So there's this little show called Scandal on ABC that premieres its third season tonight. By Shonda Rhimes (Grey's Anatomy), at first glance the show appears to be a case-of-the-week legal procedural with an empowered female lead who can do no wrong, but the show quickly decides to deconstruct itself, evolving in the process into a soapy political thriller and arguably the best drama on network television. It's one-part Grey's Anatomy, two-parts House of Cards, shedding everything wrong with those shows and replacing them with touches of Revenge and even Breaking Bad.
The show revolves around Olivia Pope and Associates, a firm dedicated to helping their clients spin emerging scandals before they hit the press. Clients range from senators to brothel owners to the President of the United States and even members of Pope and Associates themselves.
Season 1 consists of the 7 episode "Sweet Baby" arc, which is the show in its procedural form with an interesting enough season-long arc involving a presidential affair. This season takes off around Episode 4, but is only a shadow of what's to come.
Season 2 consists of two arcs: the 13 episode "Defiance" arc and the 9 episode "Albatross" arc. Defiance doesn't kick off until about Episode 5, but when it does, the show lives up to its namesake, completely destroying any preconceived notions that Scandal is just a guilty pleasure in the process. It's absolutely fantastic watching things blow up here as the show totally embraces batshit crazy. On the flip side, the Albatross arc is a little slower, but rides Defiance's momentum through a thrilling series of episodes. While the season arc story is nowhere near as interesting as Defiance was, the individual episodes and storylines keep it from being overshadowed by the lightning in a bottle Defiance arc.
Basically, this show is crack, half-soap opera crack and half-conflicted hero cable crack. Kerry Washington is phenomenal (she didn't get the Emmy nod for nothing), while the supporting cast is just as interesting (Bellamy Young and Jeff Perry in particular). There's other things the show does very well, but they're spoilers and you should see them for yourself.
Seasons 1 and 2 are currently available on Netflix. Go watch it!