Do you watch Scandal? I half-watch Scandal. Half-watching Scandal means I kind of pay attention as my wife watches it. There was a time when I fully watched Scandal, back during the first season or two, back when it was a show about a gang of no-nonsense problem-solvers getting work done to the lovely sounds of old school soul music. I would refer to those days as the good old days of Scandal.
Since then there has been way too much garbage time devoted to Olivia and Fitz’s torrid and doomed love affair and “securing the Oval” and getting people nominated, not nominated, maybe killed, maybe not killed, removed, separated, cured, etc. The list goes on and on. Scandal is a show whose target is a large moving object. Thus, I half-watch it. It’s fine. I don’t really miss all that much.
No one would ever accuse Scandal of jumping the shark. That would imply it was a show that was at one point grounded in some form of reality. Such an implication would be absurd. Scandal jumped the shark upon conception and hasn’t looked back since. Yet in an episode in the middle of season six, Scandal may have found a way to do the impossible. Scandal may have gone too far.
It started the week before.
Huck was shot.
See? That’s Huck.
He was shot.
Huck was shot multiple times, at close range by a pixie-looking assassin. As the episode cut to black, it looked like America’s favorite caveman assassin was a goner. Huck was bleeding…a lot. I’m not a doctor, but that seems problematic.
“Dead in the Water” kicked off with Huck in a trunk. There was also a dead body in the trunk. It was a lady who had something to do (maybe) with the President-elect being killed. The pixie-looking assassin was driving and Huck seemed to be waking up, yet by the time he realized where he was, the pixie-looking assassin was pushing the car off a cliff and into a body of water.
So to recap:
- Huck was shot multiple times at close range
- Huck was shoved into the back of a trunk
- The trunk was part of a car that was driving along a bumpy road
- That car was pushed off a cliff into a body of water, like a basin or something
- The car quickly started sinking
You would probably then be inclined to assume that Huck was now definitely a goner. There is no way anyone, not even Huck, could survive such a precarious, dire situation. Huck would surely die before the episode was over.
Right?
Nope.
Huck first got out of the trunk. He escaped into the enclosed car, a car that was rapidly filling with water. Huck, who we should remember was recently shot multiple times at close range, climbs to the driver’s seat…of a car submerging towards the bottom of a basin. I’d also wonder where such a basin exists outside of D.C. It looked like a setting from Breaking Bad, or the beginning of the second season of The Leftovers. Okay, but either way, Huck obviously can’t escape the car. Everyone knows you can’t open car doors in a submerging car because of the pressure. This is a fact. Your best bet is to climb out the window. But the windows of the car Huck is in are closed.
Huck is going to die.
Right?
Nope.
While battling visions of the squad trying to save him and Poppa Pope yelling at him, Huck grabs the head rest of the driver’s seat, removes it and starts ramming the driver’s side window. The car is still filling with water. Huck continues to ram the head rest against the window and obviously that won’t work.
Obviously.
Hold up.
It works. Or at least that’s the impression we get because even though we don’t actually see it, Huck pops up from the deep, dark basin. Success! But wait, Huck can’t swim. Ah, whatever. Huck swims to shore.
So to recap (again):
- Huck was shot multiple times at close range
- Huck was shoved into the back of a trunk
- The trunk was part of a car that was driving along a bumpy road
- That car was pushed off a cliff into a body of water, like a basin or something
- The car quickly started sinking
- Huck managed to escape the trunk, but then found himself still trapped in the car
- Huck seemed to not be having much luck using the prongs of the head rest to break the car window
- Huck apparently did break the window because he was able to escape the car and swim away from the sinking car
- Huck (who can’t swim) then had to try and swim to shore
- Huck made it to shore
So in conclusion: Huck is apparently Batman.
However, Huck’s saga doesn’t end there. There’s still something like fifteen minutes left of the episode.
While lying lifelessly on the beach, he is confronted by a new vision. This new vision is of a clean-shaven version of himself, a version of himself that begins berating him, calling him weak and reminding him that when night comes, so do the coyotes. Where the hell is this happening??? I’m sorry, but I have a hard time believing that there’s coyotes anywhere close to D.C. There’s vultures…but those are busy working in Congress, am I right?
Huck is now exhausted, suffering from bullet wounds that are still fresh and surely he wouldn’t then be able to fend off coyotes, right? Surely Huck is now going to die.
Right?
Right?
RIGHT?
No really, I’m asking because I stopped watching.
“Huck comes to, Quinn swoons, the Motown swells, and it feels like watching a joyful moment between characters with a much healthier backstory.”
What the hell?
So not only does Huck live, but Quinn, who discovered the blood-stained carpet in the room where he was shot, was able to find him? And do so before these mythical coyotes showed up and ate him alive? I’m sorry Scandal, but that’s insane, even for you. Huck had no business living and I think I can at least speak for some of the show’s audience when I say that Huck dying, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Shows kill off characters all the time. Just look at Game of Thrones. They do it and they seem to be doing okay.
Huck lived.
Come on.
Scandal wraps up Thursday night. Huck is still alive. Because of course he is.
Categories: Television
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