Scandal Review: Standing in the Sun (Season 7 Episode 17)

Okay, let’s take a deep breath and try to unpack everything that’s happened.

Scandal’s penultimate episode is taking the show’s final episodes in a direction that we didn’t expect. On Scandal Season 7 Episode 17 “Standing in the Sun,” Olivia Pope exposes B613 and sets up a takedown to rival the finale of Breaking Bad.

Chew on this for a moment. When viewers first met Olivia Pope in 2012, she was fixing problems, managing crises and saving reputations. She helped them navigate their way out of that with their reputation more or less intact.

Even the initial pitch to Quinn in Scandal Season 1 Episode 1 “Sweet Baby” included the phrase, “We’re the good guys.” Later it’s also explained that what Olivia Pope & Associates did wasn’t about justice, but about the client.

If Olivia had just continued to do this, if there was no B613, then maybe we could be looking at more seasons of Scandal. Olivia could have just kept solving other people’s problems and the show could have been based mostly on episodic characters, but it isn’t, and the show has been better for it.

Through the next seven seasons secrets were revealed and sometimes they were small, like helping Quinn avoid being framed, and sometimes they were huge, like election rigging.

And through this, Olivia built an empire of sorts, but now she’s in a position where she needs to look at her actions objectively. What she, and the rest of her friends, are finding is that when they pull their decisions apart, it doesn’t always play well from an unbiased perspective.

In true Scandal fashion, Olivia and QPA run down all the options for how to thwart Cyrus and Jake, but it all blows back on them. It’s a cold and dark trip down memory lane as they bring up the death of James, Amanda Tanner, the drone strike Cyrus ordered, and the many sins that have been kept quiet over the years.

And that’s why it’s so cutting when Olivia says to Mellie, Fitz, David, and Marcus:

We are not the heroes of this story, we’re the villains.

As fans, we love Olivia Pope and we like her associates. We’ve watched them for seven years, and bonded with them. As much as they can be considered assassins and thugs, we’ve seen them as human beings. We want to think they’re the heroes, and in their version of the story, they are.

But with Lonnie Macon’s investigation, their side isn’t the only side anymore.

From a narrative perspective, it makes sense for Scandal to end with Olivia tearing down a legacy that she built. If Olivia continues to keep fixing problems and she continues to help Mellie and Fitz, then the show could continue. Tearing down B613, is a way to unravel all the lies. Yes, it may tarnish a legacy, but it will also stop Cyrus and Jake from usurping control.

There has to be an end to all of it for the series to have a satisfying conclusion. This is the ending that Scandal needs and I think it answers an important question. Yes, Olivia Pope accomplished a lot, but did the ends justify the means?

It’s petrifying to think that there is only one episode left of Scandal, but at the same time, it’s going to be exciting to see how this all goes down, because it’s a mistake to think for a second, that Cyrus and Jake will go down without a fight!

Stray Thoughts:  

• Seeing Sally Langston again is a treat! I didn’t realize how much I missed the character and her commentary on The Liberty Report until she was back and asking Huck and Quinn to roll over on Olivia.
• The empty pool is going to leave me asking: “How did they move all that equipment out of there without anyone at the White House noticing.”
• Huck’s deadpan deliveries are the best, and they never fail to at least make me smile. I think he may be the character that I am going to miss the most once Scandal ends.
• Okay, maybe that’s a lie. Rowan’s monologue was pretty fantastic too. The way that he tears down Jake is so satisfying in this episode.

What did you think of this episode of Scandal? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Scandal airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC.

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