Madam Secretary recap: 'On the Clock'

There’s so much to talk about after this episode, it’s hard to choose where to begin! By the end of it, you almost forgot that Jane Pauley was even there. There’s two countries on the brink of war, progress with finding Jibral Disah and a lot of talk about washing machines and metaphorical and biological clocks.

First things first though, I don’t know how many times I have to repeat that no one should get on a plane in this show ever again. Over two seasons there have been countless issues revolving around aircrafts and their mishaps. I’m just saying, if you want to stay alive, it’s probably best to avoid air travel. Let’s begin with the Pakistan/India conflict before we get into everything else.

Everyone is in a pretty great mood in the beginning of the episode. The U.S. has brought together the prime ministers from both India and Pakistan to finally make a peace treaty after countless years of violence and aggression. Of course things intensify quickly and another war is narrowly avoided this episode.

Before the prime ministers even get into a room together, an unauthorized plane from Pakistan crashes in India’s territory. As it turns out the plane was carrying a hydrogen bomb and now without a proper team to inspect it, the bomb could go off at any moment.

Pakistani Prime Minister Khoosat says that because it’s their bomb, a Pakistan team needs to go in and fix it; he claims they are the only ones who know the design. Indian Prime Minister Verma wants a team from India to go in and diffuse the bomb because it’s on their territory. Naturally Bess and the team propose that a US team goes in while the Pakistani team assists in diffusing the bomb and an Indian team can oversee the whole process. That’s one argument they’re able to subdue, for now.

Luckily no one died trying to fix the hydrogen bomb, but now the talks center on who gets to keep the bomb. Pakistan wants their bomb back, and India refuses to hand it over because it’s literally handing a bomb back to your enemy. Bess finally convinces India to give the bomb to the U.S., but Pakistan is refusing accept that deal. Unfortunately for Pakistan, it’s that deal, or war.

The bomb sparked violent protests all over Islamabad — now it’s only a matter of days before the entire Pakistani government collapses. Pakistan sent troops to India’s border and they’re responding by preparing for war. As usual Bess has a plan to stop the war. She and Dalton go to Verma and tell her she needs to give the bomb back to Pakistan and there’s no negotiation here. The U.S. will fly it back to them. When Verma threatens to shoot down the U.S. plane, Dalton’s pretty much like, Yeah, f— with America and see what happens.

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Bess next goes to Khoosat and says the U.S. will give back the bomb as long as they have complete access to Pakistan’s weapon arsenal; they want to know what they have and where their bombs are at all times. Using her awesome threat voice, Bess finally gets Pakistan to agree to the terms.

Suffice it to say, no peace agreement was made this episode.

I know Jibral Disah is important, but I want to talk about Daisy and her panic attack over children and the doomsday drama first.

We hardly get personal story lines from the staffers, so this episode was pretty special considering we learned a lot about Daisy’s life. Think back to last season, she was engaged to be married, but she was having an affair with Matt. Her relationship ended, and so did her hook up. Then we met Oliver. We know that she’s been not all in with him, but he’s cute and nerdy and not to mention has an awesome job.

So with all that in mind, let’s talk about the Doomsday Clock.

NEXT: Tick, Tock