Each day the President is faced with dozens of life and death decisions, and to prioritize the biggest international crises facing the country, one top CIA analyst — Charleston Tucker — assembles the President's Daily Briefing (PDB). This list of the most vital security issues facing the nation brings with it moral and political judgment calls for Charleston and... her trusted group of brilliant analysts at the agency. Aside from the political minefields she has to walk, Charlie has a close personal relationship with the President because she was once engaged to her son before a tragic terrorist attack took his life. Charlie survived that attack and is now determined to bring the perpetrators to justice. Navigating a complex personal life and a pressure-cooker profession is, of course, a challenge, and Charlie sometimes engages in boundary-pushing behavior to avoid facing her grief. But when the clock strikes 2 a.m., she is all about her job — protecting her nation, serving her President and still trying to get to the bottom of her fiancé's murder that will reveal itself as a shocking mystery.
Charlie reflects on the one-year anniversary of her fiancé's death at the hands of a terrorist in the series premiere of this political drama centering on a top CIA analyst who assembles the President's daily briefing.
Charleston and the team are in a race against the Russians over a stranded Russian submarine holding six months of stolen U.S. secrets -- their one advantage is that they have a CIA asset on board. At the same time, the texter persists, sending Charlie a damning picture, while Nick forces her to question if Fatah was ever really her asset. Meanwhile, President Payton appoints a new CIA director, the formidable Ray Navarro.
Charlie has flashbacks of her arrival at Midnight City where she first met Nick and witnessed him brutally interrogate Fatah. When members of the militant Islamist movement Boko Haram kidnap 21 Nigerian girls, President Payton tasks Charlie with the logistically impossible -- to find and save the girls without Nigeria knowing the U.S. was ever involved. Meanwhile, President Payton hosts the Chinese president at Camp David and realizes that she can use their trade talks to get something she really wants.
Charlie and Nick both receive a threatening text that sends Nick on an investigation to find the source once and for all. Charlie flashes back to her first interactions with Fatah on Midnight City. Meanwhile, President Payton's rival Senator Green reveals just enough about the upcoming senatorial convoy attack report to cause her to question Charlie's faithfulness. Charlie and team have to employ Jack Dawkins to contain a smallpox contamination in Panama while avoiding detection in the country. Kurt continues to pine for Maureen but an unexpected kindness distracts her from his attentions.
Now that a portion of the convoy attack report has been leaked, President Payton has a lot of questions for Nick Vera. Unfortunately, he seems to be MIA. As Charlie searches for him, she flashes back to the hours before and during the convoy attack, and we learn another secret that she's been withholding from President Payton. After an American reporter is granted a rare, exclusive interview, Charlie and team must work to contain the footage as an urgent matter of national security. Kurt finally works up the courage to show Maureen his cards, while D.P. reaches out to an old friend to squash the convoy attack report before it's released in its entirety.
Charlie and Maureen accompany President Payton to Qatar on a diplomatic trip. What begins as a standard mission of diplomacy becomes a disaster when a Qatar national infiltrates the American embassy claiming to be CIA. Constance tasks Charlie to find out if he's telling the truth. Meanwhile Lucas, Dash and Kurt work to track down Al Moosari, believed to be a direct link to Omar Fatah. Kurt has a run-in with a walk-in who claims to have found a valuable 'backdoor' into highly valuable communications. Nick, still MIA, is violently interrogated by a masked man. Charlie finally takes desperate and dangerous measures to remember the events of the convoy attack.
Sixty-five photos of national landmarks suddenly surface, all featuring the Ar Rissalah symbol. Meanwhile, a college student claiming to be an Ar Rissalah operative breaks into the White House. The 7th floor team works to figure out the identities of the picture takers as the hunt for Al Moosari continues. Charlie, now in Yemen, desperately tries to make contact with her asset while evading the Yemeni secret police. Nick's masked captor lets him go only to lead him to his next mission. Back at Langley, Lucas takes the lead on the interrogation of a potential, and very controversial, Ar Rissalah member. At the same time, President Payton must make a hard choice between getting a much-needed win or holding out for her long-term goal of killing Sheikh Hakam.
After FARC kidnap Jack Dawkins from a Panamanian prison and hold him for ransom, the team has to pinpoint his location and extract him before time runs out. Charlie comes back to Langley to coordinate the Bellerophon op, while Maureen struggles to fill her shoes as President Payton's briefer. Constance and Marshall fiercely debate whether or not to use Dawkins' potential rescue as a political win against her mudslinging opponent, Kyle Green. There are hundreds of thousands of Ar Rissalah photos now and the team is overwhelmed with the shear number of possible leads. To complicate matters further, the DC bomb squad removes a suspicious backpack marked with the Ar Rissalah symbol in front of the Washington Monument. Back in the Middle East, Nick and Al Moosari are on the move to meet with Fatah, but not before Nick is put through a number of tests.
Charlie and the PDB team race to prove that sorority girl Stacy Dover is, in fact, an active member of Ar Rissalah's American terrorist cell. Amidst the high stakes investigation, Charlie is forced to confront the fact that one of her closest allies may have betrayed her. Meanwhile, Operation Bellerophon is in full swing as Nick Vera gets one step closer to contact with Omar Fattah. But Charlie's efforts to bring down Ar Rissalah may not be able to prevent an attack on the homeland.
Charlie and the PDB team race to find the Ar Rissalah 7's missing bombs before other members of the terrorist cell rise up and attack the homeland. In their hunt, Charlie must enlist the help of a former adversary, Professor Ahmad Ahmadi. As domestic fear and suspicion builds, President Payton is under fire for her close ties to the CIA and faces a new political threat from Senator Burke. Meanwhile, Operation Bellerophon is jeopardized when Nick Vera and Omar Fatah pick up a tail in the Philippines.
Charlie and Lucas join the FBI manhunt for an Ar Rissalah terrorist who escaped custody in the woods of West Virginia. Meanwhile, President Payton makes a deal with the news media that protects CIA's top secret Operation Bellerophon--at the cost of exposing her own secrets on national television. On the other side of the world, Nick and Fatah wait in a terrorist stronghold as they anticipate the arrival of the most dangerous man on the planet, Sheikh Hakam.
Sacrifices may need to be made when Nick at last has the most-wanted terrorist in his sights, and Charlie is at odds with President Payton on how to proceed. Meanwhile, Sen. Burke releases secret intelligence that jeopardizes the entire mission, and Charlie's past with Nick comes to the fore.
With the President's support and her 7th floor team backing her, Charlie quits the CIA in order to try and keep her promise of tracking down and killing Omar Fatah before he and Ar Rissalah can continue their devastating attacks on the homeland. Meanwhile, President Payton faces adversity after Victor Gantry, the head of TKG, threatens to tell the public that Sheikh Hakam doesn't exist. David Patrick, unaware of the TKG meetings, threatens to quit after being left in the dark and the 7th floor team gathers to do whatever they can to help Charlie, who is off the grid, halfway across the world.
Complete episode guide for State of Affairs with detailed information about every season and episode including air dates, summaries, ratings, and streaming availability in United States.
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