S1E17 "The Ninth Seat"
Kirkman comes up with a Supreme Court consisting of four liberal, four conservative, and one moderate justice. The names were approved by people from both parties, but at the last minute the Senator from Montana that has sort of become the villain here announces that he opposes the chief justice, because of a liberal bias. This leads to a great Kirkman moment, where he gets angry, and explains how important the justice system is, and that they need a Supreme Court.
They end up deciding not to appoint a ninth judge. There wasn't too much of the story about picking a ninth judge leading up to this, so it felt weird to have a conclusion to it, and the ending was somewhat disappointing, being a non-decision really. The one good thing that this story does give us, though, is the emotional plot point regarding early onset dementia, However, I don't feel enough of a connection to the character to truly empathize with her.
Hannah and Jason discover that there is a mysterious group that meets in North Dakota, so they try to figure out more about this group. They don't really end up learning much of anything about this group through the hour, until the end when they see who gets out of the helicopter. Also, throughout the hour, a reporter tries to uncover something regarding the capitol bombing and attempted assassination of Kirkman, but we don't get much out of this.
While it had a nice start, this ended up being a weaker episode. Little was accomplished, and the emotional moment attempted didn't really land very well.
Score: 6/10
What did you think of "The Ninth Seat"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!