#joe morton

Although I’m still recovering from the painful blow to the gut Scandal’s finale served up good, I feel that I’ve been able to gain some clarity of the finale meaning. I’m still upset, but it is what it is, Shonda has spoken, so I’ll share my thoughts. Hopefully, some of you might share yours. I’ve been trying to figure out how to best organize my thoughts, so I guess I’ll start with my questioning what or where did Olivia exactly arrive to at the end of this journey Shonda talked so much about. I hope I can remember everything I want to touch on…

Among the many gripes I had with this episode is that I could not figure out what the result was of Olivia’s journey; what was so special about the end result that I wasn’t seeing? All that I was able to initially gather was that her father bailed her out of the huge mess she made in exposing B613, and she turns down Mellie’s offer to work for her in informing her that she doesn’t care to clean up other people’s messes any longer. She believes in Mellie’s ability to man the Oval on her own. When asked what she planned to do next, she responded, “Whatever I want.” A short time before, Olivia meets with Cyrus in the Oval to hand him resignation papers (which is weird since she is not an official employee any longer, so how’d she have the official power to fire the VP? I guess President Mellie just let her do this when you’d think she’d want to do the honors herself?). After all of this, Olivia goes on about her business to do whatever she wanted to do with her life. You see her strolling around D.C., visiting her father for dinner, walking to wherever it is she is traveling to, and running into Fitz along the way. Side note: It seemed to some she may have been meeting Fitz, but she wasn’t. She is looking forward traveling in her direction. She is about to pass up the vehicle that stops on the side, Fitz exits, causing her to stop for him. He says “Hi”, she says “Hi”.  Anyway, so I couldn’t figure out the result of what I expected to be some grand destination for the great Olivia Pope, the star of Scandal. If it was that big daddy knows best in bailing her out of the grand mess, and finally understanding that her mother was right in encouraging her not to worry about cleaning up behind others, worry about HER own desires, then she could have come to that destination a season or two ago! But, this wasn’t the destination. Part of Rowan’s speech to Jake about real power:

“You have nothing. That’s my point. How could I have failed both you and Olivia so spectacularly? The two of you scurry around this town, squawking to anyone who will listen about how powerful you are. How have you learned so little sitting at my right hand, absorbing nothing? If you have to tell me how powerful you are, you ain’t nobody! You got nothing! You have no power! Real power is silent. Real power is hidden. Real power was there all along. Real power cannot be gained and never can be lost. It is not a commodity. It is who you are.

I am power. Absolute, total, unyielding power. I will always be power, and I keep waiting for one of you to step up and join me, because it is so lonely up here at the top. Running the world? Really? Running the world and seeing all its moving parts is exhausting. The sacrifices, the losses, the endless deaths, the level of responsibility. “Command” may be a title, but it is not a job. You may call yourself Command. She may have called herself Command. Do either of you actually think you ever took Command from me? How I wish. [Chuckles] How I wish one of you would evolve so that I could call myself extinct.”

After wondering about the seeming disappointing worth of Olivia’s destination, I thought about Rowan and this speech to Jake. What the heck happened to Olivia’s power? Where was this power Rowan had, AND MORE for Olivia? She was the star, the great feminist! How could Shonda make Olivia depend on a man in her grand exit, only to leave MELLIE with the presidency, AND SHE’S JUST HAPPY DOING WHAT SHE WANTS WANDERING AROUND D.C.??? That’s it?? The disappointment I felt…. But, then, I thought about Rowan and wondered, “How powerful can HE really be if he had to, at the end of the day, testify in answering to the justice committee and wait on their judgment? As powerful as his testimony was, he was still at their mercy since they held the power to make the final decision to either go with Rowans’s wise suggestion or decide to put them all in jail? I thought he said nobody really took Command from him. I thought he was so powerful and ran everything in ways we didn’t see, and was waiting for his kind to join him up top? He was UP! TOP! I believed him! Up top where? He was sitting down somewhat below a line of white judges waiting to reign down their judgment on him, so…. Where was it? I didn’t see anything. But, there in was the problem with my perception. I was looking in the wrong place; my perception needed adjustment. I was looking for something external, measurable. Something that I could tangibly witness. I heard Rowan say the power was internal, but for him, I thought the internal was also exercised externally in commanding this Papa Pope power that I could measure! I was so used to seeing external power as THE show of power on Scandal, that I expected it had to be displayed if Rowan was talking about it. I used to believe Jake had that kind of inner power to some degree, but since he was being dumped on and disrespected so abusively, being called a b**** by everyone, I thought Scandal didn’t really acknowledge that kind of power. I had to think more, and thinking on Rowan’s speech to Jake again, listening to his court speech, and reading a few key comments made by viewers helped to adjust my perception to eventually get the answer to my question about Olivia’s destination.  That internal power Rowan talked about, exercised within the courtroom, really was internal!! And, when you truly connect with it inside of yourself, it brings you PEACE. It’s an awakening, at least as I see it. You don’t NEED external resources of power to prop you up. You don’t need to show it off, you don’t need praise and position and acknowledgment and glory. It can’t be given, and it can’t be taken away. You really are sitting “up top” of everything when you connect with such substantial power. Everything IS slower when amongst people who don’t have or connect with such SUPERIOR internal power. You have nothing to prove to anyone, and therefore have a great deal of resilience to other’s negativity, opinions, or approval.

The realization of and inner peace with internal power was Olivia’s destination. As we witnessed, Olivia struggled to arrive here from Scandal’s beginning. She nearly lost her soul in chasing other’s approval and recognition of her value this season in commanding B613 and functioning as COS. It was all based on hidden insecurity so much that, when she resigned from the WH, she questioned having power at all. She silently feared failing Annalise Keating in the crossover episode, covering it with looking down on Annalise and using the public mess of her life as a scapegoat for her own fears and failure in the trouble they experienced getting to the Supreme Court. Yet, back then she was able to see the internal power she really had in beating out WH opposition in Mellie to gain access to the Supreme Court. So, currently, Olivia has arrived to her destination of inner peace in claiming her power and freedom it gives. No elaborate show of B613 Command or controlling the president, or any other glory vehicle; just her power. She is now “up top” with Rowan, he isn’t alone anymore.

Olivia isn’t the only one to have found inner peace with their own substantial power; Jake has found his way back to his substance as well. He always had this also, but with the barrage of disrespectful blows he took to his value and worth from so many at one time, combined with his own hidden insecurities, Jake lost himself for a while…  Although with harsh words, David helped Jake to re-connect with himself once again before he died. David may have said harsh things, but he also encouraged him to pick up the white hat again, because he believed Jake still had a chance. Of course, David also tapped so boldly into his own inner strength in standing up to a Jake Ballard gone wild with a gun pointed at him! Jake, being a man not afraid to kill, David was certainly courageous in the face of sheer danger. In that moment, he found his own freedom, something he was willing to die for.

After considering everyone individually, I then realized that Olivia, Jake, and Rowan have this one thing in common in the finale; a quiet, peaceful and substantial power surging within them! Rowan, in the way he descried in his speech and displayed in his courtroom words;  Olivia in finally understanding that she doesn’t need the assistance of external glory vehicles to attain and prove REAL power; and Jake at peace in holding the weight of the Republic’s sins squarely on his shoulders; the sacrificial sin eater, even paying for David’s death.  I always believed that Shonda wanted these kinds of people to come out of the shadows to stand in Scandal’s foreground to get their due recognition and honors, as well as positions of great leadership, at least Olivia Pope as the female star, but Shonda wanted Olivia to realize the truth of her massive power for herself, nothing propping her up in the form of a leadership position so there is no mistake of her self-awareness! Likewise for Jake. Jake’s massive power that so many underestimated and believed he had none of is best shown by him not only paying for his sins, but unfairly paying for all of THEIR sins as well, with a smile on his face and peace in his soul, while they cheer, judge and look down on him! They are FREE because he is paying their price in a “Christ-like” sacrificial way. This is the second time Shonda is making the analogy between Jake sacrificing and Christ’s sacrificing for the world. Jake is strong enough to carry this out massive debt, learning as a little child how to travel within himself to find peace from the horror of his abusive world. Had Jake somehow gotten off or others helped pay their own debt, it would have diminished the boldly showing just how false other’s beliefs of Jake truly are. Rowan yelling at Jake was essentially Jake receiving the “you have to be twice as good” speech. From Rowan’s perspective, don’t come to him with anything less, because that’s failure to him, even if you are above the others in the specific value. It needs to be 100%; twice as good. Not Fitz, Mellie, Huck (too damaged already), Quinn and Charlie (they have a family now, and Quinn was already ready to jet on everyone!), or Abby can be at peace in doing what Jake is doing for life. Rowan has already did his time as a black man in America, and it certainly isn’t going to fall on the shoulders of the black female to pay all the sins; she is already at the bottom of societies barrel serving and slaving, so Jake had to do it. A sacrifice had to be made for the reset and refresh of the Republic (taken from the Bible in saying a sacrifice has to be made for sins), so Jake had to do it. And he could take it.

Shonda stated Scandal wasn’t a fantasy, and although I’ve had to suspend reality on more than a few occasions, I suppose she wanted to show some kind of realism in keeping such people’s value silent behind the scenes. The public won’t know all that they’ve done, but don’t need to know. A white man was made to pay for everything to ultimately maintain the conscious/sub-conscious public perspective of white supremacy, white people such as Mellie and Fitz are perceived as the clean and appropriate great power of the strongest nation in all the world, Cyrus is free, those who deserve recognition won’t necessarily ever get it, etc. I guess it was important to Shonda that real power recognize their own power and be at peace in knowing the truth, that they are the great part of making their nation great. Recognition or no recognition, this is the truth, and without them, there would be no great America. Do such people deserve the full value of acknowledgment and appreciation for their massive contributions to their country that they helped build and held up? Yes, indeed! It’s owed, it belongs to them; they’ve EARNED their recognition, equality and respect! But, the reality is, it hasn’t happened. It is a real life journey we are currently on to rectify such wrongs. Olivia Pope knows the source of her true power now; she knows who SHE is and embraces her truth in silent peace. She is the help no longer. She has appreciation for people like her father and Jake now, who she used to undervalue and take for granted. Another very important lesson that she learned is the value of teamwork. She can ask for help with ease now, knowing that she does not have to be a one-black woman-band. She doesn’t have to save and serve the nation all by herself; she doesn’t have figure out the entire plan, define its steps, and actively work to employ it all by herself. This is where Shonda divided the need to finally purge the Republic of its sins for a much needed cleansing and reset between 3 key characters: Olivia, Rowan, and Jake.

After initially watching, I was SO angry at Shonda for seemingly showing Olivia to be so stupid and weak in making this huge mess that she could not clean up; daddy had to swoop in and save the day! I found it shocking, incredible, bizarre, and beyond absurd that the great feminist Shonda Rhimes would have the Formidable Olivia Pope go out like that! I was angry that Olivia needed sex from one man to make her feel better about buckling under the great mess she made, then having another man swoop down to save her! I was heartbroken, so upset that I actually shed tears for Olivia, as well as for what seemed to be Jake’s meaningless presence in all of Scandal. I was angry at Olivia, and… I honestly even found myself getting angry at Jake for being so weak in allowing all of this to happen to him. As expressed already, I have clarity now that Shonda meant none of what I incorrectly perceived, and that she didn’t abandon Olivia or Jake. In its way, Shonda’s intention for them is quite poetic relative to the meaning of why things happened the way they did. The reality of it all IS sad, it’s unfair; they wall work so hard in helping to keep America afloat and sacrificed so much, but citizens will spend their lives thanking and honoring others for work they didn’t do. Still, I also have appreciation for Shonda dividing out the great save of the Republic between Olivia, Rowan, and Jake and not leaving Olivia to do it all alone. How exactly was the great save divided out?

1. Olivia identified what needed to be done: Take down B613

2. Rowan presented the tactical plan for how this would be carried out and who would be responsible

3. Jake, the soldier, actively carried out Rowan’s plan in becoming the Christ-like sacrifice in taking responsibility for everything by taking the blame for all sins – including David’s death - and going to jail for life.

With the effort of all 3, the Republic’s sins are paid for, cleansed, and reset. Everyone else has a fresh new start in life in being free to do better. Scandal has always shown that sacrifices have to be made for great things to happen. It’s plain to see that Scandal has drawn on Biblical ideas, figures, meanings, and purposes in helping to craft certain character’s personality qualities and story purpose. Scandal has done this specifically for Rowan and Jake, where Shonda oddly enough has attempted to loosely infuse a Christ-like purpose in the Jake Ballard’s character. I talked more about Jake relative to this quality under Mike Burn’s post, so I won’t delve into that here. One important thing God says in the Bible is that sins HAVE to be paid for with a sacrifice, “without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.” I don’t know how specific Shonda wanted to get in regards to how the God states sin has to be paid for, but it seems that David was the innocent blood that needed to be shed as part of the price, then Jake was nailed to the proverbial cross for all the sins in being jailed for life. Obviously, there is absolutely NOTHING Biblical about Scandal! However, I can see Shonda’s own intentions and attempts that I objectively speak on here.

I can now appreciate the fact that Olivia obviously couldn’t’ pull off what she wanted to do alone. The cleansing and resetting of the entire, corrupt Republic for a new start required help! Olivia, having evolved along her journey, had no problems asking her father for help in carrying out her epic task, which needed to be done (when I say needed to be done, I’m speaking on SHONDA’S intentions, because I never thought B613 was bad or evil in and of itself. That all depended on its Command and other elements of choices made.). Olivia did her part in identifying the problem and what needed to be done. I’m satisfied with Olivia in this now. Neither her father, nor Jake came up with this epic need or believed that it could or should be done through destroying B613. Olivia did, and moved forward with the need, even if that meant they ALL had to go to jail. She was willing to pay the price. I believe Olivia could do it, the OTHERS? Nope! But, Olivia would ultimately be fine. We’ve witnessed her resilience to all kinds of things throughout Scandal, and like Jake, she understands isolation well, and came through it. Anyway, initially Rowan was ready to run. He didn’t initially agree with what she was doing, and after leaving her with important documents meant for her security, he was out! The one thing he was right about was advising her that always serving others in cleaning up their mess was not good. He was certainly right, which she came to understand. Rowan eventually decided to help Liv. Being the wise and experienced brotha that he is, and understanding how to deal with supremacist America better than Olivia, was able to speak bold and enlightening truths in the courtroom to lay out his tactical plan of action in how they should move forward in judgment should they want to maintain their false public images of supremacy. You better blame it on a white man! Jake, being the exceptionally resilient soldier and human being that he is, was able to bear such an epic responsibility on his shoulders without crumbling. Rowan knew that of Jake. Jake could pay the price, because he had the substance to pay the price without breaking. Jake lovers would have a very hard time accepting that Rowan of all people would have the audacity to make Jake Ballard of all people pay for HIS sins. We saw how he abused and beat Jake into submission in becoming his son. Physical, emotional, and mental abuse. What’s more, he refused to let Jake or any other son ever be free of B613, threatening death should they ever even think of trying to or challenging him. Now, he presently moves the committee to make Jake pay for all of his sins in B613; make him responsible. It’s haaaard to make peace with that, but I have based on Shonda’s intentions, and understanding why Shonda wants Jake to be the one to do it. It’s a horrible and most unfair fate, but that in turn serves to highlight Jake’s inner power that he has in abundance; an exceptional value that other characters, as well as viewers, questioned about Jake. If you understand the heart of this, then you can see the greater meaning in this for Jake. Shonda didn’t meticulously craft Jake the way she did, in ways many who saw and understood respected, and keep him around through to the very end as a key character for nothing. Just to destroy his character and bizarrely and make him a villain in the blink of an eye. No, his purpose, his fate has tremendous meaning for him that I can greatly appreciate now, even though visibly sad. Life is unfair sometimes, and you don’t always get what you deserve. That’s reality. None of that has to destroy the epic-ness of your inner value, however. Jake’s inner value was a key player in the great fight, and it didn’t fail. He carried out his mission and is part of the reason everyone else is free and happy now, even the woman he loves, Olivia Pope. What did he say he got out of it? He felt happiness in his life once, a man who never had happiness, and he was grateful enough to have fallen in love with Olivia. It was worth it to him, and the love HE had would take him through his time in jail forever. If that is not an EPIC love to you; if you still can’t see how great this man’s love is, then you’ll just unfortunately never know… Somebody pointed out that when Olivia told Fitz everything was her fault, Fitz didn’t say anything to counter that. However, even in jail for life, when Olivia told Jake it was her fault what has happened to him, he countered in comforting her to say don’t worry. Don’t apologize, because he got the chance to love her, which was worth it to him. This is all, for now.

One other extremely important thing the finale shows me is that Shonda continued to set truths, reality and substance in the background. I thought things would come into the light this final season, especially in the finale, which is why I was so initially disappointed. I thought that everything playing out in the foreground was all the truth now and background life became meaningless. But, she actually didn’t stray from setting truths and reality in the background in the finale at all. This informs me that, a great deal of all we talked about regarding what’s happening behind the scenes of the foreground was correct. For instance, in the crossover episode, Jake worrying about the opponents to Olivia’s efforts with Annalise and covertly wording things in the hopes of Quinn waking up to realize she shouldn’t stand in Liv’s way is the truth. In his silent way, he was worried about and trying to help Olivia.