Did Jake get out of the hole?
“It’s fair to assume that I’m still in the hole,” says Scott Foley, who plays Captain Jake Ballard on “Scandal.” “Since this season literally picks up 20 minutes after the May cliffhanger.”
In case you didn’t see the season finale, Captain Ballard was put in a hole because he disobeyed the orders of his boss at the CIA black ops division — B613 — and risked his life, to protect Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington).
Since the hole seems to be the show’s version of a time-out chair, we wondered what was going to happen when he finally gets out?
“We are going to learn a lot more about B613 this season,” says Foley. And with Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) and Olivia broken up, Foley says there will be a little more room to explore a love triangle.
“The problem is that fans hate Jake,” Foley says with a laugh. “Jake stands in the way of their fantasy of Olivia and Fitz. They refuse to acknowledge that Fitz is cheating on his wife and that Olivia is his mistress. They truly believe that Fitz and Olivia are in love, that they are the end game. They say nothing is going to get in their way and that Jake is just a distraction.”
Although Ballard showed up in Olivia’s life as a man with a lot of secrets, including spying on her with an impressive array of high-tech surveillance cameras, he has turned out to be a stand-up guy.
He’s a lot like Foley himself. The actor has been on a roller-coaster of fame since his days as a heart throb on “Felicity.” This season Foley has been bumped up to cast regular, a welcome relief for the happily married family man and father of two whose last show, “The Goodwin Games” on Fox, was shut down after just seven episodes.
Cast for “Scandal” after a touching arc as a dying patient without health care on “Grey’s Anatomy,” Shonda Rhimes, who created both hits, called as soon as his Fox show was canceled.
“I have a character in mind for you,” she told Foley, who asked only one thing: the possibility that his character would come back this season.
“To think that I am in another show like ‘Felicity’ that is similarly thrilling and talked-about at the water cooler, I feel so fortunate. Not a lot of actors see that twice in a career.”