S01.E09: So It Goes

[thewhiteowl]

 

Elizabeth, Henry and Isabelle launch their own investigation into the plane crash that killed former Secretary of State Vincent Marsh. Also, Nadine takes a step back into the dating pool when she agrees to go on a date with a NASA scientist.

 

[raspberry7]

And the conspiracy theory gets cooking!

[missbonnie]

I'm over here trying to recover from the near heart attack from this episode. Damn I love this show.

[maraleia]

One thing I noticed and love about this episode was the fact that Elizabeth and Henry were discussing the conspiracy stuff with Isabelle without their shoes on. I find it so unrealistic that most shows have the characters in their shoes while inside their houses.

[Netfoot]

Arm Candy taking time off from his work as an oriental swordsmith, to practice his skills as an NTSB investigator...

[Kromm]

Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!

I think the filming of the show caught up to the first episode being aired and our reactions here. I swear it did (or that they filmed some fill-in scenes for episodes already done).

"You know someone recently reminded me that I'm fourth in line for the Presidency, so you don't get to come into my office and push me around!"

Holy shit. That's almost exactly something I typed 9 episodes ago!

 

This show is still ridiculous beyond words, but thank god they finally had those words come out of her mouth.

 

The reveal that Russell is extra slimy is no surprise.  Even if his motive with the former Secretary seemed to be to protect the President, now it seems to just be because he's a Dick.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Kromm

[bros402]

Arm Candy taking time off from his work as an oriental swordsmith, to practice his skills as an NTSB investigator...

 

I can handwave that because pilots tend to like to know about their planes and their limits.

[candall]

I hope Bebe and Time-Travel will someday change into comfy gym shorts and lounge around the ottoman while they talk the big talk because it looks really fun when Tim and Tea' do it.  Mmmmm.

 

Next week mouthy daughter gets another smackdown.  I'm there.

 

.

[missbonnie]

The fact that Matt not only had been Russell's spy but that he came clean to Elizabeth were total surprises to me. I lol'd when she said well think of this as your penance. I agree about the oldest daughter, I hate that character. I wholeheartedly agree with you about Bebe and the guy from NASA.

Edited November 17, 2014 by missbonnie

[Calamity Jane]

Layers within layers - getting good.

[Notwisconsin]

No wonder this is beating the crap out of everything.

[jester]

Loved the plane scene and the stewardess dropping the bowl of fruit in the turbulence. Just made the whole thing seem whacky to me. Maybe it's just my sick head but I was really hoping Kareen Abdul Jabbar was going to be in the cock pit when former Secretary opened the door.

[betsyboo]

As a Broadway nerd, i squeed when i realized Brian Stokes Mitchell was playing Secretary Marshall. I heart him, even if he didn't get to sing. I hope he's in more flashbacks.

 

I think we all saw Zeljko Ivanek as a baddie from the beginning - that's all he ever plays! And he does it so well! I remember him from early 24, so he's always been awesomely creepy to me. Did anyone else bust out laughing at the silhouette with Matt under the bridge? there had to be a two-foot height difference!

 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the McCord marriage. Their dinnertime normalcy warms the cynical, frozen cockles of my black heart. The older girl can go back to college, tho.

 

Nice turn by Nate-the-psychologist (NCIS LA) as the plane fueler. So different than his other role.

 

You go, Bebe. Get some.

 

And how delightful (not) to learn that PR girl (still don't remember her name) and Matt have been fighting like this forEVER.

 

ETA to ask: The guy that told Bebe the plane went down  - what happened to him? I seem to remember he f-ed up in the first ep, but Bess didn't fire him, and they agreed that now he was "her" guy. Is he still around?

Edited November 17, 2014 by betsyboo

[Dowel Jones]

Well, now.  Did someone in TPTB suddenly decide to put out an honest to goodness dramatic episode?  This show is hitting on some cylinders now.  I really liked the moment of reveal when Matt relates the significance of "And so it goes" to Elizabeth.  Also liked the non-denial denial of the Israeli ex-Mossad agent to her question.  Damn, these folks are creepy.

[Julie23]

I really enjoyed this episode. Lots of intrigue, no "crisis of the week" for Elizabeth to solve single-handedly. More back-story of the other characters too.

I do love seeing the home life - even if part of the home life is working with a CIA agent to possibly find out your boss, who happens to be POTUS, conspired to commit murder.   Nicely done, show!

[Notwisconsin]

ALL POTUSes conspire to commit murder. That's part of the job.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Notwisconsin

[Calamity Jane]

Surprised that they used the "and so it goes" catchphrase from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, but didn't mention it.  Surely it has significance of some kind?  Anyone who's read the book, and it's well-known, would immediately assume there is another layer of meaning here.  Or at least I did. 

[shapeshifter]

If I ever (meaning never) decide to get back in the dating game, I will so copy Bebe Neuwirth's flirt game. Who knew she had it in her?

This episode had some of the tight plotting of Breaking Bad--except the nonsense between what's his name and what's her name.

Surprised that they used the "and so it goes" catchphrase from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, but didn't mention it. Surely it has significance of some kind? Anyone who's read the book, and it's well-known, would immediately assume there is another layer of meaning here. Or at least I did.

Thanks. Specifically (from en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five#Literary_significance):

...The story continually employs the refrain "So it goes" when death, dying, and mortality occur, as a narrative transition to another subject, as a memento mori, as comic relief, and to explain the unexplained. It appears 106 times....

And now we know why they cast Keith Carradine as the POTUS.

Edited November 18, 2014 by shapeshifter

[izabella]

This show has grown on me, and this episode felt like an exciting payoff for the series.  I normally don't like conspiracy theories, but this one doesn't seem like a huge, widespread conspiracy.  But yeah, now what do you do if you're SoS Leoni?

 

I'm so glad they are giving Bebe a bit more to do, although I'd love to see an episode where she's masterfully "holding down the fort" for a day.

[zoey1996]

I think we all saw Zeljko Ivanek as a baddie from the beginning - that's all he ever plays! And he does it so well! I remember him from early 24, so he's always been awesomely creepy to me.

 

I knew him only as ASA Danvers in Homicide and Law and Order, so I didn't expect him to play a bad guy.  He does play it well.

[HurricaneVal]

Soooo.....  Is the former SoS really, truly dead?  Like, found the body and everything?  (Not that having a body stops a good conspiracy theory--there could have been a switch and a coverup.)  Is the NASA timetravel guy really hitting on Bebe, or does he just want to get her off somewhere alone so she can re-unite with her not-so-dead lover?  I was getting that kind of vibe.

 

I'm kind of back and forth on the bait and switch at the soccer game.  I think it was pretty awful for her to draw her young daughter into the intrigue, but it was smoothly done.  I even thought as Tea Leoni left the bleachers and walked over to the "security" tent that her coat was pretty conspicuous, which is not really her character's usual style.  But then I saw that was the intent, to draw the eye away from the switch.

[Kromm]

Soooo.....  Is the former SoS really, truly dead?  Like, found the body and everything?  (Not that having a body stops a good conspiracy theory--there could have been a switch and a coverup.)  Is the NASA timetravel guy really hitting on Bebe, or does he just want to get her off somewhere alone so she can re-unite with her not-so-dead lover?  I was getting that kind of vibe.

As ridiculous as this show is (very) I don't know if it's quite at that epic a level. Someone who's ambition was to run for President isn't voluntarily faking being dead, and if it wasn't voluntary, I can't see what his continuing value would be after an initial burst of being able to get some viable intelligence from him.

 

The conspiracy is that he was murdered via a plane crash. The plane crash really did seem to happen.  For him to still be alive but a prisoner, some baddie would have to have been on the plane with him (negating the need for the elaborate ruse to kill him, I think).  For him to be alive but not a prisoner, he'd have to be insane.  If the Assistant President Chief of Ego is behind this, why would he let the guy live?  What value would he have alive?

[shapeshifter]

The ex-late-SoS came off as pretty slimy when he was getting what'shisname to write off-message speeches for him on the DL--until it turned out the POTUS might have had him offed. Now I can't get out of my head how much they're styling Keith Carradine to physically resemble Bush.

One thing really doesn't ring true: This POTUS has all the charisma of a wet dish towel. POTUSs can and have been less than paragons of virtue, but in modern times--at least--I'm pretty sure they've all been good at schmoozing.

[Guest]

I think the writing has been on the wall since the second or third episode when it was revealed the SoS had been planning on running against the President.

[missbonnie]

Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!

LOL, I bet I said that 15 times during the episode!

[myril]

Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!

I think the filming of the show caught up to the first episode being aired and our reactions here. I swear it did (or that they filmed some fill-in scenes for episodes already done).

"You know someone recently reminded me that I'm fourth in line for the Presidency, so you don't get to come into my office and push me around!"

Holy shit. That's almost exactly something I typed 9 episodes ago!

 

 

Maybe you're right. But I saw something like this coming from the start of the show. ;-) It makes sense, that it takes a moment for someone not used to do politics (though knowing a lot about politics for sure as CIA analyst) to find her standing in this place full of sharks. As from minute one on it was played on, that the President maybe wasn't just appointing Beth for her great analyst skills and not knowing there is a box.

 

Surprised that they used the "and so it goes" catchphrase from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, but didn't mention it.  Surely it has significance of some kind?  Anyone who's read the book, and it's well-known, would immediately assume there is another layer of meaning here.  Or at least I did. 

 

Not just you. Though I am sure, we can dismiss any kind of X-Files like alien intervention on this show. In Slaughterhouse-Five I understood the phrase as an expression of a rather fatalistic view: Things happen, death happens, can't really change it, even if you knew beforehand, what's going to happen.

 

Now if this were Homeland or even Scandal I would expect them simply to go the route of Russel or the President being the bad guy behind the plane crash, but I find that not fitting for this show, they have a more optimistic approach to things in D.C.. Furthermore I am someone tired of all this dark, darker, cynical conspiracy twists and the boss being the big bad (which most of the times is no surprise), so I am wishing for something different. President Dalton has for sure plenty of skeletons in his closet and is no nice guy, and Russel is a control freak and deep into power games, but assassinating someone for eventually running against him for the next term? Petty - but right, people are sometimes that petty. But it's not like Marsh was a saint, there was some dreck do dig up, his family connection with Venezuela, longtime affair with Nadine, oil company connections, and probably more.

 

The story line brings some spice into the show, but I hope they're not simply doing the usual conspiracy trope soup here as well. Leave that to State of Affairs. The good thing for me is, that the general tone of the show and what they have said in interviews about the show, while people are speculating about the usual conspiracy trope, keeps me wondering for the moment, where they are going with this story line. Not yet feeling like, been there done that.

 

All in all a good episode including nice little moments, The Nasa guy and Nauru (yes, that nation does exist, if anyone was wondering) was for a bit of comical relief. "Does he know we only handle earth?" and Tea Leoni's reactions to the Nasa guy talking about time travel and looking into billions-years-old light maybe finding god - it cracked me up as sci-fi fan. Not to mention Lori McCreary and Morgan Freeman, executive producers here, produced a science docu show called "Through the Wormhole.

 

As I loved Fred commenting during the soccer match, that it was legal play, how dare he.

 

Interesting editing with the flashbacks.

 

Just minor things noticed:

The NTSB was fast with their report. Didn't they say, the plane went down over the Atlantic? Did they ever find all wreckage? Well, the timing of drama, but couldn't help but notice it.

 

Where were the kids while they were discussing the plane crash? On visit to grandparents? It wasn't like they were sitting in a closed room, one of the kids could have eavesdropped all the time or stumbled in for some midnight snack.

Edited November 23, 2014 by katusch

[needschocolate]

This show has brought to my attention another one of my flaws (like my difficulty in remembering names) - All middle-aged white men look alike to me.  I can't seem to tell the difference between POTUS and the former SOS and I spend the first part of the scene looking for clues as to which one he is (oh, kissing Frasier's ex-wife, must be the old SOS).  I am pretty sure that when they have a flashback with the guy that died int he car "accident" I am going to be asking my viewing mate "is that the president? the old secretary of state?" The only one I can immediately recognize is the Chief of Staff, only because his appearance is so different from the others - bald, short, and sometimes has a skeleton looking face (when the shadows are right, his eyes look "sunken").

 

One thing I noticed and love about this episode was the fact that Elizabeth and Henry were discussing the conspiracy stuff with Isabelle without their shoes on. I find it so unrealistic that most shows have the characters in their shoes while inside their houses.

 

My husband, his parents, his sister and his sister's husband, all keep their shoes on all the time - including inside the house.  I was considered the odd one.  They are the only people I know who do this.  My kids all go shoeless indoors, so at least the quirk wasn't passed on to future generations (in my branch of the family tree anyway - my neice and nephew both keep their shoes on).  The soles of my husband's feet are as soft as a baby's bottom, and I have to have a bunch of throw rugs (that I can stick in the washer) on top of my carpet, or I would have to wash my carpets all the time.  I have finally convinced him to switch to hardwood floors - He is a great guy, but I have never been able to understand why a guy that always wears shoes would care what type of flooring we have.  

 

Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!

I think the filming of the show caught up to the first episode being aired and our reactions here. I swear it did (or that they filmed some fill-in scenes for episodes already done).

"You know someone recently reminded me that I'm fourth in line for the Presidency, so you don't get to come into my office and push me around!"

Holy shit. That's almost exactly something I typed 9 episodes ago!

 

This show is still ridiculous beyond words, but thank god they finally had those words come out of her mouth.

 

The reveal that Russell is extra slimy is no surprise.  Even if his motive with the former Secretary seemed to be to protect the President, now it seems to just be because he's a Dick.

 

I will have to check closed captioning, but I think she said, "You know, Kromm recently reminded me that I'm fourth in line for the Presidency, so you don't get to come into my office and push me around!"

 

I'm kind of back and forth on the bait and switch at the soccer game.  I think it was pretty awful for her to draw her young daughter into the intrigue, but it was smoothly done.  I even thought as Tea Leoni left the bleachers and walked over to the "security" tent that her coat was pretty conspicuous, which is not really her character's usual style.  But then I saw that was the intent, to draw the eye away from the switch.

 

Her daughter seemed thrilled at being part of the plan, so I didn't mind it.  The kids, at least the younger two, are more interested in what is going on in the world than any kids I have ever known (not saying it is unrealistic - given the jobs of their parents, it makes sense), so it seems reasonable that she would want to be part of it, instead of doing the typical tv teenager thing of whining "why do you always have to go? You're never there for me!"

 

This show is starting to get good.  Really good.

[Kromm]

I will have to check closed captioning, but I think she said, "You know, Kromm recently reminded me that I'm fourth in line for the Presidency, so you don't get to come into my office and push me around!"

It's cute that you think I was seriously suggesting the idea came from me. It's just a very amusing coincidence how the obvious words match up so well, and it is certainly possible they read quite a few reviews when episode 1 came out about how unrealistic the relationship between the CoS and SoS was coming off as. Eight episodes later (especially if the pilot was shot a year earlier and made the rounds before airing on TV) is actually far enough down the pike they could have done something to address it, if the show was still filming pick up shots and such.

[needschocolate]

It's cute that you think I was seriously suggesting the idea came from me. It's just a very amusing coincidence how the obvious words match up so well, and it is certainly possible they read quite a few reviews when episode 1 came out about how unrealistic the relationship between the CoS and SoS was coming off as. 

 

I knew you weren't taking credit for anything, I was just giving you credit - I hope it didn't come off as sarcastic. Your coincidence theory is probably correct, but I prefer to think that someone involved with the show has been reading this forum and had a revelation when they saw your post (or someone else's post, but "Kromm" sounds kind of similar to "Someone" - if you mumble when you say it)

 

The kids seemed to have fewer lines this episode, arm candy husband didn't add anything new to his list of amazing past life experiences, and the two staffers still argued but they didn't argue about whether they were in a relationship - all of which adds to my theory that they have been reading this forum.  

[Netfoot]

... arm candy husband didn't add anything new to his list of amazing past life experiences... 

 

Never fear!  I think that tonight, he climbs Everest.  Without oxygen.

[shapeshifter]

This show has brought to my attention another one of my flaws (like my difficulty in remembering names) - All middle-aged white men look alike to me.  I can't seem to tell the difference between POTUS and the former SOS...

I have trouble telling apart the blond female students where I work, so I can relate, but Brian Stokes Mitchell, who plays the dead SOS, is not white. He's not very dark either, but he self-identifies with Black. And then there's Keith Carradine playing the POTUS, who is frickin' Keith Carradine, so I don't have trouble telling him apart from Arm Candy Hubby. But, yeah, they are all slim, tallish men of a certain age, dressed professionally, with salt and pepper color hair, so I can see how it might be a problem.

[Kromm]

The stupidest part of the stupid shit being shoveled is this to me: this episode we have the husband being totally on board and part of Madame Secretary poking into theories that the President himself, and at the very least some lackeys in power, being ruthless enough to maybe kill the last SoS.  Meanwhile, we're supposed to believe this same genius of a hubby is at the same time putting himself in the hands of an agency under the control of these SAME people, where at worst he could be misled into blowing an op and get killed, somewhere in the middle be misled into blowing an op and get blamed (and his wife fired), and even at BEST have the mere fact that he's a working spy leaked and.... get his wife fired.  It's a lose/lose/lose if these bad people are in control, and yet this moron is doing it, while at the same time clearly being shown knowing what his wife now thinks may be going on.

 

So what if he's a jet pilot and a super engineer, and a philosophy professor, and whatever else they throw in any particular week.  All of that, and he's still a total IDIOT.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Kromm