Scandal is the first series of its kind to have a black woman – Kerry Washington – in the lead role. The second season is shaping up to be as addictive as the first
The opening episode of the second season of *Scandal* (More4) brought all those viewers who blinked and missed the first series of just seven episodes rapidly up to speed. Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is still a former White House communications director who has slept with the married president and left to run her own crisis management firm so that she could fulfil her professional potential and stop sleeping with the married president so much. The married president's wife is still pregnant-to-save-their-marriage-and-more-importantly-keep-them-in-the-White-House and colder than a Narnian winter. Oh, and Olivia's first-season recruit Quinn Perkins is still really Lyndsey Dwyer, though she has now spent six months in federal detention awaiting her trial for the murder of her unfaithful boyfriend and six others via the bomb she supposedly sent to his office before someone grabbed her, drugged her and provided her with a new identity when she woke up two days later in a Washington hotel. Olivia still knows something about how that all went down, and is still refusing to say anything about it. Occasionally, people remonstrate with her about this, but as Kerry Washington can do unbridled fury like no one else on network television, they don't do it for long.
I hope we're all clear. Amid all the swift but thorough recapping and exposition, two minor subplots played out. Olivia advises a young, handsome congressman how to spin the revelation of a sextape (mainly by saying: "I'm a young, handsome congressman and what I'd really like to talk about once you've had a good look at my sex tape is My Pet Important Social Issue That Shows I'm Really A Good Guy"). That all goes superbly, if not entirely realistically, well because Olivia is so superbly, if not entirely realistically, good at her job. She also advises the president on how to react when the first lady tries to use a big TV interview they are doing together to force him to declare war on East Sudan (in the wings, Lady MacBeth curtseys graciously and retires for ever). This also goes s. if not e. r. well, because by now it is clear that La Pope is as infallible as her namesake.
Then there is a big reveal at the end which, because I gather that people still do not like to wait and read reviews after they have watched the programme, I am not going to spoil. But if you don't learn soon to watch first and read later, I am going to send Kerry Washington to shout at you all.
Scandal is better by miles than Law & Order and all its progeny and not as good as Damages. But it is still so addictive that I had to watch the second episode the kind preview folk had provided as soon as it was finished. Kind preview folk often do this, but it is not often that I avail myself of the opportunity. But it has that elusive, alchemical magic that those in the industry spend their lives chasing and the more it supplies, the greater the craving for it becomes.
It is a surprise and groundbreaking hit in the US as the first series of its kind to have a black woman in not just a but the leading role. It was created and written, moreover, by another black woman – Shona Rimes, who also created Gray's Anatomy. It boggles the mind that it has taken until 2013 for this to be the case, but there you go and here we are, at last.
Let us turn now to less momentous but no less mindboggling facts – namely, the continued career of Gregg Wallace. Why people keep employing this man to shout at viewers and various unfortunates on screen remains a mystery but his latest outing is presenting *Summer's Supermarket Secrets* (BBC1). This looks at the alternately terror- and awe-inspiring ways in which western civilisation bends nature to its will to ensure that it has perfect bananas (ripened in their millions in ethylene-impregnated chambers after their voyage from South America) and strawberries (mechanically tested for durability, texture and sweetness) on its supermarket shelves all year round. Everything, Gregg informs us – when he's not yelling at strawberry tasters about how they "MUST POO A BUCKET OF PIPS EVERY NIGHT!!" ("No," replied the taster, quietly. "You adapt to it") – is "ON AN EPIC SCALE!"
It is always amazing to watch anything being produced ON AN EPIC SCALE – and if you were so minded you could take what was shown and spin off into a world of worry about the equally EPIC SCALE on which nemesis will surely one day arrive as a result of our massive consumption and self-indulgence, but on its own, Summer's Supermarket Secrets was essentially one of those filmed-in-a-factory Sesame Street segments extended and presented by Animal. Next week – AUTUMN!!! Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 days ago.
The opening episode of the second season of *Scandal* (More4) brought all those viewers who blinked and missed the first series of just seven episodes rapidly up to speed. Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is still a former White House communications director who has slept with the married president and left to run her own crisis management firm so that she could fulfil her professional potential and stop sleeping with the married president so much. The married president's wife is still pregnant-to-save-their-marriage-and-more-importantly-keep-them-in-the-White-House and colder than a Narnian winter. Oh, and Olivia's first-season recruit Quinn Perkins is still really Lyndsey Dwyer, though she has now spent six months in federal detention awaiting her trial for the murder of her unfaithful boyfriend and six others via the bomb she supposedly sent to his office before someone grabbed her, drugged her and provided her with a new identity when she woke up two days later in a Washington hotel. Olivia still knows something about how that all went down, and is still refusing to say anything about it. Occasionally, people remonstrate with her about this, but as Kerry Washington can do unbridled fury like no one else on network television, they don't do it for long.
I hope we're all clear. Amid all the swift but thorough recapping and exposition, two minor subplots played out. Olivia advises a young, handsome congressman how to spin the revelation of a sextape (mainly by saying: "I'm a young, handsome congressman and what I'd really like to talk about once you've had a good look at my sex tape is My Pet Important Social Issue That Shows I'm Really A Good Guy"). That all goes superbly, if not entirely realistically, well because Olivia is so superbly, if not entirely realistically, good at her job. She also advises the president on how to react when the first lady tries to use a big TV interview they are doing together to force him to declare war on East Sudan (in the wings, Lady MacBeth curtseys graciously and retires for ever). This also goes s. if not e. r. well, because by now it is clear that La Pope is as infallible as her namesake.
Then there is a big reveal at the end which, because I gather that people still do not like to wait and read reviews after they have watched the programme, I am not going to spoil. But if you don't learn soon to watch first and read later, I am going to send Kerry Washington to shout at you all.
Scandal is better by miles than Law & Order and all its progeny and not as good as Damages. But it is still so addictive that I had to watch the second episode the kind preview folk had provided as soon as it was finished. Kind preview folk often do this, but it is not often that I avail myself of the opportunity. But it has that elusive, alchemical magic that those in the industry spend their lives chasing and the more it supplies, the greater the craving for it becomes.
It is a surprise and groundbreaking hit in the US as the first series of its kind to have a black woman in not just a but the leading role. It was created and written, moreover, by another black woman – Shona Rimes, who also created Gray's Anatomy. It boggles the mind that it has taken until 2013 for this to be the case, but there you go and here we are, at last.
Let us turn now to less momentous but no less mindboggling facts – namely, the continued career of Gregg Wallace. Why people keep employing this man to shout at viewers and various unfortunates on screen remains a mystery but his latest outing is presenting *Summer's Supermarket Secrets* (BBC1). This looks at the alternately terror- and awe-inspiring ways in which western civilisation bends nature to its will to ensure that it has perfect bananas (ripened in their millions in ethylene-impregnated chambers after their voyage from South America) and strawberries (mechanically tested for durability, texture and sweetness) on its supermarket shelves all year round. Everything, Gregg informs us – when he's not yelling at strawberry tasters about how they "MUST POO A BUCKET OF PIPS EVERY NIGHT!!" ("No," replied the taster, quietly. "You adapt to it") – is "ON AN EPIC SCALE!"
It is always amazing to watch anything being produced ON AN EPIC SCALE – and if you were so minded you could take what was shown and spin off into a world of worry about the equally EPIC SCALE on which nemesis will surely one day arrive as a result of our massive consumption and self-indulgence, but on its own, Summer's Supermarket Secrets was essentially one of those filmed-in-a-factory Sesame Street segments extended and presented by Animal. Next week – AUTUMN!!! Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 days ago.