President and First Lady Obama have always striven to be hip when it comes to staying savvy with pop culture. On the rare occasions he gets some major downtime, the President has professed a love for TV shows including Homeland, Game of Thrones and House of Cards. The First Lady, on the other hand, has taken a love for TV a step further. In February, she took a cameo on Parks and Recreation. Then this week, ABC announced that Michelle Obama will be joining Nashville for a special episode later this season.
The impending Parks and Rec cameo makes a lot of sense, as the comedy series has used political cameos to connect small town Pawnee to the larger political scope in the past. On the opposite token, how will a country music-based drama like Nashville work in a political cameo? The answer lies in ABC’s press release. According to the network, lead character Rayna Jaymes (Connie Britton) has decided to throw together a huge charity concert and a few very famous guests will be in attendance, including Obama, who will be playing herself. Here’s the episode synopsis:
“Rayna organizes a charity concert at Fort Campbell after finding out Luke has been injured in Afghanistan, forcing him to cut his tour short. Deacon and Maddie are brought closer together as they chart a new course for their future. Teddy is beginning to feel like his family is slipping further and further away from him. Juliette is racked with guilt knowing that her back is against the wall after Jeff threatens to go to Avery with the truth. Gunnar is feeling pressure to reveal a secret about Juliette to Avery until Zoey urges him that his professional and private life should be kept separate. And Will and Layla begin shooting their new reality series.”
Obama's cameo will air at the beginning of May, and First Lady isn’t the only special guest star joining the cast for the episode, called “All or Nothing with Me.” Former American Idol contestant and country hitmaker Kellie Pickler will also be joining the episode, and like Obama, she will appear as herself. The episode will mark Pickler’s first big TV gig since she popped up on 90210 in 2011.
It should be a pretty special penultimate episode for fans of the series, and if you are invested in ABC’s Nashville, you’ll be able to catch the episode on Wednesday, May 7 at 10 p.m. ET. You can also catch recent episodes of Nashville over at ABC’s site. Alternatively, if you would like to watch the famous First Lady in action before then, her big Parks and Rec stint airs on NBC on April 24.
