Sixty seconds into the first episode of ABC's new drama "Scandal" (debuting tonight at 10), it's apparent -- even if you know nothing about the show going in -- that this is a Shonda Rhimes vehicle. (I'm positive that almost every male reader just clicked away from this page.)

The Shonda tell in the opening of "Scandal" is the pace of the dialogue. It's fast. Very, very fast. Like, "Gilmore Girls" on amphetamines fast. (Did I just lose the remaining male readers?)

But seriously, despite my allusion to "Grey's Anatomy" and the risky "Gilmore Girls" plug, I don't think men should shrink in fear from "Scandal." On the Estrogen-Testosterone Soapy Drama Meter (patent pending), it's pretty well balanced and safe for male consumption. 

I promise.

Henry Ian Cusick is joining NBC's "Law & Order: SVU" next season for at least two episodes.

He'll play a graphic artist and the show's executive producer doesn't rule out the possibility of a little romance with Mariska Hargitay's Detective Olivia Benson.

We can dream, can't we?

The last installment of Luci's 3-part "Lost" finale recap (read  part 2):

SPOILER ALERT

A taxi arrives at a church. It's Real Locke in WITPDCAR. He gets into his wheelchair. He sees Ben outside. Ben apologizes for everything. "I was selfish. Jealous. You were special, John. And I wasn't." "Ben, if it helps, I forgive you." Ben chooses to stay outside even though everyone else is inside. (A self-imposed penance perhaps?) Ben tells Locke he doesn't need the wheelchair anymore and Locke walks into the church on his own two legs.

More from Luci Chavez on last night's "Lost" finale (read part 1 of recap here):

Juliet, Claire and David (Dylan Minnette) are walking into he concert in WITPDCAR. Juliet has to go back to the hospital, I presume. Charlie is passed out in the green room until the lovely Charlotte wakes him. "I got shot by a fat man." Daniel Farraday/Widmore (Jeremy Davies) is in the green room, too. He and Charlotte meet.

Outside, David and Claire sit at Table 23 with Desmond and Kate. (The producers think they're so cute.) Dr. Chang is emceeing the event. It is his museum after all. Daniel Widmore is going to jam with Drive Shaft while playing classical piano. Highly unlikely in real life because, in my mind, Drive Shaft is basically Oasis but I don't even care because there is Charlie with his bass looking just shy of sober! Yeah!!!!

Our "Lost" recapper Luci Chavez on last night's finale. Luci will be
hosting a live chat on the finale today at the News & Observer site
at noon. Please join her! 

I have bogarted other people's DVR's to watch Lost. I have stayed up until 3-4 a.m. after late Duke basketball games to watch Lost.

I have vigilantly avoided nearly all internet speculation about Lost for the past three years. I've put friends under radio silence so as to avoid spoiling one second of the best TV show ever.

Consider what a TV show needs to do to inspire that kind of devotion and
emotion every week.

Now multiply it by 150.

The payoff came Sunday night while watching the 2 1/2-hour series
finale.

The series finale of Lost was grand and epic yet achingly intimate and personal. While Lindelcuse stayed true to the show's "what the hell was that" roots with an ending left open to interpretation, it satisfied me emotionally in every way.

Our "Lost" blogger Luci Chavez on last night's episode. If you want to email her and commiserate, go for it.

There is a candidate. And as much as I want to scream and rail, now knowing who it is, I cannot. We knew it all along.

Sunday cannot come soon enough. I am not sure how much more of this my TV heart can take.

SPOILER ALERT

"Lost" blogger Luci Chavez weighs in on this week's episode.

Jack is acting strange and there's absolutely NO sexual tension fueling the Jack, Kate and Sawyer luuuv triangle. What the hell is going on?

Someone better dial up the 'shipper angst in these final four + two episodes or I'm going to go off. Kate and Jack. Sawyer and Kate. Jack and Sawyer. I don't care. Someone better start making eyes at someone and with a quickness!!!

An incredible episode. Sides still forming, evolving AND changing plus the reunion I'd been screaming for for months. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. May 24 is a month away. Deep breaths.

SPOILER ALERT

 Our "Lost" blogger Luci Chavez on last night's episode...

Nothing makes me happier than seeing the gang all back together in this Hurley-centric episode. But the Tryon Road Council of One is still deliberating the wisdom of Hugo taking a leadership role in this nasty conundrum we know as Lost.

The big shibiznit is coming and it's going to be bloody. There will come a time when someone needs to straight-up shoot someone or bash someone in the head with a gun or a boot or a tree branch. Hurley, God love him, isn't THAT guy.

This makes me so nervous for the end, and by the end, I mean five episodes from now.

SPOILER ALERT.

  The latest recap from our "Lost" blogger, Luci Chavez.

If there's a cure for this, I don't want it. And by "it" I mean my super-sized obsession with Desmond Hume episodes on Lost. What's not to love when I'm guaranteed to hear the lonely, achingly lovely cello that unhinges me every single time?

This one also featured — because, apparently, I have been a very good girl — my beloved Charlie, that silver fox Charles Widmore, and the lovely Penny.

In this case, love has got a lot to do with it. And by "it" I mean the convoluted mess we know as Lost mythology.  SPOILER ALERT! 

Our "Lost" junkie Luci Chavez reports on last night's final season premiere:

The wait was worth it. We know what the smoke monster REALLY is. But I can't bear, after the first hour of the Season 6 premiere, that I'm still so confused. I'm desperate to understand.

Lost is such a "have faith or else" experience. Very Catholic, that. But I have faith. Faith is strong in this one. (Great. Now I sound like Yoda.)

SPOILER ALERT. Read on ...