The perfect time for this may have been a few seasons ago, but better late than never, we suppose—Variety has announced that Scandal’s next season will be its last: “TV Line reported Wednesday that the plan to draw the curtain on Olivia Pope’s adventures in Washington will be announced Tuesday at ABC’s upfront presentation in New York.”
TV Line stresses that the decision to end the show was showrunner Shonda Rhimes’, although surely even she could see that lately she has written herself into a bit of a snarl. Scandal started out in 2012 with pulled-from-the-headlines cases-of-the-week based on famed Washington fixer Judy Smith. Then the show became focused on the admittedly steamy romance between Smith stand-in Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and the married POTUS Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn). Along the way there have been numerous love triangles, conspiracies, secrets, lies—and worst of all, the shadowy B613 syndicate, headed by Olivia’s own father, played by Joe Morton, who chews up scenery in lengthy Rhimes speeches like he hasn’t eaten in months. At this point, almost all of the main players have killed someone, even Olivia.
In the current season, a fight for the Oval Office has left the Scandal White House administration almost as chaotic as the actual one. Still, Scandal’s often-buzzy status over the course of its several seasons helped Rhimes cement her showrunner status, now controlling all three time slots on ABC’s TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday) lineup, with the long-running Grey’s Anatomy preceding Scandal, followed by (earlier in the year) How To Get Away With Murder or (currently) The Catch.
After the show wraps up the last three episodes in its current season six, next year’s season seven will now plot out its demise. And if you don’t think that this all ends with Fitz and Olivia happily nestled into their cozy house in Vermont, making jam, you’ve probably never seen the show before.