Hate That I Love You, Shonda Rhimes

Damnit, Shonda!!!!! You ruined my past Friday night. I planned on having night home alone like Sandra Bullock’s character in While You Were Sleeping (which consists of me chilling at home in J.C. Penney pajamas, eating take out while pining over Bill Pullman and Peter Gallagher. But instead of pining over guys, I’d make pretend afro bangs with my ‘fro. I think we can all agree that pretend afro bangs is only slightly less pathetic than Bullock  pining over a Pullman/Gallagher two piece peen special). Seriously though, Hollywood, those dudes were the best you could do?! Just to let you know, this was one of my friend’s well thought out response to that casting: “those white niggas ain’t shit.” How profound.

Anyway, that was my plan. Then I decided to check out the pilot episode of your new show on ABC called Scandal. Cut to FIVE hours later, after I finished all five episodes and looked at my clock and saw it was 1:30 in the morning:

Exactly. I got pulled back into Shonda Rhimes’ tomfoolery after breaking up with her over “Grey’s Anatomy.”

I mean, I haven’t gotten so hooked on anything since I had a sleepover with girlfriends and we watched the movie Showgirls, went to bed, woke up and watched Showgirls again in the morning. I’m not ashamed.

See, Shonda and I have a complicated relationship. Grey’s Anatomy came out and was super popular, hence, I refused to watch it because I think when I’m being ornery people care. But just like when I was kid and all the other kids would go, “Oatmeal raisin cookies are nasty” and then I’d go, “Mmmm, I love oatmeal raisin cookies,” so then I had to eat all the oatmeal cookies that the teacher brought in because there was no backing out. But none of the kids cared because they ate the far superior chocolate chip cookies while I basically just gave myself temporary diabetes by eating ten of the oatmeal raisin ones. I was just like Kristen Wiig’s character in Bridesmaids, who was sweating profusely because she had food poisoning, yet pretended she didn’t by eating M&Ms. My little pigtail self was inching closer and closer to a sugar coma, yet I wouldn’t give in: “Oh, my god, yeah, these oatmeal raisin cookies are sooooooo good. You guys like don’t even know.”

The point is that I resisted Grey’s Anatomy until I heard Coach Taylor (aka Kyle Chandler) was guest starring on the show. Fine. I’ll watch. He’s hot. Then it turns out GA‘s cast consists of really good actors. And when people died, it was in tragic soap-opera ways while some sad Sarah McLachlan-knockoff song played in the background, which made me cry. So I was hooked. The show was pretty good for a few seasons and then after some really over the top situations like lesbian shower fantasies, Izzie (Katherine Heigl) stealing a heart for a heart transplant patient (Denny) she just met and fell in love with. I could forgive all that nonsense, because the acting was so good. BUT Denny died and haunted Izzie and eventually, they had GHOST SEX. You read me right. Ghost sex. Not her masturbating to the memory of her and Denny doing it. But she lit candles, closed her eyes, and he would appear and they would have full on ghost sex.

Really, Shonda? Ghost sex? To modify my friend’s quote from earlier in this blog post: “That white nigga’s ghost dick ain’t shit.” Seriously, I dropped the show almost immediately. I know it’s a soap opera, so the ridiculous is to be expected, but I can’t get emotionally invested in someone banging a ghost. And the sad thing is I tried. I didn’t try to get good grades in high school, yet I tried to wrap my head around this dumb shiz and asked myself what I would do in Izzie’s situation. #MisplacedPriorities. Nevertheless, I couldn’t get past the ghost sex, so I vowed never again to get into one of Shonda Rhimes’ show, so I can steer clear of any potential ghost intercourse or gintercourse.

And then I saw a promo for Scandal starring Kerry Washington a few weeks ago. It looked juicy, fun, and entertaining, but all I could think someone is going to die in the White House and Kerry’s character, Olivia Pope, is going to have gintercourse in the Oval Office. But when I read this show is the first show on network television in over 30 years where the main lead character is an African-American female, I figured I should at least support this show through one episode. After all, it has a pretty cool premise: Olivia used be the White House Communications Director for the President and decided to branch out on her own and start a crisis management team to handle potentially high-profile cases before the case breaks in the public.

Disclaimer: If you have yet to watch even one minute of Scandal, please stop reading this. Go to Hulu, watch the first two or three episodes, then return because what’s written below contains spoilers.

Scandal moves with ease and features Shonda’s typical fast talk characters, but now they’re also walking. Clearly, The fast talking and walking is very reminiscent of The West Wing, except for all the, you know, discussion about policy and other things that made the show really smart, so instead 90% of that smart stuff is replaced with stolen glances, saucy cases (hookers and an in the closet war hero), and close ups of Kerry Washington’s GORGEOUS face. But whatever. This show is a pulpy and sometimes campy soap opera, so just sit back and relax and enjoy the show.

Except that you can’t relax because the handsome and very married President Fitzgerald Grant had an affair with one of his aides, Amanda Tanner, who resigned because she’s in love with him and is starting to tell people about the affair (damn), so he lies to Olivia and says nothing happened, so she will handle this crisis for him and then Olivia finds out they did have an affair because he called Amanda the same pet name that he used to call Olivia (double damn). Which means that Fitz and Olivia used to do it (triple damn!). So Olivia storms into the White House because she’s got it like that and is all prepared to give him a piece of her mind, but Fitz has other plans:

!!!!!!!!!!! The Prez & Olivia still love each other.  My reaction to this plot development:

That’s right, I had all four of New Edition members’ reaction to him professing his love. If only I was wearing a teal colored Wilson’s athletic hoodie while I was watching that moment to really make things perfect. Regardless of what I was wearing, with that kiss, I became hooked into this show. The writers are essentially setting it up that Fitz and Olivia are soul mates who can’t be together. Aww, right? I mean, yeah, Fitz is married and also he had an affair with that Amanda chick, but Olivia is his true love. Clearly, a woman came up with this convoluted situation because it’s the lie we tell ourselves rather than the truth which is, “Hey, I think the President just likes sexing on people who aren’t his wife. You know, tale as old as time. Songs as old as rhyme. Beauty and the Beast. Scandal.” So now, Shonda Rhimes is back on my DVR rotation and all because I’m emotionally invested in LivGerald ending up together.

And here’s the thing, in real life, I think cheating is trifling at hell. Example: I didn’t listen to Alicia Keys for like two weeks when I found out she broke up Swizz Beatz’s marriage and then she got knocked up with his baby and married him. Not only did I not listen to her for two weeks, but I was sure that on some level, A. Keys could feel that I was mad at her. But Shonda weaved her magic again and I want Fitz to cheat on his wife. I literally said to myself at the end of episode five, “If Olivia and Fitz don’t hook up, fuck this show. And you know what, if he dies and she doesn’t hook up with his ghost then fuck this show two times.” That’s the power of Shonda Rhimes. I hate that I love you, Shonda.

Tags: Drama, Kerry Washington, Politics, Scandal, Shonda Rhimes, TV