Designated Survivor – Overkill

By: Patience Kapfer

At the conclusion of last week’s episode of “Designated Survivor,” President Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland) seemed to have taken a very uncharacteristic turn. After determining that Kunami was behind the dirty bomb that killed six federal agents including Director John Forstell, Kirkman is out to show Kunami that the United States will absolutely NOT be a target for such terroristic activities. Without consulting Congress, President Kirkman lined up a fleet of Naval destroyers off the coast of Kunami and began to launch missiles at strategic targets throughout the country.

At the start of this week’s episode, President Kirkman makes an appeal to the American people to justify his actions taken against Kunami. He tells them that he authorized military strikes and those strikes will continue until the Emir surrenders unconditionally. Kirkman tells the American citizens that when he was sworn in as President that he promised to protect this country against further aggression. He tells them that the dirty bomb was “a declaration of war by a foreign nation and it is a war this country will win.” Following his public address, Lyor (Paulo Costanzo) confronts Kirkman about calling this conflict a “war,” to which President Kirkman says he knows that’s what he called it “because that’s what it is.” Lyor continues to express his distaste for both using the word war and actually being involved in a war, but the president is insistent that what Kunami did was an act of war and he will treat it as such.

Hannah (Maggie Q) and Chuck (Jake Epstein) are tasked with figuring out who was running the bomber – Arturo Rojas – and thus are spending their time watching security footage of Rojas. Two days prior to the bombing he was spotted at a gas station in Vienna, Virginia, the Baltimore Harbor and the Clareview Hotel in Congress Heights. While at the hotel, Chuck spots Rojas entering a bathroom and remaining there for fourteen minutes so they examine the people who entered the bathroom after him. After freezing and analyzing the face of a man who was in the bathroom for ten minutes, they determine it to be none other than Gregory Bowen (Dan Jeannotte) who is the East Hun Chiu political advisor.

They bring Bowen in for questioning who insists that since they don’t have a warrant, he’s calling a lawyer and suing for false imprisonment. However, Hannah assures him that they know he was working for Kunami, thus making him a co-conspirator in the murder of federal agents. In a desperate plea to save his own life, Bowen tells Hannah that he was acting in the specific behest of the Emir, which he says makes him a prisoner of war. When asked about his co-conspirators he says that Arturo Rojas was the only one and he offers them a name that could avoid years of U.S. involvement in a war that it can’t win – the name of a rebel leader, Amal Hamzi (Dani Jazzar), who is suspected to be dead since his disappearance two years ago. Bowen swears that Hamzi is alive and in hiding and that he can tell them where to find him. Hannah doesn’t take kindly to the fact that Bowen was hired by Chairman Kim and then betrayed him and was thus responsible for the deaths of the FBI agents. In her heightened emotional state she begins pointing her gun at Bowen and telling him to say Director Forstell’s name since he was responsible for his death. Once he finally says his name, Hannah tells him to get to writing the location of the rebel leader and then they have a deal.

A week later at a press conference Seth (Kal Penn) is assaulted by the press wanting to know when the strikes will finally end. Seth tells them that there is no direct timetable and the strikes will continue until all the military objectives have been met, including the surrender of the Emir. When asked about how the American public feels about this war, Seth says that eighty-three percent of the public supports the President’s handling of this war, which helps give the president leverage when deciding how to proceed. Kirkman is briefed that satellite imagery has confirmed the presence of Kunami rebel leader Amal Hamzi on the western border of the country. Unfortunately, there is no way to get word to the rebel leader that the United States is willing to back him with financial and logistical support. Therefore, they are doing things the old-fashioned way by sending a presidential emissary – Hannah Wells – who will be escorted by a team from SEAL Team Three. Hearing that the president is sending in a SEAL team and considering ground forces, Lyor is even more worried that the U.S is headed to a real war with casualties.

The president meets with the Kunami Ambassador who says they can discuss terms to surrender, but that isn’t good enough for Kirkman who requires unconditionally surrender. Following the meeting Aaron tells the President that one of his air strikes hit a hospital and there are numerous fatalities which seems to make Kirkman realize how truly real and dangerous this war is. The civilian death toll is now at twenty-two and the Emir is calling on the United Nations to condemn the air strike. Kirkman instructs his generals not to cut back on air strikes, but to be more careful to avoid hospitals and civilian targets.

While the United States faces the potential for all-out war, the Times published an article accusing Kirkman of not getting to the bottom of the hacks so Aaron (Adan Canto) is sent to see what type of information Damian (Ben Lawson) has been able to turn up regarding the hackings. Damian tells Aaron that through his searching he has been able to gain access to a hacking message board. However, Chuck says that they will need NSA help to pierce the proxy routers and get a web address.  Damian and Chuck are able to track the hacking code back to two potential companies, one of which is a smaller startup and a computer-security company with sole proprietorship run by Monica Van (Inga Cadranel) who has electronic vandalism convictions from 2002. They both take a trip to Monica’s office to confront her. At the threat of Chuck subpoenaing her company’s servers, she is forced to answer their questions. She claims her innocence and says she posts on hacker message boards just to stay up to date on the enemy and points them in the direction of another hacker known as Gamine.

In Kunami, the SEAL team escorts Hannah to meet Rami Bashir (Ali Kazmi) who will be their guide. Just a short way from meeting their guide, the team encounters enemy fire and must engage in combat from all sides. Three men are killed in the line of fire while another two end up missing, one of them being Hannah Wells. However, while it seems that Hannah may be missing to the team, she has in fact met up with the Rami Bashir. Bashir says he must take them to Hamzi now because if they wait for the rest of the team then they will die. Hannah and Sergeant Royce Sims (Clé Bennett), who happens to be Tricia’s (Chelsea Harris) brother, decide to follow Bashir to offer the President’s support to Hamzi to fight the Emir of Kunami without the rest of the team. On their way, Hannah and Royce encounter yet more gunfire, but Hannah quickly takes out the attacker. Hannah notices that Bashir is lying to them when he takes a break to pray and she realizes the way he prays is in alignment with that of the ruling minority of Kunami. When she confronts him, he pulls out a knife to attack her, but she is too fast and turns the knife back at him in lightning speed. Hannah tells Royce that Bashir was buying time to lead them to an ambush and she takes his phone and rushes them away. Hannah calls Aaron to let him know they are safe and he insists that the mission has been compromised and he needs to airlift them out of there. Of course, in typical Hannah fashion, she refuses and insists that they’ve come this far and so she’s not going to give up.

Hannah and Royce finally manage to reach Hamzi’s camp and he agrees to talk to President Kirkman. But when he leaves the room Hannah goes through one of his desk drawers and finds correspondence between Hamzi and Ambassador Salimi (Ali Hassan). According to these letters Salimi doesn’t work for the Emir. This leads Kirkman to invite Salimi to the White House to confront him. The deal Salimi made with Hamzi stated that Hamzi was never going to take over Kunami; instead Salimi was going to take over. Interestingly, Hamzi worked for Salimi and he had Gregory Bowen hire the bomber. Salimi then paid the bomber through Kunami funds which led back to the Emir.

While Kirkman’s staff is panicking about how they will spin the United States’ attack based on faulty information, Hannah informs the President that they found a secret government chemical weapons facility. The Emir had been prepared to use it against his people based on documentation that they found of the Emir’s plans to use the gas on the Sunni religious dissidents who oppose the regime. This information gives the president the justification for war that he needs to assure the American public that even though it was faulty intel, it was still justified.

When it seems as though everything is finally going okay for President Kirkman and his team, yet another problem arises. Somehow someone leaked Kirkman’s therapist notes saying how he is experiencing a repressed sense of grief over his wife with associated decisional incapacity. All of this implies that Kirkman is making poor decisions and is unfit to lead a country. The recordings are all over the internet and every single session note was leaked. This time the hacker might be someone much more obvious, since the only people who knew about his therapy sessions are his closest staffers…