Hostages ‘Power of Persuasion’ Recap – Episode 01.03

The Breakdown

The president has decided to change doctors and wants to find out the best way to go about it without hurting his or Ellen’s reputation.

Duncan is trying to keep things intact with his daughter, Sawyer, while keeping a family hostage. Ellen hears the conversation with Duncan and his daughter and overheard that her school is having an art fair. Ellen tells Brian to find out which school is having an art fair. Someone sends a message to Duncan posing as his father about meeting in a park, which is a set up, a sniper takes a shot at Duncan and misses. Duncan figures out that the plan has changed and he is expendable, he calls Quentin Creasy (white house chief of staff) and Creasy doesn’t take his call.

One of the secret service members approach Ellen about Angela. Questioning why she was at her house. Morgans’ boyfriend approaches her to find out why she’s been ducking him and she finally tells him that she is pregnant. Jake is hesitant about going to school because he owes the drug dealer money. Kramer forces him out of the house. Maria is worrying about getting paid and confronts Archer about how well he knows Duncan. Archer gives us some back story on how he knows Duncan. Archer was a POW and Duncan lead a team to get his men out of a prison camp. It builds Maria’s trust but she still needs to get paid. Creasy goes to his car where Duncan is waiting with gun in tow. Duncan tells Creasy they are going to figure out what happens next or his men will kill Creasey and his wife which he has been doing surveillance on.

Creasy speaks to a man on the phone to call of the hit on Duncan. He also talks to a reporter stating that the president is moving his surgery to Walter Reed hospital. Brian finds the school that Duncan’s daughter Sawyer is attending. Ellen steals a coworkers car and sneaks out of the building in surgical scrubs so that she is not seen. Jake confronts his dad about the money, his dad tells him to drop it because of the situation they are in. Jake leaves the lacrosse field and is met by Nikko the guy he owns money to. Nikko starts to beat the living daylights out of Jake and Kramer wants to stop the it. Maria locks the doors of the car because this “isn’t their problem.” Meanwhile at the least secure school ever. Ellen goes to the art fair and trolls around the school looking for Sawyer. Finally a teacher asks is she a parent. Ellen gives the dumbest answer ever saying that she’s an aunt to Sawyer and the teacher leads Ellen to Sawyer’s class. A dumbfounded Ellen not knowing what kid is Sawyer, yells out her name. Sawyer just walks right up to a woman she’s never seen before while the teacher does absolutely nothing because it’s not like children get kidnapped or anything.

Sawyer is talking to Ellen and as if the school has an open door policy on strangers in the classroom. The school asks the kids to show the moms, dads or special friends their art work. Sawyer shows Ellen her artwork and Ellen starts probing about her mom, which is in the hospital. In another pedophile alert, Sawyer starts crying and still no one in the school gives a damn. To cheer Sawyer up Ellen asks Sawyer to draw a picture of her family. Brian finally gets alerted that his son got beat to a pulp in the parking lot, he finds Jake and they hug. The president finds out that the plan to move his surgical procedure has been leaked and he decides to go back to the original plan and have Ellen do the surgery, to the delight of Creasy. Morgan’s boyfriend approaches the Sanders’ household looking to find her father in order to profess his love for Morgan. However Duncan answers the door posing as Mr. Sanders’ and tells the poor kid never to come back. Out of the blue Kramer shows up to Sawyer’s’ school just missing Ellen leaving. Ellen has also found out through Sawyer that Duncan is a FBI agent.

Duncan tells Ellen that the president is going to call her and tell her shes fired, it’s her job to convince him and the first lady otherwise. Creasey tells Duncan that the president is keeping Ellen as his doctor. Kramer finds Nikko and beats him up also telling him to stay away from Jake because Jake works for him now. We also learn that Kramer is Duncan’s brother. Morgan goes off on her dad because she thinks that he told her boyfriend to piss off not knowing it was Duncan. Ellen tells Brian that she met Sawyer and Brian wants to know if she could sneak out again to escape with the kids. Ellen is fearful but Brian tells her that he thinks they will all get whacked when this is all over. In order to convince Ellen to leave Brian tells her that he is cheating on her so that he can be a decoy and have his family escape.

The Analysis

This was honestly the best episode of the series. It was fast paced and actually gave me something to look forward to. Even thought it is necessary to try to create back stories for all the members of the cast you can only do so many at a time. Along with Ellen’s family the writers are trying to give Duncan’s team back story too. It’s not something they pulled of great but Duncan’s’ team lives do seem a little more interesting than the pot dealing son, knocked up daughter and whore father. Next weeks episode should be good seeing that the Sanders’ are going to try to flee this hell that they’ve been living in. No doubt that they will be stopped, but it will be interesting to see what measure Duncan will employ when he finally catches them.