A lot has been manufactured from Anatomy of a Scandal‘s nauseating particular results, clumsy narrative, and controversial plot twist. However when viewers completed the sequence, they might even have discovered themselves questioning in regards to the destiny of the lady on the heart of the story: Olivia Lytton (Naomi Scott), who bravely takes the stand to accuse Conservative MP James Whitehouse (Rupert Pal) of rape.
The beautiful accusation is difficult by her earlier consensual romantic relationship with the married Whitehouse, in addition to his overwhelming sense of entitlement and the strong public assist that permits it. The following grueling trial in the end reveals the privileged Whitehouse’s callous brutality –– and, extra importantly, his nonexistent understanding of consent –– whereas Olivia’s story is eclipsed. She is silenced each by the outsized press consideration dedicated to her rapist, and by the societal forces unfairly portray her as a disgruntled agent of Whitehouse’s public demise. She can also be by no means vindicated: as a result of broad authorized threshold for consent and her personal understandably tangled feelings relating to the trial, prosecutor Kate Woodcroft (Michelle Dockery) is unable to efficiently show past an affordable doubt that Whitehouse raped Olivia.
Thus, following Whitehouse’s authorized victory, Olivia disappears from the narrative. And because the closing episodes of Anatomy of a Scandal are overpowered by one contrived revelation after the opposite –– particularly, that the prosecutor Kate Woodcroft is definitely Holly Berry, whom Whitehouse raped whereas at Oxford –– viewers are left questioning about Olivia’s destiny within the right here and now. The implication that Kate have to be harboring a darkish sexual secret of her personal to care about Olivia Lytton is problematic in and of itself. Could not the purpose be that the normalization of sexual violence impacts all of us, whether or not or not we have skilled it? However what’s extra disappointing is the sequence’ failure to comply with Olivia’s narrative thread. It is much more irritating on condition that Anatomy of a Scandal evinces an absurd dedication to tying up free ends in terms of Kate Woodcroft and Sophie Whitehouse (Sienna Miller), Whitehouse’s spouse.
Olivia’s erasure following the trial can, after all, be learn as a commentary on the bigger public indifference towards girls who accuse highly effective males of sexual assault. One want solely consider Christine Blasey Ford’s terrified testimony through the Brett Kavanaugh hearings to know that such accusations sadly have little impact on the accused, notably when stated accused have substantial public backing. Or Olivia’s hanging absence from the final episode might merely be because of narrative laziness. Disappointingly, the latter is extra conceivable, as a result of in not one of the episodes can we get entry to Olivia’s inside world, or her existence exterior the trial. As a substitute, the digital camera dwells on the mounting rage of Sophie and on Kate Woodcroft, Whitehouse’s earlier, additionally infuriated rape sufferer.
Kate’s expertise compellingly highlights Whitehouse’s cruelty, and the present additionally provides her a life, nevertheless rapidly sketched, exterior the courtroom. Against this, the viewers, very similar to the keen public portrayed within the sequence, expertise Olivia solely in relation to James. Although that is an unlucky actuality for ladies who go public with accusations of sexual assault and harassment, the omission of Olivia’s destiny feels unintentional due to the sequence’ obsession with the Kate Woodcroft/Holly Berry plot line, and the additional revelation of James Whitehouse’s involvement within the unintentional demise of a pal whereas at Oxford a long time earlier than.
Although Olivia ought to have –– and certainly does have –– the best private stake within the consequence of the trial, the viewers by no means get to see her expertise its seemingly traumatic fallout, and so she stays a disappointingly two-dimensional sufferer. For a sequence that’s making an attempt to grapple with the true and ongoing public debates in regards to the nature of consent, Anatomy of a Scandal provides Olivia Lytton little or no to do. As a substitute, she turns into yet one more sufferer of Whitehouse’s privilege, a degree that has already been hammered house many instances, whether or not within the present’s trippy flashbacks to the MP’s Oxford days or in his continued perception that “Whitehouses all the time come out on high.” The present has missed a possibility to painting Olivia as greater than only a wide-eyed intern and the jilted mistress of a caddish married man.
If there’s certainly a second season within the works for Anatomy of a Scandal, one can solely hope that the sequence will rise to the event with Olivia. Because it stands, her failed try to carry Whitehouse accountable for his rape and his skilled transgressions disappointingly –– if realistically –– renders her with out company. Tellingly, she turns into a footnote within the bigger plot about Whitehouse’s perceived authorized victory. The present cannot fairly resolve what to do with this unenviable consequence, but it surely definitely would’ve been good to know the way the decision affected Olivia.
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