Scandal

Is life imitating art! Did viewers watch Shonda Rhimes drop the ax on Columbus Short's charectoron the season finale of “Scandal”? That’s the question that’s being asked today after the show closed with what looked like the end of Harrison Wright.

Just before the closing credits, Olivia’s father, Rowan Pope, was seen facing off with Harrison who figured out his plan to become reinstated as the head of B-613. Secret Service agent Tom, an inside man for B-613 who killed President Grant’s son for Pope, then appears with a gun and a silencer and seemingly poised to kill Harrison.

And although Harrison’s actual death was never shown, viewers quickly hopped on Twitter to speculate that Rhimes and her writing team got rid of his character because of Short’s recent string of bad press.

According to Short himself the finale was taped within the last month. 

“It was [filmed] in the last month and what happened was is the producers came to me at the table read and said ‘You gotta work tomorrow and said ‘This is what you got to shoot’ and I was like ‘What?’,” the actor told “The Tom Joyner Morning Show.”

“But you know what? It’s a beautiful thing. That’s what makes a great actor from a good actor,” he added. “That’s the deciphering, the deciphering line.”

On April 7 Short’s wife Tanee McCall filed a restraining order against her husband and accused him of threatening to kill her and himself.

Before that Short was arrested in March for knocking a man unconscious during a bar fight. He also previously pleaded not guilty to spousal battery and child abuse after physically attacking his wife in front of their children. His wife, who has filed for divorce from him for a third time, previously asked a judge to grant her full custody of their daughter.

Time will tell if Rhimes will confirm or deny that Columbus Short’s scandalous life proved to be too much for Olivia Pope & Associates.

- Will T Barlow