'Designated Survivor' Season 2, Episode 4 'Equilibrium' Recap: Trade Deals and Deadly Consequences [SPOILERS]

Equilibrium,” the latest episode of “Designated Survivor” Season 2 brings tension up a notch after the previous episode’s socially and racially-oriented themes. A dispute arises between Mexican and American truckers which results in a border blockage. A bad hit for both countries as billions of dollars is hemorrhaging following this protest. President Tom Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland) tries to make ends meet by furthering down the negotiation for jobs affecting the people involved in the blockade. Meanwhile, Agent Hannah Wells (Maggie Q) brings her discovery about the First Lady Alex Kirkman’s (Natascha McElhone) mother to light and finds out a complicated truth in the end.

Trade and business dispute

A protest erupts between Mexican workers and American truckers as the latter enters the sixth day of their blockade at the US-Mexican border. Trade negotiations between the two countries have been droning on for two months, and not much is resolved. Desperate to get to work, a Mexican trucker named Jose Menez drives into the border and attempts to get past the American truckers. They shoot at him and he dies.

Word gets to Kirkman and he is faced with a dilemma as the death of Menez further complicates the trade deal with Mexico. Mexico is the US’s most important trading partner. Mexicans are worried about their jobs and will hold Kirkman responsible if he doesn’t protect them while the Administration needs this trade deal to be brokered to prove itself in the international economical stage. He sends his Chief of Staff, Emily Rhodes (Italia Ricci), to calm things down with the Mexican Trade Representative. Lyor Boone (Paulo Constanzo), Kirkman’s Political advisor, meets with Paul Zalesky (Aidan Devine) of the American Workers Union to urge them to accept the deal. In the end, they both fail. Meanwhile, Press Secretary Seth Wright holds a press conference about the incident. As he answers questions, he also finds out from a Mexican reporter that the bullet that hit Menez came from an American’s gun.
Emily and Lyor bring the news to Kirkman. They devise another plan to meet with the Hispanic-American community so they could come in and help the Administration sell the deal to both parties. National Security Advisor Aaron Shore (Adan Canto) is then tasked to meet with Senator Flores of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to ask her help in brokering the deal. Kirkman then meets with his friend Dax Minter (Chris Butler), who owns a large car company. He cancels their dinner due to the immediacy of the trade deal, and Dax gives him a chrome car model.

Aaron, thinking that he’s meeting with the Senator of the Caucus, is surprised to see his cousin Nadia filling in for the Senator. Nothing comes out of the conversation as Aaron sees this as a conflict of interest. Aaron heads directly to Senator Flores’ office and asks her personally for support in brokering the deal with Mexico. She agrees, and Aaron brings up his cousin Nadia, thinking that the Senator used her on purpose to influence him. Senator Flores denies it. Meanwhile, as Kirkman and his staff watch the news, Menez’s wife Gloria issues a public statement. Kirkman sees this as another opportunity to help bridge the gap between the two sides of the deal.
They bring in Gloria to appear with Kirkman in another press conference. However, he notices that Gloria is still fidgety and cancels the press con. He brings Gloria to the oval office to personally apologize and to know more about her husband. There, Kirkman finds out that he was just hired three weeks before he went in to charge at the gates of the border. It turns out that the Mexican Trade Representative owns the company where Jose Menez worked before he died. Kirkman then meets with the Rep and tells him that if he doesn’t accept the deal and resign from his post as trade representative, he’s going to have him tried for manslaughter. Of course, the Rep had to agree with it. Kirkman then meets with Zalesky and tells him that Mexico will accept the deal. However, for Zalesky, it’s only a temporary fix and new problems would arise from it eventually. Kirkman remembers that he can ask his friend Dax’s help for leverage on the finalization of the deal.
Meanwhile, Aaron goes to his cousin and asks her why she let herself be manipulated easily. She says she only wanted to help, and they both engage in a harsh exchange of words about family. Aaron has never set foot in their home for a long time, and Nadia takes that against him. In the end, he patches things up with her by showing up at their family dinner.
Kirkman meets with Dax for dinner and proposes to slow down his rollout of automated car production so he could hire both Americans and Mexicans to work for him, helping them have stable jobs. Dax agrees, and all seems well. Back in the White House, Kirkman’s staff are enjoying the productive fruits of their labor with a round of beer albeit lukewarm and basically a zero non-sum game.

Lyor and the broken vase

In another course of the episode, a Chinese vase was found by one of the White House staff knocked broken. She brings this to Emily’s attention who tells her to get someone to investigate it. Maya Dunning from the Office of Management and Budget jumps in to investigate and asks for an interview with Emily. She passes it off since she doesn’t have the time for it. Maya, disappointed, roams around the West Wing and sees Penny, Kirkman’s daughter, happily running around the area. She brings this to Emily and she takes it up to Kirkman. He has a sit down with Penny and finds out that she broke his watch and not the vase. Kirkman informs Maya that Penny didn’t do it. After further investigation, Maya finds a Livestream footage of Lyor running around the area at night as he knocks the vase off. She confronts Lyor and says that it can only be resolved via a dinner date. Now that’s how you settle a deal.

A larger conspiracy

Hannah Wells, on the other hand, continues her investigation into the First Lady’s Mother-in-Law. She brings it to FBI Director John Forstell (Reed Diamond) and he advises her to seek help from White House Legal Counsel Kendra Danes (Zoe McLellan) since this is a big problem that could potentially destroy Tom Kirkman’s reputation and needs to be covertly addressed. Hannah meets with her and Kendra urges her to ask First Lady Alex Kirkman about it instead of going directly to her mother. And so they meet with Alex and tell her everything they found from the previous episode. Alex is offended and sends them off. Later, Alex talks to her mother Eva Booker (Bonnie Bedelia) and asks her if she took a bribe so her husband could be bumped up the heart transplant receiver list. Eva admits it in a heartbeat and says that she would do it again.
Later that day, the FBI issues a subpoena for Eva, and Alex is alarmed. She brings it to Tom and he assures her that everything will be fine, that this is merely a shaky allegation that has no sufficient evidence—or so he thought. That night, Hannah meets back with John and asks him why he had to issue a subpoena for Eva. It turns out that Eric Little, the contractor whom Eva accepted a bribe from, directly benefited from Patrick Lloyd’s orchestrated Pentagon hack. Little turned out dead last episode, and who knows what else this connection with Lloyd could imply further.

Designated Survivor: Equilibrium Overall Verdict

Four episodes in and already “Designated Survivor” is leading towards another conspiracy. Tonight’s episode did a great job of showing how well Kirkman handles difficult diplomatic deals, all thanks to his kickass staff. But the standout theme from “Equilibrium” is actually the potential damning information that could bring about Kirkman’s downfall. I’m definitely on the lookout for what’s to come.
“Designated Survivor” continues next Wednesday with “Suckers,” 10 PM on ABC.