Madam Secretary – South China Sea

By starrymag | October 27, 2016

By: Taylor Gates

 

In the South China Sea, a group of environmental activists led by Becca Mason (Madeleine Rogers) shoot a video saying how the Chinese government is destroying coral reefs that provide 10% of the earth’s seafood. She and the rest of the group are caught and arrested for trespassing on Chinese soil.

 

Meanwhile, at the McCord house, Henry (Tim Daly) is angry at Elizabeth (Tea Leoni) for not telling the FBI about Ray Merchant, a former bipolar student that used to stalk her. Elizabeth didn’t think it was relevant, as the school handled it and she hasn’t heard from him in years. Blake (Erich Bergen) catches Elizabeth up—the China Sea situation shouldn’t impact her trip to Vietnam and the Chinese have not yet made a statement on the situation.

 

Nadine (Bebe Neuwirth) doesn’t understand why the young group was in such a dangerous place, but Matt (Geoffrey Arend) and Jay (Sebastian Arcelus) tell her they were protesting its destruction. They also tell Daisy (Patina Miller) that China is trying to assert dominance on the whole sea because of oil and gas.

 

Elizabeth meets with Chinese foreign minister Ming (Francis Jue) to do some damage control. He just wants the United States to recognize the activists were trespassing on their land, but that’s a no-can-do since nobody recognizes that China owns that property. Instead, he says they will try the activists for trespassing. Elizabeth starts to play hardball, demanding they be released since they were on land that China illegally claimed, but he refuses to comply.

 

Henry goes to talk to the FBI about their family’s potential stalker. Ray has been highly critical of her and the government on social media and lists himself as an IT specialist. The agent promises to investigate Ray as soon as possible even though he’s technically not breaking any laws.

 

Elizabeth tells Conrad (Keith Carradine) and Russell (Zeljko Ivanek) she thinks China is about to go big in the South China Sea and they have to respond to their aggression. She thinks both she and Conrad should go to Vietnam to send a message to them that they’re not backing down. Vietnam also wants a small amount of military troops from China and if China still hasn’t released the activists by the time they’ve touched down, they should offer Vietnam the help as long as they meet certain human rights benchmarks. Russell thinks this is a good idea, as it will send the message that even though he is running as an independent he hasn’t gone soft on defense. Conrad is slightly uneasy—the last time he was in Vietnam, he was in his second tour of duty.

 

Conrad and the Vietnamese president (Ping Wu) bond over the horrors of war, but the person Elizabeth is talking to is a bit more hesitant. He’s just waiting for the catch since the president wouldn’t just drop by for a friendly chat. Elizabeth tells him about the human rights benchmarks they have to meet as well as revealing that this and its timing with the activists in China is no coincidence.

 

That night, Conrad confides in Elizabeth telling her about some particularly harrowing things he saw and did as a soldier. He realizes he is lucky to have ended up living in the White House instead of the street like so many of his companions.

 

Ming pays Elizabeth a visit, saying Vietnam shouldn’t take China’s friendship for granted. Elizabeth laughs at him for calling their relationship friendly; he throws it right back, reminding her US troops murdered many Vietnamese citizens not many years ago. Elizabeth switches gears, telling him the activists are innocent and their families are terrified. Ming tells her the trial date has actually been moved up since espionage is such a serious crime—he warned her not to meddle, and now there will be consequences.

 

Henry is searching Ray Merchant on the internet when the lights start flickering on and off. The television, fridge and oven soon follow. Alison (Kathrine Herzer) and Jason (Evan Roe) run downstairs, panicked. A loud alarm starts going off and FBI agents bust through the door. An FBI agent explains to Henry that their appliances are now offline so nobody will be able to hack them again. Henry is frustrated and starting to lose faith in the people who are supposed to be protecting them.

 

Daisy tells Elizabeth that a reporter has been saying things about an intruder in Elizabeth’s house. Elizabeth tells her to promise the reporter an exclusive interview with them at a later date so the story doesn’t run. Stalkers feed on engagement and the last thing they need is for this to become news.

 

Nadine informs Elizabeth that China has started flying their fighter planes dangerously close to their ships and has demanded their pandas back from the US National Zoo. Tom Murphy (Geoffrey Cantor), an oceanographer who works with the activists, snaps at Elizabeth and Jay about how their servers got fried and hundreds of files deleted. He thinks the timing is too convenient for this to be an accident, blaming the government since he thinks the US and China are business partners. Elizabeth and Jay promise they are on the activists’ side, but agree the timing was convenient.

 

Captain Ronnie Baker (Justine Lupe) tells Jay and Elizabeth how China managed to hack into the server and wipe out the files. She promises she will do her best to retrieve them and Elizabeth wonders what the Chinese are trying to keep secret. Russell barges into Elizabeth’s meeting with Daisy, passionately proclaiming that they are not going to give the pandas back to China. The pandas attract millions of people to the zoo every year and children will blame them once they can no longer watch them via the panda cam. The whole staff is understandably amused by Russell’s panda obsession.

 

Jose (Carlos Gomez) meets with Henry, telling him his friend investigated Ray a bit and Henry isn’t wrong to suspect him. However, he does have to let the FBI do their job now. Henry unconvincingly agrees.

 

Blake and Daisy figure out that China has not held up a part of their panda agreement by not giving a fourth of funds to panda preservation. Therefore, they will not return them. Ronnie tells them she is there for a meeting with the secretary and Daisy recognizes her as the person who works in her boyfriend’s office with him. However, she always assumed Ronnie was a guy.

 

Ronnie shows Elizabeth some files they managed to recover, specifically the video from the night the activists were arrested. In the back of one of the videos, a launch pad is visible. The launch pad (which was camouflaged from the air) will allow China to control all of the South China Sea since their missiles will allow them to attack a number of surrounding countries. They didn’t want anyone to know it was there until the missiles were in place, which is only days away from happening now.

 

Elizabeth gives Ming the benefit of the doubt to not having known about the missiles. Elizabeth tells him to warn the president though that if they go through with having a missile launcher, the US’ response will be just as violent and upsetting. Ming promises to relay ways in which to deescalate the situation to his president and Elizabeth starts by telling him the pandas are staying.

 

Unfortunately, one of China’s missiles flew too close to a US ship and clipped the top of it, killing three sailors. Everyone in the control room wants to respond in kind, but Elizabeth pleads with them to wait. Wheels turn slowly over there and the higher ups were still tragically hearing Elizabeth’s message to Ming when all of this went down. Elizabeth has a feeling China is going to slow down and not interpret their lack of retaliation as weakness.

 

An agent (David Furr) intercepts Henry as he is going to talk to Ray. He says that while Henry was right to bring him to their attention, as he does have issues, he has a solid alibi and is not the stalker. Ray could sue or do worse things to the next person who shows up at his door asking about his relationship with Elizabeth.

 

Conrad makes a speech saying that while he too is angry about what happened with China that day, China has expressed sincere regret and an oath to change. Conrad promises not to use this situation to politically on himself and is keeping the families of those who died in the ship in his thoughts and prayers.

 

China lets the activists go. Even though they will have to stand trial somewhere else in order for China to save face, the worst that will happen is that they will pay a fine. They also must keep the fact that China hid a missile base near the reef a secret.

 

Henry tells Elizabeth the fact that all he can do is sit around and wait for the next terrible thing to happen makes him angry and scared. Elizabeth agrees and they hug each other comfortingly.