State of Affairs Season 1 Episode 5 Ar Rissalah

It is the one year death anniversary of Aaron Payton, the President's son and Charlie's fiance. When preparing the day's President's Daily Briefing (PDB), the team is made aware of the abduction of an American doctor in Kenya and the possibility that he will be killed in a few hours. But the JSOC team tracking Omar Abdul Fatah feels they've a good possibility of killing him. But in the absence of confirmation and that they cannot get the other senior leadership of Fatah's group, Charlie refuses to add it in the PDB. The CIA Director feels that she has disobeyed orders and therefore suspends her. However, she meets with the President and convinces her that the life of the hostage is more important, leading the President to order the JSOC team to rescue the doctor instead. When a Soviet sub hacking into US undersea cables in the Bering Sea gets damaged in an Arctic cyclone, the CIA asset onboard sends a distress call. The US tries to save him, but when it seems the situation might escalated into a war with Russia, the President orders Charlie to convince the asset to sink the submarine. Meanwhile Charlie is being haunted by the fact that Abdul Fatah was a CIA asset and she was her handler when the attack on the President's son happened. But she still has so many unanswered questions. The series started with generally negative reviews from critics, but most reviewers praised Alfre Woodard's performance. It received a collective score of 43/100 based on 28 critics from Metacritic.^[12] On Rotten Tomatoes the show got a rating of 26% rotten based on 42 reviews.^[13] Amy Amatangelo of Boston Herald gave the premiere grade "C", stating that "Alfre Woodard isn’t given a lot to do as President Constance Payton in the premiere, but, unlike Heigl, she does have the gravitas for the role, and the show would be wise to use her more. The series sets up some interesting reveals in the hour’s final moments. They potentially could make the show more interesting. But for now the state of affairs is rather mediocre."^[14]