Binge Watch Guide: Scandal

Binge Watch Guide is a blog series to lead you through the many available series for streaming. 

Time Commitment: Medium High

"Scandal" has four seasons on Netflix while another is currently airing Thursdays on ABC.  While four seasons definitely isn’t as much as "Grey’s Anatomy" or "Friends," it’s still enough to fill your Netflix queue for a couple months.

Most Interesting Character: At the beginning of the show, Olivia Pope comes onto the scene and seems to have the answer to everything. Even though she appears like a woman with no weaknesses at the beginning of the series, she later gets pitted against her nemesis, Eli, who steals the show away from her.

Eli plays anyone who is around him, always looking out for his own best interests.  He’ll come off as if he’s working in someone else’s favor then betray them at the very last second, regardless of their connection to him.  Not to mention his character is acted flawlessly, just see for yourself.

The Good: The pacing of this show is completely top notch.  Every episode gets you hooked from the start, introduces an interesting problem, talks about the existing season-spanning plot, solves the problem of the episode and ends with a cliffhanger that makes you watch through the next episode.  It’s a perfect show for binge-watching, just as long as you can stop yourself from watching another episode.

The characters also have their own interesting back stories.  Everyone has some sort of motivation, whether it’s political power, love for another character or something a little darker.  Drama happens between these characters’ small world, and then it has big effects on the political policies and reputations of major officials. Seeing how this all works out is the most interesting part of this whole series. 

The Bad: Olivia Pope is such a strong character and acts on what she thinks is the best decision.  When she’s with a client, she holds nothing back and does the right thing even if it makes things harder in the long run.  However, when she’s with someone she’s romantically involved with like Fitz, all of that goes out the window.

She stays in situations even though she knows she shouldn’t because of “love”, and she ends up causing much more harm than she would if she were working with a client. This completely defies her character’s values of doing what’s right even when it’s the hard thing.  It just doesn’t match up and makes her seem a lot weaker than the other people around her because she always submits to what the men in her life want her to do. 

The Takeaway: "Scandal" is one of the best shows to binge watch because its pacing makes it incredibly hard to turn off.  All of the characters have intertwined lives and watching their issues unfold when the stakes are high is extremely thrilling.  It’s like watching really good high school drama, except the lives of millions of people or an election’s results are on the line instead of something insignificant. 

If you liked this, consider watching this too: The producer of "Scandal," Shonda Rhimes is one of today’s most celebrated TV writers.  Her shows have a cult following, so if you liked this definitely watch her other shows "Grey’s Anatomy" and "How to Get Away with Murder."

If you enjoyed the political thriller side of "Scandal" then you’ll love watching Frank Underwood claw his way to the top of the political system in "House of Cards."

"Breaking Bad" also has a similar undercover criminal activity vibe to "Scandal" as well.  Watch that to see more relationship drama over criminal secrets coming into the light.