Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 15 USERS: C YOU GRADE IT Can You Hear The Horses?
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 11.25.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.So now that the Chief of Staff and the Secret Service guy have both been murdered, Duncan and Gramps are starting to think that maybe they will be next. They send Beardy to spy on Duncan's new contact -- who is still G-Man, because Quentin Creasy barely ever even talked to Duncan -- and it is revealed that Vanessa and the Colonel are getting bored with everybody not being dead, and also antsy that the President is going to reveal their big PRISM secret to everybody before his death via surgery.
So while the sniper they hire is getting ready to go kill the President next episode at a church in NYC, our team spends the whole hour running around thinking they are themselves going to be sniped. Oh, and the deal with Vanessa and FLOTUS's dead brother is that he was going to be President until he flew his plane into the side of a mountain, all for the benefit of the current President, which you could have figured out from Vanessa only talking about those two things, ever.
Ellen tries to help by finding another donor for this magical marrow of the President's, but Duncan tries to throw her off by explaining that Nina can't be revealed as his kid because she is the product of a horrible sexual assault. Gramps spirited the woman away in the night, and adopted the child as his own, and now we know why POTUS would take her out so fast. Ellen keeps going with it, though, and eventually tracks down a partial match that eventually turns out to be, you guessed it, the mother.
(Who faked her own death and changed her identity and then for some reason came back from overseas and opened an antiques store a half-hour away from the White House, knowing they'll be murdered if she or her daughter are discovered? You tell me.)
Anyway, Ellen tracks her there and nearly gets it from a shotgun, but eventually she's like, "Sorry your rapist is President now, but did you know your daughter has cancer?" She did not. She also doesn't have any relatives with better bone marrow to save Nina with, either. Ellen's like, "Downside, I ruined a woman's life she built for herself for no real reason. Upside, Duncan Carlisle and I have never been closer. But mostly I'm glad the President is a rapist, because that's my favorite kind of person to serial-murder."
Morgan finds Pickup Truck's cheap cell phone in her bathroom from before he was shot to death in her kitchen, and when she sees his dad's getting anxious, reports directly to her abductors, because she is buying in with a vengeance. She and Sandry Duncan -- who is now acting as a mole for Team NSA, for vague child-related reasons -- text the dad that Pickup Truck is a deadbeat dad who wants to be on a fishing boat, and they think that's the end of it. Instead, the guy comes by to offer a sincere and very sweet apology for his son's behavior, and she very kindly talks him through it and makes him feel better. It is both the greatest and the scariest Morgan we have ever seen.
Afterwards, Tate Donovan flips out on her because she is acting like a sociopath, but she assures him it's just Stockholm Syndrome and it's no big deal. He tries to tell Ellen about this alarming turn of events, but she's been brainwashed too, and now thinks that killing the President is a fine idea and that she and Duncan are best friends and probably soulmates. Tate just doesn't know what to do!
But it looks like next week he'll get a shot at figuring it out, since Duncan locks the entire family in a room while he's off on his day trip to assassinate the assassin of the President so they can get back to assassinating the President. And then the mother of Nina goes haywire and decides to expose him as a monster, which I guess is another way to solve the problem.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Morgan's bus depot injuries aroused the suspicions of her guidance counselor, which aroused the suspicions in turn of her gross boyfriend, whose decision to save her from an abusive situation that was actually a hostage situation ended up with him dead -- boo hoo -- and Morg-Morg's brainwashing bond with Duncan Carlisle stronger than ever. G-Man murdered Agent Hoffman because it was the only way to end his bizarre fixation on Nurse Angela's disappearance and the Case of the Very Thin Blood.
First Sister-In-Law Vanessa Moore continued her unbroken bad-assery streak by murdering the Chief of Staff, in the middle of a White House Ambassador's Dinner, in front of everybody, like it was no big deal. Ellen figured out Nina Daly Carlisle was the President's daughter, and in need of his magical marrow, but he'll have her killed faster than stage IV leukemia if he ever learns of her existence.
DAY NINE
Ellen: "Are you shitting me."
Duncan: "No. If he finds out Nina and I exist, we're dead."
Ellen: "But so why assassinate him?"
Duncan: "That was going to happen either way. At least now I can steal from his bones."
Ellen: "What about Archer and Smashmouth and the other one? Do they know..."
Duncan: (Sad face emoticon.)
Ellen: "You lied to them too? What is this world coming to."
Duncan: "You should definitely lie to your family also. We can have a secret sexy club."
Ellen: "I see your point."
Ellen: "But I'm so worried about your welfare, Duncan Carlisle! Surely you can pull an FBI string or two and get out of this pickle you're in."
Duncan: "I ... can't, but also did you miss the part where it saves my dying wife?"
Ellen: "Fuck that. I will tell the President tomorrow if that's okay. Or the Chief of Staff."
Duncan: "Good luck with either of those. I just received a text message that Quentin Creasy was murdered in front of an entire party somehow."
GRAMPS / TATE
Ellen goes upstairs for her usual scene where she and Tate Donovan get each other very confused about what is going on, and Duncan heads over to Gramps's house for same.
Duncan: "Oh my God and on my way here Agent Hoffman got murdered too? My phone is blowing up with good news that makes me sad!"