‘Scandal’ Star Darby Stanchfield Teases Midseason Finale; Talks Abby’s Loyalty to Olivia

One of the great things about Scandal is that its supporting characters get equal opportunities to stand in the sun shine and we think it’s safe to say that Abby Whelan has been shining her little heart out all season.

Darby Stanchfield, who plays the White House Press Secretary and Liv’s protege of sorts in the series, has come a long way over the course of the series, developing into a headstrong confident woman and becoming the character that Shonda Rhimes herself feels ” is the most evolved person on the show.”

See what she had to say to The Hollywood Reporter about what’s ahead for she and Liv’s friendship, what she thinks Abby’s ultimate goal is and what fans can expect during the midseason finale, which she promises “will have all the fans talking.”

On the strength of Abby and Olivia’s relationship

“I’ve thought about that a lot throughout this season. Olivia seems to be the one person that Abby really considers her family. She’s fiercely loyal, and they do have their ups and downs and their bumps in the road, but I’m not sure there’s much. Their friendship seems to be on this level of family, where there’s not a man who could come between them — that type of thing. Knowing Scandal, their relationship may continue to be tested, but there has been a real shift, just in this last season.”

On Abby’s big goal

“I’m left scratching my head a bit about Abby because she’s so different from the other characters in this world in that she’s not trying to get out of a scandal or cover up a scandal. She doesn’t have a lot of mess to clean up or hide, or run from. I was at dinner with [showrunner] Shonda Rhimes the other night and she said, “Abby really is the most evolved person on the show.” So what does a highly evolved Scandal character want going forward? I don’t know.”

On the midseason finale

“There is a huge cliffhanger. Huge. The Scandal writers really blew their wad with this one and it sets up a question of where are we going to go from here because they just blew out this big plotline, which I wasn’t expecting to see until way down the line. There’s big plot stuff that happens with some of our most beloved characters, so there’s an absolute cliffhanger and it happens in very Shonda Rhimes style, at the end of the show. It will have all the fans talking until we come back in February. Everybody’s going to be debating what that means.”

Don’t miss Darby in a new episode of Scandal, tonight at 9pm on ABC.

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