How Did ‘Scandal’ End?
If there was ever a producer, screenwriter, and showrunner with a golden touch when it comes to TV shows, it has to be Shonda Rhimes. One of her triumphs was Scandal, a political thriller about a woman navigating the underbelly of Washington DC. The series was on the air for six years, and fans were devoted to it until the end. Many people still hold out hope that they will see the characters return someday for a spinoff or reboot show. Is that a possibility?
The gritty truth of ‘Scandal’
According to US Magazine, for seven seasons, Kerry Washington played Olivia Pope, a politically savvy woman in the thick of DC drama. She worked as the communications director for the White House, but her job was complicated by an affair with President Fitzgerald Grant (played by Tony Goldwin).
Olivia wasn’t a woman to let messy personal events derail her ambitions, so she left the White House to start a crisis management firm, basically working as a political fixer. Her work and determination led her down increasingly questionable paths.
The show was smart and intricate, and it paid attention to details as fine as the symbolism of the colors Olivia wore. The complex and shifting moral choices the characters faced built to a finale with a lot of questions to answer. But how well did the ending tie up loose ends?
‘Scandal’: An ambiguous ending
The Hollywood Reporter explains that at the end of the series, Olivia was grappling with a life-changing moral dilemma. She had moved into a position of power as the head of an ultra-secret group that illegally influenced politics. She had to decide between escaping what she’d been a part of or revealing what was really going on behind the scenes.
When she faced this decision, Olivia eventually chose to expose the truth, setting off a series of chain reactions that rocked all the characters in the series. However, the finale didn’t settle multiple questions about what happened to many of them. Did Olivia leave Washington and opt for a quiet life outside politics? Did she end up sharing a life with Fitz?
For Rhimes, the story was about power, how it corrupts people, and how Olivia faced her own choices and decided to side with the truth. She was content to let viewers decide for themselves the specific details of what happened next.
Naturally, given the show’s devoted fans, and the ambiguous nature of the ending, people have wondered ever since if this might lead to the creation of another show to continue the storyline.
Will there be a spinoff?
Unfortunately for hopeful fans, Rhimes has bluntly rejected the idea of continuing the story with a reboot.
“Scandal is finished,” Rhimes said in 2018. “I love everybody and would work with everybody again in a heartbeat, but Scandal is finished.”
Yet according to Audacy, in 2020, Washington tantalized fans with a tweet that seemed to suggest that Scandal could come back after all. It showed a clip from the series of a passionate kiss between Olivia and Fitz. The caption read, “SCANDAL THE MOVIE. Click the link for more info…”
But when hopeful fans followed the link, they were directed to the website When We All Vote, which helps people get registered to vote.
Although this was a letdown for many people, they couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that Olivia was still trying to fix the political system – and using her powers for good.
