'Designated Survivor' Recap: 'Summit'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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​Over the course of its two and a half season run, Designated Survivor has accomplished a great many things storytelling wise, since it often takes us on a complete journey when it comes to its characters and story arcs and it’s also demonstrated its versatility with genres time and time again. Because on a moment’s notice it can go from being a tense thriller when a crisis arrives on the President’s desk, to a political or family drama in seamless fashion. But if there is one element the show has seemingly worked to avoid, it’s real world parallels. Sure, the show has flirted with current events or thrown in its two cents in regard to the political climate, but outright examining something from real life simply hasn’t happened…until now that this.
 
Because last night the show saw a grand opportunity to create a fictional story that had some solid basis in real world headlines since ‘Summit’ took the time to imagine what it might look like if a sitting United States President had face time with a ruthless Despot, as is being discussed behind the scenes in Washington right now and well, taking a page out of the daily headlines ended up making for a supremely fascinating storyline, one that was fast paced and tense thanks to all the creative liberties the Writer’s Room threw into the mix as Preisdent Kirkman sat down with representatives from the fictional nation of Hun Chiu, whose East and West leaders and nations clearly served as the stand in for North and South Korea. 
 
Yet, while the series was good with fictionalizing the countries, it opted instead to make the controversial leader of East Hun Chiu be as close to real life as possible by naming him Chairman Kim and have him exhibit some of the behaviors of his real-life counterpart and Kim’s missile launches are what brought Kirkman and these two countries to the negotiating table. Because this was a grand opportunity to put together an unprecedented peace treaty, but despite Kirkman’s best efforts to hammer out a deal, leaks from the White House continued to make life difficult for the President, which meant that once again, Kirkman had to call in the most talented negotiator/closer he knows, Cornelius Moss.
 
With Mister Moss’ help, a deal was brokered, but thanks to some surprise intel from Kim’s son, who defected in a stunning twist, Kirkman was able to make the deal far more amicable for America and its allies, since Tom learned that East Hun Chiu had nuclear weapons at their disposal. But despite locking up another incredible diplomatic victory, the ending to this particular tale was far more bittersweet than happy. Because Tom came to learn that Cornelius is the one who has been leaking information to the press all this time, leaving all of us to question Moss’ motives and to make matters worse, shortly after the summit, a disturbing piece of intelligence came across the President’s desk that revealed there is a dirty bomb hidden somewhere in the United States…
 
So really, when all is said and done, the best way to describe this episode is surprising, simply because it didn’t quite fit into the season two narrative. This year has really been about Kirkman’s growth, and the growing conspiracy that is brewing behind the scenes and while this one definitely took me off guard, since it was clearly designed to be a filler episode through and through, I still enjoyed the heck out of it. It was just fascinating to see the series take on real life for a change and hey, it definitely kept my attention, especially when it comes to that ending. Either way, this one was just a fun ride, and it should be interesting to see if the dirty bomb in question, is related to the whomever is trying to destabilize the country. Until next time. 

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