‘Scandal’ ending after next season

“Scandal” is coming to an end.

ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey announced that Season 7 will be the final season for the hit drama from Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland and starring Kerry Washington.

“Shonda has decided the series needs to come to a close, and while this is definitely a bittersweet moment for all of us gladiators, I have no doubt what she has in store for the final season will be as powerful as what’s come before, and we will be sure to honor that every step of the way,” Dungey said in a statement.

In a separate interview, Dungey added, “We had conversations with Shonda where she had had for a while a sense of how she wanted the story to end. We sat and we talked and she said, ‘Look, I really feel like Season 7 is where we want to wrap up the story. I always prefer to end the show where you’re feeling creatively on top as opposed to letting things drizzle out.’”

Rhimes said in a statement, “Deciding how to end a show is easy. Deciding when to finish is quite simple when the end date is years away. But actually going through with it? Actually standing up to say: ‘This is it?’ Not so much.”

She continued. “So, next year we are going all out. Leaving nothing on the table. Creating this world in celebration. 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.”

The series — about a political fixer named Olivia Pope (Washington) and her team of associates who sacrifice their time and often their morals to handle what they called “unimaginable crises” — debuted in April 2012.