Designated Survivor – One Hundred Days

By: Patience Kapfer

This week on “Designated Survivor,” President Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland) asks to start his first one hundred days since his time up through now in office has been a little too eventful to get an agenda moving. He hopes that he’ll be able to get off to a bipartisan start and announces his plans for a town hall meeting later in the week.

Hannah (Maggie Q) is staying with Chuck (Jake Epstein) in an attempt to stay under the radar. Chuck had been running Claudine Poyet (Mariana Klaveno) through facial recognition and retracing her steps from when she was with Langdon (Peter Outerbridge), but hadn’t been getting anywhere. That is until Hannah comes up with a genius idea to check for fingerprints of a wine glass that Claudine had used – off of a picture! The idea pays off and they’re able to get a fingerprint off the wine glass. Hannah goes to find Jason Atwood (Malik Yoba) and inform him that she knows who the woman who killed Luke (Lyric Justice) is. Claudine Poyet, is actually Brooke Mathison and Chuck was able to find an address. Hannah has come to Atwood to bring him in as her backup on this off the grid mission.

We turn to a hectic room with people sitting around the table taking phone calls, with Emily (Italia Ricci) and Seth (Kal Penn) telling the phone staffers that Kirkman cares about the hot button issues yet needs to keep things moving in a nonpartisan way or else risk losing any momentum he might have. President Kirkman comes in, motivating the workers to keep up their work so that they can get things accomplished.

Even though Aaron (Adan Canto) has resigned as Chief of Staff, he is not out of the picture. In this episode, we get to see a little bit of Aaron’s life outside of the White House. We see him running, and then take a phone call in Spanish. We soon learn that his cousin, Nadia (Mercedes de la Zerda), has come to town for a meeting with Congresswoman Yoshida (Grace Lynn Kung), who Aaron knows from his days in the White House mail room, but Nadia manages to do more than just that. While Aaron waits for Nadia with Congresswoman Yoshida, Speaker Hookstraten walks by and sees him. She approaches him and Aaron tells her why she is there. They talk about Aaron not being at the President’s side while he deals with his situation and hopes that she’s not the reason he is no longer working in the White house. She says that Aaron will land on his feet, but if there’s anything that she can do to let her know. She leaves just as Nadia finishes her meeting and they both depart as well.

We see Alex (Natascha McElhone) making a speech at a luncheon. She is asked to take some questions from the audience, which unfortunately she had not prepared for. While the first one was relatively harmless, the second one gets quite political, referencing the gun violence that she was closely associated with – the assassination attempt on her husband and the death of Vice President MacLeish (Ashley Zukerman) – and asking her stance on gun policy. You can see Alex grow quite uncomfortable, but she takes a stance that is taken to mean she is in favor of greater restrictions on access to guns. This will prove to get her into some hot water quite quickly. Republican Senator Jack Bowman (Mark Deklin) suggests that the First Lady might be making policy instead of Kirkman. Kirkman, watching the interview that Bowman is giving on TV, has a meeting with Seth and Emily who tell him Bowman is trying to bring attention to his name for some ambitious political plans at Kirkman’s expense. Seth says that the only way they can stop him is by talking with the First Lady about the situation, asking her to make clear that her statement was her own and not representative of the administration, even though he agrees with her. She seems to understand that her statement was poorly timed and agrees to walk back her statement so that his agenda isn’t totally derailed.

We flash to Hannah and Atwood, who are driving to take in Claudine, or should we say Brooke. A careless driving runs a stop sign, nearly causing Hannah and Atwood to get in an accident. Atwood loses his cool and attacks the driver while he sits in his car, accusing him of being sent by someone to derail their mission. Hannah tells Atwood that it was just a bad driver and that she needs “a partner, not a loose cannon” and says she can’t take him with her and blow her chance. Atwood is upset and doesn’t want to be dismissed, but Hannah insists she’s going to take him home. Atwood refuses to get back in the car and walks instead. The next time we see her, she’s alone in a dark area in front of an empty building. She calls Chuck to look up some information on the building. But Hannah is being watched, by none other than Brooke. Hannah might be walking away this time, but you can tell that Brooke is calculating a plan. We move to the next day and see Chuck coming home. He is being watched by a man in a van.

In the White House, Alex is getting ready to “eat crow” on national television. Kirkman walks in and Alex confesses how uncomfortable she is playing a submissive wife. Kirkman tells her that’s not what’s happening and all she’s doing is distinguishing her comments about gun control as her own personal beliefs. Alex gives an interview and nails it, admitting she spoke her mind as a citizen and not as a First Lady, which she realizes now doesn’t come with any clear distinctions. Gun control is not on her to-do list and will be leaving the politics to Tom.

We return back to Nadia and Aaron going for a walk. Nadia admits she really wants the position she interviewed for and that she’s nervous, but then jumps in to asking Aaron if he’s ever going to talk about why he left his job at the White House. Nadia reveals that Aaron is thinking about moving back to Texas and she does not approve of it. Aaron says he can’t really move up anymore in D.C. and it’s time for him to try something new. Nadia reminds him that before him, no one thought it was possible to leave their small town and he was the one that told her that even they could make a difference, even though they came from nothing. She tells him that’s why he came to DC, and that’s why she’s there too – to make a difference – and he should not leave unless he thinks he’s done that.

Chuck starts telling Hannah everything that he could find out about the building Hannah had gone to. Even though it’s been vacant for years, a private defense company called Browning Reed has been paying the property taxes on it. Hannah asks Chuck if he smells something, and he says that there was a gas leak earlier in the day, but the gas company came by and said it was okay. Hannah tells Chuck that DC United – the gas company – doesn’t check gas lines, the fire department does. It dawns on them that they need to get out NOW. They start running just as the apartment blows, with the man from the van watching. They make it out and then we find them in a car away from the apartment. Chuck is clearly frazzled and cannot hear anything. Hannah says it will pass, and remind him that they’re okay. Hannah manages to find a silver lining to almost being blown up: they think that Chuck and Hannah are dead, so maybe they’ll have the upper hand.

President Kirkman is practicing for his town hall meeting with his staff. Emily calls him out on falling into professor mode and not relating to the people in a way that will make it clear to them he cares, even though he thinks that by showing all the research he’s done into the issues proves he does. Emily says that Kirkman has to personalize every answer and if they can get through the town hall, they can get to policy making. Kirkman is given another question as practice, to try to take into account all of the advice Emily just gave him: personalize and not sound too professorial. The question: “What are your thoughts on pornography and how will you help with this problem [pornography addiction]?” Emily and Seth watch in amusement at Kirkman’s expense as he asks if he is really supposed to personalize this one.

The town hall begins smoothly, with questions for the President about transitioning into office and how he is feeling after the assassination attempt. It gets a bit harder when the President is asked by a woman what she is supposed to tell her children about being safe. Kirkman relates this back to his own conversation with his kids. Then, a former factory worker asks how the President is going to bring back jobs like his to Virginia. Instead of giving what might be expected of a politician – promises of manufacturing jobs returning to the United States – he says those jobs are gone for good because they aren’t just gone to a foreign country with cheaper labor, but because of technology. Instead, Kirkman wants to create a public works program to address the infrastructure issues and will put those people who lost their jobs in a similar fashion get to the top of the list for that program; on top of that, he wants to create programs to educate unemployed workers in the technologies that are being used today to create opportunities. The last question we hear is from a woman named Sandra (Christina Collins). She recently lost her daughter when her ex-boyfriend, who was an ex-convict, was able to purchase a gun and break into their house; Sandra wants to know what Kirkman is going to do to prevent this from happening again. Kirkman is visibly upset by her story and says that just because gun control is divisive in D.C. does not mean it should be ignored.  You can tell, just as Aaron points out to Nadia, that his responses are so good because he means what he’s saying. Kirkman delivers an eloquent speech on gun control, and when he hugs Sandra after you can tell he wants to keep what happened to her from happening again.

Aaron has a meeting with Hookstraten to take her up on the offer of helping him find another job in D.C. Although Aaron goes in hoping that she’ll be able to introduce him to the head of a lobbying firm, Hookstraten surprises him and us, offering him a job working for her.

Kirkman has a meeting with some important people in government and asks for their input. Kirkman, being a registered independent, is seen to be at a disadvantage by some, but he thinks he can find a bipartisan platform for both parties to benefit from. He offers a pledge to Senator Bowman to find a bill they can both come to be proud of dealing with gun safety. Of course, things can never be easy for Kirkman and before Bowman even leaves the property, he puts Kirkman in a corner. Bowman says he will reintroduce a bill which strengthens background checks on guns to the Senate for debate, which means Kirkman can’t introduce his own bill without looking like he is competing with the Senator. Kirkman tells Emily and Seth to get ready for a fight.

We take a break from inside the White House to see Hannah pulling up to a large, dark house and we can tell that someone is following her. It turns out to be Atwood, who has calmed down and is ready to help. Once inside, Brooke finds Hannah and nearly overtakes her, but Atwood gets to them in time. Brooke tries to manipulate Atwood into killing her, but Hannah reminds him that they need her alive. Unfortunately, they can’t manage to do that – they have to shoot her before she managed to shoot either of them.

The episode ends with both a happy note and cause for concern. Kirkman surprises his kids and wife with pizza, while Hannah opens up a file that she must have gotten from Brooke. It contains a simulation where a number of national monuments are destroyed. Hannah has the only appropriate response to seeing this: Oh my God.