Hostages Episode 1.03 Power of Persuasion

Ellen, still reeling from the presumed murder of her friend Angela, endeavors to learn more about Duncan after overhearing a private phone call he has with his daughter, Sawyer. She learns that Sawyer has an art fair at her school today, and Brian manages to discreetly find out exactly what school she goes to while at work. Ellen cleverly slips her tail at work and goes to the art fair, posing as Sawyer's aunt, and manages to carefully pry information out of Duncan's daughter. She is shocked to learn that her captor isn't some nameless terrorist, but an actual FBI agent whose last name is Carlisle, and that his wife is sick and in a local hospital. Satisfied with the information she obtains from Sawyer, Ellen slips out of the school just as Kramer arrives to see his niece’s artwork. Duncan narrowly avoids an assassination attempt by someone hired by Creasy. Knowing that the higher ups have decided to call off the assassination and eliminate all the loose ends, Duncan sneaks up on Creasy at home and blackmails him into keeping with the original plan. In order to make that happen, Creasy, and by extension, Duncan and Ellen, have to convince President Kincaid not to change surgeons. After some political wheeling and dealing, Creasy gets Ellen a face to face with the President. Duncan orders her to convince President Kincaid to keep her on as his surgeon and, knowing that it's the only way to keep her family safe, Ellen puts on a confident face and succeeds. Brian struggles with the fact that he is powerless in every aspect of his life: he's failing at work, he's being forced to continue an affair he wants to end, and he is completely at the mercy of his captors at home. Brian takes out his frustration on Jake, who comes to him begging for the drug money that Brian found. Brian lashes out at him and says no, which results in Jake getting beaten up by Nico. Kramer and Sandrine watch the beating happen from their car, but do nothing to stop it. Later, Kramer tracks Nico down and retaliates on Jake's behalf, giving Nico an equally brutal beating. Morgan also yells at Brian for the way he treated Boyd when he came to introduce himself - something Brian had no involvement in, as Boyd assumed Duncan was Morgan's father.