Gladiators
13 Years Later, This ‘Scandal’ Premiere Detail Still Haunts Me
In the final few weeks of my sophomore year of college, I was preoccupied with one thing. Not exams or summer plans or moving back home, but Scandal.
I am a disciple of Shonda Rhimes, having followed her from Crossroads to The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and, of course, Grey’s Anatomy. But Scandal changed everything for me.
The pilot episode, titled “Sweet Baby,” which aired on April 5, 2012, was the perfect 42-minute debut. Olivia Pope’s (Kerry Washington) immaculate pantsuit, Harrison’s (Columbus Short) “Gladiator in a suit” speech to Quinn (Katie Lowes), a president with so much swagger he’d make even the biggest hater blush, and a kiss that ignited millions of Olitz shippers across the globe.
But there’s one detail from the premiere that I’ve always struggled to get over: the “sweet baby” of it all.
Olivia helps out Cyrus (Jeff Perry), Fitz’s (Tony Goldwyn) chief of staff, by trying to make the president’s Amanda Tanner (Liza Weil) problem go away. Amanda claims she had an affair with Fitz, and Olivia reads her the riot act in hopes that she will leave D.C. and never come back. Amanda makes an attempt on her life, and Quinn is convinced Amanda’s telling the truth about the affair. She explains to Olivia that Amanda was going “on and on about how she thought he’d come and call her ‘sweet baby.'”
The “sweet baby” detail leaves Olivia stunned, and she walks straight into the Oval Office to confront Fitz about it. Olivia, a woman built to not let her emotions get the best of her, is genuinely hurt by Fitz possibly calling his mistress by that nickname.
My issue with this is that Fitz never calls Olivia “sweet baby,” at least not according to my Scandal knowledge, and it doesn’t make sense that he would ever use that phrase, even in the heat of the moment. In Season 4 Episode 17, “Put a Ring On It,” fans learn via flashback that Fitz gifted Olivia a family ring called “doux bébé,” which means “sweet baby” in English.
It’s great that the Scandal team tried to tackle the “sweet baby” situation — I checked and Olivia does have the ring on in the pilot — but it still wasn’t fully fleshed out. I’ll never believe that Fitz called Amanda that, and no one else seemingly knew of the ring’s significance. Billy (Matt Letscher) certainly didn’t, and he was behind the affair plot to oust Fitz from the Oval Office.
In a perfect world, Fitz would have called Olivia “sweet baby” in Episode 6’s flashback episode “The Trail,” specifically during their first night together, which was recorded without their consent. That would have tied everything together for continuity purposes — just in the first season!
I’m still the most diehard Scandal fan, a Gladiator forever, despite this little gripe I have with “sweet baby.” But whenever I rewatch the series premiere, that’s the one detail that still gets under my skin.
What did you think of Scandal’s pilot episode? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
