7 Real Struggles Of The Most Avid Scandal Fans

1. The cast’s life outside of Scandal.

Speaking of that shutter stopping…what signals a significant dip in life purpose, general happiness, and mental sanity for the average Scandal devotee is, for the Scandal cast, a reprieve. And, yeah, if we’re being honest here, that hurts. It hurts to know that Olivia, Jake, Fitz, Huck, and the rest of the gang have lives that extend beyond the TV screen. Of course if Fitz and Jake led lives outside of Scandal that were bereft of girlfriends or wives, we’d be willing to move past this, but they don’t, and that chilling fact cuts deeper than any of Huck’s torture tools.

2. Olivia’s PTSD.

So, it was neither discovering that her father is actually the head of a secret shadow organization who also tried to kill all of her boyfriends, nor suffering through her mother’s sudden death and subsequent resurrection as a renowned terrorist, but rather a week-long kidnapping stint that left Olivia strangled and stifled by a bad case of PTSD.

We’re not claiming we would have fared any better in a hostage/human raffle situation (I mean just look at how we’re dealing with this fictional case of PTSD right now). It’s just not something we’re used to — that’s all.

Her long-awaited, much-hyped trip with Jake to an unknown tropical island lasted literally three minutes. And not only did she transition back to D.C. life pretty smoothly, but that apartment she had previously packed up and ostensibly sold was remarkably still there, completely furnished as it had been during all prior seasons, waiting for her return. Bouncing back isn’t one of Olivia’s extra-curricular activities, it’s the sole reason a new Scandal episode is bestowed to us every Thursday. Shonda has kept up this whole PTSD spiel for four episodes now; we’d be lying if we said it hasn’t caused us to suffer from some faint PTSD symptoms ourselves.

3. Wondering how much of the show pertains to Obama and/or our U.S. government.

There’s been much uproar surrounding Scandal‘s increasingly “ridiculous” plot lines — “unrealistic” as some TV critics like to call it. But for those of us who can proudly call ourselves slaves to Scandal, it isn’t the veracity of the plot lines that concerns us, but rather how much of these so-called “ridiculous” plot lines are going on, right now, in our current U.S. government. As disciples of Olivia Pope, we waste not a second of our time trivializing or dismantling the human auction bit. The fact of the matter is, whether or not the plot is laughable, we should be devoting all of our time (aside for 9-10pm on Thursdays, duh) to finding whoever it is that’s currently being held up for auction on the dark internet. Then, any remaining free time we probably don’t have is obviously spent looking into whether all of our politician’s are in fact murderers (we know the answer, but we just want to see for ourselves, okay?).

4. The state of Abby’s love life.

Which, we’ll admit, is far more active than most of ours. But enough about us, okay? Being a full-time fixer and the beating heart of D.C. does tend to fill up most of our schedules, thank you very much. We just want the best for Abby, and not a grab bag of balding Jewish men.

Side note: Is that leather jacket for real? When did she ever wear that and why hasn’t she worn it since?

5. Cyrus’ baby.

I’m sorry. I know we have the highly destructive troop of murderers that is B613 to worry about, but that does not mean we forgot about sweet baby Ella.

We’d like to hope that the White House Chief of Staff has a soul. And perhaps this is all part of some much grander plan to conceal Ella from the public and to thus prevent another hostage situation. But it would still be nice to know that she’s healthy, is at least on the path to pre-school, and has been given all of the necessary vaccines.

6. Olivia’s dad.

As if the man hasn’t put us (her, sorry) through enough already! Now he thinks it’s acceptable to just waltz in and out of our lives as he pleases? (HER life! HER life! Sorry!) Cut the fishing act, Rowan; you’re fooling no one.

7. The thought of having to sit through another Quinn and Huck tryst.

We know it’s been awhile since their last fetishistic fling, but we also know that it had been awhile since Olivia had ruined any and all jams for us forever when the jam-as-a-metaphor motif was revived ONCE AGAIN nearly two episodes ago.

So yes, as much as we hate to admit it, we frankly don’t trust that Quinn and Huck’s collective assault on our eyes is over.