TV

Shonda Rhimes Has Called It: ‘Scandal’ Is Coming To An End

This has been a long time coming.

by Meg Watson  11 May 2017
Scandal

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It’s happened. After six seasons — the final three of which came with frequent talk of an ending being in sight — featuring increasingly mind-bending drama, and a truly ridiculous number of cringey Fitz/Olivia smooches soundtracked by that song, Scandal is calling it quits. Sources have confirmed to TVLine that season seven will be the show’s last.

Though neither ABC nor showrunner Shonda Rhimes have yet made comment on the news, TVLine report the decision came directly from Rhimes and the network accepted. This isn’t much of a surprise considering previous comments she’s made. In a 2014 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Rhimes said she’d “already decided when Scandal is ending”.

“I think there’s only so much Scandal you can tell satisfactorily. The Fitz-Liv thing can only be told so long and in such a way. It’s not a 10-season or eight-season show. I’ve already decided how long that is and what that’s going to be.”

Over the past few years, many fans have been wondering when exactly this end point is though. The series was at its high point when Rhimes made these comments pulling in a series best of 12 million viewers. It now averages around 5.7 million.

This is something the showrunner’s addressed. “I used to know how [the series] ended, and then Donald Trump was elected,” she said earlier this year. “We had a destination, and I don’t know if that’s our destination anymore.”

As a show which regularly drew stories from real-world news (see Mellie’s Wendy Davis-style abortion filibuster and the powerful episode related to Ferguson and Black Lives Matter), a Trump presidency posed some problems. How do you create a US political soap more dramatic or outrageous than its real-life counterpart? The show tried to comment directly at times, with a Trump-life character in presidential hopeful Holland Doyle, then veered into a comparatively utopic 2016 election between a woman and a progressive Latino man.

No spoilers, but things turned bad from there.

As a fan, I’m ready for this show to come to a close. Whatever you think of Grey’s Anatomy (yeah I’m still watching, wot of it), its compartmentalised structure allows for it to keep on going with relative ease. With swirling, all-encompassing intrigue and constant drama one-upmanship, the same cannot be said of Scandal. It’s time to let go of the gladiators.

Scandal will be remembered as a landmark series — particularly for its diversity on- and off-screen — but time will tell if its final season stands up to the big soapy legacy. Knowing Shonda, this thing’s ending in Vermont (personally, no thanks, Fitz is snoozy as) or with everyone dying.

Most fans seem pretty adamant about what way they want it:

 

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Scandal is currently finishing up its sixth season. The final season will run in 2018.