If You Miss The Latest “Scandal” Episode, You Can Always Catch Up with “Cartoon Scandal”

I’m a sucker for Scandal, the Shonda Rhimes-produced ABC TV political thriller starring Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn. However, I did not start watching the show until last spring, just before it went on hiatus. I don’t go off willy-nilly to embrace TV drama shows—for example, it took me a long time to even watch Cheers. But I got hooked after members of my black women’s Facebook group seemed to turn into mini-Gladiators.

I now belong to at least three Facebook groups— Scandal Watch Party, Scandal–It’s Handled, ScandalHolics—that follow and comment on Facebook about the show that has black women swooning and black men simmering about the illicit affair between political fixer Olivia Pope and President Fitzgerald Grant. However, some brothers are also members of the Scandal groups, both straight and gay. Men are at least 26% of Scandal‘s audience, and on the FB pages, male viewers sometimes give their own critiques of the show in online videos on FB as well as indulging, along with the women, in some of the most hilarious scene-by-scene commentary I have read in years.

Black men are generally bummed out about black women’s attraction for story lines involving romantic love between black women and white men, and Scandal is no different. They get mad and they stay mad. I think that it stems from black men wanting to be the one and only with black women, even as they chase after other women of color and white women. With Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. (Central Time) becoming a time when black women simply will not tolerate interruption or bullcrap, I think some black men want to understand why Scandal has such a pull with black women and will follow the show to engage in dialogue with black women on Facebook and elsewhere. And then there are others who will shout out that Liv is nothing less than a whore.

Don’t get me or them wrong. Few of the women or the men would actually commit in real life the kinds of things Liv, her sinister dad, Eli/Rowan Pope (the head of a CIA off-shoot called B613), Jake, or Fitz would do. In short, Scandal is a kind of modern statement on morality—and how it clashes with politics and power. Even religion is at the service of power. We comment on Liv’s increasing dependence on fine wine, Mellie’s hairdos, Cyrus’ Nelly nervousness that would have landed him in the hospital with a coronary several times, and Quinn becoming drawn to the dark side that Huck once inhabited as a former torturer and assassin for B613.

We viewers just hope that eventually Liv will get out from under Fitz, who is pretty much a murdering sociopath, and maybe end up with Jake, who is unmarried, in love with her, and who has gone rogue from B613. But, oooh, is it hard when one is tempted to do the wild thing with the president of the United States. But that’s love. And issues that motivate people like you and me mean absolutely nothing to these people.

What people will do for power fuels this show like gasoline. Fitz wants power over Liv, Mellie wants power over Fitz, and Cyrus wants power over everybody. Eli/Rowan? Limitless power. Money is only the means by which power is bought. Assumption of that power has no price. Unfortunately, power also gives some people the wherewithal to kill people, innocent or not, which is a no-no in any culture. The backdoor D.C. is almost like the Rome of I, Claudius. And this state of affairs cannot last.

Don’t ever miss an episode. At least, I have On Demand, so that I can catch up if I miss a showing. But if you really want a short recap of what happened, rely on KevOnStage’s Cartoon Scandal on You Tube.

KevOnStage is really Kevin Fredericks, a comedian. He voices all of the characters on Cartoon Scandal,whether male or female, and that is where the silliness really begins, because Fredericks isn’t someone like Daws Butler or Don Messick or Mel Blanc. He lowers his voice for the males and uses a higher key for the women. But it’s all the same voice in colloquial and slang language that we can all understand. It’s send-up, critique, and homage, and of course, Shonda Rhimes heard about it—and approved. Each episode is only about three and a half minutes long. That’s enough time to get a lot of laughs.

Above is the latest Cartoon Scandal by Fredericks. If you check the left hand of the video, you can watch all six recap episodes, with cartoon Liv wearing anything white. You can subscribe to Fredericks’ You Tube site—he does stand-up and other projects—here. Abandon hope that it will be anything serious.