1. Pilot

Elizabeth McCord, a former CIA analyst, gets recruited and trained by the current POTUS. Due to the death of the current Secretary of State in a plane crash, the President asks her to become the new Secretary of State, because she can think outside the box. Two months later, McCord is faced by an issue of two American children held hostage in Syria. The POTUS's Chief of Staff plays a game to damage her reputation and then advises the President to not do anything about the kidnapping. But McCord convinces the President to get the boys out through back-channel sources. Meanwhile, one of her former CIA colleagues warns her that her predecessor may have been killed by the CIA. He is later found dead in a car crash, which McCord believes was not an accident.