Scandal, Shonda Rhimes’ ABC drama about a professional Washington "fixer," is unique in many ways, one of which is the fact that its main character, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is African American, and her race is a nonissue. In almost four seasons, Olivia has been involved in a rigged election; she’s found out that her father, the head of a shadowy intelligence agency, has held her mother, an international terrorist, in a maximum security prison for two decades; and she’s been kidnapped as a device to force the president to go to war with an African country to guarantee her safety—all while she's participated in a messy on/off affair with the commander in chief. Race has been overtly mentioned just twice: When Olivia told the president she was feeling kind of “Sally Hemmings/Thomas Jefferson” about their affair, and when Olivia’s father delivered a ferocious lecture to his child, telling her, “You have to be twice as good as them to get half of what they have.”
Thursday’s episode, “The Lawn Chair,” was different. Airing the same week that the Justice Department released its scathing report on the Ferguson Police Department, it presented a story that seemed directly inspired by the killing of Michael Brown, and that was a lesson in how to thoughtfully model fiction around real-life tragedy. Olivia was called out by the Washington Metropolitan Police Department to help minimize the backlash (the "optics," as the chief put it) after a black 17-year-old was shot and killed by a white cop four blocks from the Capitol. “I run a clean force,” the police chief told her. “The last thing I want is a riot that sets my city on fire.” But within minutes of her arrival, the dead teenager’s father appeared by his son’s body, fired a shotgun in the air, and demanded the police bring out “the cop who shot my son.” Trying to intervene, Olivia found herself in conflict both with the client who’d hired her, and a neighborhood activist, Marcus, who condemned her for being on the wrong side. “Helping … and cashing a check from the Washington Metro Police?” he said. “Impressive. What’s the going rate for playing both sides?”