After last week's perplexing hour, State of Affairs hit form tonight with an episode that literally blew open the storyline, and revealed several more teeth on the cog that keeps things moving.
Titled "Cry Havoc" the episode was written by Heidi Cole McAdams and directed by Joshua Butler. The hour began with the homegrown terrorist identified last week named Stacey Dover, who made a fiery exit. That scene turned out to be timeshifted, with a portion of the episode counting down to the big boom. We later learned that the bomb Dover was wearing took out Senator Green and her assistant, and sent a shard of glass into the chest of CIA director Navaro. Though he was in surgery, his fate is still unknown.
Back on Level 7, prior to the bomb, Navaro assisted Charlie in identifying who had sent those texts, including the photo of her, Nick Vera and Omar Fatah, to her in the earlier episodes in the season. Rather surprisingly, it turned out to be Kurt, who, somewhat correctly, tried to justify his actions by explaining that for all he knew, Charlie was the one who planned the convoy attack that killed her fiance. The end result was Kurt getting the boot, but if his later actions which involved meeting with the head of a private military corporation are of any indication, he's got some more damage to do.
After his absence last week, Nick Vera resurfaced on board a transport plane. Surprisingly he managed to get the break the CIA needed to track down their arch-nemesis, Sheikh Hakam - a showdown of sorts seems imminent next week. Further, the doubts the team had about the validity of Omar Fatah's intelligence were found to have been mistaken.
Another character relationship receiving development tonight was between President Constance Payton and her husband Marshall. After what I thought were sinister intentions last week after he paid a visit to Senator Green, it turned out he was only after answers to his son's death. I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief as his intentions could have been a lot more damaging. This seemed to be the trend in this episode, with the revelations Omar Fatah hadn't been working against the CIA also good news. Lucas's next actions are now of the most concern, as are the actions of the remnants of Ar Rissalah, which the promo for next week's episode aligns heavily with.
Thanks for reading. As always check out State of Affairs on my TV ratings website, www.seriesmonitor.com/stateofaffairs. Share your thoughts and theories in the comments below.
Jimmy.
