'Scandal' Will Not Live As Long As 'Grey's'

Nothing gold can last forever. Similarly, nothing as cracktastic and frantic as Scandal can stay on the air forever, much as many ABC execs may covet it. In fact, Shonda Rhimes thinks Scandal will last eight seasons or less — and she already knows exactly what that ending will entail. And, yes, that ending revolves around the question of Fitz and Olivia.

Here's what Rhimes told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview:

I’ve already decided when Scandal is ending. I think there’s only so much Scandal you can tell satisfactorily. The Fitz-Liv thing can only be told so long and in such a way. It’s not a 10-season or eight-season show. I’ve already decided how long that is and what that’s going to be. I’m not really worry about that.

This, it would seem, makes Scandal very different from Grey's Anatomy , which seems to be eternal and destined to float around the primetime soap ether until the very concept of television becomes irrelevant and Meredith Grey's infant daughter grows up and passes her medical boards.

Scandal is going into its fourth season and an overwhelming amount of drama has already gone down, so it's kind of intimidating to imagine five more years of Olivia and Fitz dancing around each other and making each other terrible people. Can Scott Foley survive that long on that show? Will the narrative eventually go full Alias and just give itself over to sci-fi and/or give Olivia an evil twin? Is five more seasons too much or not enough time?

Who the hell knows. I think the moral of this news is that we should prepare ourselves for a few more years of endless, repetitive monologues.

Image: ABC