Sorry, Gladiators: ABC confirms the end of “Scandal”

ABC(LOS ANGELES) — Olivia Pope and Associates will officially be closing for business in 2018.

ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey confirmed on Tuesday that the Kerry Washington-led ABC drama, Scandal, will come to a close after its seventh season.

According to the ABC executive, the decision came straight from Scandal‘s creator and executive producer, Shonda Rhimes.

“I had conversations with Shonda where she has had, for awhile, a sense of how she wanted the story to end,” Dungey said. “And we sat and we talked and she said, ‘Look I really feel like season seven is where I want to wrap up this story, because I, as a fa,n always prefer to end a show where you’re always creatively on top, as opposed to letting this dribble out.'”

Dungey, who said the specific number of episodes for next season are still being decided, added that gladiators should expect the series to end on a proper note.

“I do think that audiences — especially fans and gladiators who are as loyal to Scandal as they’ve been — are going to want the story to end in the way that Shonda intended it to,” she said.

In a statement, Rhimes said the decision to end her hit show was not an easy one to make, but that next year they’ll be “going all out” and, “leaving nothing on the table.”

“We are going to handle the end the way we like to handle the important things in our Scandal family: all together, white hats on, gladiators running full speed over a cliff,” she said.

Scandal debuted in 2012 and broke barriers, with Washington as the first African-American female lead in a drama series in over thirty-seven years. The show soon became the number one show for women on Thursdays.

The season six finale airs Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

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