‘Scandal’ Renewed For Third Season

ABC has renewed Scandal for a third season, a little less than one week before its season 2 finale.

Was there really any doubt that the political thriller from Grey’s Anatomy creator and executive producer Shonda Rhimes would be coming back for another fast-paced, and likely equally as explosive, season? After all, the show’s rabid — and rapidly growing — fan base isn’t called “Scandal obsessed” for nothing.

Part of Scandal‘s success is its social media presence. Every Thursday, fans of the series can chat with the cast on Twitter — where the show has over 181,000 followers — using the hashtag #AskScandal. On Facebook, the show has more than 750,000 likes and, at the time of this writing, over 150,000 were talking about the show almost a full 24 hours after the most recent episode.

If the show’s fan base weren’t enough to convince ABC that the show deserved a third season, a look at the ratings would easily erase any doubts. The May 9 episode, “A Woman Scored,” posted a series high of 8.87 million, and answered one of the underlying questions of the season: Who is the mole?

The previous episode, “Seven Fifty-Two,” gave fans a little glimpse of the life everyone’s favorite assassin, Huck (Guillermo Diaz), lived before joining Olivia Pope and Associates. That episode drew 8.07 million viewers and saw Diaz give one of his best performances of the series.

The Hollywood Reporter chatted with Diaz after the episode about his Emmy-worthy performance, and Diaz admitted how grueling the process was, and how it was worth it in the end.

“I knew all the dark places I had to go to and I was down a lot and It was really difficult. I was down a lot and depressed while shooting the episode and would go home and there were nights I couldn’t sleep,” Diaz said. “My body automatically put itself in this kind of state that Huck was in. It was something I had to go through; it’s the only way I would have been able to do this episode. I’m really proud of the end result and my performance.”

We are, too, Mr. Diaz.

Are you excited that Scandal is coming back for a third season?