A Lethal Scandal Drinking Game

I blame my colleague Madison Moore that this post was necessary. He wrote a piece for Splice about the show Scandal, and I’d been meaning to check it out ever since. I got held up with the simultaneous releases of House of Cards and Game of Thrones, but I finally got around to a life-numbing Netflix (we’re talking yoga pants and popcorn in bed while the kids were at school; truly shameful) Scandal bonanza in the past week with a goal of catching up to the current on-TV-now season three. Last night, I met my goal.

I avoid TV and movie reviews: if you’re a fan, you’re a fan, I’m not going to change your mind one way or the other. Scandal is no House of Cards (mainly because it’s a network show) but I’m all caught up on Kevin Spacey’s edgier D.C., and I love Kerry Washington in the strong female lead as Olivia Pope, even though I wish she had even a shred of a sense of humor.

Here’s a drinking game for fans of the show to play along, and probably end up presidentially Fitzhammered.  It’s suggested wine (from a large glass with a tall, narrow stem ala Liv) be sipped during this drinking game, because you’d be in a coma if you were drinking Scotch like the prez.

Write one of each of the following on slips of paper and hand them out to your friends in the room. Everyone gets a piece of paper and has to drink when the action on their card happens on the show:

1. Cyrus and David fight.
2. Abby gets naked.
3. Olivia Pope paces around her office.
4. Someone says “leader of the free world.”
5. Olivia eats popcorn.
6. Quinn changes allegiance.
7. Huck breaks a firewall.
8. Hollis Doyle says a stereotypical rich Texas oil driller phrase like “Don’t piss on my Stetson and tell me it’s raining.”
9. Harrison wears plaid or checkers.
10. Vice Prez Sally Langston mentions the Bible.
11. Olivia Pope gets in someone’s face to make a brief but dramatic speech, turns on her heels and clickety-clacks away.
12. Exterior shot of the Washington monument.

Everyone in the room drinks when:

1. We hear the camera sound and there is a close-up of Olivia Pope’s office exterior.
2. Millie acts like a whiny little bitch.
3. Olivia Pope wears a new coat.
4. The president drinks.
5. Someone says “the Republic."
6. Exterior shot of the White House.
7. Jake looks smoking hot. 
8. Olivia drinks wine from long-stemmed glass.

Double shots:

1. When someone says “white hat.”
2. When someone says “gladiator.”
3. Fitz and Olivia make out.

To your health!

Follow Mary McCarthy on Twitter @marymac.