Last night’s winter premiere of Scandal brought back the suspense and panic that I felt was missing from the first half of the season. We haven’t felt this sense of hopelessness from Olivia Pope in awhile. We also haven’t seen her hair look so uncharacteristically unlaid.
The episode opens with a teaser shot: Olivia running through what looks like a prison hallway toward a locked door. We don’t know where she is or how long she’s been there, but she looks completely bedraggled, which means something bad is happening. Olivia’s then seen entertaining Jake in her apartment, the same scenes from last November’s finale. Right as he leaves the room to grab a blanket, Liv is kidnapped and hauled across the hall into her neighbor’s apartment. At this point, her impossibly perfect coif is still styled in its usual superior state. After being drugged and transported, Liv wakes up in a prison with another captive named Ian. Her state of dishevelment while held hostage is certainly something that would’ve been discussed in the Scandal makeup room: What’s worth portraying for the sake of the story?
There’s also a broader discussion of black women’s hair on television happening right now. This article by Ayana Byrd breaks down the rare occurrence of natural hair on TV currently and the importance of seeing a range of black beauty. The fact that people were so shocked to see Annalise’s glam process made super transparent on How to Get Away with Murder is telling. We’ve seen Viola Davis’ character remove her wig and wear her hair in its natural state. Olivia might occasionally wig it, but if so it’s not stated. We can assume that she’s normally wearing a blowout because her hair is naturally curly in the beach scenes where she’s “standing in the sun” with Jake (see a photo here).
My hope is that more realistic black hair representation will pop up on TV, a la Tracee Ellis Ross on Black-ish. Ross talked about this at length in a recent interview with The New York Times: