Scandal Season 7 Review...the deconstruction of Olivia Pope

Olivia Pope portrayed by Kerry Washington.

Hi friends, I know it has been some time since I covered Scandal and I apologize. I have been watching multiple shows all at once, so it has been hard for me to get my reviews together. With that being said, I have a major gripe with the seventh and last season of Scandal. I want to start off by saying..."Where is Olivia and what the hell happened to her?!" As a viewer of the show since its first season, I have seen a lot of changes happen. From the departure of OPA alum Stephen at the end of season 1, Columbus Short's publicized departure from the show at the end of season 3, the death of James (which makes me still hate Jake) and so on. But this season has Liv as the head of B613 (Command) and she is quickly becoming the stuff that nightmares are made of. Liv has now taken to tactics that her father, Rowan would do when he was the head of the organization. But seriously, what happened to the lady in the white hat? Where did she go? It feels like the audience doesn't even recognize Olivia anymore. Liv, who was always a woman who did shady things, she always had her client's best interests in thought. Always willing to help her employees, despite her giving them grief over it. Now, I know that she is highly flawed but she had some humanity left in her and some point, then towards the end of the sixth season into the seventh, Liv changed. She doesn't care who she hurts in order to stay on top. It rather saddens me that a woman who is as smart as Olivia is reduced to being a power hungry individual, who resorts to threatening to kill children just to get her point across. The old Liv would never do that. Which makes me wonder why in the hell did she go through the effort of removing Jake from under her father's grasp only to have him work for her? It practically the same thing, even if she doesn't see it. So, it makes me think that maybe Liv just wanted to the power for herself the whole time. Maybe Olivia wasn't what the audience thought she was and this is the true Olivia. She needed a push to get her to where she is now. She is Mellie's Chief of Staff and also Command. So...does that mean that people like her father, Cyrus and Jake get a pass because Olivia is proving that she has no soul left???? I can't speak for everyone who watches the show every week, but I am disappointed at the way Olivia is being written. I feel like Shonda really doesn't care for this character, which means she puts her to hop into bed with Jake in the first episode and sleeping with Curtis the next. Olivia seems to mot care about herself if she is jumping from man to man. When in episode 4, Marcus told Fitz that if it wasn't for Olivia then Fitz wouldn't be the man he is today. She was a black woman who had not only put the president in office but a black woman who had slept with the president and was crucified for it. Marcus practically made Liv sound like a martyr for a dying cause. Which in my opinion, I don't think Marcus had a clue has to who and what Olivia was. Olivia Pope is not a gladiator that she used to be. As the show stands, Olivia isn't a character that most people can stomach, put only put up with because she is needed in crisis situations. However, you wouldn't be hanging out with her at a bar somewhere shooting the breeze. Olivia symbolizes what is wrong with the Shondaverse. A black woman in power, but she had to step on the throats of people to get there. No longer doing bad things for the greater good, but doing those bad things because she knows she can and no one as of right now can stop here. Olivia is her own endgame. And that saddens me. But I will continue to watch to see if there is any glimpse of the white hat left.