Maybe Watch This: Scandal

Last year (earlier this year on my funemployment break?), I mainlined the first seven episodes of Scandal like it was my job. The first seven episodes of Scandal are like Aaron Sorkin-lite, this perfectly approachable, appropriately sexy housewife version of intelligent, edgy TV. Which is saying quite a lot, honestly.

The first seven seasons of Scandal end in a perfectly frustrating cliffhanger that meant that since watching those seven episodes in quick succession, when anyone’s even hinted at the second season and where that cliffhanger might’ve led to, I’ve changed the topic or the channel or the webpage so as not to spoil it.

Netflix knows I watched (and liked) those first seven episodes, so when my phone popped up one of its handy little push notifications alerting me that season two of Scandal was now streaming, I might’ve started watching it right that instant.

Let me pause here to admit that I have a problem when it comes to streaming TV series on Netflix. Where most people turn on the radio to fill the air in a quiet apartment, I’ve taken to putting on 30 Rock or Doctor Who. (It makes for great background noise while I blog, too.)

So now I’m in the middle of Scandal season 2 and I kind of love it, but also kind of hate it. I stopped watching Grey’s Anatomy after a few seasons because, you know, I can only believe so many earth-shattering events happen to the same staff at the same hospital after awhile. And now halfway through season 2, I wish I could say it’s not more of the same, but it already is. It’s over the top and overdramatic. But it’s also kind of amazing the way President Grant looks at Olivia Pope, the number of minorities on screen at one time, the frank feminism and all-in passion of the characters.

But then, as you watch episode after episode, anxious as you (ok, just me) are to see the plot progress, you start to notice how every character speaks in at the same clip, each gets their turn at a witty monologue like they picked the short straw that episode; how the hard-scrabble Chief of Staff is still the Funny Gay Guy when the script needs a bit of levity; how most traumatic events that happen once in a lifetime all seem to happen in a span of months for these poor characters.

But I’m still watching. I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, but it’ll probably be my Labor Day TV marathon to be honestly. Because, um…can we talk about Kerry Washington for a minute? She is a powerhouse, and she alone worth watching in this poor man’s House of Cards. But since there’s only 13 episodes of House of Cards so far and I’ve already watched them…twice…Scandal will do nicely.