Headscratchers / Scandal (2012)

• Does no one find it strange that soon after Billy Chambers reveals the president's affair that he dies? How did no one think to look for murder? The whole storyline just blows over, which no visible consequences.
  • It turns out by the end of the second season that Billy Chambers is not dead, and that he became The Mole known as "Albatross". It should be pointed out that the first season was only 7 episodes long and the people behind the show probably didn't know at the time that the show would get a second season. It could be chalked up to an Aborted Arc.
• Olivia Pope doesn't do a background check on the strange man that's suddenly appeared in her life, and is an important military man with access to the president? Really?
• If Mellie wants power so badly, why doesn't she just divorce Fitz and "dance on his ashes," as she threatened Cyrus she would do? She seemed pretty convinced that she'd be able to increase her political power if she did so.
  • There are several points throughout the second season that suggest that Mellie feels affection towards Fitz (after all they have been married for twenty years and have three kids together) and is angry at Liv stealing her husband not just because it would hurt her political power but because she is emotionally invested in their relationship. Also,if Mellie attempted to "dance on his ashes", Fitz would still be the President and so be able to carry out a massive PR campaign against Mellie, which she is threatened with in the last few episodes of the season.
  • As season 3 showed, her revealing the President's affair actually worked against her and the media began to attack her instead of holding Fitz responsible. It's not in her best interests to divorce him.
  • Season 3 also explains why she is so faithful to him anyway. Among the many things she says she has sacrificed for him, perhaps the biggest was withholding from him that his father is a piece-of-crap rapist, and even more shocking, that she was his victim. She wouldn't be so ambitious to the point that it's harmful if she hadn't done so much like hiding this secret to get there and she wouldn't hold on to Fitz so hard even if she hates him because she doesn't want everything she's done for him to go to waste.
• In "Beltway Unbuckled", President Grant is unwilling to press Kyrgistan over a diplomat who murdered a blogger because he needed access to their airspace for an upcoming conflict in East Sudan. Which is nowhere near... Does Shonda Rhimes own a map?
  • It's not Kyrgyzstan, it's Kurkistan, which - like East Sudan - is a version of Qurac.
• Gladiators were slaves that fought for the amusement of the crowd and to make money for their owners. So why do two black people who think they're doing an important job use "gladiators in suits" to describe themselves?
  • Because most people probably aren't aware that's what gladiators actually were or did. They consider themselves people who fight for others, which for the most part is how people view gladiators.
• Olivia needing to send a proxy makes sense; she can't be in two places at once. But why send Abby as said proxy? Abby is an investigator, not the Fast Talker Harrison is.
  • Putting Abby in the White House probably sets up how she became press secretary at the start of season 4.
• The conspiracy regarding West Angola seems to be War for Fun and Profit. Only we don't see the fun or the profit, other than Andrew's amusement at having power over Fitz by kidnapping "his sidepiece."