Gladiators, put down your weapons.
Scandal will be taking a long hiatus this year, and won't be returning to Thursday nights in the fall, ABC has confirmed. Instead, the show will be pushed to mid-season, meaning the new season will begin sometime in the spring of 2017.
So, why is the network waiting so long to bring everyone's favorite show back on the air?

While ABC isn't coming out and confirming it has to do with Kerry Washington's pregnancy, that pretty much seems to be the reason. “We did have to make some adjustments to Scandal for a variety of reasons that had to do with the production schedule,” ABC chief Channing Dungey says.
But that doesn't mean trouble for Scandal, or the show's boss Shonda Rhimes. In fact, quite the opposite: the Queen of Thursday nights will need a whole 'nother day of the week to fit in all the hit shows she has planned for the network. In addition to her three current hits — Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder and Grey's Anatomy — Rhimes will eventually have two more on the air: Star Crossed, a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, as well as The Catch.