Madam Secretary – Convergence

By starrymag | April 1, 2017

By: Taylor Gates

 

Elizabeth (Tea Leoni) gets a call from Nadine (Bebe Neuwirth) in the middle of the night. The smuggling ring has been shipping more cargo to India. She rushes into the office, asking Dalton (Keith Carradine) why this is no longer a peaceful operation—she wanted to wait it out until the State could investigate. This aggressive operation would tip off the mole, who’s the only person who could tell them about Kevin’s death. Captain Baker (Justine Lupe) put a “trap door” into the State’s programming, and there are still trackers on the stolen missiles, so they don’t have much to lose by postponing the operation. Dalton calls off the interception at Elizabeth’s urging.

 

The next morning, Elizabeth gives Henry (Tim Daly) a package Maureen send him while cleaning out their father’s things. It’s an engine he got for Christmas in 7th grade. Henry asks Jason (Evan Roe) if he wants to bond and help him fix it up, but Jason is uninterested.

 

Mo (Arian Moayed) tells Henry that Ian’s (Darren Pettie) camera broke again. However, a different secret camera shows the cult members installing new defensive weaponry around their perimeter. Whatever attack they’re planning is imminent.

 

Daisy (Patina Miller) and Nadine catch Elizabeth up on the latest global drama. Poaching of black rhinos has spiked, and soon they will be extinct. Namibia needs helicopters to make sure the hunting stops. Elizabeth realizes the piecemeal solutions to this crisis aren’t working and they need bold strokes to fix it once and for all.

 

Henry has a secret meeting with Ian, who tells him the cult is planning to use the bomb. Ian doesn’t think there’s any way they suspect him—in fact, they have him guarding the place. He asks Henry if he believes in visions, as he’s been thinking he’s been seeing a kid from Iraq in the woods. Henry is worried he’s sick, demanding he tell him immediately if it happens again.

 

Elizabeth’s bodyguards lock down her office, saying there’s a security situation: they’ve found the mole. The mole is Barry Milken (Michael Mulheren), a 52-year-old in the Bureau of Arms Control. He is currently being interrogated and hasn’t yet asked for a lawyer. They searched his apartment, and nothing has directly connected him to terrorism or an arms race. Elizabeth convinces the person in charge to let her interrogate him. It’s what she did at the CIA, and with the right approach, she thinks she can get him talking. She talks to him about his noble, patriotic service in Kenya. She says she believes Barry never intended to get himself mixed up in this, but his silence is only helping harm the United States. Jim Fox (Enrico Colantoni), a mafia/celebrity killer lawyer, barges in, telling Elizabeth to step away from his client.

 

Elizabeth talks to Henry about her day while he fixes up the engine solo. Henry thinks someone with deep pockets and a special interest in Barry might have hired Fox, and Elizabeth employs Mike B. to help her figure it out.

 

Daisy tells Elizabeth they’ve requested half a dozen helicopters to seek out poachers. A young woman named Gwen (Carmen M. Herlihy) also has a unique solution: decrease demand for rhinos. Since they’re usually hunted for their horns and their supposed sex drive-increasing powers in Vietnam, the U.S. could educate the Vietnamese people as well as donate pharmaceuticals to actually benefit both the people and the rhino population. Elizabeth’s whole staff agrees to pitch in and help.

 

Henry wants to have Ian’s saliva tested for drugs. He suspects they are given him a privileged substance since he is now on the high council to give him a spiritual edge. Mo doesn’t like this plan—if the test comes back positive, the FBI will order them to pull Ian. He doesn’t want Henry to take that chance when they’re so close to the finish.

 

Henry struggles to fix his engine, and Jason shows him a internet page full of tips about it. Alison (Kathrine Herzer) announces that Jim Fox is at the door. He asks Elizabeth for immunity for his client. If not, it’ll go to trial and Elizabeth will look bad for having a mole in the State Department right under her nose. Elizabeth kicks him out of her living room.

 

Elizabeth tells the Attorney General (John Bolton) she wants to take Fox’s deal. Having the trial drag out concerns her. According to FBI tracking, Barry was nowhere near Kevin’s house at the time of his poisoning. Plus, there’s a bigger picture at play and Barry can give them intel.

 

Elizabeth’s staff presents their rhino saving program to Prime Minister Dang (Ron Nakahara). He refuses unless they can subsidize the drugs, and Big Pharma won’t cut their rates for emerging markets. The State Department barely has the funds for the ad campaign, so there’s no way they can purchase the drugs for them. Matt (Geoffrey Arend) reports that another 16 rhinos were slaughtered the previous night, and they could be extinct in 3-6 months. Though the Pentagon approved the helicopters, they can’t be delivered for 3-4 months since there are so many steps.

 

Elizabeth confides to Henry that she wants to tell Dalton about the holdup and have him make an executive order. It would be going outside the chain of command, but Henry tells her to go for it if it means effecting real change. Elizabeth gets news Barry is being released the next day on bail—he could be talking by noon.

 

The next day, Elizabeth talks to Daisy about Barry’s release. Daisy is glad Barry can help them find out more about Kevin’s murder, but she’s irritated Fox and Barry keep posing for pictures and talking to the press about the case. While they’re watching the live stream of the conference outside the courthouse, Barry gets shot and killed.

 

Henry tells Mo he tested the saliva at a private lab. It showed small signs of LSD, and Henry is afraid that Ian’s symptoms will get even worse. Plus, since the drug makes people easier to interrogate, Ian’s cover could be much more easily blown. Mo and Henry disagree on whether it’s time to get Ian out, but Henry ultimately makes the executive decision to pull him.

 

Jason tells Henry he watched some YouTube videos about the engine. He found out that it’s not Henry’s fault that the engine won’t work—a part is defective so the circuit can’t close.

 

Becker (Mike Pniewski) is furious with Elizabeth for going behind his back to Dalton, breaking protocol to get her way. Becker threatens her, saying that he could kill thousands of her programs with the swipe of his pen. This could destroy their working relationship. Elizabeth realizes this, promising it’ll never happen again if he funds the pharmaceuticals for Vietnam.

 

Henry pulls up outside cult headquarters, attempting to pick Ian up. However, members spy him and shoot at him and his car. He barely drives away in time to escape with a broken knee and fractured ankle. Elizabeth and Henry fight about his risky decision-making. Elizabeth wants him to quit his job, but Henry refuses to leave his asset endangered. While discussing the drone in the shed, Elizabeth realizes the weapons he’s looking for with the cult fit the pattern of the ones she’s looking for with the cargo smugglers. They’re looking for the same supplier.

 

The cult drone is traced to Corpus Christi—the same place the smuggling ring received Uranium. Whoever is running it has an unlimited supply of military-grade weapons and are willing to sell them to the highest bidder. Dalton orders them to shut it down and question everyone who works there as well as send out a terrorism bulletin to every city; they have to be prepared in case of attack. Elizabeth approaches Becker about the rhino program. He tells her he liked the presentation, but they will need tangible results if they’re going to continue financing it.

 

Elizabeth meets Fox at a park, offering her condolences: she knows how hard it is to see someone die right in front of you. Plus, she imagines he feels guilty about accidentally walking Barry into a trap to get him killed. Elizabeth encourages him to fight back by telling her who hired him.

 

Elizabeth invites Gwen into her office, telling her the good news about her rhino plan being put into action. She tells Gwen that the next time she has a great idea she should speak up immediately before appointing her Ambassador for Global Health Diplomacy.

 

Henry and Jason have successfully fixed the engine together. Elizabeth wonders whether the kids are actually buying the car accident cover story they’ve told them about Henry. Henry thinks maybe they’re just too scared to consider the alternative. There’s no word on Ian, so either he set Henry up or he’s dead. Fox shows up at the door, telling Elizabeth that they have a common enemy, and he wants to work with her to destroy them.