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50 free Scandal trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
41 free Scandal trivia questions with answers. Scandal ran for seven seasons and 124 episodes on ABC, and it packed more twists into each hour than most shows manage in a season. This quiz is for the gladiators who watched every one of them. Forty questions cover Olivia Pope and her firm, the affair with President Fitzgerald Grant, Mellie's climb from First Lady to the Oval Office, Cyrus Beene's scheming, Huck, Quinn, Abby, Harrison and David Rosen, B613 and Rowan, the plane over Iceland, the murder of Andrew Nichols, and the How to Get Away with Murder crossover. It also covers the show behind the show: Shonda Rhimes, the real-life crisis manager Judy Smith who inspired Olivia, the TGIT block, the live-tweeting cast, Kerry Washington's Emmy nominations and why season three was cut to eighteen episodes. Easy questions ask who plays Olivia and which network aired it; hard ones want Huck's real name, the codename of the covert operation that killed Olivia's mother, and the 1974 series that was the last network drama built around a Black female lead. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the series, its characters and its creators, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who plays Olivia Pope in Scandal?
Kerry Washington
She earned two Emmy nominations for the role and was named TV Guide's TV Star of the Year in 2013.
Q 02Who created Scandal?
Shonda Rhimes
It made her the first African American woman to create three dramas that each passed 100 episodes.
Q 03How many seasons did Scandal run?
Seven
It premiered on April 5, 2012, and ended on April 19, 2018, after 124 episodes.
Q 04Olivia Pope is partly based on Judy Smith, who served as deputy press secretary to which president?
George H. W. Bush
Smith later founded her own crisis firm and was a co-executive producer on the show.
Q 05Which of these was a real client of Judy Smith's crisis firm?
Monica Lewinsky
Her firm has also advised Wesley Snipes, Michael Vick and Sony Pictures after its 2014 hack.
Q 06What is the name of the crisis-management firm at the centre of the show?
Olivia Pope & Associates
After Olivia moves to the White House in the final season, it is rebranded Quinn Perkins & Associates.
Q 07What nickname does Harrison give the members of the firm when he hires Quinn?
Gladiators in suits
Fans of the show adopted the name for themselves.
Q 08What job did Olivia hold in the White House before founding her firm?
Director of Communications
She met Fitz working on his presidential campaign, where their affair began.
Q 09Who plays President Fitzgerald 'Fitz' Grant III?
Tony Goldwyn
Fitz is a Republican former governor of California from Santa Barbara.
Q 10Before the presidency, Fitz was governor of which state?
California
His later running mate Andrew Nichols also came from the California governor's mansion.
Q 11Which actor plays White House chief of staff Cyrus Beene?
Jeff Perry
Cyrus ends the series as vice president after decades of clawing toward the top job.
Q 12Who plays the First Lady, Mellie?
Bellamy Young
Mellie was only a recurring character in season one before joining the main cast.
Q 13How does the First Lady try to stop Fitz from divorcing her after the assassination attempt?
She has her labour induced four weeks early
When that fails she goes on television at the end of season two and reveals his affair with Olivia.
Q 21Who plays Jake Ballard, the B613 operative ordered to get close to Olivia?
Scott Foley
Jake was born Pete Harris; Rowan later marries him off to Vanessa Moss and has him kill her father.
Q 22Which vice president briefly takes over as president after Fitz is shot?
Sally Langston
Kate Burton plays her; Cyrus is horrified.
Q 23What was the codename of the mission in which Fitz shot down a civilian airliner over Iceland?
Operation Remington
Olivia's mother was believed to be among the more than 300 casualties.
Q 14Who is revealed at the end of season two to be Olivia's father?
Rowan
Joe Morton plays Eli 'Rowan' Pope, the fearsome head of the black-ops program B613.
Q 15What is the title held by the head of B613?
Command
Rowan holds it for most of the show; Fitz, and finally Olivia herself, take it over later.
Q 16What is Huck's real name?
Diego Muñoz
Guillermo Díaz plays the former B613 assassin who lost his family to the job.
Q 17Which actress plays Quinn Perkins?
Katie Lowes
Quinn was born Lindsay Dwyer, and by the final season the firm carries her name.
Q 18Which member of the firm goes on to become White House Press Secretary and then Chief of Staff?
Abby Whelan
Darby Stanchfield plays her; Cyrus and Fitz demean her at first by calling her 'Red'.
Q 19Which character, played by Columbus Short, is murdered by B613 at the end of season three?
Harrison Wright
He is killed after learning who was behind the death of the president's son, Jerry.
Q 20Which actor plays David Rosen, the US Attorney turned Attorney General?
Joshua Malina
He was only recurring in season one before joining the main cast.
Q 24Which Friends alum guest-starred as Congresswoman Josie Marcus, a Democratic presidential hopeful?
Lisa Kudrow
Olivia briefly ran her campaign after learning the truth about her mother's plane.
Q 25Who kills Cyrus's husband James to protect a cover-up?
Jake
Dan Bucatinsky won an Emmy for playing James Novak.
Q 26How was Fitz and Mellie's son Jerry murdered?
Deliberate exposure to bacterial meningitis
Rowan forced an agent to name Jake as the killer, kicking off season four.
Q 27Which Arrested Development star plays RNC chairwoman Elizabeth North?
Portia de Rossi
Ellen DeGeneres broke the casting news on Twitter as a 'top secret arc' for her wife.
Q 28Which former vice president does Olivia brutally murder in season five?
Andrew Nichols
He was recovering from paralysis and threatening to expose everyone's secrets.
Q 29Who becomes the first female President of the United States at the end of season six?
Mellie Grant
The final season follows her first year in office with Olivia as chief of staff.
Q 30Which Shondaland series crossed over with Scandal in March 2018?
How to Get Away with Murder
Viola Davis and Aja Naomi King guest-starred; Olivia helped Annalise get a case to the Supreme Court.