With this episode, I must admit Scandal does begin to lose me a bit for trying to keep things high-octane by bringing in a woman with a suicide vest threatening Olivia's life. Which, to me, doesn't compare to seeing the president shot or anything we've seen out of the people who were trained in B6-13. Still, Kerry Washington works the scenes she is in with a mother trying to get answers about a son who was shot down for suspected terrorism. She reminds us who Olivia Pope is, but at the same time with these last few episodes featuring a further reveal of her father Eli, it also shows that she is her father's daughter. Meanwhile, in the White House, we see Mellie possibly beginning to learn to pick her battles.
Which is not to say she won't probably ever go down without giving lip to whatever man tries to oppress her, but it seems she finally is may start using more than White House gossip to gain some leverage. Olivia has long been, as she says, Fitz's Achilles' Heel, and seemingly she may actually use it, making her character a bit more interesting than simply being the dog everyone kicks around when it asks for some respect. After all, Mellie realizing she can have power over Fitz, skipping over Cyrus and others she tried to work with or against, makes it so she can bring to this show more than one episode events like this one's suicide vest, and do the type of damage which, as we saw, could end careers, and perhaps the show. After all, who wants to watch Fitz and Olivia have an happy ever after? This show, as dramatic as it gets to the point where your mind is blown, isn't a fairy tale. It may flirt with fantasy, but it doesn't seem like it necessarily wants to jump the shark just yet.
However, I must say, that as I watch Scandal I can sort of understand why now they gave us so many breaks during the past season. In reality, this show perhaps isn't made for the American style of giving us 22 episodes, almost back to back. This show relies on hitting you in the gut, strong performances and trying to continuously up itself by bringing in new mysteries, having episodes like this when you think maybe a character's life is on the line, and things of that nature. And while that works when there are frequent breaks, when you watch this week in and week out, you begin to build a tolerance. For me, this whole bomb thing was really a waste of time. The series' exploration of Olivia's family issues, the damage control of Fitz's marriage and president, and all the other stories I felt are worth more than a cheap one episode plot which really doesn't present a realistic threat. I mean, who would believe a bomb would go off with the main star in the room, much less that it would do any type of damage which would be permanent? To me, Scandal is at its best when if they do one episode plots, it reveals something about someone. Like when Olivia, last season, was assisting a woman whose husband cheated, or something like that, and she was talking, with the figurative White Hat on, and all the while you realize everything she said was stuff which spoke on her own situation. For this episode, the whole suicide vest thing was just a time killer and didn't progress the overall narrative at all. It was just something to put a scare in you which felt cheap in comparison to the times characters were truly threatened, with good writing to give us reason to worry.
Overall though, Scandal remains interesting and you can't blame them for having a filler episode, or even having scenes just to take up time. For we do learn a bit about Olivia and even Huck's circumstances when it comes to Eli, which makes up for the poor execution of the bomb plot. However, I feel there may come a time when the writing will become been there done that and the cast won't be able to compensate for it. After all, most actors are only as good as the script and the story is what makes each actor shine. So, if we don't have a good script, we get episodes like these which seem to have a handful of good ideas, but a large crappy one as well.
Which is not to say she won't probably ever go down without giving lip to whatever man tries to oppress her, but it seems she finally is may start using more than White House gossip to gain some leverage. Olivia has long been, as she says, Fitz's Achilles' Heel, and seemingly she may actually use it, making her character a bit more interesting than simply being the dog everyone kicks around when it asks for some respect. After all, Mellie realizing she can have power over Fitz, skipping over Cyrus and others she tried to work with or against, makes it so she can bring to this show more than one episode events like this one's suicide vest, and do the type of damage which, as we saw, could end careers, and perhaps the show. After all, who wants to watch Fitz and Olivia have an happy ever after? This show, as dramatic as it gets to the point where your mind is blown, isn't a fairy tale. It may flirt with fantasy, but it doesn't seem like it necessarily wants to jump the shark just yet.
However, I must say, that as I watch Scandal I can sort of understand why now they gave us so many breaks during the past season. In reality, this show perhaps isn't made for the American style of giving us 22 episodes, almost back to back. This show relies on hitting you in the gut, strong performances and trying to continuously up itself by bringing in new mysteries, having episodes like this when you think maybe a character's life is on the line, and things of that nature. And while that works when there are frequent breaks, when you watch this week in and week out, you begin to build a tolerance. For me, this whole bomb thing was really a waste of time. The series' exploration of Olivia's family issues, the damage control of Fitz's marriage and president, and all the other stories I felt are worth more than a cheap one episode plot which really doesn't present a realistic threat. I mean, who would believe a bomb would go off with the main star in the room, much less that it would do any type of damage which would be permanent? To me, Scandal is at its best when if they do one episode plots, it reveals something about someone. Like when Olivia, last season, was assisting a woman whose husband cheated, or something like that, and she was talking, with the figurative White Hat on, and all the while you realize everything she said was stuff which spoke on her own situation. For this episode, the whole suicide vest thing was just a time killer and didn't progress the overall narrative at all. It was just something to put a scare in you which felt cheap in comparison to the times characters were truly threatened, with good writing to give us reason to worry.
Overall though, Scandal remains interesting and you can't blame them for having a filler episode, or even having scenes just to take up time. For we do learn a bit about Olivia and even Huck's circumstances when it comes to Eli, which makes up for the poor execution of the bomb plot. However, I feel there may come a time when the writing will become been there done that and the cast won't be able to compensate for it. After all, most actors are only as good as the script and the story is what makes each actor shine. So, if we don't have a good script, we get episodes like these which seem to have a handful of good ideas, but a large crappy one as well.
