Fitzgerald Grant is the Worst Character on Television–Period
The only thing I like about “Scandal”s president, Fitzgerald Grant, is that he is not a real person. That means I can hate him freely and without shame in a way that I could never allow myself to hate a real person. And I really hate this guy. He’s the scum of the television earth. He’s the worst. EVER. And here’s why.
Months back I wrote a little post called, “That’s NOT Love! A Teachable Moment from ‘Scandal,‘” in which I laid out the case for why Fitz does not really love Olivia, mainly because he had never sacrificed anything to be with her.
If Fitz really loved Olivia, he couldn’t possibly have risked her reputation, her integrity, and her self-respect by sleeping with her in the first place, let alone have a full-on affair with her. He would’ve sacrificed his desire for her in order to shield her from the inevitable pain he would cause her by never allowing her the opportunity to be fully valued, respected and honored the way someone who loves you would know you deserve. Instead, he put his own desire to keep her around over her need to be validated, respected and honored.
Well some of y’all nearly lost your minds when Fitz “sacrificed” his political career in this week’s episode “for Liv.” In the episode, Fitz’s wife, Mellie, has moved out of the White House, taken their son with her and threatened to go on national television to expose Fitz as a philandering whore if he doesn’t stop messing around with his years-long mistress, Liv. Mellie gives Fitz 36 hours to choose: his family and his political career or his side-ho. At the end of the 36 hours, Mellie is alone, in tears and ready for her national close-up. Fitz is in the shower with Liv (who is NOT wearing shower cap…where they do that at?!) And the world of Twitter rejoiced.
SEE!! He DOES love LIV! Look at him letting Mellie go on national TV and expose him as a cheater so he can be with Liv openly!! What a sacrifice!!
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No. Nooooooooooo, No, no, no, no, no. This no-good sucker who has been MARRIED to his WIFE for over a DECADE did not even have the decency to go to the mother of his THREE children, look her in her dern FACE and tell her, “I know you’re not happy. I’m not happy. Don’t do this 36-hours thing, Let’s get a divorce. If you need to go on television and expose this, I understand. I’ve hurt you and you deserved better than how I’ve treated you.”
Of course, Fitzgerald Grant doesn’t do this. Mellie, supposedly the “evil one” in this scenario, at least had the decency and respect to tell Fitz to his face what she was doing and when, and do you think our “hero” returned the favor? Of course not. It’s Fitz we’re talking about. He let her sit for 36 hours with no communication, no inkling of what his plans were, leaving her to hope that for once in his life, he’d choose her. He doesn’t. She blasts him on television. And it didn’t have to be that way.
I bet $10 Mellie would not have gone on national television if Fitz would’ve come to her as respectfully as that. People can be hurt by others’ decisions, but well-adjusted people can at least respect a decision that they don’t like when they’ve FIRST been treated with respect. That arrogant, child-king Fitz wouldn’t know respect or honor if it duct-taped him to a chair and drilled into his knee-caps (which Huck might do to Fitz when Liv’s reputation is irrevocably damaged by this absolutely ridiculous affair).
This is what I don’t understand: how could Liv look at Fitz (how could FITZ look at FITZ?!) for 22 minutes, knowing that his wife was somewhere waiting for him to come back to her. How could Liv not say, “You need to talk to your wife, tell her it’s over. You’re being a complete coward by sitting here with me and letting the clock run out.” Why don’t Liv and the OliviFitz fanatics demand that Fitz EVER be a man and be responsible for his life choices? Things are always happening to Fitz. He’s never responsible for what goes on in his life. It’s his horrible daddy’s fault or his horrible wife’s fault or it’s horrible Cyrus’s fault or horrible LIV’s fault (y’all do remember when he “hated” Liv and called her a WHORE after having sex with her in a closet, right?!) Fitz is never to blame for why he does what he does.
And back to Mellie. Yes, she’s terrible. She’s calculating. She’s cold and withholding –probably very much like Fitz’s own mother, based on the irritating and entitled way he moves about the world, but that’s another blog post. But she’s still his wife. He took vows with her. He’s had children with her. He’s spent over a decade of his life with his woman and it doesn’t mean anything. Why, because she’s not Liv?
We’ve already seen that Liv doesn’t get special treatment from Fitz. When he believes someone has “wronged” him, he believes his actions — even to the point of MURDER, people!! remember that??–are justified. He can degrade and destroy Liv emotionally, call her a slut and tell her she’s nothing to him, because Liv did something he didn’t like. What makes Liv or anyone else think he would treat her any different than he is treating Mellie if things continue to not go his way down the line?
Mellie and Cyrus and Charlie and many others on “Scandal” and other shows (scratch that–there are no other shows besides “Scandal.” It’s the only reason your television was invented.) those folks are despicable characters that we love to hate. But the thing about those other characters is that they don’t pretend to be anything other than who they are. Those characters are not championed as the “ideal” by masses or themselves. But on this show and even in real life, people are falling all over this Fitz character as if he is in anyway desirable as a person–fantasy or otherwise. But from the affair, the constant disrespect to his wife and children and even to Liv, whom he claims to love, all the way through to the murder of Verna, we see that Fitz lacks integrity, human decency and common respect. This narcissistic man-child shouldn’t be desired, he should be committed.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Are you here for Fitz and his shenanigans? Sound off in the comments!
Fitz’s treatment of Olivia makes me want to know her origin story that much more. Just like the 752 episode was all about what turned Huck into Huck, I want to know why Olivia is so great in her professional life, but such a mess when it comes to relationships. Mommy issues? Daddy issues? Chile it’s got to be something. I wrote something similar about Fitz’s awfulness, so great minds think alike 🙂
Thanks for reading! And I’m with you! I have absolutely no idea why in the world Olivia Pope, the way she has been written, would ever be attracted to this person, let alone for this long and after everything. It just doesn’t ring true to her character the way she has been presented so far. Just like the Senator told her, her idea of what love is is totally warped. She told Huck in the 752 episode that she has nobody so I wonder if her parents died when she was young? Was she a foster child roaming from place to place no one committing to her and her committing to no one? Let’s get into that story, Shonda!
Good points!
I’m looking at it a bit differently though. We want someone to “blame”, and Fitz seems to be the hidden protagonist in the show. Most people blame Millie. Others blame Olivia. But, the way I see it, every person is responsible, in one way or another.
Everyone has ideals, which are impossible, so they want to settle for the next best thing: the appearance of the ideal. Because every character has a story to what led them to the ideal. And everyone just wants to survive…even at the expense of others. It’s pretty primal, if you think about it…
So true, Britt, all of these grown adults are responsible for their own lives. They’ve all done terrible things, it’s just that Fitz seems to be the only one who doesn’t understand what a terrible person he is. He’s smug and arrogant and entitled: all the worst characteristics a character can have!
GREAT post! I am not here for Olitz. I am so over them. I have been so confused seeing the comments via twitter about how wonderful he is. I can appreciate his awful character and I actually love to hate him. I’m just afraid that many viewers don’t see how problematic his actions are. I’m hoping for the sake of entertainment these viewers are just playing dumb or suspending reality.
& I’ve got questions where are Liv’s female friends (not the women she saved)? where is her mama, grandma auntie somebody?
I agree, Kysses! That’s why I wrote the post because I’m afraid folks are bringing this into real life and actually hoping to attract someone like Fitz and this kind of relationship for themselves. Some of the comments I’ve read on Facebook and Twitter about Fitz and Olitz are really disturbing. Sometimes it takes pop culture to be able to recognize internal issues and flawed thinking.
The relationship between Fitz and Olivia is indefensible, but there are people- more people than we would like to admit- that have been in relationships and situations with people that aren’t available, whether it was because they were married, or involved with someone else or the timing was off, so the situation with Fitz and Olivia takes on a completely different meaning to these folks. I know from my own personal experiences that these situations never work out in real-life, and I don’t foresee that this fictional situation will have a happy ending either.
I think that the Black woman/White woman dynamic is also being ignored by most of the critics/fans that are discussing the show. I believe that the dynamic of The Pedestal is also driving the hard-core Liv fans on social media. Often Black women directly and indirectly have to take a back seat to White women in daily life, and this is one instance, albeit fictional, where the Black woman is “winning”. Now, in my opinion Liv would be winning even if she wasn’t sleeping with a married man who happened to be the President, but, the show is called Scandal, and a huge part of the appeal for me as a fan is that we have a Black woman as the lead who isn’t “saintly”, and therefore that justifies her presence as the lead. She’s the lead because she is capable, confident and smart. That she’s flawed is a bonus in my book; I don’t relate to one-dimensional, goody-two shoes characters; most people don’t, and I probably wouldn’t have watched passed the first episode. Olivia is a woman that keeps going, keeps producing through incredible heartache and never misses a beat, and that is something sadly that most Black women can identify with, and another reason why many fans like myself consider the Fitz and Olivia relationship secondary. Her personal life doesn’t interfere with dealing with whatever the crisis is at hand. Olivia gets situations “handled”, and that’s what I love about the show.
Me too, Natalie! This “relationship” is definitely NOT the draw for me! I love how smart and savvy and flat out necessary Olivia Pope is to the people in her life and to anybody in trouble. I love seeing this role and I can’t wait til Shonda gives us more background on Liv and her relationship with her father so we can clear up with this Fitz fiasco is really all about!
I just wanted to say CO-SIGN TO ALL OF THIS. I have been saying it for MONTHS. Thanks for putting it all so eloquently. I’ve read this post like 5 times since the finale, and I refer people to it to explain my Olitz hatred and why I can NEVER be down for them being together. I HATE that Olivia is so dickmotized by this man. This petulant CHILD who makes her compromise everything about herself. He is terrible, and I hate him, and I hope he gets his comeuppance next season.
Thanks so much for reading and sharing, NinjaCate! I’m just not sure what can happen to Fitz in the future that can bring him to the light. The man’s already been shot in the head, to no avail LOL. I will be watching with popcorn next season, but honestly would be just fine if he goes away on another European tour like he did for the beginning of season 2. I certainly didn’t miss him and the band played on!