'Designated Survivor' Recap: 'Target'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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​Normally on a television series, the back half of a season is dedicated to a grand build up storytelling wise, so that the season finale is a jaw dropping and stunning affair. But, that’s simply not the case when it comes to Designated Survivor. Because this series is about as unconventional as they come, and it spent the second half of season two, growing its characters in intimate fashion, wherein we saw them make outright honest mistakes and while that is fairly unique for a story such as this, there is in fact, a rhyme and a reason as to why the series chose to walk that particular path toward the season finale.
 
Because by doing this, the show is setting us up a different kind of finale, one that doesn’t involve a grandiose villain waiting to destroy the country at the press of a button, or an evil nation ready to do battle with our forces in the hopes of proving its worth to the world. Instead, by delving into a character study, the series gave birth to a pair of stories that will in fact focus upon how the past sometimes comes back to haunt us, since ‘Target’ focused heavily on the past transgressions of the Kirkman Administration and some of those important life lessons that our characters learned in making mistakes, may in fact be the president’s undoing in the weeks to come. 
 
After all, he’s asked a great deal of his staff, and their incredible loyalty to the man has made some of them do some questionable things. But, what led to this overall twist, was more criticism from Ethan West and President Moss, and a saber rattling from both parties, wherein they hoped to woo the President to represent their respective party in the upcoming election and all of these issues not only helped Kirkman to recognize this as an opportunity to force both sides to work together on the Department of Defense budget, but it also opened up a potential path to put an end to the Moss mess by making Ethan West his ally and he appointed the plucky lawyer as a special counsel to look into the illegal affairs of the former President, which laid the foundation for Kirkman’s dilemma.
 
However, while West did his thing behind the scenes, the story found another way to examine the past coming back to haunt people, since Kendra was attacked by a family that didn’t like how a verdict went ages ago under her care, and this matter escalated to the point where Emily took a bullet at the end of the episode, and we haven’t a clue if she’s okay or not, and while that was harrowing and shocking to say the least, that moment was rivaled only by Ethan West’s findings. Which brings us back to the dilemma in question, because it would seem that every transgression and poor choice made my Kirkman’s staff has raised some red flags in West’s mind, because he now firmly believes that the president and his staff have performed some illegal actions in order to get the job done.
 
Plus, to make matters worse, Cornelius Moss is running for a second term, and judging from the tense meeting between he and Kirkman, Moss is going to make a mockery of Tom every step of the way in his bid to reclaim to the Oval Office and well, this episode basically ends in disaster. It truly seems as though everything is falling apart for the Kirkman Administration right before our eyes and that’s quite the crisis to give us for next week’s season finale and honestly, I haven’t a clue how Tom Kirkman is going to get out of this one. Because an impassioned speech won’t save him from Moss and West’s ire, and if Tom cannot find evidence to prove that nothing illegal happened, next week’s finale may signal the end of his presidency. Until next time.

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