love The Middle (more on that in a couple weeks) and I still think New Girl has some great moments. But Scandal? It's been an awfully long time since I've enjoyed it though I thought last week gave me a little hope that the series finale might recover a little spark. Scandal was never going to be a show that runs for hundreds of episodes like Law & Order: SVU or its lead-in for its entire run, Grey's Anatomy (remember when Grey's seemed like a show that was on its way out and Scandal was as hot as it comes?) But Scandal burned brighter and burned out quicker than a lot of shows. And why did that happen?

I think more than anything, it became a victim of its own hype. When Scandal first started getting hot, everyone was caught by surprise and I think that even includes Shonda Rhimes and the cast. When they were making the episodes that became so buzzworthy, they were just focused on interesting storytelling. Then came the live tweeting, the magazine covers, the talk show appearances, and the hype. And Scandal started to feel the need to outdo itself. Cast members would add to the hype by talking about their jaws dropping open at the table reads. ABC would hype it to no end with the latest "OMG you will never believe this twist" teases. Shonda and her team of writers seemed to focus far more on plot twists than actual plots and soon enough Scandal became a mess. It was like an alcoholic's life. At first, it was tantalizing and fun. Then it was sometimes fun but sometimes problematic and finally, it was just sad and troubled. Despite the best efforts of the cast this week, there seems to be very little interest in Scandal's series finale. Fans have abandoned ship over the years of weak storytelling and there aren't all that many left.

And that is a shame because there were so many good things about Scandal from its progressive storylines to its slick production quality. Most of all, it had a terrific cast led by the incomparable Kerry Washington, the first black female lead in a drama in decades who earned much deserved acclaim for her role and became a fashion icon. Washington's performance is what hooked me on Scandal in the first place and she's probably the main reason I still watch even if they have done some terrible things with her character. So I will watch the final Scandal tonight and hope it gives me some satisfaction for the years I've stuck with it. And maybe someday I'll go back and watch the first couple seasons to remember all this show was and could have been.