The Scandal-HTGAWM Crossover that Extended Black History Month an Extra Day

Olivia Pope and Annalise Keating have represented strength, grace, intelligence, and power for the combined 11 seasons that they’ve shared the ABC network. They gave women an opportunity to have a stance in two worlds that are generally demanded by men. But they gave black women hope. It’s not often that black women are represented on television as high-powered with influence and intellect that propels them to succeed in their every endeavor. We are the angry black woman, a stereotype that leaked into media after we were branded with it during our everyday lives. And although the idea of a black woman being the chief of staff to two presidents and a black woman being a law professor while practicing law and rarely losing cases doesn’t seem ordinary by the standards of many in this nation, Kerry Washington and Viola Davis make you believe that it’s possible. So, in Scandal’s final season and at the peak of How to Get Away with Murder’s success, we finally get TWO crossover episodes featuring our favorite Thursday night female fixers.

For television tropes, and for those like myself who are avid TGIT watchers, these episodes revolved around a theme of redemption. The crossover picks up roughly three months after Olivia’s fall from grace. She is now a professor teaching a course titled ‘How to Survive a Scandal.’ Her recent misdeeds have made her a political pariah, her ex-friends hate her (a lot), and she still finds herself on the thin line between good and evil. This episode represents her chance to get back in good standing to begin to make up for all her wrongdoings.

If these episodes are Olivia’s chance for redemption, then this is Annalise’s redemption SEASON. Annalise has approached Olivia in efforts to obtain aid from her long list of powerful friends – Annalise needs Olivia’s (former) D.C. influence, as well as her expertise in ‘fixing’, to get her class action suit heard before the Supreme Court. She lost the case in the state court but refuses to quit and wants to try her hand in the Supreme Court. She’s fighting for people who did not have a chance for fair representation in the way that she did. And that’s saying a lot. Annalise is guilty of the majority of the crimes that she committed, and she STILL got off every time. It seems that Annalise may feel that it’s time to ‘pay it forward’ and that this will begin her journey on the road to redemption.

But it’s not the plot of the episodes that shows how unapologetically black these two women are, it’s the small nuances in some major scenes of the two hours.

THESE COLORS ARE MORE THAN THEY SEEM

Let’s get into this fashion before anything else! The wardrobe options for these two powerhouses have always been amazingly chosen, but nothing filled my heart with more joy than seeing Olivia Pope AND Annalise Keating in those trench coats together! Viola Davis looks amazing in yellow, and Kerry Washington was workin’ that blue. But Olivia Pope being spotted in any colors other than black, white, or red piqued my interest. And when Annalise sported the yellow dress when visiting the Supreme Courtroom for the first time, I was convinced that I was missing a hidden gem that Shonda Rhimes was pointing out. 

When we first met Olivia Pope she always donned the proverbial white hat and much of her wardrobe consisted of white pieces. The color white represents honesty, truth, loyalty, and justice; characteristics that made up Olivia and the members of OPA. As the series continued, and with the drama that ensued in her life, her wardrobe darkened, and she began to wear darker hues which represent mystery, power, fear, and the unknown – remember when she was kidnapped and ransomed? That was around the time that shaped Olivia into the monster that she became in the more recent seasons. Red became her color of choice upon securing Mellie’s spot as the first female president of the United States and taking over her dad’s spot as leader of B613. Red represents danger, strength, power, and determination, all of which we saw consuming Olivia within this last season. Now that she has fallen from grace, Olivia seems to be wearing variations of gray-blue which represent depth, trust, sincerity, wisdom, confidence, stability, and intelligence; these are the characteristics that need to shine through more than ever on Olivia’s road to redemption. 

Annalise, on the other hand, never seemed to strictly favor one color over another within her wardrobe in the series. Whatever color she wore it was always in the darker shades (i.e. maroon, navy, and forest green). To see Annalise in yellow was surprising and refreshing, and it exuberated the emotions that she felt at the time of wearing the color: happiness, positivity, optimism, intellect, honor, and joy. During her trial date with the Supreme Court, she wore all navy blue, representing stability, consciousness, power, integrity, and seriousness – qualities shown as she argued her case. Stability is what Annalise needs more than ever for the rest of the season with all the drama that is left to wrap up with her students’ crimes. 

CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

These two immensely talented actresses share their roles as the power figure onscreen flawlessly. Even during the scenes where the struggle to exert one’s power and wit over another, they both manage to break even, every time. That’s refreshing to see, particularly given the state of relationships that are normally depicted between two black women – two strong-willed women, whose reputations precede them, will never immediately hit it off. There is always a moment where one asserts superiority and the other succumbs. Pope and Keating are often the superior, but in this realm of crossover TV, they must share the role. 

It's not as if viewers did not expect to see these two women bump heads at every turn, but the introduction of colorism provided the most authentic moment between two strong women of color that I’ve ever witnessed. The night before an interview with Olivia and Annalise they both go to a beauty salon to get a wash-and-set – because we know we can’t go on tv looking a hot mess! Olivia previously told Annalise that the White House wouldn’t aid in their attempt to have the case heard in the Supreme Court due to her shady past, which includes alcoholism and alleged murder. But in this moment, Annalise finds out that Olivia’s transgressions were the real culprit behind the White House’s dismissal and in true Shonda-writing monologue fashion, the claws come out.

Feeling insulted, Annalise points out that Olivia feels as though her class advantages and social station make her superior, to which she is not. She also compares Olivia to “… a white man in a boardroom looking down on me because my hips are too wide and my hue’s too dark.” Was Annalise insinuating that Olivia’s lighter skin tone has given her advantages that those of darker-skin color do not receive? Hell yeah, she was, and it’s not an uncommon direction for a conversation to go when two people identify as one race but share different hues. It’s the internal systematic destruction of our race that was embedded by plantation owners when they decided to rape our women and treat their lighter offspring as slightly superior to others, but that’s another topic for another time. 

But this scene serves as a simple and powerful moment where two successful black women argue about what makes them different even as they sit next to each other in the beauty shop, an environment that is most known for equalizing black women of different backgrounds. It’s an authentic representation of how black women see each other and treat each other. Because in the end, we’re all fighting for the same goal and we’re all willing to help one another – just as Olivia and Annalise did once they acknowledged each other’s talents and impressive capabilities to have come so far, even while carrying the burden of being a black woman.

WE’VE COME SO FAR, BUT THERE’S A LONG WAY TO GO

March 1^st might as well had been February 29^th after this TV crossover event. Race relations are brought up in many facets of these episodes, but two aspects stick out to me the most. The basis of these episodes is to appear in front of the Supreme Court to argue that public defenders are short-handed, under extreme pressures, and unable to effectively provide the services that every alleged criminal is supposed to receive. When asked if Annalise was bringing race into the argument, although her case file never used it as the foundation behind her class-action suit, she replied yes. And it’s because it is. Most of the criminals that Annalise was trying to help were black people, and sadly enough, those are the people who receive the worst treatment from our justice system due to inability to pay for adequate counsel for themselves. This isn’t the first time this idea has bounced around the minds of many, but it’s the first time that anyone decided to try and do something about it. The potential win for Annalise is a big win for the reform of the justice system as well as those oppressed by it.

“After everything that happened, why are you here?” Olivia asks Marcus over drinks while deciding whether she was going to help Annalise or not. “We're black, which means I'll always be here for you, and I'll always root for you,” Marcus responds. That’s the bond of our race, it’s an unspoken rule for us to look out and help one another when possible. We’ve been doing it ever since slavery, and if hearing it from Marcus is what it took to get Olivia to get on board then we’ve made some progress with her after all.

One of the most moving moments of the show would seemingly be out of place if it weren’t for the context of the show and the amazing actress who brought the words to life. In the middle of one of her dementia fits, Ophelia, Annalise’s mom, spills food on Olivia and rushes along with her to help her clean her clothes. While there, they share a lovely moment where Ophelia tells Olivia she takes care of everybody but herself.

“Fixin'. Fixin', fixin', fixin'. Sometimes that doesn't leave you any time for yourself. I know this. Because I was you. I mean, not hanging with no presidents or anything like that. Just people needed me. People needed me, that's for sure. Sometimes I think this whole country would just fall apart if we weren’t around to clean up the mess.” The depth that Cicely Tyson gives to this short monologue evoked the emotions of decades of unfair abuse to people of color. The magnitude of Cicely Tyson herself is enough, but her performance in that bathroom seemed like a sincere actualization that Ophelia and Olivia reached together.

This is a nod to generations of black women and men who spent their lives in shackles and chains fixin’ up the plantation houses and the cotton fields. The mother whose newborn was torn from their breast to feed the child of the slaveowner. The women who tireless dragged themselves from bed to travel across big cities during the 50’s to take care of a white child in a house that did not pay them well or deem them worthy enough to be considered a person. From the field hands to the wet nurses, black people built this country up, and has kept it going this long, and continues to do all the fixin’. It’s remarkable to think about it; the emotional labor of women, particularly black women, always holding things together when they should fall apart.

These powerful women do as they were born to do, succeed. Vulnerability but resilience in challenging situations is what defines the strength of these women. And with both ladies feeling the need to redeem themselves, it’s almost perfect that they need each other to prosper. They prove that black women need not be angry and rude to get their points across. And for once, these two black powerful women come together to help further our plight, an occurrence that rarely happens in Scandal and is fairly new for HTGAWM. I think we’re all open to see more of the same.