Why We So Aren’t Buying That "Death" on Scandal

7 reasons why we're convinced Scott Foley wasn't really killed off of the ABC hit drama

By Tierney Bricker Apr 17, 2015 6:36 PMTags
Kerry Washington, Scott Foley, ScandalABC/Tony Rivetti

Nooooooo!

In case you somehow missed all the tears and tweets last night, Scandal broke our hearts into millions of tiny little pieces. How? By killing one of our favorite characters. (Spoiler alert!)

At the very end of the episode, Olivia's (Kerry Washington) seemingly random hookup buddy Russell (Brian White) turned out to be one of Papa Pope's (Joe Morton) henchman and attacked Jake (Scott Foley) at the OPA offices, stabbing him. Multiple times. In a promo for next week, Jake was declared "dead." Let us repeat: Noooooo!

However, after several glasses of wine and multiple pints of Ben & Jerry's (Shout-out to Jimmy Fallon for the awesome "Tonight Dough" flavor!), we're, well, still in the first stage of grief: denial. BUT we're now convinced that Jake Ballard isn't really dead on Scandal, and that Scott Foley is still very much on the ABC hit drama. And we've rounded up our proof, hoping to give other suffering fans at least a small glimmer of hope...

1. Listen, we just refuse to accept a reality in which Foley is not on our TV screens. And Shonda Rhimes already took Foley away from us once on Grey's Anatomy. Would she really do us dirty again?!

2. That pilot Foley was teaming up on as an executive producer and writer with Rhimes? No cast as been announced and no news has come since it was first announced back in October.

3. Not a single person—Foley, Rhimes, etc.—has done an interview about the death. Come on, he's the second male lead. THERE WOULD BE AN INTERVIEW, RIGHT?! In fact, Rhimes hasn't event tweeted about it.

ABC/Ron Tom

4. Speaking of Twitter, Foley's tweets after the episode aired seemed meticulously worded. "So, there it is. Thank you Twitter for tonight and all of the Thursday nights. It's such an honor. #Scandal," he wrote.

Note how he said "it's such an honor," not "it was such an honor."

5. Josh Malina also was active on Twitter, retweeting fans who said his character, David Rosen, should've died instead of Jake. Isn't that poking the bear a little too much? And we all know how much Malina loves to rile up fans!

6. He tweeted a photo from set on April 7, just last week. 

ABC

7. Joe Morton (Papa Freakin' Pope) and Brian White (Jake's "murderer") are just a little too casual on social media about this ordeal for our liking. Read their feeds to see for yourself. 

8. OK, maybe we're a little crazed from the lack of sleep BUT Arrow pulled a major fast one on us just this week, also stabbing one of our favorite characters, to later reveal the blade was laced with a beta-blocker (Gotta love TV!) and it was a major fake-out. So yes, we're holding out hope that Jake really is alive. Come on, this is Scandal. Crazier s--t has happened. Like Lena Dunham's wig. #NeverForget

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.