If you would like to read my review of last week’s episode, click here.
Synopsis: After sorting through thousands of letters all requesting something of president, the White House staff are assigned three, with Emily, Seth, Aaron, Lyor and Kendra joining forces to get answers and possibly save a life. Meanwhile, Hannah and Damian continue to chase down leads to exonerate the first lady, but in the end, Hannah learns the truth may be closer than she thinks. (IMDB)
Writers: Bill Chais and Ashley Gable
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 45mins
What seemed like another run-of-the-mill filler episode for the most part got saved right at the end. Before we get there, this episode made some major headway when it came to the conspiracy with Alex but this subplot got buried amongst three other subplots involving the White House staff performing various tasks for Tom in response to three letters that were chosen out of thousands.
First, Emily and Aaron had to look into a war widow’s claim that her husband should be awarded a medal of freedom. While it didn’t seem that he was worthy, the soldier was cheating with a colonel’s wife and she filed for divorce. This was the reason for the soldier not being awarded the medal. The colonel agrees to award the soldier the medal but he would also make his affair known. They debated with Tom about whether personal circumstances should be taken into consideration when awarding the medal of honor but Tom chose to award the medal.
Second, Lyor and Seth were tasked to investigate the death of a man’s bees. Lyor was enthusiastic after reading about bees but Seth didn’t seem to care. When they look into the claims made by the man and his wife, they learn that the wife was working against her husband. Once they returned to give the couple the good news, the situation devolved quickly with the husband admitting to poisoning the wife’s roses while the wife admitted to killing the bees.
Lastly, Kendra was tasked with investigating a federal execution, looking for a pardon. The man about to be executed was ultimately covering for his son who killed a man during a failed drug deal. He was willing to sacrifice himself to protect his children. Tom decided to pardon the execution but keep him in prison until he chose to tell the truth.
Kendra split time between this and Alex’s case. She informed them that the only way to save Alex was to find the banker who opened the bank account in her name. This became a contentious topic between Tom and Alex with Alex playing defense and Tom wanting to play offense and fight it. Forstell was becoming an issue as well as he appeared to have other political motives in investigating Alex and the conspiracy. He was privately gearing up for a Senate run. His advisors wanted Tom to appoint a special prosecutor but it wasn’t that easy for him. Alex wanted Tom to fire him because he’s her husband, putting him in an awkward position.
Seth was arrested in the last episode but Emily hadn’t yet told Tom. Seth was uneasy because he thought he was in the doghouse with Emily and Tom. Seth offered his resignation but she told him that she advised Tom fired him but he wouldn’t because of what he did for his brother. Seth is safe for now.
Now to the big reveal. As Wells and Rennett were about to catch the banker, they learn that they just missed him because someone may have tipped him off. Chuck called Wells while she was with Rennett to tell him that Rennett tipped off the banker. Now that’s more like it.
Overall, this was a good episode that seemed like it was going to be mostly a filler episode until the reveal. It was always plausible that something was going to happen with Rennett but it would’ve been nice if the writers took more of a risk since it seemed a little too obvious. It was still nice to finally see something exciting happen and maybe this will lead to a satisfying midseason finale that could steer the show back in the right direction.
Score: 7.5/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.