After a long delay, ABC’s Scandal returned for its sixth-season premiere on Thursday night, fast-forwarding to election night after ending season five in the middle of a presidential campaign between “Republican” First Lady Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) and Democrat Francisco “Frankie” Vargas (Ricardo Chavira).
To accommodate lead actress Kerry Washington’s pregnancy, the premiere moved from its usual fall date to a January 2017 start, even though it was filmed in July 2016. In fact, the premiere was bumped back another week when ABC decided it wanted to air a special on President-elect Trump the night before his inauguration instead. Considering the content of the premiere, this was a wise move.
The episode “Survival of the Fittest” begins with Mellie narrowly losing to Frankie, breaking liberal feminist hearts all over again with the sight of another woman conceding an election, but the drama really kicks up when President-elect Vargas is assassinated while giving his acceptance speech. Immediately after it was announced that Vargas had been killed, there was an explosion of tweets from the nastier parts of Twitter wishing it had been Trump.
Showrunner Shonda Rhimes as well as the other actors went on record to insist the real-life election had nothing to do with the episode, but it’s still worth noting that many key figures from Shondaland publicly supported Hillary Clinton in the election and went so far as to film an ad for her campaign. And of course there was the despicable Trump-like character from last season. The show can’t seem to escape even subtle references, whether it be Mellie’s logo resembling Hillary’s or the prophetic comment on a woman losing the election.
With Scandal‘s long history of supporting leftist causes, it’s no wonder so many of its fans are members of the deranged left who wish our president dead. {eoa}
This article originally appeared on NewsBusters.org.
See an error in this article?
To contact us or to submit an article
