BuzzFeed: "53 Possible Ways Season 3 Of Scandal Could End"

Shonda Rhimes’ political thriller always leaves you guessing, but entertainment editorial director Jace Lacob and staff writer Emily Orley take a stab as to what might happen by the end of the third season. Let the wild speculation begin!

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "53 Possible Ways Season 3 Of Scandal Could End," in which Emily Orley and I come up with, yes, 53 ways that this season of Scandal could end, from the possible to the highly absurd.

1. Maya’s bomb explodes on the campaign trail, leaving the fates of several characters — including Fitz — unclear as the show goes on its summer hiatus. CLIFF-HANGER!

2. Fitz is killed when the bomb goes off, widowing Mellie in the process. Olivia is understandably distraught, as her actions lead to Maya being able to plant the bomb.

3. Fitz is killed when the bomb goes off and Cyrus runs in his spot on the Republican ticket. He becomes the first openly gay man to win the presidency.

4. Adnan turns on Maya and traps her in a room with the bomb. Adnan becomes a member of Olivia Pope & Associates and Harrison’s girlfriend.

5. Andrew nobly saves Fitz from death, but is himself killed in the process. This gives Mellie even more reason to hate her husband and to feel like he has “taken everything” from her.

6. Fitz is killed when the bomb goes off. Because Sally is the sitting vice president, she ascends to the Oval Office as Fitz’s successor. Olivia is distraught and vows to get Sally kicked out of office.

7. Realizing that she failed to stop Maya when she had the chance, Quinn sacrifices herself to stop Maya’s plot and is killed in the process. Charlie kills Maya in an act of vengeance and ends up joining Olivia Pope & Associates.

8. Maya plants a bomb in the White House. Fitz, Andrew, and Mellie are taken to the secret bunker in the basement, but since Olivia already used her clearance to get down there once, she is left upstairs and thrown against the wall in the bomb blast. Everything goes black.

9. Charlie dies saving Quinn from the blast. Quinn rejoins OPA, though her passion for Olivia’s mission has been tempered from her time with B613 and with Charlie. She wants nothing to do with Huck.

10. Quinn attempts to sacrifice herself in order to stop Maya’s plot, but Huck saves her at the last moment.

11. Feeling betrayed, Charlie attempts to kill Quinn when he realizes that she has been plotting against him and B613. She is saved by Huck.

12. Charlie attempts to kill Huck, believing him responsible for Quinn’s loyalty issues. Quinn kills Charlie in order to save Huck.

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BuzzFeed: "12 Objects That Defined The Year In Television"

From Breaking Bad’s stevia packet to Girls’ Q-tip, here are some of the pivotal objects that sum up scripted television in 2013. SPOILER ALERT for a ton of shows if you’re not caught up. You’ve been warned.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "12 Objects That Defined The Year In Television," in which I look at the 12 objects that roughly define 2013 in scripted television, from a Q-tip on Girls and a Sharpie on Homeland to an automobile on Downton Abbey and that Cytron card on Scandal.

1. This Q-tip.

Where It Appeared: Girls
What It Was: A seemingly innocuous Q-Tip, used repeatedly by Hannah (Lena Dunham), whose OCD was quickly spiraling out of control, to clean out her ears. But she inserted it too deeply into her inner ear canal.
What It Did: It punctured her eardrum (“I heard hissing,” she later said), leading Hannah to seek medical attention at the hospital.
What It Meant: That Hannah had truly hit rock bottom with her psychological condition and that she had seemingly lost control of her life and mental state. It was an excruciating scene to watch, not just because of the physical discomfort it manifested, but for the emotional fallout it wrought: At the end of the episode, she inserted a Q-Tip into her other ear and started counting once more.

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BuzzFeed: "How Scandal Turned Into An Exploration Of Free Will"

Season 3 of Shonda Rhimes’ additive ABC drama offers not only a pulse-pounding thrill ride each week, but also a canny exploration of self-determination. Spoilers ahead, if you’re not caught up.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "How Scandal Turned Into An Exploration Of Free Will," in which I take a look at the third season of Shonda Rhimes' addictive ABC thriller.

Scandal’s seven-episode first season, which aired in early 2012, gave very little indication of just where this riveting drama would go by its third and current season. At first glance, it appeared to be a legal drama centering on Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her team of misfit lawyers, a group of very damaged people lured into the arena by Olivia’s gritty strength and forged into self-made gladiators. Their elite crisis management firm operated in Washington, meaning that the show’s title came into play fairly quickly via a slew of high-profile cases.

Olivia had ties to the fictional Grant Administration, and in particular to the POTUS, Fitz (Tony Goldwyn), for whom Olivia had worked and with whom she’s been having an extra-marital affair. Oval Office intrigue, horrific murders, and tales of jaw-dropping corruption soon followed as Scandal quickly became the sort of show that in years prior would have been referred to as a “watercooler drama,” a series that exerts a gravitational pull on the viewer so strong that they need to dissect every moment with their co-workers the following day. But thanks to the prevalence of social media in 2013, the Shonda Rhimes-created Scandal became that show for a new generation of obsessive viewers who took to Twitter and Facebook instantly to analyze the latest twist in television’s most serpentine drama.

Season 3 of Scandal, which wraps up the first half of its run on Dec. 12, has amped up the stakes in a show that already required Dramamine for those who found the rollercoaster plots moving at too high a velocity. While prying into the marriage between Fitz and his Lady MacBeth-esque First Lady, Mellie (Bellamy Young), and the complex dynamics between Fitz and Olivia, the show had wisely avoided giving away too much of Olivia’s tragic backstory. She was, after all, a gladiator. Donned in her white hat — sometimes quite literally — she stormed into the ring and took no prisoners. Olivia Pope was a blood-soaked warrior, unafraid of getting her hands dirty. But, ultimately, she was just as damaged as those she saved. In exploring her complicated backstory, Scandal has once again revealed new facets of Olivia’s character, one that refuses to be pigeonholed in the category of Strong Black Woman. Her father, Eli Pope (Joe Morton), oversees B613, a deadly black ops division of the nation’s intelligence forces whose very ruthlessness has smashed up the psyches of several characters, including Huck (Guillermo Díaz), Jake (Scott Foley), Quinn (Katie Lowes), and even Fitz himself. While on a covert operation for the Navy, the future POTUS was given an order by “Command” to shoot down an American passenger jet carrying 300-plus people aboard, including, it was believed for a while, Olivia’s own mother.

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The Daily Beast: "Fall TV Preview: Where We Left Off"

Can’t remember how Revenge, Homeland, The Good Wife, or Dexter ended? Refresh your collective memory about the cliffhangers for 27 returning shows—and previews of what’s to come.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Fall TV Preview: Where We Left Off," in which Maria Elena Fernandez and I refresh your memory about how 27 shows--from Revenge and Homeland to The Good Wife and Boardwalk Empire--ended last season... and offer a glimpse about what's to come.

Carrie remembered stuff! Leslie was elected! Sheldon took Amy’s hand! Gloria is pregnant! Nucky whacked Jimmy! Victoria Grayson’s plane blew up! Dexter…oh, Dexter!

The fall TV season is officially here, which means we can all breathe a sigh of relief and pull ourselves up from the cliff-hanging precipice. Sure, there’s a bunch of new TV shows across the dial champing at the bit for your attention. But we want to focus on your returning old favorites.

What’s next on Scandal—will we find out who Quinn is? Will Emily track down her mother on Revenge? How will Captain Cragen deal with that dead hooker in his bed on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit? And just what will the gang at Greendale get up to on Community without Dan Harmon at the helm?

To refresh your memory after the long, hot summer, The Daily Beast has a guide to the good and bad times of last season and a peek into what’s coming next this fall.

Parenthood (NBC; Tuesdays at 10 p.m.; returns Sept. 11)

Where We Left Off: You’ll be forgiven for not remembering, since Parenthood wrapped its season way back in February. Crosby (Dax Shepard) and Jasmine (Joy Bryant) finally tied the knot; Adam (Peter Krause) and Crosby decided to keep the Luncheonette open; Mark (Jason Ritter) proposed to Sarah (Lauren Graham), even though the two were at odds about whether they wanted to have children. Elsewhere, after the heartbreak of not getting the baby they meant to adopt, Julia (Erika Christensen) and Joel (Sam Jaeger) instead adopted a five-year-old Latino boy, Victor (Xolo Mariduena).

Where We Pick Up: The entire Braverman clan prepares for the departure of Haddie (Sarah Ramos), who is heading off to Cornell. Sarah and Mark are happily engaged, and Sarah stumbles onto a job working for a curmudgeonly photographer (Ray Romano). Amber (Mae Whitman) is now working with her uncles at the Luncheonette, while Drew (Miles Heizer), now a high school senior, is ecstatic about the return of Amy (Skyler Day) from camp, but the course of (young) love never did run smooth. Kristina (Monica Potter) and Adam consider getting a dog for Max (Max Burkholder), while one of the Bravermans faces a—SPOILER ALERT—potential medical crisis. Prepare to cry. A lot.

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