State of Affairs: Masquerade Review

When the show opens, President Payton is traveling to Qatar for diplomacy matters. She is joined by Charlie (Katherine Heigl) and Maureen (Sheila Vand). Maureen speaks about Fatah’s (Farshad Farahat) interview and possible sleeper cells in America, while Charlie daydreams about the day Aaron was killed. She admits it feels like an attack is imminent. She admits she cannot remember exactly what happened. Charlie says she believes she remembers Aaron pointing a gun at her, as well as herself pointing a gun at Aaron. President Payton (Alfre Woodard) admits to David (David Harbour) she doesn’t believe Charlie.

Meanwhile, a man, Hafiz Kamal (Mayank Bhatter), on a motorcycle attempts to enter the American embassy. He claims to work for CIA, after he is shot off of his motorcycle, which blows up. With Charlie and the President away, the group at Langley work to track down Al Moosari, who is now known as Bullwinkle. Cheesy! As it turns out Rocky and Bullwinkle is a deadman, who has been reincarnated. Meanwhile, Nick Vera (Chris McKenna) is finally shown again, but he isn’t in a good state. Satan, with a white mask on, speaks with him. The whole setup is slightly cartoonish. The man, with Satan’s voice, threatens Nick with a wielding torch.

The Qatari Prime Minister meets with the President and demands to have Kamal returned, but she doesn’t cave. Instead, Charlie and Maureen interrogate Kamal. However, they’re unable to find any information linking him to the CIA. As it turns out, Kamal reveals he has been stealing information for Ben (Patrick Hayle). Charlie tells the President that Ben is someone, who pretend to be CIA, to manipulate Kamal into stealing intel for him.

A woman calls Langley and requests to speak with Charlie, since she believes to have found a backdoor into a communications systems. Since Charlie is out, Kurt (Cliff Chamberlain) goes in her place. She provides Kurt with a program, which had tons of information on dirty groups. The information is legitimate, which surprises the group. Meanwhile the President speaks with Charlie and David about their situation. Charlie convinces the President to hold onto Kamal and attempt to recover his intel.

In order to get to the information, Charlie must get to Kamal’s brother. Maureen acts like an idiot, steals a car and runs away from police, which gives Charlie enough time to escape. When Charlie and Kamal make their way to the mall, Kamal explains his reasons for helping the CIA. He doesn’t like the President’s drones, but believes Fatah and Sheik Hakam to be more dangerous and evil. He hopes his cooperation will allow him to escape to Canada, where he can avoid drones. The pair make contact with Kamal’s brother and collect the evidence, but encounter Ben on the way out of the mall. Luckily, Charlie shoots him dead. The police storm the mall, after hearing the gunshots.

Meanwhile, Kurt and Lucas argue over Bullwinkle and alcohol. It seems the alcohol is more important. The pair discover the Bullwinkle had to have surgery, which allows them to track his medication shipments. The pair discuss Kurt’s alcoholic past, but he claims to have been sober for eight years, before falling off the wagon. Meanwhile, David goes off on Charlie for making everyone’s job more difficult. Charlie discovers the intel is bogus. David and Charlie argue over Kamal and Charlie’s priorities. After David leaves the room, the President blames Charlie for all of her troubles. She demands to know what happened in Kabul. She dismisses Charlie, as her briefer.

After the show returns, Charlie speaks with Maureen, who offers an illegal method to recover her memory. Cliff has a run in with the backdoor woman again, who gives him a bunch of money. Again, Nick is interrogated, but doesn’t seem to care. Next, Charlie speaks with Kamal and offers him a way out of the country.

Maureen prepares to give Charlie a dosage of medication, which will help her remember the event, which killed Aaron. After Charlie is secured to the bathtub, Maureen administers the medication. Charlie begins to relive the attack. She remembers that it was Omar Fatah, who killed Aaron.

Review


We finally discovered the true events of Aaron’s death. As it turns out, Omar Fatah was the man behind Aaron’s death, which really isn’t that big of a surprise. Overall, the episode was paced nicely, but many of the dramatic moments felt cartoonish. For instance, Nick’s interrogated was anything, but intense, frightening or horrific. Instead, it just seemed cartoonish and bland, with the Satanic voice and cheesy mask. Plus, Chris McKenna’s performance seemed dull and at times laughable.

On the other hand, Maureen’s grand theft auto venture was definitely lame and improbable. Finally, Charlie’s injection was lazy writing. I felt no real wow factor, even after it was revealed that Omar was Aaron’s killer. At this point, I don’t see how anyone could really have any real emotion or connection to Aaron anyway. Overall, the episode deserves a 5.5 out of 10.

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By ReelMockery

Jay Skelton is a fan of all television shows and movies. He tries his best to keep up with the latest foreign television shows and movies. Jay loves skinny dipping in the dark too.

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