Lena Dunham Squares Off Against Olivia Pope

Sit up and take notice, gladiators: Lena Dunham has officially come to Scandal and she's already shaking things up in Olivia Pope's DC. Dunham's character, Kinky Sue, has written a tell all book about her sex life — which, given that this is the nation's capital and her nickname is Kinky Sue...you see where this is going. After Abby realizes that one of the leading men is her current boyfriend, Leo, she asks Olivia to shut the whole thing down before the scandal has a chance to break and blow up Abby's career. But Kinky Sue doesn't back down — and in fact gives Olivia a dressing down that actually had me rooting for her a little bit.

I love Olivia Pope, and I especially love Olivia monologues, but it turns out that every so often someone else has something important to say — and in this case even got to call Olivia wrong. After meeting Olivia and hearing her pitch for destroying the manuscript, Kinky Sue essentially tells one of the most powerful people in Washington that she was a "disappointment."

And before you say, "Who is this girl to say that?!" it's worth pointing out she said nice things, too. In fact, she said that Olivia Pope and Ruth Bader Ginsberg are pretty much "what we [women] have got in this town," which is pretty high praise. When Olivia walks into a room, Sue says, it's enough to give other women a "contact high."

But she also calls Olivia a prude and says that her tactic of trying to scare Sue with the potential media backlash is sad and not at all persuasive. And then she tells Olivia that she's not ashamed of using her body however she wants and having as much great sex as she wants. And then she demands $3 million and walks out.

It isn't often that I appreciate it when people yell at Olivia, but in this case I might make an exception. Because Olivia is having a hard time right now, and none of the people in her life are willing to talk straight to her for fear of upsetting her. And it helps that everything she was saying is true — she shouldn't be ashamed for having sex, or having sex as often as she wants, exactly how she wants.

So it turns out having Lena Dunham on Scandal was a pretty awesome idea after all.

Image: ABC