5. It's Brutal
One of the main appeals of the show is that it's not merrily skipping along legal issues and resolving everything with a neat little bow. There is an understandable air of darkness and misery that sometimes clouds the show. Generally things don't descend into anything more maudlin than a police procedural might - bad things happen but they're always in the safety of being behind police tape and in interrogation rooms, away from our daily life. Scandal changes things up every once in a while, often to shocking and startling effect. One scene in the second season has Huck discovering utterly horrifying has happened to someone he cared about - it's played completely starkly, no cuts away to spare the viewer's pain. That's the scary, dark world that
Scandal has involved us in - when you're rolling with the big boys and girls, there's a price that comes with every risk.