Scandal is an American political drama TV show starring Kerry Washington. It was created by Shonda Rhimes and aired on ABC from April 5, 2012, to April 19, 2018, with 124 episodes across seven seasons. Kerry Washington plays Olivia Pope, a character inspired by Judy Smith, a former press aide in the George H. W. Bush administration who also helped create the show.

The series is set in Washington, D.C., and follows Olivia Pope’s crisis management firm, Olivia Pope & Associates (OPA), as well as the people who work there, the White House, and the political environment around it. Other main characters include Tony Goldwyn as President Fitzgerald Grant III, Darby Stanchfield as Abby Whelan, Katie Lowes as Quinn Perkins, Guillermo Diaz as Huck, Jeff Perry as Cyrus Beene, Bellamy Young as Mellie Grant, Scott Foley as Jake Ballard, Cornelius Smith Jr. as Marcus Walker, Joe Morton as Eli "Rowan" Pope, and George Newbern as Charlie.

The show received many honors, including being named a Television Program of the Year by the American Film Institute, winning the Peabody Award for Excellence in Television, and receiving the Image Award for Outstanding Drama Series. Kerry Washington won the Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series and was nominated for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a SAG Award for her role.

Series overview

The first season introduces Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and the members of her firm. It also introduces President Fitzgerald Grant III (Tony Goldwyn) and his chief of staff, Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry). The season shows the lives of the team members, the relationship between Olivia and the president (her former employer), and the mystery about Amanda Tanner's (Liza Weil) connection to the White House, as well as other cases the team solves.

An assassination attempt is made on the president’s life, which nearly kills him. After this, Sally Langston (Kate Burton) becomes the new president, which disappoints Cyrus. Once the president survives, he decides to get a divorce. His wife, Mellie (Bellamy Young), tries to stop the divorce by convincing her doctor to start her labor early. Huck (Guillermo Díaz) is arrested for the attempted assassination after being framed by his girlfriend, Becky (Susan Pourfar). When David (Joshua Malina) helps Huck, Huck, Olivia, and her team trick Becky into showing up at the hospital, where she is arrested. The president learns that Verna (Debra Mooney) was behind the assassination and kills her. At the funeral, he tells Olivia he does not want a divorce because he is upset after learning the truth from Verna.

The second part of the season focuses on finding the person leaking secret information from the White House. Olivia and her team investigate after discovering the CIA director’s death was actually a murder. Olivia meets Captain Jake Ballard (Scott Foley), who works with Rowan (Joe Morton), the leader of B613. Rowan orders Jake to get close to Olivia. At the end of the season, Mellie gives the president an ultimatum: he must be loyal to her, or she will reveal his affair with Olivia on national television. The president chooses Olivia, and Mellie exposes the affair. The president announces his re-election campaign. Olivia and her team continue investigating the mole and capture Charlie (George Newbern), who reveals the mole is Billy Chambers (Matt Letscher). They learn Billy is working with David, who steals a secret card and frames Billy to be reinstated as a US attorney. At the end, Olivia’s name is leaked to the press as the president’s mistress, and it is revealed that Rowan is Olivia’s father.

After Olivia’s name is leaked, Olivia Pope & Associates loses clients and faces financial problems. The firm takes on new clients to pay bills. Rowan becomes more involved in Olivia’s life, which affects her. Huck and Jake investigate B613 and discover during a military operation called “Operation Remington” that the president shot down a civilian plane over Iceland. Olivia’s mother was one of more than 300 people who died in the crash. The firm investigates Rowan and learns a passenger was removed from the flight by a Federal Marshal before takeoff. Quinn (Katie Lowes) starts spending time with Charlie, who sets her up to kill a security guard who saw the Marshal remove the passenger. Quinn accidentally kills the guard, and Huck tortures her, causing her to leave the firm.

Meanwhile, the president faces challenges as Congresswoman Josephine “Josie” Marcus (Lisa Kudrow) runs for the Democratic Party primary against Senator Samuel Reston (Tom Amandes) to become the first female president. Cyrus tries to find dirt on Marcus but fails. After Olivia learns the president shot down the plane that killed her mother, she refuses to be his re-election campaign manager and instead helps Marcus. After an incident with Marcus’s sister, Marcus withdraws from the campaign. The second part of the season focuses on the re-election campaign, which Olivia now manages. Sally announces she will run for president as an Independent, and the president chooses the governor of California, Andrew Nichols (Jon Tenney), as his vice presidential running mate. Nichols develops a relationship with the first lady, Mellie. The campaign struggles when Sally almost reveals a secret during a debate. Cyrus asks Jake to protect the secret, and Jake kills James (Dan Bucatinsky) to prevent exposing Cyrus’s involvement in a cover-up. The president’s children, Jerry (Dylan Minnette) and Karen Grant (Madeline Carroll), visit the White House but are unhappy with their parents.

After losing a close friend, Olivia returns to Washington, D.C., and is shocked by the state of her firm. The first half of the season focuses on Jake’s arrest for the death of Jerry Grant after Rowan forces Tom (Brian Letscher) to blame Jake. Rowan tries to make people believe Jake is guilty, which motivates Olivia to find the truth. After Tom reveals Rowan as his operator, the president, Jake, and Olivia plan to arrest Rowan. The plan fails, causing Rowan to shut down B613 and eliminate its agents. Olivia tries to kill Rowan but fails. Abby (Darby Stanchfield) becomes the White House Press Secretary but struggles to gain respect from Cyrus and the president, who call her “Red” instead of Abby. Later, Abby deals with stress from her abusive ex-husband, who is running for state senator, and asks Leo Bergen (Paul Adelstein) to help ruin his campaign. Quinn stays in contact with Abby and Huck while trying to find Olivia.

Mellie struggles with the death of her son, Jerry. She learns Jerry was murdered by being exposed to bacterial meningitis and forms an alliance with Elizabeth North (Portia de Rossi). Later, Mellie discovers Nichols is threatening to reveal their affair and leaves him. In the season finale, David’s grand jury members are killed after a hearing, and OPA and David investigate, learning Rowan is responsible. Rowan blackmailed Mellie into giving the names of the jurors, making her feel guilty. Cyrus learns the truth but does not tell the president. After seeking advice from Maya (Khandi Alexander), Olivia and Jake decide to reveal B613 to the CIA, but the plan fails. They later plan to frame Rowan for stealing money from a museum, leading to his imprisonment. The president learns about Mellie and Cyrus’s actions and orders them to leave the White House. Elizabeth North takes Cyrus’s place as chief of staff. In the final scene, the president reunites with Olivia.

Olivia and the president become a public couple, and Olivia takes on more roles in the White House. She continues managing Olivia Pope & Associates, where Marcus Walker (Cornelius Smith Jr.) joins. However, by the season’s midpoint, Olivia feels overwhelmed and leaves the president, the White House, and secretly has an abortion. She returns to her old life and deals with the consequences of her relationship with the president.

Cast and characters

• Kerry Washington as Olivia "Liv" Carolyn Pope, a former White House Director of Communications who is widely regarded as the best "fixer" in Washington. Olivia worked on the presidential campaign of the then-Governor Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III, with whom she began an affair. After the election, the affair ended and Olivia started her own crisis-management firm called "Olivia Pope & Associates."
• Darby Stanchfield as Abigail "Abby" Whelan, who worked as an investigator in Olivia's firm. After Olivia left with Jake Ballard following the second presidential election, Abby was hired as the White House Press Secretary. She later removed Cyrus Beene and took over his job as the White House Chief of Staff.
• Katie Lowes as Quinn Perkins (née Lindsay Dwyer), who works at Olivia Pope & Associates. She became involved with Charlie, who led her away from OPA to B613, but she later returned to Olivia.
• Guillermo Diaz as Huck (né Diego Muñoz), a former assassin for B613, who lost his family because of the job. He later worked as a tech expert for Olivia and her firm and remained extremely loyal to her.
• Jeff Perry as Cyrus Rutherford Beene, former White House Chief of Staff who became the running-mate in the presidential election with Governor Francisco Vargas.
• Tony Goldwyn as Fitzgerald "Fitz" Thomas Grant III, the president of the United States, a Republican former governor of California from Santa Barbara.
• Columbus Short as Harrison Wright (seasons 1–3), a litigator who worked with Olivia. He hired Quinn for the firm, calling them "gladiators in suits." He was murdered by B613 at the end of the third season after learning they were behind the murder of Jerry Grant Jr.
• Henry Ian Cusick as Stephen Finch (season 1; guest season 4), a litigator who worked with Olivia and was one of her close friends. He left Washington, D.C., to be with his fiancée Georgia and now lives in St. Petersburg, working for a Russian oligarchy.
• Joshua Malina as David Rosen (seasons 2–7; recurring season 1), the United States Attorney General for the Grant administration. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney during the first two seasons but was promoted to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia in the third season. In the fourth season, President Fitzgerald Grant nominated him for Attorney General, a position he was granted. He was nearly fired for corruption after agreeing to drop an investigation into Tamurac Sugar in exchange for Florida's Governor Baker's endorsement of his then-girlfriend/fiancé Susan Ross in the fifth season, but he retained his position as attorney general in the sixth season.
• Bellamy Young as Melody "Mellie" Margaret Grant (seasons 2–7; recurring season 1). As the wife of Fitz, she was the First Lady of the United States before Fitz demanded a divorce after her election as Senator of Virginia. In the fifth season, she ran for president and was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate. At the end of the sixth season, she officially became the first female President of the U.S.
• Scott Foley as Jacob "Jake" Ballard (né Pete Harris) (seasons 3–7; recurring season 2), a U.S. Navy intelligence officer attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who spied on Olivia Pope at the request of President Grant, with whom he served in the Navy during the first Gulf War. Jake was named the director of the National Security Agency in the fifth season.
• Joe Morton as Elijah "Eli/Rowan" Pope (seasons 5–7; recurring seasons 2–4), Olivia Pope's father and the 'Command' of the elite black ops program, B613.
• Portia de Rossi as Elizabeth North (seasons 5–6; recurring season 4), the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee and a political advisor to the first lady during her Senate campaign. She became the chief of staff when Cyrus Beene was fired by the president and later served as the vice president's chief of staff. She was later beaten to death by Samantha Ruland during the sixth season.
• Cornelius Smith Jr. as Marcus Walker (seasons 5–7; guest season 4), a civil rights activist, a former client of Olivia's firm, and a White House press secretary.
• George Newbern as Charlie (né Bernard Gusky) (season 7; recurring seasons 1–6), a B613 agent who had a romantic relationship with Quinn. By the end of the sixth season, he became a member of OPA (renamed QPA) and learned he and Quinn were expecting a child.

Production

In early 2011, it was announced that Shonda Rhimes was creating a new TV show. In February, Kerry Washington was chosen to play a main character. Before this decision, actresses Gabrielle Union and Taraji P. Henson also tried out for the role. Henry Ian Cusick was also cast in the series. On February 28, 2011, it was announced that Tony Goldwyn would play the president. In May 2011, ABC decided to air the show as a mid-season replacement. During the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour, it was announced that the show would begin on April 5, 2012, after Grey's Anatomy, and Private Practice would move to Tuesday nights.

The show was renewed for a second season on May 11, 2012, on the same Thursday time slot, while Private Practice stayed on Tuesday nights to finish its final season. Rhimes said the second season might have 13 episodes or fewer. However, because the show was renewed after the fall, the second season would include two storylines: one covering the main 13 episodes and another during the "back nine" episodes.

Scandal was renewed for a third season on May 10, 2013. Like other ABC dramas, this season was split into two parts. The first part had 10 episodes. The second part, originally planned to have 12 episodes, began on February 27, 2014. On December 7, 2013, ABC Studios announced that the total number of episodes for the season would be reduced from 22 to 18 because Kerry Washington was pregnant. This change caused the season finale to air four weeks earlier, on April 17, 2014.

The show was renewed for a fourth season on May 9, 2014. On May 13, 2014, ABC announced a new schedule and moved Scandal to 9:00 PM E.T. on Thursday nights to make room for Shondaland’s new series, How to Get Away with Murder. In August 2014, ABC grouped Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder together on Thursday nights and called the lineup "Thank God It's Thursday" (or "TGIT"). This name was inspired by ABC’s earlier "TGIF" branding for Friday night shows and NBC’s "Must See TV" promotions in the 1990s.

On October 30, 2014, ABC announced that Scandal would air nine episodes in the fall, with the fall finale on November 20, 2014, like the rest of ABC’s "TGIT" lineup. The remaining 13 episodes aired after the winter break, starting on January 29, 2015, and ending on May 14, 2015.

Scandal was renewed for a fifth season on May 7, 2015. The show continued to air on Thursday nights at 9:00 PM E.T., as it was moved to make room for How to Get Away with Murder. Production began on May 21, 2015, when Rhimes shared on Twitter that the writers were working on the fifth season.

The series was renewed for a sixth season on March 3, 2016. Production was planned to start in July, as confirmed by executive producer Tom Verica. After Kerry Washington announced she was pregnant again, ABC considered moving the show’s premiere to midseason. The sixth season’s episode count was reduced from 22 to 16. During ABC’s annual upfront presentation in May, it was announced that Scandal would premiere during midseason, following a fall run of the new series Notorious. Production began on July 13, 2016, with Tom Verica confirming that the crew was scouting filming locations. The table read for the premiere was on July 26, 2016, with filming starting soon after.

On February 10, 2017, ABC announced that the series had been renewed for a seventh season. On May 10, 2017, ABC confirmed that the seventh season would be the show’s final season.

In an interview with showrunner Shonda Rhimes, she said the fourth season would focus on Darby Stanchfield’s character, Abby Whelan. She explained, "Season 4 is Abby's season. That was by design. A lot of what we know about Abby happens this season." Rhimes also confirmed that Harrison Wright’s character was killed. She said the team at OPA would cope with his death in different ways, with Olivia struggling the most. Rhimes added, "It will be very devastating for Abby in a surprising way. You'll see how she's coping with it in a very different way than you would expect." Olivia would also deal with her betrayal to everyone she left behind when she learned about Harrison’s fate.

Rhimes said the fourth season would focus more on the main characters, unlike the third season, which introduced more characters. She explained, "Kerry Washington couldn’t work 14 hours a day, so we had to tell our story in a different way, and that necessitated other people both picking up the slack in beautiful ways."

Rhimes said the fifth season would begin shortly after the fourth-season finale. She noted that Olivia and Fitz would be the only ones left standing, as she said, "The world had been fairly blown apart for everybody except Olivia and Fitz. Everybody else was in a fairly blown apart place … We pick up right there in that environment and we see what happens next." Rhimes also discussed the rebuilding of Team OPA in the fifth season, explaining that the "Gladiator" storyline was less prominent in the fourth season to focus on healing Olivia. She said, "A lot of times it was just Huck and Quinn gladiating by themselves. And that wasn't the same dynamic."

When talking about Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III’s future without the presidency, Rhimes said, "I can't tell you any of that — but there is a plan. Tony is not going anywhere; where would he go?!" Other cast members shared their thoughts. Tony Goldwyn, who plays Fitz, said, "He'll be much happier as the post-president than as the president." Jeff Perry, who plays Cyrus Beene, said, "I'd love our show to invent a great role for a president after he's out [of] office that would reverberate back to the real world." Executive producer Betsy Beers said she was excited about Fitz doing "anything he wanted." Other cast members compared Fitz’s next move to former U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rhimes said the sixth season would include the presidential election, adding, "We are basically going to start our season on election night. Yes, it is going to play into our season, but we're not going to spend our time playing an election."

The first season had nine actors receiving star billing, including Kerry Washington as the main character, Olivia Pope, a former White House director of communications who runs her own crisis management firm. Columbus Short played Harrison Wright, while Darby Stanchfield played Abby Whelan, who begins a relationship with David Rosen. Katie Lowes acted as

Release

The television series Scandal aired on ABC in the United States on Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time and 8:00 p.m. Central Time. In Canada, the program aired at the same time on the City television network with subtitles added simultaneously.

In Australia, the show is broadcast on the Seven Network, with reruns appearing on SoHo and Canal Sony in Latin America, ZFB-TV in Bermuda, Miami’s WPLG in the Bahamas (through cable from the United States), and TVB Pearl in Hong Kong. The first two seasons originally aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. In 2014, the show was taken over by Sky Living, which continued to air the series starting with season three. In New Zealand, the series first aired on TV One but now airs on TV2.

In South Africa, Scandal was shown on multiple channels. The first episodes aired on DStv’s M-Net premium channel the day after their ABC broadcast, with reruns on rival satellite channels StarSat and SABC3 beginning in May 2014. The show later moved to the free-to-air channel e.tv, where the fifth season began in April 2020. In South Africa, the series is titled The Fixer to avoid confusion with a local soap opera also named Scandal!, which had been airing on e.tv since 2005.

In Jamaica, Scandal is broadcast on CVM TV.

On July 15, 2013, BET and ABC announced an agreement to syndicate the show early. BET aired a marathon of the first two seasons on August 10 and 17, 2013, followed by two-hour blocks on Wednesdays before the season three premiere on October 3. BET airs new episodes with an eight-day delay.

Reception

The show received mostly positive feedback from critics, with an average score of 66 out of 100 from 33 critics on Metacritic. Before the show premiered, Alan Sepinwall of HitFix shared his thoughts.

IndieWire, a news website, compared the first season of Scandal to the FX show Damages. They said Damages is a great show that deserves its praise, but Scandal could be even better if it took more risks.

Newsday’s Verne Gay called the series “fun” but added more details.

The show received more positive reviews during its second season. In 2013, The A.V. Club’s Ryan McGee compared Scandal to House of Cards.

Alan Sepinwall of HitFix later changed his opinion.

In 2016, a study by the New York Times found that Scandal was popular among Black audiences. It especially appealed to African American women. Viewership numbers grew during the second season, with the season finale seeing a 25% increase in total viewers and a 39% increase in viewers aged 18–49 compared to the first season’s finale.

The third season premiere had 10.5 million viewers, which was 71% higher than the start of the second season in September 2012. The season finale had 10.5 million viewers, a 15% increase from the previous season’s finale in May 2013. The third season averaged 11.5 million total viewers, a 39% increase from the second season’s 8.3 million. It also saw a 43% increase in viewers aged 18–49, with an average rating of 4.0/12, compared to the previous season’s 2.8/8. This made Scandal the fastest-growing returning TV series.

The fourth-season premiere reached 11.96 million total viewers, the highest number for the show, and had a 3.8/11 rating in adults 18–49. The series’ ratings grew week by week compared to the previous year. The mid-season premiere, “Run,” achieved the show’s second-highest rating in adults 18–49. However, the fourth season saw a 5.4% drop in the 18–49 demographic, with a rating of 2.9, but total viewers increased by 0.86% to an average of 9.19 million.

Scandal was very popular on social media. The cast interacted with fans on Twitter during episodes. During the third season premiere, the show topped Nielsen’s Twitter TV Ratings Top 10, with 713,000 tweets about the show seen by 3.7 million users. It also had the most loyal Twitter followers according to Nielsen Social.

After Scandal, live-tweeting became a common way for viewers to share thoughts about TV shows. While watching, viewers used social media to react to what was happening and interact with others using program-specific hashtags. Scandal is often credited with making social media a key part of watching TV. Though not the first show to use social media, it was among the first to engage fans in real time and build a sense of community.

Before Scandal, Shonda Rhimes, the show’s creator, used social media to promote Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. She and ABC’s marketing team saw the value of social media for Scandal. The official Scandal Twitter account, @ScandalABC, was created a year before the series started. Rhimes is often praised for using Twitter to make fans feel connected to her shows, but Kerry Washington played a key role in turning Scandal into a social media-driven experience.

Washington shared that she suggested the cast live-tweet during episodes. During the pilot episode, “Sweet Baby,” the cast answered fan questions using the hashtag #AskScandal. A fan nicknamed Scandal fans “Gladiators,” a term Washington and others supported. #Gladiators became a trending topic. Live-tweeting helped Scandal gain enough attention to be renewed for another season. Each episode generated thousands of tweets, leading ABC to use hashtags in its marketing. In the first season finale, the hashtag #WhoIsQuinn was introduced to build curiosity about a character’s identity.

Hashtags tied to major plot moments, like the assassination attempt on a character in season two, became popular. The hashtag #WhoShotFitz trended as fans speculated about the attacker’s identity. ABC used social media heavily after this, and the number of tweets per episode grew significantly. The show’s twists and cliffhangers made it a “must-watch live” series, with fans eager to avoid spoilers and join the communal experience.

Scandal has been honored by many awards, including the ALMA Awards, Image Awards, BET Awards, Emmy Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards, and People’s Choice Awards. It has also been recognized by the American Film Institute and the Peabody Awards.

Actors Kerry Washington, Columbus Short, Guillermo Díaz, Bellamy Young, and Tony Goldwyn received awards for their performances. The production team was honored by the Costume Designers Guild, Society of Camera Operators, BMI Awards, and the California on Location (COLA) Awards.