Warning: Spoilers ahead! If you’re not caught up with Olivia Pope and the gang, do not read on.
Scandal‘s “Who got shot?” is the new “Who shot J.R.?” Fans of the show — known as “Gladiators” — were left on the edge of their seats after the cliffhanging March 13 episode, when Jake (Scott Foley) turned his gun on a reporter, her source, and one of two other possible victims: David (Josh Malina) or James (Dan Bucatinsky).
Us Weekly caught up with Malina and costar Bellamy Young (who plays Mellie) at the March 18 L.A. premiere of Divergent, where they offered a few juicy tidbits about the highly anticipated March 20 episode of Scandal.
“I’m getting a lot of the same question. I’m getting, ‘Who got shot?'” Malina quipped. So…who got shot? The actor wouldn’t say, but he did promise a “huge payoff” for Gladiators. “Shonda Rhimes, unlike some other TV writers, will not tee up a giant cliffhanger and then say, ‘Wah wah,’ like nothing really happens,” he teased. “So it is a huge payoff to the buildup.”
“It may not be what people are expecting, but it’s not a cop-out on any level,” he added. “It is sort of a big game-changing moment.”
Asked what his reaction was when he read the previous episode, Malina told Us, “When I saw the end of the last script, Dan Bucatinsky and I had a moment like, ‘What just happened? What did we read?’ We had a couple of weeks before we found out how it was paid off,” he explained. “So we did some anxious hand-holding of each other.”
Said Young: “We were on the hook just like you guys were on the hook. It was just as agonizing. It was a horrible week. It was not just someone’s fate, but it was the whole family.”
Fortunately for viewers, the mystery of who was on the receiving end of Jake’s third bullet is revealed fairly early in the next show. “You’ll find out instantaneously, but it will take the full hour to tell the whole story,” Young told Us. “It’s a beautiful episode.”
