What happens at the end of Scandal? The series finale "Over a Cliff", explained beat by beat
Scandal ended in April 2018 with "Over a Cliff", an hour that put nearly every surviving character in front of a Senate committee. Here's what happens across the episode, beat by beat, and where each of them lands by the closing montage.
Seven seasons of B613 came down to a single Senate hearing and a drink poured in a private house. The last hour of Scandal takes almost everyone to the edge of prison, then changes its mind about who goes.
"Over a Cliff" aired on ABC on 19 April 2018 — episode 18 of season seven and the 124th overall, written by Shonda Rhimes and directed by Tom Verica, watched by 5.46 million. Spoilers from here.
Getting the hearing
Olivia Pope meets special prosecutor Lonnie Mencken, who refuses to investigate but offers to arrange a Senate hearing instead. His price is a promise that the Mellie Grant administration will put gun control at the top of its agenda. Olivia agrees. Lonnie then shoots himself in front of her, which is what guarantees the hearing happens.
Sally Langston breaks the news on The Liberty Report. Cyrus Beene goes straight to Jake Ballard and tells him to prepare kill folders on every member of the special committee.
Everyone testifies, and it costs them
David Rosen explains the maths to the QPA team: their testimony will bury Jake and Cyrus, and it will also incriminate every one of them. They go anyway. Quinn talks about missing Robin's first steps. Abby assumes David will move on without her. Huck is mainly worried about speaking in front of fifteen people.
Olivia asks her father Eli for help. He hands her the deed to his house and access to an offshore account, tells her he is leaving, and refuses to testify.
Before the committee deliberates, David lets the team visit Charlie in prison, where Quinn marries him with Huck officiating. This is the episode that reveals Charlie's real name is Bernard.
The night David Rosen died
Jake confronts David in a car park and points a gun at him. David refuses to back down and dares him to shoot. Jake walks away. Cyrus asks him afterwards whether he handled it; Jake says he's going home.
So Cyrus handles it himself. He texts David offering a deal, has a confession written out when he arrives, and pours him a poisoned drink. When David collapses, Cyrus smothers him with a pillow and then calls for help.
At the morgue, Huck offers to deal with it. Olivia refuses — they are the white hats now. A scene in the original script had him turn up at Cyrus's house with the red toolbox anyway. It was cut, and only read aloud at the cast's live table read.
Rowan turns it round
The committee stalls, then announces a new witness. Eli Pope walks in and testifies that he built B613 because the government was neglecting the country. He tells them the public needs someone to hold responsible, and that it doesn't have to be him.
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The committee pins it on Jake. Everything the others said is redacted. Mellie is not impeached, Olivia forces Cyrus to sign a resignation letter, and Jake goes to a supermax prison for the rest of his life.
Olivia visits him. She apologises for pulling him out of the sun; he tells her not to be sorry, because he loved her and was briefly someone good.
The closing montage
Charlie walks out of prison to Quinn and Robin. Fitz unveils his presidential portrait. Mellie signs a gun control bill with Marcus beside her, now wearing a Senate pin. Jake sits in his cell remembering the island. Olivia has dinner with her father, laughing. Abby visits David's grave with Huck. Fitz meets Olivia outside the White House.
The final shot is two young girls in the National Portrait Gallery looking up at a portrait of Olivia — the frame carefully cropped so you cannot tell what office, if any, it commemorates.
Rhimes has said the montage was written to be ambiguous, that she wanted viewers to read it their own way, and that she is the only person who knows what it actually means.
The closing song, "Future Sunny Days", was written by Stevie Wonder for the show.
Earlier we wrote: Who was on NCIS from the beginning? Only one of the original cast is still in the credits more than two decades on