Shows You Should Be Watching: Scandal

Okay, so last week I talked about The Walking Dead and all its glory, but now I must give mention to my true TV guilty pleasure and that is the uncompromising Shonda Rhimes’ tv creation, Scandal.

The show is celebrating its 1 year anniversary today, April 5, 2013 and has attracted quite a bit of a cult-like following.

Why are so many flocking to this show?

Well, one big reason revolves around a small, little word:

Olitz

And if you’re a fan of this show, then you already know what that means, but let me digress for a bit and give you a bit of a backdrop on this crazy mayhem of a TV show.

Scandal is featured in Washington, DC where politics leads itself to some simple, complicated, and veering all the way to the absolutely bizarre and insane happenings of a scandal.

People who wake up one day and find themselves in a mess they could never venture out of without a media catastrophe occurring to completely ruin their elitist careers.

This is where Olivia Pope, played by the illustrious Kerry Washington, and her team of Pope & Associates (Gladiators in Suits) come in to ‘fix’ the situation and manage a crisis that has gone unhinged. Most weeks we get to view a scandal that Olivia Pope and her team rescues with leaving the clientele as unscathed as possible (sometimes, not always) that often include some twisty turns to keep you guessing until the end.

Yet, the bigger storyline that has everyone on pins and needles is the story that revolves around Olitz. Yes, Olitz. You see, Olivia Pope once was a White House Communications Director before forming her crisis management team. A position that had her working very closely with the current President Fitzgerald Grant(Tony Goldwyn). A man who captured her heart while helping his campaign and run for presidency.

As you may have already guessed, the two developed a striking tortured love saga that becomes quite the messy triangle due to the fact that the President is of course married to Mellie (Bellamy Young) with children. Granted his marriage is more of a business, political arrangement with no love lost between the two, and Mellie will stop at nothing to remain in political power and that includes tolerating an illicit affair of her husband with a woman she hates.

And as Ewww as the affair sounds when written, it is this relationship between Olivia and Fitz that has everyone tuning in wondering what will happen next with those two and the crazy world they both have to manage with no consolation. From the first episode that we meet Olitz, the two characters express a chemistry (HOT!) that is rarely captured on a television show and people are mesmerized by it. It also helps that creator and writer of the show, Shonda Rhimes, delivers these awesome roller coaster rides as we go through scandals that pepper not only Olivia Pope and her team, but just the worlds of all those involved with Olivia and the President.

This show is not for everyone. You really have to take a bit of your own personal morality out of the picture when watching this because no character is purely black or white. They all have various shades of grey that they must accept which makes this show fascinating as there is no real Good Guy. Just a bunch of people trying to do a little bit of good, if it allows, to save the day.

This show has it all and with a strong cast like Jeff Perry who plays Cyrus, (the President’s right-hand man), Joshua Malina as David Rosen, (the US attorney always losing out to Olivia Pope), and the remaining team of Pope & Associates that really help to bring home a deliciously scandalous viewing pleasure.