Scandal (ABC TV Series 2012 – Present)

Stars: Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn, Darby Stanchfield,  Katie Lowes, and a bunch other great actors.

Netflixing – a term of Netflix binge watching.  I will admit that has happened to me occasionally but not  as bad as this television series has incited.

Okay, I’ve ignored it repeatedly on the Netflix recommendations.  It’s American television – not British TV.  You know that I only believe that the Brits can do great television.  I’ve been sucked up into the most scandalous soap opera in prime time television.

The show does have its problems.  It’s filled with right-wing bashing Christian rhetoric that makes the God-fearing vice president look like sick looney with her preaching.  (Really, most Christians don’t sound like that.)  It also promotes left-wing agendas while heavily focusing on gay marriage too.  So the lines are clearly drawn here in the White House, but putting that aside it’s still a fair watch if all of the above doesn’t make you cringe.

Kerry Washington plays Olivia Pope – a fixer of problems.  She’s had a sordid affair with the President of the United States, played by Tony Goldwyn, known as Fitzgerald Grant.  She’s left behind her job and ventured out into her own firm that literally fixes everyone’s problems.  It could be someone framed for murder, a scandalous affair, kidnapping, and a myriad other sticky problems that run amuck in Washington D.C.

Her team are an eclectic collection of individuals whose problems she has fixed.  They all have shady and mysterious pasts, but their skills help to get things done.  Each character is as intriguing as their employer.

This show is undoubtedly the craziest cliff-hanging series I have watched on television for some time.  Sure the White House going-ons are a bit unbelievable at times but its the secrets that everyone carries when revealed lead to jaw-dropping discoveries that will not let you put that dang remote down!  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gasped in shock at the ending of episodes.

After finally finishing the first three Seasons, I can say that Season 3 was a bit of a downer.  I mean how much murder can one show portray?  For some reason, I feel like they have beaten to death the  secret government group of bad guys who act like the devil (thought they liken themselves to gods), killing whomever they please to keep the Republic safe. The show floundered for me in Season 3 leaving the premise behind of Olivia Pope and Associates and fixated on how many they could kill off to get the President re-elected for a second term.  The love affair cooled off dramatically between the President and Olivia.

At first I wanted to give the show five kernels, but I’ve downgraded to four and then to three after watching Season 4.  I’ll make a predication that if the show keeps going down this road with B613, it may lose fans along the way (raises hand). After so many deaths in Season 3 and 4, along with graphic torture of human beings, I feel like I can taste blood over the disregard for life.  No wonder the President of the United States drinks so much.  Especially, when they portray the “most powerful man on the earth” (a term that I thought they beat to death early in the series), who in reality on the show has absolutely very little power at all.  He’s a puppet and nothing more.

If that’s the way it really works in the White House, we are all doomed to be shot with a silencer between the eyes and left for dead.  Long live the Republic for which we stand.  Well, actually, my grandparents were from England, so I might have ended up a Brit had they not come over to the United States in 1910.  Oh well.

UPDATE: 4/17/16 – Truthfully, I haven’t kept watching Scandal after doing 4 seasons on Netflix.