Directed by Carol Banker
Written by Bill Chais, Pierluigi Cothran, Patrick Cunnane, & Tracey Rice
Washington, D.C. is gripped by a massive power outage, while Kirkman and the city's mayor find themselves at odds over the response to the crisis.
Tropes in this episode:
- Assassin Outclassin': After escaping his safe house amidst the power outage, Damian kills a hitman who was gunning for Agent Wells, before willingly returning to custody.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Damian breaks his tracker and goes on the run, Hannah and Chuck assume he's headed back to the Russians. But it turns out that he knew that his Russian handler was sending a hitman after Agent Wells, so he decided to track them down and do some (successful) Assassin Outclassin'.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Kirkman wins his showdown with Mayor Darby, but she impresses him enough to nominate her as the next vice-president.
- Heroism Equals Job Qualification: Mayor Darby's capable handling and Nerves of Steel during the crisis convince Kirkman to nominate her as the new vice-president.
- Hollywood Hacking: A hacker attack from unknown sources — presumed to be the same ones behind problems in Russia — ends up taking down power throughout Washington, D.C. Conversely, Chuck Russink manages to realize the key to neutralizing the outage by juxtaposing Alan Turing's birthdate (which appeared as an activation code) with Turing's death date (which deactivates the attack).
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Mayor Darby is forced to admit her city's emergency responders are overwhelmed, and takes Kirkman up on mobilizing the National Guard to keep order.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Damian's Russian handler attempts to pull this, by assigning a hitman to kill Agent Wells. It fails.
- Number Two: The vacant vice-presidency is finally addressed for the first time since the death of Peter MacLeish.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Or at least the last two; citizens of Washington, D.C. take advantage of the outage to go looting throughout parts of the city.
- Sensor Suspense: Hannah and Chuck realize a moment too late that they cannot detect Damian's ankle tracker. Sure enough, when Hannah goes to the safe house, Damian is long gone.
- Small Role, Big Impact: For all of President Kirkman and Mayor Darby's efforts in combatting the lawlessness amidst the chaos of the power outage, it's Agent Russink who figures out the key to stopping the cyberattack for good.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage: The episode kicks off with a parade of Representatives, Senators and other politicians trying and failing to make their case to Kirkman to be nominated for the vice-presidency.
