Designated Survivor – Kirkman Agonistes

By: Patience Kapfer

With yet another hack – the president’s therapy sessions – Kirkman’s entire staff is on the hunt to both figure out who Gamine is and to do massive damage control. Gamine has to be someone who knew that Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland) was seeing Dr. Louden (Timothy Busfield) which makes the sample of possible suspects very small, but should also make it easier to track down who this hacker is. Chuck informs the staff at the beginning of the episode that IT has scanned all of their computers and found nothing suspicious, but they will still need to examine all of their phones to make sure nothing has been compromised. Unfortunately, while the staff is bickering and Kirkman is eating breakfast with Trey (Breckin Meyer), the entire scandal has already made the front page news and is all over the TV. While Trey tells his brother that this will all just blow over and the people care more about what the president is doing for the country than about what kind of doctor he is seeing, the talking head on TV says that this is absolutely “not going to blow over…and the tapes have demolished the President’s credibility.”

As the president’s senior staffers are bickering about what type of statement the president should release to help fix the situation, President Kirkman himself enters the office. He tells them that even though it was because of them that he went to see a psychiatrist, it did help him and he refuses to stigmatize millions of Americans who use therapy productively by apologizing for it. While his staffers are in charge of figuring out how to prevent another hack, Kirkman has a full schedule to take care of throughout the day. The first thing on the docket is a meeting between Emily (Italia Ricci) and Senator Cowling (Rochelle Aytes) to discuss an agreement with the Energy Subcommittee. However, after recent events the committee has made “a few” changes and the committee has reconsidered its position. Then, in a meeting between Kendra (Zoe McLellan) and Mr. Dakich (Ed Sahely), he refuses to accept the President’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit court which is a feeder to the Supreme Court. He says he is honored, but he is concerned about the President’s recent challenges and being tainted by association. Even Aaron (Adan Canto) is unable to convince Ambassador Woo (Albert Chung) of issuing a statement of renewing a joint security pact because in his culture mental illness is a taboo subject. The last thing on the President’s schedule is judging a science fair with Dr. Frost (Kim Raver), but his staff has forbidden him from going out and gaining unwanted media attention at this tumultuous time.

Lyor (Paulo Costanzo) invites Dr. Louden to come to the White House to convince him to issue some type of public clarification. All Lyor is asking is for the doctor to provide the public with a more complete picture of how the President’s mental health has improved since his visits began with the therapist. Even while the President is in a meeting with his therapist, another tape was released to the public. This tape strikes at the president’s fitness to hold the office of President of the United States. The tape states that the Capitol bombing and the death of the President’s wife has led Kirkman to have a variant of PTSD. And to make matters even worse, Dr. Louden tells Kirkman that there are seven hours of tapes all together, which makes this merely the beginning. All the while, the entire President’s cabinet is nowhere to be found, none of them are willing to make any positive statement about the president or even return Lyor’s numerous phone calls. Tricia (Chelsea Harris) tells Lyor that she heard the cabinet is busy; they’ve all been meeting with Vice President Darby (Aunjanue Ellis) all morning. At hearing this, Lyor suddenly realizes what’s going on and sprints to the President’s office. It’s a coup.

Vice President Darby says that the majority of the cabinet voted to have the President removed from office, they’re invoking the 25^th Amendment, Section IV. This amendment allows the President to be ousted on the basis of mental incapacity. They drafted a letter to Congress and upon its delivery and ratification the President will be removed from office; however, VP Darby has yet to sign the letter because she thinks he deserves a chance to present his case as to why he should be retained. Darby has brought in Ethan West (Michael J. Fox) to act as the cabinet’s prosecutor at a hearing, or a “confidential inquiry,” where the cabinet elicits facts relevant to a fuller understanding of their 25^th Amendment mission. We are informed by Darby that West’s reputation for impartiality is unquestioned, but even so Lyor is quick to let us know that West has never lost a case before.

In an effort to gain the public’s support prior to the hearing, Kirkman does an interview informing American citizens that there is nothing on those tapes that they need to be concerned about. He says the public should have confidence in him because he has gone through depression and tragedy and come out the other end and is still serving the American people. As one would expect from the President, he later chooses to attend the Science fair against his staff’s protests. Kirkman is very interested in all of the kids’ science projects and is quick to tell the reporters that he is there to discuss Science and if they have any questions about that he would be more than happy to answer them.

While the staffers and President attempt to figure out how to fix the situation, Hannah (Maggie Q) and her people work on figuring out who Gamine even is. But unbeknownst to Hannah and Aaron, Damian (Ben Lawson) took a trip to visit his old handler at the Russian embassy to obtain whatever information they have on Gamine. Chuck is able to determine that everyone in the White House is clean and they’re looking for someone who was close enough to the President to know he was in therapy, but not a White House employee. Hannah suggests looking through the visitor logs to see who was in the Oval Office when the President was having his sessions. Chuck narrows the list down to thirty-four people who met with the president in the oval office just prior to or after his therapy sessions. Now he just needs to cross reference all of those names with the intel that Damian obtained from the Russians, which consists of numerous government diatribes posted by Gamine on obscure chat boards. Even though this doesn’t sound that useful, Chuck notices a number that he’s seen before that Damian determines is a routing number. He figures out that the routing number was used to buy Turing memorabilia and the account is registered to a Mia Eng – another anagram for “Enigma” or “Gamine.” They trace the purchases back to various auction items and Hannah and Damian go off to try to get an address of the person who purchased the items.

Damian and Hannah determine where the purchased items were shipped – to Shady Elms – and send the membership list back to Chuck to cross-reference it with those who visited the Oval Office. Chuck managed to find one match amongst the list and that name is Andrea Frost. Hannah and Damian walk hurriedly back to their car, while attempting to get into touch with Aaron to warn the President, but are caught off guard by an oncoming car with a gun pointed out the window. As Hannah reaches for her gun, Damian jumps in front of her, using his body as a shield and falls to the ground from the gunshot wounds in his chest. When the doctor finally comes out to talk to Hannah at the hospital we are unable to hear what he is saying, but the look on Hannah’s face is enough to say it all.