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T.J. spends most of the episode unconscious, thanks to the sedatives his doctors give him while the five pounds of cocaine leave his body. Bud and Elaine take turns at his bedside. Elaine begins to wonder if maybe they haven't put their political ambitions ahead of their family. Bud reminisces over a brief moment of happiness in the White House when he found 8-year-old T.J. playing the piano. They worry over the overdose story getting out, considering how many people saw T.J. leaving the club in an ambulance. Elaine calls on Susan Berg for help, asking her to print a story about T.J. having a bad reaction to some antibiotics. At first, Susan refuses to write something that's obviously not true. She has integrity, damn it! But then Elaine ignores national security and gives her the story about the Chinese nuclear sub and a chance to hitch a ride with Doug to the rescue operation. Susan grabs that with both hands. Screw integrity!
Once China gets wind of the rescue operation, things go downhill. They tell Garcetti that the men on board will destroy the ship rather than letting the tech fall into American hands, essentially setting off a dirty bomb in California waters. Garcetti and Elaine are, for once, on the same page. Together they craft a ballsy and probably unrealistic statement for the press that will force China to either go to war or stand down. They stand down. Elaine looks like she's regained some respect for Garcetti.
En route to the rescue site, a storm forces Doug and Susan's plane has to make a detour. This gives them an opportunity to verbally spar, flirt, drink wine and reveal that they're not exactly happy in their lives. Surprising no one, this ends in hot, sweaty sex. At the same time, Anne and Nana are ridding Elaine's house of T.J.'s stash. They decide to get rid of his weed by smoking it, which loosens Anne up enough to reveal she's not entirely happy with her life, either. When Anne tries to vomit up her pot-induced snack binge, Nana calls her on it.
In other subplots: Susan has flashbacks to when she was a young, terrible writer getting her first op-ed column, thanks to her vitriol for Elaine Hammond. Bud finds out about the Veep blackmailing T.J.'s closeted senator boyfriend and punches him in the face. Maybe Bud is salvageable, after all. Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The episode begins with Susan and Doug on Elaine's plane, heading toward San Diego for the rescue of that Chinese Sub. A news report on the cabin's TV details the Navy's forthcoming rescue. Susan looks a little disheveled. She and Doug trade worried glances. At the same time, in the White House Situation Room, Elaine and Garcetti watch the Navy's camera feed. Elaine takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and has a flashback to 16 hours ago.
The whole Barrish/Hammond clan gather at T.J.'s hospital bedside. He's been sedated so that the cocaine can work its way out of his system. Doug pulls his parents aside to tell them there were quite a few witnesses at the club. "We can't cover this one up," he says. It's interesting that nobody really floats the notion that perhaps hiding T.J.'s problem doesn't really protect him in the long run. Elaine tells Doug to call Susan Berg. "Tell her I want a meeting." Doug starts to protest, but Elaine's going to get her way. Bud volunteers to stay with T.J. Elaine asks her mother and Anne to get a room ready for T.J. back at the house, meaning they need to clean out any booze and drugs. Nana is not optimistic: "Little shit's never gonna learn."
Susan meets with Elaine and Doug back at the townhouse. Elaine tells Susan that T.J. had a bad reaction to some antibiotics. Susan doesn't buy the story, of course. "I won't use my reputation or that of my paper to quell the speculation surrounding T.J.," she says. Her principles hold out about as long as a roll of toilet paper in a public porta-potty. Elaine breaches national security and blabs about the Chinese sub, offering Susan the chance to be the only press person at the rescue operation. Before they leave, Doug gets a call from the Chinese DCM with whom Elaine met earlier. He wants to meet again. Busted!
He's all in a tizzy when she gets to his office. He practically begs Elaine to call off the rescue operation. "The hardware is too valuable," he says. "We cannot have the CIA poking around our technology." Elaine scoffs. "Your hardware is your priority, Lee Bao?" Her idealism is so staggering that it's more like naivety. There's probably not a country on this planet that wouldn't put its tech secrets above 100 lives, as long as there was a way they could spin it. He tells her that the men aboard will destroy the ship if a rescue is attempted. Nuclear disaster will ensue. She tells him to call President Tong, but Lee Bao says Navy Intelligence is in charge. "The only way to avoid catastrophe," he says, "is for the United States to stand down." Elaine's shocked face takes us into the opening credits.
When Susan brings both the fake antibiotics story and the Chinese sub story to her editor, he figures out pretty quickly that Susan traded one for the other. "I never thought I'd have to accuse you of being in the back pocket of the Hammond family," he says. "Then don't," she says. She tells him not to overthink it and just be glad for the increase in readership they'll be getting. As she leaves for her trip, we get a flashback to 1997. Her editor reads her opinion piece on Elaine. "President Hammond is a dog and only a fool would fault a dog for rooting in the trash. But a First Lady wielding an intellect, drive and individuality unlike any before her ought to know better." He reads more of it. Frankly, it sounds about like any number of anonymous rants on the internet, but we're supposed to buy that writing like this won Susan a Pulitzer. When the editor declines to run the piece, Susan and her lopsided hair accuse him of sexism. The paper has 8 opinion columnists, she points out, and all of them are men.
Situation Room. Everyone discusses the ramifications of a nuclear disaster off California's coast. One of the military guys thinks China is bluffing, but Vice President Collier thinks China will follow through to save face. Elaine seems to think that President Tong can use the situation to reassert control over his navy to America's benefit. Garcetti sides with Elaine and asks her to help him write a speech. The Vice President pouts.
Elaine's house. Nana notices Anne making an awful lot of trips to the bathroom. She doesn't press the issue. They combine redecoration with a narcotics shakedown in order to get T.J.'s room ready.
Susan marvels at the State Department's flight menu. She thinks Doug's had a privileged life, but he points out the downsides. For example, a paparazzo once filmed him dancing to the Backstreet Boys while wearing tuxedo shorts. They talk about how difficult it is to understand one's parents as a child, whether living in the White House or not. He somewhat bitterly says that none of the articles, tell-all books or movies managed to capture them. And the TV show loosely based on their lives was a total flop. Doug lumps Susan's writing in with all the failures. Suddenly it's 1997 again and Susan seems to have gotten her hair on a bit straighter. She's got on a tight, low-cut top that is probably not helping her professional reputation. Her editor is pissed that she went over his head to get her column published. "Congratulations, Susan. You got what you wanted. I hope you're ready for it."
Back to the present. Bud is keeping vigil at T.J.'s bedside, holding his son's hand. He talks about his feelings of insecurity in his early days in the White House. He was miserable, unable to accomplish his political goals. He was pacing the halls one night when he heard eight-year-old T.J. playing piano in the East Room. He says it brought him peace. "I don't know why I never told you that," he says. He kisses the back of T.J.'s hand and holds it to his cheek.
Oval Office. Garcetti and Elaine get ready for his televised address. "History will judge me by this," he says. "If this goes south, my entire presidency just... melts away." "If it goes well, you'll be a hero," she assures him. "And you'll be unbeatable," she adds, not without humor. It turns out he had asked her to be his running mate, but she turned him down because he wouldn't have won. When he finally gets to make his speech, he tells the American people that the Chinese crew has been given orders to destroy their own ship. "The released radiation would wreak havoc upon the entire western seaboard. Let me clear -- we would consider it nothing less than an act of war against the United States." Elaine watches him with respect. This whole show is actually a fairy tale, right?
Nana and Anne continue their Extreme Makeover: Addicts Edition. Nana's second husband was, as she puts it, "boring as shit." They talk about settling and settling down and love that is still love even if it's not head-over-heels. They finally find T.J.'s stash hidden in a chair cushion.
Doug is sort of charmed by how much Susan loves her meal. It reminds him of how much Anne used to love food before she had to worry about fitting into her wedding dress. At this rate, she could wear a tube sock for her wedding dress. Susan tries to get him to talk more about his relationship, but he shuts down. "It must be tough to be a journalist sometimes. Acting like you're someone's friend one minute and the you've got them over a barrel." They fight and it quickly turns into an argument about Elaine and how Doug feels like Susan is taking advantage of her after spending so many years tearing her down. The flight attendant interrupts with a bottle of wine, which they eagerly accept.
Nana and Anne flush most of T.J.'s stash, but decide to save the marijuana for themselves. Well, Anne needs a little convincing. Nana talks about her showgirl days, experimenting with reefer and sex. For a minute, it seemed like this might go in a May-December kind of direction, but it's just Nana's way of telling Anne she needs a break from perfection once in a while.
Doug and Susan are halfway through their bottle of wine and feeling more amicable. She assures him they're off the record now. He apologizes for his earlier outburst, even though he was totally right. He admits he did love some of her old writing, especially when it drove his father crazy. The conversation turns to mothers and how much Susan admired Elaine early on. Susan wistfully says her own mother didn't like her columns. An announcement over the speaker tells them they have to make a stop in Dallas to wait out a storm. This gives them time to finish more wine and for Susan to have another flashback. She shows off her new office to her mother, who is the awesome Blair Brown. Susan is so proud and eager for her mother's acceptance. On the surface, she's happy for her daughter, but Susan can hear the lack of enthusiasm. Susan presses her mother, who finally admits that she thinks her daughter is being unfair to Elaine Hammond. It quickly snowballs into her accusing Susan of using Elaine Hammond to get ahead and Susan kicking her mom out of her office. Will Smith was right. Parents just don't understand.
Elaine joins Bud at T.J.'s bedside. She pines for a drink. She's the Secretary of State and she's hanging out with the former POTUS. Surely there's someone who could scrounge them up some booze. Elaine's having a hard day. "I don't think I realized until today the kind of pressure you were under," she says, which seems kind of unlikely. Bud returns the understanding: "After spending the last 12 hours sitting over T.J., I could say the same thing to you." Elaine thinks T.J. wouldn't be here if they'd been as devoted to their family as they were to politics. "As soon as he started to go downhill in high school, I should have packed up and left D.C." Bud scoffs at first, but seems to give it more thought than perhaps he has in the past. He brings up Sean Reeves, because Elaine got so upset when he came up in conversation the night before. Elaine tells Bud the whole story from the affair to the blackmail that ended it.
Susan and Doug are stranded on a tarmac in Dallas, passing the time by drinking and going over each other's playlists. Susan laughs because Doug is apparently still a Backstreet Boys fan. He hilariously sings an excerpt. Susan thinks he should wear those tuxedo shorts to his wedding, which gives Doug a chance to snark about Anne being too perfect or whatever. Susan tells Doug about her ex-boyfriend having an affair with a coworker. She also tells him she had sex the last time she was on this plane. Doug, horrified, thinks Bud was involved, but she quickly corrects him.
Anne & Nana: Up in Smoke: Anne's suddenly feeling a lot less inhibited. She eats handfuls of chips and complains that when it comes to Doug, she'll always come in second behind his mother. Nana tells her to stand up for herself.
Bud drops in on the Oval Office under the guise of "having intel." Garcetti and Collier assume it's something to do with the Chinese sub. Bud tells Garcetti that Collier not only blackmailed Sean over his affair with T.J., but used Garcetti's name to force Elaine's hand. Bud assumes that Garcetti wasn't actually involved because even though he thinks the man is "slick, uncommitted and lacking in backbone," he also thinks Garcetti has principles. These things seem contradictory, but whatever. Indeed, the news comes as a surprise to Garcetti. Fred tries to deflect blame. "He's just pissed because his queer son was having an affair with Reeves!" Bud calmly punches him in the face. Fred grabs him and shoves him down onto Garcetti's desk. Garcetti breaks it up before things can escalate into a Taiwanese legislative session. "You harm my family again," Bud says, "and I swear to every lovin' god I will wipe your existence from the face of this earth." Bud is much more enjoyable when he's brawling than when he's doling out all the "shugah."
Tarmac. Doug admits he proposed to Anne while they were on Ecstasy. "And we've been planning our wedding for two years because I'm not sure either one of us is ready to commit." Susan asks him if he loves Anne, and he says he does, but he likens it to wearing a beautiful suit that doesn't quite fit. Susan says love hasn't fit quite right for her, either. "I was always certain about my job -- maybe too certain -- but not with love." Ugh. She talks about life passing her by while she was making a career for herself. Ugh, again. Why is it that, more often than not, if you have a successful, powerful woman on a TV show, she has to be burdened with romantic insecurity? Doug flatters her and then leans in to kiss her. Does she have the sense to realize what a terrible idea this is or what a hypocrite it makes her? Does Doug realize the same for himself? No, they do not. They give in to the wine and the hormones and the self-pity and tear each other's clothes off.
T.J. wakes up, sees his mom beside him and smiles. Then he realizes where he is and starts apologizing. He says he didn't mean to hurt himself. She smooths his brow and tells him to go back to sleep. Easy week for Sebastian Stan on having to learn his lines. Bud takes over so that Elaine can get back to the Situation Room.
Back on the tarmac, Susan and Doug bask in the afterglow. Except it's not so much basking as looking sad. She reaches for his hand, which he touches only briefly before leaving her side.
Anne and Nana are still giggling and downing snack foods when Anne suddenly heads for the bathroom. "Don't do it, honey," Nana says. "Don't do it to yourself anymore." Anne plays innocent, but Nana knows about her binging and purging. "You don't have to come clean to me, but you gotta talk to Dougie about it." Anne looks sad, but probably not as sad as when she finds out Doug has something to confess to her, too.
Situation Room. Collier is trying to watch the screen from behind an ice pack. Heh. We pick up where we started at the beginning of the episode with the rescue in progress. Everyone holds their collective breath. One of the rescuers reports: "We're getting a pulse message from the sub, but it makes no sense. X-I-E, X-I-E." Everyone in the Situation Room is annoyingly puzzled, except for Elaine. "It means xie xie," she says. "Thank you." Everyone applauds and cheers and shakes hands. Garcetti smiles at Elaine, and she smiles back, even though she knows she'll never beat him now. Or maybe, given everything that's happened in her family lately, she sees such a thing as a blessing.
Email Tippi Blevins at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her on Twitter - @TippiB.
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