History Series / SCANDAL

** "Dead in the Water" has a major {{Sherlock}} ShoutOut as Huck's "mind palace" is the conference room of OPA as he [[spoiler: struggles to free himself from a car sinking in water]]. There's even a math equation on the Big Board. Other parts of the episode salute the works of Creator/AlfredHitchcock, including {{Psycho}} and {{Vertigo}}.

** Fitz: For the most part, he's a clean guy, outside from the fact that he [[spoiler: murdered Verna Thorton]] to keep her from exposing that [[spoiler: the election was rigged in favor of him]]. 

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Fitz declares war on West Angola--against the better judgement from Cyrus and other advisers because of the lack of intel and causalities it may result in--so that [[spoiler: he could rescue Olivia]].

** Mellie, but only during her quest for/reign as First Lady. Not only did she [[spoiler: rig the election]], but before that, she faked a miscarriage to win the female vote for the Grant campaign. Then, as the unhappy First Lady, she made attempts to expand her power by demanding to be included in security meetings and stating her opinion on issues, which would put Fitz in compromising positions. Her and Fitz’s marriage also suffered as a result of her power struggle and the only reason she ever fought for Fitz’s love again was because she blamed Olivia for not keeping Fitz happy and him sleeping with Amanda Tanner as a consequence. To top it all off, while she’s campaigning as Senator of Virginia, she gives [[spoiler: Rowan the names of the jurors on the B613 case, leading to the death of all 16 jurors, in exchange for hiding Fitz's involvement in Operation Remington and the photos of their extramarital affairs (though she didn’t know what the names would be used for when she provided them).]] In season 5, she announced she would be running for president, with no evil plans, as of yet.

** Andrew also. He broke up with Mellie, so that he could remain on the Grant ticket as VP, which perhaps isn’t as bad, given that Olivia convinced him that Mellie wouldn’t want him if he wasn’t on the ticket. But his ambition definitely got to the best of him when [[spoiler: he had Olivia kidnapped so that Fitz could declare war in West Angola.]]

* {{Blackmail}}: Seen very, very, very often because why wouldn't it happen in a political drama? Instances include:

** Invoked by name by Rowan/Eli in Flashbacks in "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner." This is why Oliva broke up with [[spoiler:Edison Davis]] some time before the first episode.

** Mellie figures out that it was Fitz who leaked Olivia's name to the press to practically spite Fitz for insulting her a season before.
--->'''Mellie''': What did you called me? "Ornamental? Not ''functional''?"

** Sally in the third season winter finale. Her husband isn't just [[spoiler: gay, but he's also a cheater. And he isn't just a cheater, he's now a ''dead'' cheater, whom she ends up murdering in [[UnstoppableRage a fit of rage]]]]. 
** Fitz in the third season finale. [[spoiler: He's determined to lose his re-election, learns that his wife was raped by his father, his son dies, he finds out that his death was a murder and the love of his life leaves him to live on an island with another man.]] The only thing that comes out good from the fiasco is that he does wins the election in the end and that was only out of sympathy.

* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Hair is the primary way for ''Scandal'' to show how characters' appearances have changed from the past to the present.

* FateDrivesUsTogether: Or so it ''seems'' that way with Jake and Olivia and again with Vanessa. He bumped Olivia, made her drop her phone, flirted, saw her again and they started dating--and the same exact thing happens to Vanessa because the entire occurance is rehearsed with an ulterior motive.
* FictionalCountry: Kashfar, East Sudan, West Angola, Kurkistan, Caledonia, Bandar, all of which are mirror some real life country.

** Season 3 is doing this again with a lot of it's plot shifting towards a SpyDrama.
** And now, interestingly enough, it's shifting ''back'' to the case-of-the-week formula that was once a decoy.
* GetOut: Fitz kicks a lot of people out of the Oval Office (especially Mellie—in one case though, the White House itself) with these two words.
* GetRichQuickScheme: "Dog Whistle Politics" reveals this is what Lazarus One is for B613: Start a fire at the Lourve, leave behind charred copies and sell the real ones to wealthy collectors.

** [[spoiler: Involving Olivia, Cyrus, Mellie, Hollis, Verna and Lindsay Dwyer--unwillingly. The five conspired to rig the election in Fitz's favor, unbeknownst to him. Cyrus did it for the position as Chief of Staff, Mellie as First Lady, Verna as Fitz's Supreme Court Justice pick and Hollis for $2 billion pipeline. Olivia did it for Fitz. Hollis hired a worker from the Cytron company, Jesse, to tamper with a voting machine in Defiance county, Ohio. However, when Jesse learned that he would only be getting $5 million from Hollis, while Hollis would be receiving $2 billion from the pipeline, he threatned to expose him. Thus, Hollis had the Cytron company bombed. When Olivia and Verna learn that Jesse's girlfriend Lindsay would go down for the bombing, they kidnapped Lindsay, brought her to Washington, D.C. and changed her name to Quinn Perkins.]]

** Speaking of him, Gideon was hit with his in episode 6 - [[spoiler: When confronting the person behind the majority of the shadiness in the story you're investigating, it's always best to do so in a public place or even to not let them know all that you know. But should you do both of these things , don't turn your back on them. It can only end one way.]]

-->'''Mellie''': Friends...

* LoveMartyr: Mellie, by all counts. Her husband is a cheater and, by the time they got divorced, had been cheating on her for around six-seven years, yet she had remained faithful for (almost) the entire time. And even before then, she didn't just give up her career as a lawyer to help his as governor, but perhaps the biggest sacrifice she made was [[spoiler:keeping the fact that Big Jerry raped her a secret from him so that he and his father could maintain a good relationship. It wasn't at a cost though -- Mellie gradually withdrew from Fitz afterwards, both emotionally and physically, and it eventually killed their marriage]].

** [[spoiler: Olivia in the fifth season, when she starts getting dirty to help Mellie win the election. She gave Alex Vargas dirt on Edison Davis because he’s working with her father, in exchange for dirt on Susan Ross, whose daughter, Kasey, is actually the daughter of a man in prison. But it doesn’t end there; she is on the brink of tearing Susan’s family apart by threatening Kasey’s real father to come out with the truth, or else she would plant incriminating evidence that would get him back into jail—so scary, he ends up ''killing himself''. It’s not until Fitz intervenes that she [[HeelRealization realizes what she's become]].]]

* OfficialCoupleOrdealSyndrome: Since the first season, there have been several obstacles that have postponed Olitz from becoming exclusive and official, including [[spoiler: Fitz's status as president and a married man, Jake, Olivia rigging the election, Fitz killing Verna Thorton and possibly Olivia's mother, Mellie's rape, the death of Jerry IV at the hands of Olivia's father and Olivia abandoning Washington. But at last! They get together four seasons later... until Olivia has Mellie release her father to avoid impeachment and Fitz forces Olivia to move into the prison that is the White House, in which Olivia declares that their Utopian dream of living in Vermont, where Olivia makes jam and bears his children is ''impossible''.]]

** Rowan's "I am very smart prey" speech is first given to Oliva in "Survival of the Fittest." It takes on new meaning when it is shown again in "Extinction." We find out [[spoiler: Rowan killed Frankie Vargas and framed Cyrus under orders from a mysterious group that threatened to kill his girlfriend Sandra and Olivia if he didn't. Also, the dead body of Sandra (whom Rowan had killed so she couldn't be leveraged against him) was hidden in the room the whole time.]]

* ParentsAsPeople: Given that both hate each other and were having their own affairs while together, Mellie is arguably not the greatest parent, but Fitz definitely isn’t, to the point that it ''might'' border ParentalNeglect. In fact, Jerry IV and Karen both begged their mom to cancel their visit to their dad because of how awful their last visit went. In “Mama Said Knock You Out,” Mellie had to remind him of things to bring up when the kids came to visit. Post-[[spoiler:Jerry’s death]], when Karen became a part of an involuntary sex tape, Fitz goes as far as to ask her if she was raped, which Karen doesn’t take very lightly.
* PervertDad: One wishes Big Jerry was just a pervert. But nope, he's taken it to the extremes, acted upon his lust, [[spoiler: and raped his ''daughter-in-law''.]]

* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: While a Senator, we only ever saw Mellie [[spoiler: agree to impeach Fitz]] and filibuster about Planned Parenthood. Then, she announced her campaign for the presidency and that was that.

* ThePowerOfLove: Love seems to hold ''much'' power over Fitz. He's been willing to give up his job--''the leader of the free world''--for his love for Olivia and in the season two finale, [[spoiler: he makes an impulsive move to have Tom leak to the press that Olivia was his mistress because he wanted to be out-in-the-open with her]].

* RagsToRiches : Harrison's {{Backstory}}.

* RapeAsBackstory: [[spoiler: Mellie's, who was raped fifteen years ago by Big Jerry, just before his son and her husband, Fitz, was going to announce his campaign for Governor of California. The only person she ever told was Andrew Nichols, who had found her just after she attempted suicide, partially because she also didn't know if her first son, Jerry, was her husband's or her rapist's. The plotline serves to explain not just why Mellie is so cold and determined for power, but also just ''how'' loyal she is to Fitz and why she remains so despite that he isn't.]]

* RetiredMonster: Huck, who while he doesn't want to hurt people anymore, can't help buy enjoy it when he does. 

* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Olivia : "We don't vote, we take her.".

* SecretSecretKeeper: It's hinted at different times that both Stephen and Huck knew about Oliva and Fitz all along.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: [[spoiler: Olivia would know. She kills Andrew by clubbing him with a chair, in which maybe three times would have done it, but Olivia goes for a whopping total of ten.]]

* TortureIsIneffective: On B613 agents like Jake and Huck, at least. Both survived being held in captivity and brutal interrogation from the Pentagon. But on the contrary, neither had anything to ''tell''.

*** Mellie as well. She gave up her career as a lawyer; had a good relationship with Big Jerry at face value, despite that [[spoiler: he’s her rapist]], to help her husband maintain a good relationship with his father; [[spoiler: rigged an election]]; remained faithful in spite of being in love with another man and her husband having an affair; got pregnant with a third child so no would suspect he was cheating on her; and [[spoiler: handed over the names of the jurors on the B613 case to keep their extramarital affairs a secret]] all for his truly, Fitzgerald Grant. On the contrary, she has betrayed him a few times by exposing his infidelity and starting an affair of her own. Plus, keeping his affair covert, getting pregnant, [[spoiler: rigging the election and giving the names of the jurors]] was also in part helping herself. Regardless, she highlighted these in a brilliant TheReasonYouSuckSpeech she gave to Fitz about all of the things she’s done for him.

** [[spoiler: Fitz kills Verna Thorton to keep her from confessing that her and other members of the rigging clique tampered with the election results in Fitz's favor.]]

* {{Warhawk}}: [[spoiler: Andrew and Elizabeth, the former of which goes as far as to ''kidnap Olivia'' to get Fitz to declare war on West Angola.]]

Currently airing its sixth season, with a seventh ordered in February 2017. In May it was announced that the seventh season would also be the last. Has a [[Characters/{{Scandal}} Character Page]] that could use a little love, Gladiators!

** Jake stalking an apartment is intercut with Rowan/Eli prepares a glass of wine. Similar to SilenceOfTheLambs, Jake finds an empty apartment and Rowan/Eli is actually in Olivia's apartment.

** The Season 6 finale suggests that the BigBad for the final season will be [[spoiler:Olivia herself]].

** Cyrus: [[spoiler: He was a part of a conspiracy to rig the election, was willing to let his own husband, James; Sally; and Olivia all die in three separate occasions, and used James as a rent-boy to entrap Sally's husband. At the same time, it would also have to be taken into account that this was all done to help Fitz and the Grant Administration in some way. And outside of the things he's done for Fitz, he manipulates his husband, sometime to protect him; fabricated a story about a dead brother to manipulate Francisco Vargas into running for president; and the darkest thing he’s probably done was blackmail a man and threaten his child into holding Francisco Vargas at gunpoint, so that Francisco could become ''popular''.]]

** Even Cyrus, despite being a balding, fat, ugly old man somehow manages to have a string of studly male prostitutes at his beck and call.

** "Dead in the Water" has a major Series/Sherlock ShoutOut as Huck's "mind palace" is the conference room of OPA as he [[spoilers: struggles to free himself from a car sinking in water]]. There's even a math equation on the Big Board. Other parts of the episode salute the works of Creator/AlfredHitchcock, including ''Film/Psycho'' and ''Film/Vertigo''.

** After a ton of mystery and fake-outs, it finally turns out in the season 7 finale that [[spoiler: Luna Vargas was the one behind the killing of her own husband right after he was elected. She planned to use the controversy to somehow end up being named President herself, arguing "imagine what Jackie Kennedy could have done as President after Dallas" and she would have done much better by her husband's agenda.]]

* {{Trigger}}:

*** Most of this revolves around Olivia who consistently asks her those at O.P.A. to do things at severe personal cost and risk to themselves. And for the most part they do it. But this is implied to be the reason why Stephen leaves. A major part of the conflict between Olivia and David Rosen at any given point is that she asks him to do illegal/semi-illegal acts based on faith in her and David, a man of the law, outright refuses to compromise his morals, ethics, or integrity for her on that alone. [[spoiler: This has arguably been foreshadowing since by the end of Season 6, Olivia is revealed to be a VillainProtagonist.]]

*** Most of this revolves around Olivia who consistently asks her those at O.P.A. to do things at severe personal cost and risk to themselves. And for the most part they do it. But this is implied to be the reason why Stephen leaves. A major part of the conflict between Olivia and David Rosen at any given point is that she asks him to do illegal/semi-illegal acts based on faith in her and David, a man of the law, outright refuses to compromise his morals, ethics, or integrity for her on that alone. {{spoiler: This has arguably been foreshadowing since by the end of Season 6, Olivia is revealed to be a VillainProtagonist.}}

*** Most of this revolves around Olivia who consistently asks her those at O.P.A. to do things at severe personal cost and risk to themselves. And for the most part they do it. But this is implied to be the reason why Stephen leaves. A major part of the conflict between Olivia and David Rosen at any given point is that she asks him to do illegal/semi-illegal acts based on faith in her and David, a man of the law, outright refuses to compromise his morals, ethics, or integrity for her on that alone. {{spoiler: This has arguably been foreshadowing since by the end of Season 6, Olivia is revealed to be a VillainProtaganist.}}

** O.P.A have all agreed they would go over a cliff for Olivia because of the things she's done for them, especially Harrison and Huck.
** Cyrus is extremely loyal to Fitz, having [[spoiler: rigged an election for him, almost killed his husband, James, for ''finding out'' he rigged an election and used James to expose Fitz’s rival candidate’s husband’s sexuality.]] But as of the second half of season 5, it seems he’s betrayed Fitz in a way, having been secretly doubling as both the Chief of Staff of the Grant administration and as Francisco Vargas’ campaign manager.
** Mellie as well. She gave up her career as a lawyer; had a good relationship with Big Jerry at face value, despite that [[spoiler: he’s her rapist]], to help her husband maintain a good relationship with his father; [[spoiler: rigged an election]]; remained faithful in spite of being in love with another man and her husband having an affair; got pregnant with a third child so no would suspect he was cheating on her; and [[spoiler: handed over the names of the jurors on the B613 case to keep their extramarital affairs a secret]] all for his truly, Fitzgerald Grant. On the contrary, she has betrayed him a few times by exposing his infidelity and starting an affair of her own. Plus, keeping his affair covert, getting pregnant, [[spoiler: rigging the election and giving the names of the jurors]] was also in part helping herself. Regardless, she highlighted these in a brilliant TheReasonYouSuckSpeech she gave to Fitz about all of the things she’s done for him.

* CallBack: In "Enemy of the State" Abby says she would follow Olivia "over a cliff." In "White Hat's Back On" Olivia tells Fitz that her team followed her "over the wrong cliff."

** Mellie, but only during her quest for/reign as First Lady. Not only did she [[spoiler: rig the election]], but before that, she faked a miscarriage to win the female vote for the Grant campaign. Then, as the unhappy First Lady, she made attempts to expand her power by demanding to be included in security meetings and stating her opinion on issues, which would put Fitz in compromising positions. Her and Fitz’s marriage also suffered as a result of her power struggle and the only reason she ever fought for Fitz’s love again was because she blamed Olivia for not keeping Fitz happy and him sleeping with Amanda Tanner as a consequence. To top it all off, while she’s campaigning as Senator of Virginia, she gives [[spoiler: Rowan the names of the jurors on the B613 case, leading to the death of all 16 jurors, in exchange for hiding Fitz's involvement in Operation Remington and the photos of their extramarital affairs (though she didn’t know what the names would be used for when she provided them).]] In season 5, she announced she would be running for president, with no evil plans, as of yet.

* LandslideElection: Fitz with the second election because [[spoiler: his son died]].

* TrueLoveIsBoring: After several obstacles, [[spoiler: Olivia and Fitz at last get together in the fourth season finale, but don't even last a full season.]]

* HateAtFirstSight: Fitz wanted Olivia fired from the Grant campaign for citing his and Mellie's aloofness towards each other as a reason for their low numbers.

** Mellie and Fitz in the flashbacks of their marriage. Played with in season four, as while they weren't in love with each other, they became best friends as a married couple and weren't planning on splitting up until at least Fitz's term was over.

** This is the obvious image Mellie is supposed to have as First Lady.

* LoveMartyr: Mellie, by all counts. Her husband is a cheater and, by the time they got divorced, had been cheating on her for around six-seven years, yet she had remained faithful for (almost) the entire time. And even before then, she didn't just give up her career as a lawyer to help his as governor, but perhaps the biggest sacrifice she made was [[spoiler: keeping the fact that Big Jerry raped her a secret from him so that he and his father could maintain a good relationship.]]

* ChekhovsGun: The glass of water Olivia drank for [[TheLawOfConservationOfDetail 17 seconds]] while being [[spoiler: held captive]]. She used it to get someone to notice the reflection of the man behind the video.

* ChildByRape: [[spoiler: Mellie suspects Jerry IV is Big Jerry’s son, rather than Fitz’s]].

** Olivia: [[spoiler: Her father is the head of B613 and that she rigged an election.]]

** In season 5, Cyrus is convinced Vargas is sleeping with a reporter and goes so far as to have her beat up to drive her away from the campaign. When Vargas finds out, he's horrified not just by what Cyrus did but his assumption Vargas was like Fitz as he makes it clear he's happily married and would never cheat on his wife.

** "Dead in the Water" has a major Series/Sherlock ShoutOut as Huck's "mind palace" is the conference room of OPA as he [[spoilers: struggles to free himself from a car sinking in water]]. There's even a math equation on the Big Board. Other parts of the episode salute the works of AlfredHitchcock, including Film/Psycho and Film/Vertigo.