Madam Secretary - Lights Out - Review: "How to kick out Craig Sterling"

On last Sunday's episode, Madam Secretary worked with Russell to kick Craig Sterling out of the President's inner circle. Also, the hacker of Air Force One was located and Dmitri returned to Russia.

The episode begins with a glimpse into Russell's private life, with his wife Carole measuring his blood pressure and Russell doing some cycling. When Russell gets an email from Admiral Ellen Hill announcing her retirement, he later discusses possible replacements with Craig Sterling. Russell thinks General Reeves is the guy to take her place, though Sterling says he needs to vet him first. Russell is secretly working with Elizabeth and Mike B to take down Sterling quietly. If they go to the President, it is a scandal which will be harmful for the re-election. Fortunately, the nudge to take Sterling out works as he also nominated General Reeves to be Hill's replacement. Mike B subsequently calls on reporter Vanessa from the Chronicle. Vanessa calls Sterling and says she has info that Reeves bribed Sterling for his support. Sterling calls is insane, but when he asks when the supposed meeting with Reeves took place, Vanessa said it was last week Thursday. However, on that day Sterling was meeting with Senator Parisi to make a plan to overthrow the President's plan to lift the Cuban trade embargo. Sterling thinks Russell played him, but Russell denies that. Russell says he will make the story go away, while Sterling needs to handle the situation. Of course, Russell is on Bess' side and Sterling is picked up on his way to a meeting. Turns out he destroyed his schedule that contained evidence of his meeting with Senator Parisi. That schedule, however, also contained notes of official White House meetings. In shredding his schedule, Sterling violated the Presidential Records Act of 1978. That leaves him with two options: quietly resign from his position or face a prison term. Sterling chooses the former.

Meanwhile, the hacker of Air Force One, George Lasco aka Dash, has been located in Cambodia. Sterling and Russell argue for Special Forces to grab the guy, while Bess and Oliver Shaw prefer a quiet CIA team. Dalton takes Bess' side and sends a CIA team to extract Dash. When the team reaches the location, Dash appears to have fled the scene until a body is found, which is presumably Dash's. There is a high level of radiation and the victim appears to have died from polonium. Polonium is only found in and used by Russia. It seems like Russia was behind the Air Force One attack, but the polonium in itself is not enough evidence. So as the President demands secondary evidence, he also has General Kohl look into possible retaliatory strategies against Russia. Dash's laptop later indicates that he was paid by the Russians. General Kohl then presents three retaliatory options. Fase X means targeting the Ostrov administration by attacking government websites. Fase Y expands that to military infrastructure, by deactivating satellites and interrupting communications networks. Fase Z means all of the above and hitting Moscow's power grid. Surprisingly, the President wants to for Fase Z despite Bess' concerns. Besides a proportional response, he also wants to make the Kremlin go dark. Even with Sterling out of the game, it is still looking like a cyber war with Russia. Bess summons the Russian Ambassador Zinchencko to explain that the US deems it necessary to retaliate against Russia. At that moment, Moscow goes dark.

Also, Dmitri is returning to Russia and Henry promises him to do everything in his power to keep him safe. There is a phone waiting for him at the toilet on the airport in Moscow. However, before Dmitri gets to the phone he is taken away by two men. Jane Fellows later informs Henry that Dmitri has been MIA for more than 8 hours, so they removed the phone because it couldn't fall into the wrong hands. Jane suspects they lost him, but Henry doesn't want to believe that. Even more later, Jane tells Henry that Dmitri's file has been wiped from existence. Fortunately, Dmitri is not dead but rather got a special treatment because General Vladimir Doroshevich wants him in the GRU. Dmitri is taken to the Russian General Staff HQ, where he gets his eyes on some files about Russia's plans for the Ukraine. He takes photos of these files and manages to make contact with Henry despite being followed by two Russian agents. It turns out Maria Ostrov's plans for the Ukraine are much more aggressive than they initially suspected, because she wants all of the Ukraine. However, Dmitri also left a note with the photos saying that he wants out. Henry suspects he'll seek asylum in Sweden with his sister, who is the most important thing to him. Dmitri gets on a train, but sadly he is still on the train when the power blackout begins.

Oh yes, he's out!! I'm talking about Craig Sterling of course. I must admit that he was a great adversary to Elizabeth, but he has gotten more and more dirtier so it was inevitable that he would be boxed out. I liked Russell and Bess working together and they had quite a complex and interesting plan to get rid of Sterling. I'm not sure if Sterling is out for good as he is credited in the press release in the next episode, but I'm happy he no longer has any influence on the President's decisions. However, apparently Dalton is still adamant to attack Russia. I mean, I get that hacking Air Force One is an act of war, but getting the entire city of Moscow is even worse. This could have dire consequences for the city itself, for the people in it, for Maria Ostrov and for the US. This might be one of the boldest things the show has ever done and I applaud them for getting this close to a war with Russia. I can't wait to see the fallout of this event next week. Dmitri is also in quite a dangerous situation at the moment. He seems to have evaded his two followers, who I presume are KGB agents or something like that, but now he is stuck on a train somewhere in Moscow. How will this end for him? By the way, I really liked how Henry stood up for Dmitri when Jane wanted to write him off. Henry's methods of recruiting and training Dmitri have been a bit unconventional to say the least, but I believe he is over that and now really cares for Dmitri. All in all, another well-crafted episode.

What did you think of "Lights Out"? Are you happy that Craig Sterling is finally out of the President's circle? What did you think of Russell and Bess working together to accomplish that goal? Do you think Russia is really behind the hack on Air Force One? What are your feelings about the President's retaliatory actions? How will Maria Ostrov react to that? And lastly, how will Dmitri get out of that precarious situation?

The next episode of Madam Secretary airs next week at 8/7 on CBS.

About the Author - Daniel van der Veer

Daniel van der Veer is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100, Madam Secretary and Quantico. He also enjoys LOST, Arrow, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Nikita, The Blacklist, Scorpion and How To Get Away With Murder.

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