Madam Secretary - Waiting for Taleju/The Long Shot - Review: "Foreign and domestic enemies"

Madam Secretary had to battle both foreign and domestic enemies in its latest two episodes. First, Elizabeth had to prevent a photo scandal involving her own daughter, and then she had to deal with Russia again.

Episode 2.04 Waiting for Taleju
Elizabeth has quite a few problems in this episode. Her main problem is preventing nude photos of Stevie and Harrison to become public. Harrison apparently lost his phone and now someone is threatening to go public with these photos. Despite the couple's break-up, these photos are still on Harrison's phone. It's really all a nightmare and becomes even worse when Henry does a TV interview about his latest book and he gets a question about Stevie's photos. Henry subsequently loses it on live television. Later that day, Bess and Henry are invited for a dinner at the White House with President Dalton and First Lady Lydia. The dinner gets rather awkward when Bess is accused of all sorts of things, not in the least the situation with Maria Ostrov. It later turns out that the photos were stolen by a former Secret Service agent who was fired a while ago. Stevie confronts him, but she doesn't get angry at him. Instead, she sits down with him so that she could get to know him instead of reducing him to one stupid thing he did.

Elsewhere, China is building a new weather station in the Arctic and Craig Sterling suspects that the Chinese might be working with Russia to spy on the US. Also, a Kumari, the most spiritual figure in Nepal, has travelled to the US because of a bill that will ensure money for disaster relief. At first, the bill is expected to make it through, but after the photo scandal, that bill might not pass. Fortunately, Elizabeth comes up with a plan to catch two birds with one stone. The US will build an observatory in the Himalayas to keep an eye out on the Chinese, while also paying Nepal to use the land. And that money will come from taking away 10 of the 400 military vehicles of defense. Everyone is happy and even Craig Sterling agrees with the plan!

This episode was all about tension, and it surely delivered that on many fronts! From the very beginning it was clear that the President was blaming her for the Russia debacle in episode 3 and Stevie and Harrison's photo scandal only made things worse. It was great to see a weekly problem that was much closer to home than usual. The family scenes are one of my favourite things about this show so to have an episode with many of them was great. Also, I really liked how mature Stevie was during the whole situation, especially when she confronted that former Secret Service agent. Stevie usually causes quite some trouble, but it was good to see her deal with this situation differently than what we're used of seeing from her. As usual, the international political problems were presented in a simplistic manner and also solved rather easy, but I liked how creative Elizabeth got with this. She hasn't had that many victories yet this season, so it was great to see her finally have one. I am glad she is back on the President's good side for now, and even Craig Sterling seems to have warmed up to Bess a little. Something I enjoyed is that the show does keep true to the foreign nation's culture, as was the case with Nepal this time. A Kumari really does exist, as does a Rusualka from the eponymous episode 3. I know the show can be stereotypical when it comes to other nations, but in this case I don't think that was the case.

Episode 2.05 The Long Shot
Following Maria Ostrov's grab for power, former Russian Foreign Minister Anton Gorev has fled to London. From there, he's trying to run against Maria for Russian President. However, the UK has frozen his funds so he calls Elizabeth to help him make a deal with Britain. While Maria has the Russian generals behind her, there are plenty of Russians that want peace and could be potential Gorev supporters. Bess comes up with a plan to lift the UK sanctions by allowing Gorev to sell his British properties. However, President Dalton and Craig Sterling are not that wild about the plan since the US has nothing to gain from it. So Sterling proposes that Gorev spills some Russian secrets to the US. Of course, Gorev is unwilling to do that. In the meantime, Henry orders Dmitri to talk to General Doroshevich at the Russian embassy. There, Dmitri overhears that Maria wants to bring Olga Gorev to the embassy to use her as leverage for the elections. He tells Henry, who subsequently rescues Olga just in time and brings her over to the McCord mansion. After Gorev tells Elizabeth some important information, he receives the money to run against Maria. However, before he can even leave London, Gorev is shot and killed. Olga later travels back to Russia to bury him. Maria Ostrov is now certain to win the elections.

Elsewhere, Dmitri's talk to General Doroshevich revealed that Russia wants the Ukraine as part of their empire. Dmitri also realizes that him spying on the US is necessary for saving people's lives. Also, Jay comes up with a plan to fight Russian propaganda. In the Eastern Ukraine, the Russians put on a cheesy game on television, which is then followed by fake news items favoring Russia. Jay plans to use an American TV show to draw viewers away from the propaganda, which will then be followed by a real news program. However, despite Bess' agreement with the plan she tells him they don't have a budget for this. So Jay meets with some potential show makers, but when they hear they won't get paid, they are pretty much out. Jay tries to stop them by giving a speech and telling him about his own experience with not helping out when he had the chance, but sadly the TV people still walk away.

Also, Oliver Shaw gives an update on the Air Force One hacker. The hacker goes by the name of Dash and has worked for China, North Korea, Russia and Iran, so that basically confirms what we already suspected. Fortunately, Gorev is willing to give the US his real name: George Lasco. However, it turns out he has another attack planned when Ukrainian President Bozek travels back from the US after a visit to the States. Bozek's plane crashes, but thanks to parachutes everybody makes it out alive. So what common enemy do President Bozek and President Dalton have? Just one: Maria Ostrov. She probably wants to get her enemies out of the way, and she started with Dalton when her husband got sick.

Lastly, Allison blames her mother for not giving her enough attention. Apparently, she has had an interest in fashion for a few years, but her mother has not noticed. She is the middle child, after all, and both Stevie and Jason get more attention than her. Of course, it's all good at the end of the episode.

So the show got back to the Russia storyline pretty fast. And again, I found it a great episode! Gorev really showed that he had the best intentions, but sadly he cannot make them true anymore. I was surprised to see Gorev killed off so soon as I thought the show would use him in the future. Now things seem to be heading towards a war with Russia. Obviously Maria already more or less declared war when she hacked Air Force One. I was not surprised that she was behind it. It would be too much of a coincidence if the Air Force One attack happened just before all the events in Russia. Anyway, besides interesting progress on the Russia storyline, there was plenty of other good stuff in this episode. Most notably, there was a nice change in the relationship between Henry and Dmitri. I am glad Dmitri sees what he's doing it all for, even though this certainly does not clear Henry of all blame. He should have treated the boy with more respect, but I'm hoping that Henry now sees that the harsh treatment is no longer necessary and that Dmitri is fully an asset. Also, I liked how Allison spoke out about not getting that much attention. Honestly, I cannot disagree with her and I believe she is the McCord child that gets the least attention from her parents. It will be interesting to see if that changes after this episode.

What did you think of "Waiting for Taleju" and "The Long Shot"? Do you think the tensions between Elizabeth on one side and President Dalton and Craig Sterling on the other side are truly over? How are you feeling about the Russia storyline so far? Do you think the US will go to war with Russia and Maria Ostrov? And lastly, which McCord kid acted more mature: Stevie in episode 4 or Allison in episode 5? I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.

The next episode of Madam Secretary airs tonight at 8/7c 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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