Scandal fans are probably still having residual heart palpitations from that moment where we thought Jake Ballard died. And it's only going to get worse because Thursday night's Scandal Season 4 finale promises to pack a serious punch. Like right to the gut. And probably to the face. It's going to be a lot. I had the chance to speak with Jake actor Scott Foley about his #iheartmydog campaign in partnership with Merial (they make all those meds that keep your pups safe from heartworm) and he was kind enough to let me pick his brain about the big Scandal finale too.
But one thing he wasn't willing to do was apologize for giving us panic attacks via Twitter. "I think everything I tweeted I’d tweet again. It wasn’t necessarily definitively final. It was all present tense, because I do enjoy all my Thursday nights tweeting with everybody watching the show," he says, before adding "OK, yeah I sort of played into the whole Jake is dead thing and I knew that."
I'll say you did, pal. Of course, Foley didn't think people would take it as the gospel truth. After all, he was just tweeting along with what we all saw on TV, not speaking the will of Shonda Rhimes herself. "A lot of media outlets quoted me, like said, 'Even Scott Foley confirmed that his character is dead' and I was like, 'I didn’t confirm it!'" he says. Valid, but you can't blame us all for losing our minds just a little at the thought of losing Jake. And Foley doesn't — in fact, he says he was actually surprised by how upset people were.
"People were really up in arms about the idea of losing the Jake character and he had initially been the one who was in the way between Olivia and Fitz and not very liked or respected — and who knows if he’s liked or respected now — but the outpouring of support that I saw on social media was really nice," he says. Um, spoiler, Mr. Foley: People really love Jake. Some of us might even like Jake more than Fitz. Just saying.
Luckily, Jake survived his seven or so stab wounds and will be up and moving around in the finale, which Foley says is going to be a doozy. "Word is that Shonda went in and re-edited the ending, so I don’t know how it ends now. I’m going to be as surprised as you," he says. Of course, when I asked if Jake fans' poor hearts were going to get a rest, he said he couldn't firm anything (obviously), but quickly added that if he's one of the three Scandal deaths Guillermo Diaz teased in an interview with People "my wife will kill me — I’ve got kids to support." So either Foley is going to have a very unhappy lady back at home by 11 p.m. ET Thursday night, or Jake will live at least long enough for our hearts to recover from his first near-death experience.
Of course, we may have to get used to Jake or some of our other beloved Scandal characters getting thrown into configurations we're not used to. Without spoiling the finale, Foley teased that things are going to change in a big way. "What they’ve done, with the end that I was aware of, will really get the ball rolling for next season and a lot of the conventions that you’re used to and the places where you’re used to seeing specific characters will be totally flipped around," he says. "It’s going to change things for you and it’s going to be awesome."
Look, as long as we've got Jake Ballard somewhere in the mix, I think we'll all handle whatever Shonda has coming at us just fine.
Image: Nicole Wilder/ABC; Giphy
