Madam Secretary – The French Revolution

By starrymag | November 10, 2016

By: Taylor Gates

 

Henry (Tim Daly) is stressed, as it has now been an hour since their asset Cecile (Lyne Renee), was abducted. Jose (Carlos Gomez) tries to calm him down, saying Cecile told them before she was captured that the meeting went fine. He can’t help but think sending her in was a mistake. The video of her kidnapping is finally posted and they start running the license plates on the cars. Despite Jose telling him he can leave, Henry decides to stay and work.

 

Elizabeth (Tea Leoni) makes a surprisingly edible breakfast for the kids. Alison (Kathrine Herzer) is upset Henry isn’t home and is freaked out by the hackers. Jason (Evan Roe) tells her the stalkers can get to them regardless if Henry is home, leading them to fight. Elizabeth tells Alison she has permission to take the day off of school or go to work with her, but Alison says she’ll just power through and develop and ulcer.

 

Blake (Erich Bergen) and Nadine (Bebe Neuwirth) both warn Elizabeth that they need to make a good impression with the new French administration. The visit will be controversial, as Jay (Sebastian Arcelus) says that the French president is threatening to pull out of NATO and the United States is basically throwing him a huge party—complete with Katy Perry—at the same time.

 

Rich, France-loving businessmen who withdrew their support when Conrad (Keith Carradine) decided to run as an independent are also invited to the fancy dinner they’re throwing for the French government. Nadine and Matt (Geoffrey Arend) are nervous this will be seen as an attempt to woo them and unethical, but Russell (Zeljko Ivanek) says they shouldn’t fear.

 

Jose tells Henry the plates have been ID’d—the van belongs to French intelligence. Cecile was taken because they didn’t know she was undercover; she will be okay now. Henry isn’t convinced as France’s government is in a bit of turmoil right now with the new administration.

 

The millionaire businessmen talk to Russell at an informal meeting. They trash Elizabeth and her climate change policies. Russell begs them to hear him out and reconsider supporting Conrad again. With three viable candidates, none of them will reach the needed 270 votes, which will throw the race to the House. Russell is confident Dalton will win and tells them they will want to support the right, winning candidate—they all might want to consider pulling out their checkbooks to help him.

 

Elizabeth and Henry talk in the bathroom, once again finding humor in the fact that some of their problems are so much different than that of a normal couple. They’re interrupted by a call from Captain Ronnie Baker (Justine Lupe). Baker says they’ve traced the hacker’s digital signature to an anonymous online payment site, which indicates they are likely a mercenary working for a third party—a hired gun working for the actual stalker. They’ve developed a technology that is able to give them a brief look at the other side any time a payment is going through, lasting approximately two seconds. That’s plenty of time, but this will be worthless if there are no more monetary exchanges. Elizabeth snaps, saying the stalker could easily kill them before they find out who it is. Baker apologizes for her optimism and the fact she doesn’t have even better news, but Elizabeth says she’s sorry for being short with her—the fear is getting to her.

 

Elizabeth’s office has been vandalized, the wall spray painted with the word “quit.” She tells Blake to call the FBI. Elizabeth wants to resign in order to keep her family safe, but Henry refuses to let her give into fear. They’re going to catch this guy. There are no security cameras on the floor Elizabeth works on, but the intruder would have had to have had a swipe card to get in and very few people have clearance.

 

The two are called into the President’s office. Russell can’t help but wonder if the attacker could be someone they know. The French want to expose both the asset and Henry and Jose’s mission in order to make a point about US bullheaded Unitarianism. Dalton assures Henry that he wants him to continue their mission and Cecil’s release is their top priority.

 

Elizabeth gives a beautiful speech about Mount Vernon commemorating the French sacrifice in their fight for independence. After the ceremony, Elizabeth is irritated that French leader Dubois (Davis Hall) keeps intentionally avoiding her so she will have to seek him out, thus giving him more negotiating power. Nadine offers to talk to him first—a negotiating tactic she learned from the most popular girl in her sixth grade class. He falls for it, as Nadine easily charms him into the champagne tent where Elizabeth is waiting. Dubois tells Elizabeth he wants France to only have to pay 5% to NATO instead of 10%. Elizabeth flawlessly fights back, threatening to try all of the French spies embedded in various US companies for espionage.

 

Russell is furious at Elizabeth as Dubois is holed up in his hotel room, saying both he and the president have the stomach flu and won’t be well enough to come to the state dinner. The dinner will have to be cancelled, which puts Dalton’s millionaires on the fence in jeopardy. Elizabeth tells him to chill, but he loses it saying that his future career is dependent on Dalton’s reelection—he burned so many bridges when he left his party. While Elizabeth may be fine with leaving politics, he isn’t. Elizabeth softens, promising she’ll fix things with France after she talks to the FBI about the stalker.

 

The FBI tells Henry and Elizabeth the vandal is Diego Molina (Juan Carlos Hernandez), who is heading back to El Salvador. Elizabeth is shocked since Diego seemed like a genuinely good guy. He tells the FBI agent to have people quietly take him into custody after he goes through customs so the real stalker lets their guard down. She wants to make Diego their asset.

 

Henry tells Elizabeth she should call Dubois’ “sick” bluff and invite him out for a quiet, secret drink to discuss things. Alison asks to go to a barbecue and Elizabeth agrees. Alison is annoyed; however, that bodyguards have to accompany her there. Having agents follow her around doesn’t make her feel safe—they just remind her she’s not.

 

Elizabeth’s staff is brainstorming incentives for France. Jay says the FDA has agreed to lift the ban on imported cheese a whole three months early, but Nadine is unimpressed with the offer.

 

Jose and Henry videochat with Cecile, who tells them she is okay and more than safe. She never saw the broker during the meeting, but a few women referred to him as “Bouseed.” Cecile believes they hope Bouseed will lead them up the food chain. The name Bouseed rings a bell for Henry, who remembers reading the name in a report. He grabs the report and confirms his suspicion—Bouseed specializes in religious artifacts and is being groomed to take over the militarily. The French and US need to work together to take down Bouseed, as the French have intel on him and the US now has the technology to decipher it.

 

While being interrogated, Diego says he thought the spray painting might have just been a prank and a guy on the metro offered him $500,000 dollars cash to do it. The guy was a tall, skinny white guy. The interrogator says he’ll go to jail for 20 years if the stalking charges stick and he stops cooperating. Diego reveals that he got the money through the same site the stalker is using. Henry, Elizabeth and Baker plan to trick the guy into sending more money and being able to find out his information though the hacking technology they have developed.

 

Elizabeth and Dubois toast to the Treaty of Paris. Dubois; however, is still angry at that fact Jay called him an insulting name a few years ago. Elizabeth pleads with him to put the past behind them so the US and France can have better relations. Elizabeth offers France a spot in an exclusive coalition with Britain, Australia, Canada, US and New Zealand wherein they share all foreign intelligence. The condition for membership is that they must maintain their position in NATO.

 

Henry and Jose brief Conrad. The French and US want to team up and capture terrorist leadership—a drone attack would do damage to the artifacts they’ve stolen and destroy vital intelligence hidden in their phones and computers. They plan an ambush and it works. They safely remove all the statues and give them to the French for safekeeping. The French president says he is now feeling much better and agrees to come to the state dinner. More good news: the FBI has found the McCord’s stalker. Henry and Elizabeth watch via a monitor as the FBI goes into his house and arrests him.

 

Before the state dinner, Elizabeth and Henry talk to Julius (Brian Reddy), one of the rich guys mad that Dalton went Independent. They tell him about their stalker and he apologizes. It turns out, though, that Julius is the one that hired the tech guy to stalk them, afraid that Elizabeth was ruining Dalton. Julius says that Dalton can’t win the election without him, telling her that if she really loves Dalton she will let her accusations go. Dalton walks in at this point and Julius tells him that he’s back in his camp, but he will withhold support until Elizabeth stops blaming him for outrageous things. Dalton says he wants to deal with the situation right that moment, calling in the attorney general to arrest him on stalking and threatening charges.

 

Daisy (Patina Miller) is thrilled at the great work they all managed to do in a short amount of time. Elizabeth and Henry celebrate the fact that, with Julius now gone, all the other millionaires upped their donations since they secretly hated him. Elizabeth and Henry celebrate the fact that they don’t have to be scared to go home anymore by doing just that.