HomeTVMadam Secretary 3x12 The Detour preview

Madam Secretary 3×12 The Detour preview

On the latest episode of Madam Secretary, Elizabeth (Téa Leoni) found her office inundated with gifts thanks to the election win.

The episode began a day before President Dalton’s (Keith Carradine) inauguration. Elizabeth was annoyed at Sam Evans trying to contest the result. He based his lawsuit around Elizabeth influencing people during the campaign trail. She explained things to Henry (Tim Daly) and he told her the CIA wanted to debrief him about his work with Black Dog station.

Elizabeth was struggling to choose what to wear for the inauguration ball. Her daughter Alison (Kathrine Herze), who has aspirations as a fashion designer, offered to help. Elizabeth said she could be in charge of choosing her an outfit which delighted Alison. She eventually picked out a dress but it was far too much and Elizabeth decided she couldn’t wear it. In the end Alison agreed and they picked a different dress from her own clothes that was much more suitable.

Elizabeth got a call from Blake (Erich Bergen) who told her they were flooded with gifts. He needed Elizabeth to sign off on each of them before they could be archived and catalogued. Matt (Geoffrey Arend) joked that they’d have to send them all back if Sam Evans was successful.

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At the White House, Elizabeth met with Dalton and Russell Jackson (Željko Ivanek) to talk strategy over Sam Evans. Jackson wanted to use their discovery that Evans had early Alzheimer’s but Dalton wasn’t comfortable with it. Instead Elizabeth suggested offering Evans a White House position.

They offered Secretary of Commerce to Evans but he said the only position that interested him would be Secretary of State. Dalton refused to offer him Elizabeth’s job. Later, Jackson met with Evans and threatened to use the Alzheimer’s against him. It worked and Evans withdrew the lawsuit.

Blake called again about a new gift he had signed for, it was a horse from Mongolia. Elizabeth said they couldn’t accept it and should send it back. Keeping it would also cause problems with China which they wanted to avoid.

A video call with Mongolia didn’t go well when they said they wouldn’t take the horse back. If it was sent back they would have no option but to euthanise it. Word of the horse got out and animal rights activists began a protest. Blake found his car scrawled with ‘Horse Killer’ and covered in manure.

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Meanwhile, Henry had his CIA meeting where they quizzed him over connections between Hizb al-Shahid and ISIS. Henry wanted to help but they wouldn’t give him much information which he found frustrating.

Henry later met with Jackson to talk about the meeting. He told him is suspicions that he thought the CIA were hinting that ISIS were recruiting from Hizb al-Shahid. Jackson wasn’t keen on giving Henry extra information as it was classified but Henry pushed.

Jackson told him that the owner of the telephone company was refusing to give up the terrorist phone records. Henry decided to confront the owner himself. He played to his ego by telling him he was the only person who could help the CIA. It worked and he later granted access to the records.

Elsewhere in the episode, Stevie (Wallis Currie-Wood) took up an internship for Russell Jackson. He admitted he hated interns but offered her the position for saving his life.

© CBS Broadcasting, Inc

Her first assignment was to pick up the Poet Laureate Roland Hobbs (Reed Birney) from the airport. He was due to read a poem at the inauguration but Stevie found he hadn’t written it yet. Instead of heading back to his hotel he wanted to tour the city looking for inspiration.

He eventually dragged her to a bar where he got himself blind drunk on Scotch. Struggling with Hobbs, Stevie called her boyfriend Jareth (Christopher O’Shea) for help. The pair of them managed to get him back to the hotel where he passed out.

The next morning they awoke to find Hobbs had gone missing. Suddenly he burst in bright as a button with coffee for them all. He had made a miraculous recovery and was full of inspiration for his poem.

At the end of the episode, Nadine (Bebe Neuwirth) announced that they had found a home for the horse in Cuba. At the inauguration, Hobbs read out his poem.

© CBS Broadcasting, Inc

The next episode is The Detour. Elizabeth heads to Africa for a development aid discussion, but is surprised to find that Chinese officials are looking to undercut their offer.

Tune in to Sky Living at 10pm Wednesday to see the episode. Preview the episode with our gallery below:

Greg Ellwood
Greg Ellwoodhttps://8ce250469d.nxcli.io
Greg is the Deputy Editor of Entertainment Focus. He writes about Games, Tech and TV. You can find him on Xbox/PSN/Steam as Tahllian.

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