“Scandal” Revisited

One unexpected, beautiful perk of adulthood is being able to watch Shonda Rhimes’s cheeky television series, Scandal, without making your mom mad. I was fourteen (way too young) when I first watched Scandal, though I take very little responsibility for getting myself there. In 2014 the only viewers of Scandal were, first and foremost, loyal viewers of Grey’s Anatomy. You found Scandal through Grey’s Anatomy or you didn’t find Scandal at all. At least that’s how it operated in my middle school. Nonetheless, I found myself addicted to this soap opera about horny presidents, mass murderers, and girlbosses.

I had to keep it a secret, of course. My parents weren’t particularly strict about these matters, but no fourteen-year-old should be allowed to watch Scandal. So, my illicit viewing made the show that much more illicit. I wasn’t even keeping the secret very well because my mom quickly found out and gave me a stern talking-to about how TV rots your brain. Or so it goes.

What I have discovered as I traverse the terrain of post-grad adulthood is that nobody cares that I’m rewatching Scandal. I’ve been telling anybody who will listen and nobody bats an eye. What’s even better is that Scandal has become hilarious to me. Eight years, antidepressants, and a Trump presidency will do that to you. When the President of the United States realizes his firstborn son is actually the illegitimate child of his wife and his father, I laughed out loud. When Olivia Pope learns that her father ordered the man she loved to kill her mother, I almost fell out of my bed. What mastermind came up with all of this? Which comedian got his hands on the story cards in the writers’ room? Scandal is no longer illicit to me…it is pure comedic genius. 

This is what I love about television. As an art form meant to persist through and adapt to time, we, as viewers, get to grow up alongside our favorite shows. Certain scenes or plot points in Scandal — I’ve realized upon this rewatch — transport me back to very specific days in my childhood bedroom. I can remember what posters were on my wall and what my bedding looked like because that’s where I was when I first watched the show. Those memories have stayed safely tucked away in these episodes and I am only now rediscovering them. By no means is Scandal my favorite TV show ever made (I wouldn’t even say it’s a top contender), but, like a friend, we share a history.

Unfortunately, with the decline of network television, this kind of relationship with our most beloved shows is becoming obsolete. New shows that I have devoured, like Severance on Apple TV+, Based on a True Story on Peacock, and even The Bear on Hulu, have been just that: devoured in one bite. Though these shows are phenomenal, I do not associate them with a time or place because they didn’t get the chance to linger. I watched them all in one sitting, thoroughly enjoyed them, then partially forgot them. It is not the fault of these shows, but the fault of how they were distributed. The effort of tuning in every week, discussing with others the new episode, and recording the ones you missed on DVR creates a connection, a relationship, that sustains itself over months and years. Streaming erased that. These new shows hold no hidden memories of mine. 

I could spend all day charting the peaks and valleys of streaming services for you, but that conversation has been talked in circles. The great people of the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild of America are striking because of those conversations. I just wanted to remind myself (and others) that television was meant to coexist with us, be kept on in the living room even when we’re in the kitchen, be something to look forward to each new week. Perhaps this is hypocritical of me to say because I don’t even own cable, only streaming services. I could also defend myself by saying Netflix and Amazon have been scheming to make it that way for nearly a decade. What I know for sure is that I no longer have the urge to binge TV shows like I used to — I’d rather take my time and live with the story and characters for a moment. And now, I’ve found great joy in revisiting old shows, ones I first discovered on cable, as if reconnecting with an old friend.

This brings me back to Scandal, a show that could never be made in the age of streaming. Olivia Pope and the President of the United States have the same fraught conversation every single episode. He says “I love you” and she says “So what?” and, if you watch more than three episodes in a row, it will drive you absolutely bonkers. You need a week in between to forget: the beauty of network television. 

Scandal knew me at fourteen, when our relationship was tense and forbidden, and it still knows me at twenty-two, living in a new state, with a silly full-time job and the ability to watch whatever I want unsupervised.