Introducing: The Scandal Roundtable 2.10: “One For The Dog”

Hosted by Joe Lamour and Kendra James

Welcome to our (semi)inaugural Scandal roundtable! How timely.

It looks like the people in this group are chatty–but also rather astute. Fabulous combination, if I do say so myself. If you need to reacquaint yourself with last week’s plot–Scandal 2.10 “One for the Dog” take a read here. This roundtable is to serve as an insight into the actions of the previous episode, so you go in refreshed and omniscient as I feel when I finish editing these.

In addition to Kendra James and me, joining us we have Loree Lamour, Zach Stafford, T.F. Charlton, Johnathan Fields, and Jordan St. John. And boy, we have quite the analysis for you, so I’m going to let you, the reader, get to it!

And remember! Spoilers lie below the cut. Spoil-y Spoilers.

Loree: Hello everyone! I’m so excited to be joining The Scandal Roundtable!

Zach: Ditto, Loree! I now have a better excuse to tell my roommate when he wonders why I keep watching episodes on repeat…not that I need to explain my love to him.

T.F.: Thirded! Super excited to get to dish with y’all about Scandal.

Johnathan: I won’t mention how my ears perk up each time I’m eavesdropping and hear the word ‘scandal’ pop up. Why does Shonda Rhimes have me in a perpetual state of distraction?

Jordan: Oh guys. I am so obsessed–the show, the characters, the clothes… This show had me sifting thru after Christmas sale racks thinking “Is this something Olivia Pope would wear?” The answer was usually no. Also, I am still on the hunt for a discount version of her wrap coat that fits me right although I have no illusions that I will look like Kerry Washington in it.

Joe: Welcome, sister of mine! And Zach, Johnathan, Jordan, T.F., and Kendra (even though Kendra helps host this, I’m welcoming her. I’m nice like that.) I’m pretty excited to get our Scandal related conversations down on paper! Or…down on screen…I guess. This Roundtable has quite the roster. Now, on to the episode! Which should have been named Huck Presents: The Guantanamo Bay Hour.

Kendra: Oh wait, was it Scandal we were watching? I assumed we were reviewing Homeland. My bad. That explains the strange amount of color on my screen.

Loree: It was a great episode…minus the torture to Huck in the beginning. But he took it like a warrior.

Joe: Regardless, that torture porn served as part of what I felt was this week’s theme: how fleeting power can be.

Jordan: I was intrigued by Rhimes’ decision to show the explicit nature of the “enhanced interrogation” scene and hope it is something the producers talk about in the future. They could have shown the aftermath of the interrogation or placed it all on the Hollis Doyle and Sally Langston characters, but only David Rosen seemed to have issue with it fundamentally. Everyone else’s only concern was that it was Huck. I wonder what that spells for our dear “Becky,” but I am getting ahead of myself. Rhimes also allowed for a pretty convincing counterargument to Rosen’s little speech which essentially boiled down to “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth! Etc., etc.” Power was certainly a storyline but for me, there was definitely a through-line of the price paid for it. As Harrison says later, when you are making real decisions and dealing with real power, no one gets to stay clean, and everyone plays a price.

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