On the latest episode of Madam Secretary, Elizabeth (Téa Leoni) met with the Dalai Lama.
At the start of the episode, Jason (Evan Roe) was playing Xbox while Alison (Kathrine Herzer) wanted to watch TV. Stevie took over and put the news on to watch President Dalton (Keith Carradine) give his State of the Union address. Elizabeth and Henry (Tim Daly) arrived home and were pleased to see their children keeping updated on current events.
Russell Jackson (Zeljko Ivanek) paid Elizabeth a visit to talk about her impending meeting with the Dalai Lama. He wanted the trip postponing to prevent issues with the Chinese signing their climate treaty. Elizabeth refused as it had been scheduled for months. Instead she promised to try and keep the coverage low key.
At Elizabeth’s office the local Buddhists awaited the Dalai Lama. In preparation of his visit they created a sand mandala. When he arrived he met with Elizabeth alone and explained he had terminal pancreatic cancer. He had chosen a successor and wanted the US to endorse him to stop China causing problems.
The successor was a 2 year-old Tibetan/American boy who was an American citizen. The Chinese were unhappy about it and said they wouldn’t sign the treaty if the next Dalai Lama was American. Due to China’s threats other countries started to become nervous and were thinking of backing out. China then found their own Chinese successor and wanted America to back theirs.
Elsewhere in the episode, Jay (Sebastian Arcelus) had a visit from his wife, Abby. She brought a custody agreement drawn up by a lawyer friend. It would grant her full custody of their daughter but allow Jay to see her one day per week and every two weekends. A furious Jay refused.
Jay later met with his own lawyer friend to discuss his options. He was advised to get tough if he wanted to win. It was suggested that he could use his wife’s postnatal depression against her but that wasn’t something that Jay liked the idea of.
He later took some more advice from Nadine (Bebe Neuwirth) and the situation with the American boy helped him make his mind up. He agreed with Abby not to fight for custody of their daughter.
Also, Henry checked in on the autopsy of the guy Ian Conroy (Darren Pettie) killed. It was ruled that Ian had killed him in self defense. The FBI wanted to bring Ian in and send the body to the family.
Henry argued to keep Ian undercover to give him time to find the bomb. It was risky because Ian was now under suspicion by the cult. The FBI agreed to delay sending the body to the family to give him a little more time. Later they staged a car crash with the body to take the heat off Ian.
At the end of the episode, the Dalai Lama passed away. The boy didn’t pass the tests so couldn’t succeed him. This left a clear path for China to come back to the treaty.
The next episode is Convergence. When a computer sting uncovers the possible mole in the CIA arms smuggling ring, Elizabeth suspects there may be a larger force at play.
Tune in to Sky Living at 10pm Wednesday to see the episode. Preview the episode with our gallery below:
