[SPOILER ALERT]
Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder are the most stressful, frustrating two-hour block of network television I’ve ever committed to watching. Both shows are overplotted, their pace breakneck, their dialogue delivered so quickly at times viewers are bound to miss key points. They’re both marketed as “twisty,” meaning the last five minutes of each usually delivers a narrative turn meant to shock.
It’s a device that has worn thin with Scandal, now in its fifth season; it’s impossible to nail a satisfying plot twist every week, especially when we always know it’s coming. Now that How to Get Away with Murder begins just as Scandal’s closing credits stop rolling, it’s even harder. There’s no time to process the Scandal reveal before diving into the next disconcerting, hour-long head-rush.
Thursday night’s premieres in the US reminded me of that challenge, as both shows packed in as many turns as possible, while I struggled to keep up. There was one consolation. Both season openers were incredibly self-assured. Olivia Pope is back where we met her in the series premiere: sleeping in the White House. Gone are the kidnappers, the B-613 plot, her mustache-twirling parents — at least this week. We’re back to Pope and Associates solving cases for politicians and dignitaries, with a healthy dose of friend-and-lover drama on the side.
How to Get Away with Murder showed few signs of a sophomore slump, returning to its formula of introducing a new season-long arc. Just like last year, that arc involves a series regular lying bloodied in the floor, following a time-jump (three months later) — and it’s as gutsy a choice of victim as it was first season. The show also deftly reminded us of all the loose ends it still needs to tie: Annalise’s lover Nate remains falsely imprisoned, Conner and Oliver continue dealing with the latter’s HIV diagnosis, and the death of Wes’ girlfriend, Rebecca, is still unresolved.
In true How to Get Away with Murder fashion, the biggest of those outstanding plot resolutions — the one another show might drag out for a few episodes — was settled on Thursday night. We now know who killed Rebecca, which is great, because it’s time to turn our attention to this year’s big, season-long reveal. It’s too soon to tell whether starting new story arcs in medias res and working backward to solve a season-long murder plot will be an effective long-term strategy for this show, but its writers are definitely doubling down on it for Season 2.
Though Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder are distinct enough in tone, performance, and setting to avoid a sense of redundancy, airing them back to back does invite comparison. Thursday night’s premieres continued to drive home the distinctions between their protagonists.
Olivia’s work as a “fixer” has always served as a way to avoid her personal problems; Annalise constantly looks for others to fix her problems, both personal and professional. Liv is motivated by her attraction to one man and the power he represents, believing proximity to that power will make her feel less vulnerable. Annalise subverts and absorbs the power of those around her, using her private vulnerability as a snare.
Neither woman is good at romantic relationships, but only one of them — Liv — truly wants to be. And both are learning the downsides of choosing a support team of people who are personally indebted to them. In Liv’s case, it gets them tortured or killed; in Annalise’s case, as we were reminded last night, it makes everyone want to kill her.
Being able to observe two nuanced, infuriating, compelling black women characters working through their professional and personal angst on the same night every week has been worth the stress of breakneck pacing, fast, clipped dialogue, and plot twists that strain credulity. I’m looking forward to what this season holds for Olivia, who’s been at the work of reining in the same group of players for a while, and Annalise, who routinely underestimates her new students and overplays her hand as their mentor.
If these season premieres were an indication, we’re in for an anxious, exciting run.
Don’t miss it!
In the UAE, Scandal Season 5 airs at 10pm and How to Get Away With Murder airs at 11pm on OSN First HD every Sunday.
