The cast of Scandal took to Twitter yesterday and each revealed their new individual promo shot with the theme “The Storm is Coming.” While it’s hard to exactly measure how much this social media interaction from the cast helps with their ratings, I think it is safe to say that Scandal is one of the most talked about shows on social media and when it returns on October 3 it will be interesting to see if there is a significant increase in the amount of Scandal related tweets. All summer my feed has been full of people catching up all things Olivia Pope (myself included) and so the prospect of the new season is making me a little giddy.
At the end of season 2 the press found out that Olivia is the other woman in Fitz’s life and it was revealed that Olivia’s father is the highly influential B613 boss Rowan, so yes a storm is indeed coming. In the promo world this storm goes from metaphorical to real and the cast get wet to varying degrees and now I’m wondering what it means that some get umbrellas while others get completely soaked – this is probably due to all the past theorizing for shows like Lost or Mad Men where every single detail means something (or nothing at all). When is an umbrella just an umbrella?
Olivia is probably the one weathering the biggest storm (ok Fitz is probably equal on this matter) and she is the one who is used to fixing other people; what will it mean for the dynamic of Olivia Pope & Associates now that Olivia is the one that needs help? Will she finally open herself up to everyone? Olivia gets an umbrella because of course she is prepared and this amazing Burberry white trench is the very same one I picked for the Olivia Pope Fantasy Costuming piece, a Fantasy Costuming first!
The bowed down position is reminiscent of the famous John F. Kennedy portrait (recently recreated by Rob Lowe for “Killing Kennedy”). Fitz has a lot to contemplate after the outing of Olivia; is this one scandal too many for this administration to survive? And yes, Fitz gets an umbrella.
This is my favorite shot from this collection and I like to think she is saying “Come at me with all you have got!” Mellie doesn’t need an umbrella. She’s also dressed in dark colors signifying that she is Olivia’s opposite and we know just how far Mellie is willing to go to keep her place in the White House. Mellie is one of the most interesting characters on the show because she goes beyond the usual Lady Macbeth imagery of whispering in the ear of the powerful man; she has this strength all by herself when he doesn’t listen to her. You can see a glimpse of pearls and this traditional First Lady look is as much her uniform as the white and neutral tones are Olivia’s.
No umbrella for Abby either and this is a pretty sexy shot. It’s been teased that we will be finding out more about Abby’s past and while we know that she was in an abusive marriage, beyond that it’s pretty much a blank slate. Hopefully the same applies to Harrison as his support for Olivia is unwavering; there needs to be a bigger reason as to why he is willing to do anything for Olivia beyond the help she gave with his past legal woes.
David’s going to be in an interesting position when we return as he has been both the betrayed and the betrayer; this has secured him a huge career bump as the new U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Is this going to leave him out in the cold? He has worked with and against Olivia and complications arose thanks to his relationship with Abby; is there hope for this pair? While I enjoyed David as one of the Gladiators, it will be good to see him return as antagonist and sometime friend.
For the rest of the cast shots check out the gallery below.
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