Scandal came to the end of its fourth season in the UK tonight and set things in motion for a big change ahead of season 5.
If you haven’t seen the season 4 finale of Scandal and don’t want any spoilers, we suggest you stop reading now. If you have seen it and want to hear our thoughts on season 5 then keep reading.
In the season finale Olivia (Kerry Washington) and Jake (Scott Foley) realised that taking down command wasn’t something they would be able to achieve. After their plan of going to the CIA for help backfired, they were both forced to sign statements that denied the existence of B613. Determined to make her father (Joe Morton) pay, Olivia got him arrested for money laundering and the last we saw of Rowan, he was behind bars.
Elsewhere in the episode Mellie (Bellamy Young) gave in to Rowan’s blackmail demands to protect Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) and her own burgeoning political career. She gave him a list of people, not realising they were the jurors for the B613 trial, which resulted in them all being murdered. As if that wasn’t shocking enough it was revealed that Huck (Guillermo Diaz) was still working for command and it was he who murdered them all!
Mellie appealed to Cyrus (Jeff Perry) for help covering up what she’d done and made a bad judgement call by confiding in Liz (Portia de Rossi) who subsequently told Fitz all about it. By the end of the episode Liz was the new Chief of Staff, Cyrus was fired and Mellie told to leave The White House. Olivia and Fitz reunited on the White House balcony and the episode end seemed to suggest the two may have a happily every after, after all.
Other things of note were Jake saying goodbye to Olivia in a way that suggested he may not be back, and Quinn (Katie Lowes) confronting Huck about the murder of the jurors as he begged her to kill him.
With all that action going on, season 5 is looking set to be an explosive season so we’ve put together the 10 things we want from it.
1. No more B613. We’re crossing our fingers and hoping that the storyline has been put to bed. We’re sure Rowan will be back in some capacity but if we never hear the words B613 again we’ll be pretty happy.
2. Mellie to fight back. There’s no doubt that what she did was foolish but for Fitz to treat her the way he has was pretty cruel. He’s made lots of terrible decisions over the last four seasons, publicly humiliated Mellie with his affair, and let’s not forget his part in Operation Remington. Her political career will take a huge knock if news of the separation hits the media and we’re expecting plenty of feisty Mellie next season.
3. Jake to come back. He seemed to admit defeat when it came to his relationship with Olivia and the episode suggested he was going for good. We hope that’s not the case as Jake is a much better suitor for Olivia than Fitz. Sure he’s done plenty of terrible things but he clearly loves her, and we think they’re good together.
4. Huck to go over the edge. It’s been threatening for so long and he has fallen off the deep end a couple of times but it feels like Huck could potentially turn to the dark side in season 5. After murdering the jurors, Huck has definitely spiralled to rock bottom and it doesn’t look like Quinn will be forgiving him any time soon.
5. Quinn to get something to do. We love Quinn and the way she’s changed in four seasons has been brilliant but she didn’t seem to get much in the way of a storyline last season. She was always involved with everything that was going on but she didn’t really have a meaty storyline that was hers.
6. Liz to stir up plenty of trouble. Now Liz has pushed Cyrus and Mellie out of the White House, we’re expecting her to continue causing trouble for everyone. We can’t imagine she’s going to get on swimmingly with Abby (Darby Stanchfield) and we’re pretty sure she’s going to have to fight to keep her new job as Cyrus won’t go down without a fight.
7. A new Gladiator to join OPA. We know this is definitely going to be happening but we’re not 100% sure who it’s going to be yet. Fan speculation points to Marcus (Cornelius Smith Jr.) who we could see being a good fit. OPA hasn’t been the same since Harrison died and Abby went to work for the White House.
8. Plenty Sally Langston (Kate Burton). She’s the character we love to hate and every time she pops up you just know she’s going to cause problems for everyone. She’s been to the brink of madness and back, and she got schooled on live TV by Cyrus in season 4. We’re hoping for a lot more Sally when the show returns in the autumn.
9. Leo Bergen (Paul Adelstein) to appear more. He only appeared in 4 episodes of season 4 but we like Leo’s character. His relationship with Abby looks like it may actually be going somewhere and he’s very good at his job. Sure he clashed with Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani) when he pushed her too hard, but we think there’s more mileage for his character left to explore.
10. OPA getting back to basics. Season 4 was hugely entertaining but it did scale the heights of the ridiculous on a few occasions. As much as we loved the storyline about Olivia being kidnapped, it stretched belief just a bit too far. We want the show to get back to the basics on its first two seasons with OPA helping lots of different people and getting involved with managing all kinds of political scandals and crises.
Scandal will return to ABC in the US and Sky Living HD in the UK this autumn.
