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Mellie Grant: Her Hair is Done!

Rhondinella

By Rhondinella
in Scandal [V]

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Anna Yolei

Anna Yolei

On a shallow note, who the hell does Bellamy Young's hair on this show? It is so unflattering and very obviously a wig. On the rare occassion she has her hair down on the show or in interviews (like the Jimmy Kimmel Escandolo sketches) she looks like a different woman, and for the better.

On topic: is it wrong that I wish Cyrus weren't gay so those two could have hate sex?

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Spartan Girl

Spartan Girl

I like Mellie.  Yes, her hands are just as filthy as everyone else's on this show, but at least she's not a murderer, which is more I can say for her "romantic, idealistic IDIOTIC husband" (love that quote).

 

Bellamy Young did a fantastic job in the season finale.  While rewatching the scene where Fitz finally finds out about the rape, I loved the little detail of her just greeting him with an annoyed "What?"  Perhaps I'm giving Fitz more credit than he deserves, but I think it was that moment and not necessarily just Olivia's say-so that convinced him that Mellie wasn't lying.  Mellie was 100 percent done with him at that point: she had no reason to lie to win his affection/pity when she clearly hated his guts.

 

I also noticed how when he kissed her, instead of her face showing hopeful disbelief, she just kind of cringed and made a face, as if she was thinking, "Okay, what's he playing at now?"  And her finally breaking down and saying, "I fought him" over and over was just so heartbreaking.

 

Seeing as how she was practically living in her hooch glass the final two episodes, I wonder if Mellie will end up having to go to rehab.

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Guest

Guest

This is prompted by last night's episode but since it is more of a series wide Mellie discussion, I thought I'd bring it over here.

 

I have no sympathy for Mellie. None. The only sympathetic part of her back story to me is the rape.  As for everything else, she made her choices and is coming off (to me) as an entitled brat.  She pushed Fitz to run for governor and pulled a lot of strings to make it happen.  She was part of a plot to steal an election for him. She condones her husband's affair until she gets tired of it. She has an affair while still blaming her husband for his. She's not there for her children but then when her son is killed, she wants all the sympathy in the world. Until of course, she decides his death can get her something bigger than sympathy. Then she's over it.  She is First Lady like she wants, but decides it isn't enough. So she feels entitled to a Senate seat and next the presidency.

 

Bellamy Young is a great actress and she somehow manages to make Mellie sympathetic at times, but I'm not buying it. And I preferred Scandal when they left her in the villain role than when they tried to give her sympathetic backstory.

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Dejana

Dejana

(edited)

A discussion about Mellie from the "Dog-Whistle Politics" thread:

But does she really love Fitz? Like in that love of my life, passionate way? So would Fitz loving her be a win really? Maybe a win for her ego more than her heart I guess. I always got the impression that maybe she might have been fond of him a bit at one time, but that it was more a team that the two forged to make it to the White House and then once his time was over she would get her chance at power. I thought the main bond or passion that they shared was making it to the top in the political world.

I never got this deep love, like Olivia was stealing the love of her life much less a man she truly loved.

Well, it depends. Earlier in the show's history, Mellie encouraged the Olitz affair because her own marriage to Fitz was loveless and arranged, for the most part. His dad thought Fitz could use her family's wealth and connections to further his political career. Mellie was aware of this and it was fine with her because she thought this was simply how marriage goes, for people in their circles. Fitz was so reckless about Olivia and resentful toward Mellie because he'd gone through life, never having really been in love, prior to the affair. That last part may be fanwanking to some degree, but it seems to be the way Tony Goldwyn is playing the character.

At some point, the story shifted so that Mellie and Fitz had been happy together, up until his father raped her and she got pregnant. Mellie was convinced to leave her law firm partnership to play the dutiful, supportive First Lady (of CA and then the country), bristling at sex or any sort of emotional closeness with a clueless Fitz. After Andrew rescued her from her suicide attempt, she developed an armor of helmet hair and Barbara Bush suits over time, with Fitz turning to Liv after years of Mellie shutting him out. So, whether Mellie ever really loved Fitz depends on which story the writers happen to be telling at any given moment, and fans will have their own ideas.

Fitz has been in love with another woman for years and Mellie has still hung on to the marriage, but it is a TV show, one where the headwriter seems unwilling to make the scandalous lead couple slightly less so by legally ending his marriage, already. These are fictional characters, so anything they do is going to be influenced by the external needs of the story, whether or not it makes sense for the characters. It's just a matter of how good a writer is at making the characters' motives seem logical, while not letting it show how they're being maneuvered like chess pieces.

Edited by Dejana
  • Love 2
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Guest

Guest

Dejana's summary just shows why I don't buy a lot of the Grant marriage the way it's been shown.  I think Mellie makes a much better villain than sympathetic character, so I don't like the shifts to her character as they've occurred.  For the first 2 1/2 seasons, we were shown a cold, calculating woman. She was entertaining to the hilt.  She played almost everything to a political advantage - from faking miscarriages, to having a baby she didn't want, etc. She and Fitz even had a fake "how we met" story. She encouraged an affair multiple times..

 

Then we get "Everything's Coming Up Mellie."  We get grieving "Smelly Melly" for a child that she'd said before she never wanted other than for political career furtherance.  

 

It still feels like retcon to me.  Like they wanted to keep the love quadrilateral going, so they added things to make it seem like Mellie and Fitz were at one time a passionate, fun couple and made it a storyline that would allow us to forgive Mellie for her past coldness.  

 

I think it was a miscalculation on the part of the writers (especially since it seems a good deal of the audience feels Fitz is somehow to blame for her rape).  It's watered down the fun that was Mellie's character.

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Anna Yolei

Anna Yolei

Of all Fitz's many, many, many failings, Mellie's rape is not one of them. I'm not sure how that can be pinned on him other than sharing blood with Big Jerry. But I agree that it took the zing outta Mellie and smacked of a cheap way to redeem a character that IMHO didn't need to be redeemed.

  • Love 1
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Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory

(edited)

I don't buy Mellie as a villian. Making Mellie a villian is for the sole purpose to push the never ending true love pairing that is Fitz and Olivia. Soap Operas have done this since the beginning of time. You have a triangle make one of the points a villianous villian who villians. If Mellie was at all sympathetic it would make Fitz look like cheating scum instead of Prince Charming and Olivia like his scheming mistress instead of the love of his life.

If Mellie is evil Fitz and Oliva are awwwwe instead of ewwww!

This has nothing to do with her. (Her feelings have never had anything to do with her.) and everything to do with them

Edited by Chaos Theory
  • Love 6
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arty

arty

I never understood why Fitz and Mellie had a fake how-we-met story. What's scandalous about saying that his father and her boss were good friends who decided to play matchmaker, and they succeeded. What's wrong with that story?

  • Love 3
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Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory

(edited)

I was watching the first few seasons of Scandal and I realized how much I like Mellie. She is awesome....until she isn't anymore. No one except maybe Olivia and Cyrus does those over the top melodramatic speeches like Mellie but like all the characters by mid/late season three she becomes less and less awesome.

I absolutely loved a speech she gave to her husband early season three on why she was glad Olivia didn't die in an explosion. That would turn "the whore" into a martyr for Fitz and Mellie would lose the war they were fighting. It was a great little speech.

Mellie was awesome until she wasn't anymore. Then again so was the show.

Edited by Chaos Theory
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Guest

Guest

I feel like this was the result of bad writing.

Mellie and Fitz had a political marriage. They were never in love. Oh wait, they were, until Big Jerry raped her.

Mellie didn't want kids and doesn't care about them. Oh wait, now she's a devoted mother.

Mellie doesn't care about the affair with Liv, because again, she andFitz were never in love. Oh wait, now she's a woman scorned.

The character has suffered from these inconsistencies, and I feel it's made her very hard to connect with.

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