Fifty Shades of Scandal? Washington, D.C. is rocked with a literary sex scandal when Lena Dunham visits the ABC drama on Thursday, March 19, as the author of a tell-all book threatening to air the dirty laundry of powerful politicos.
Now, thanks to the first promo for the Girls star’s episode, “It’s Good to Be Kink,” we see Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) spring into action to prevent the sexy secrets from getting out. Watch it above!
Dunham’s juicy guest role came about after she professed that appearing on Scandal was her “life’s great passion.” That inner Olivia Pope devotee comes out on the show when Dunham’s character, whom she dubbed “Kinky Sue” in an Instagram photo from set, sees our heroine for the first time.
“Oh my god, you’re Olivia Pope,” she exclaims, and in that moment, Dunham is all of us. Be honest: You’d react the same way if you were suddenly face-to-face with Ms. Washington.
The Scandal cast also geeked out when Dunham was on set. “I am such an enormous fan,” star Bellamy Young, aka First Lady Mellie Grant, told Us Weekly on the red carpet at the show’s March 8 Paleyfest panel in Los Angeles. “I have a copy of her book and I brought it and asked her to sign it! I totally fan-girled. And she’s just a love of a human. Just radiant light. Just like Guillermo [Diaz] sweet. You know? Truly made of unicorns and puppies.”
TV’s Commander-in-Chief confessed something similar. “She’s such a great person and I’m such a huge fan of everything she does,” star Tony Goldwyn told Us. “And she’s been a massive Scandal fan since day one! So when I met her early on when Scandal was a new show, she was freaking out and saying, ‘Oh my god, I love Scandal so much!’ and I was like, ‘Really?!’ So it’s really cool that she got to come be a part of it.”
Scandal airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.