Three-Letter Day

**Three-Letter Day** is the ninth episode of the second season of *Designated Survivor* and the thirtieth episode overall. It aired on December 6, 2017.

## Synopsis

The White House staff takes action on letters sent to the president; Hannah and Damian chase down leads to exonerate the first lady.

## Summary

Every month the White House gets 100,000 letters asking the president for help and he answers three of them. Kirkman gives Lyor and Seth the letter from a man who wants to know why his bees are dying; Kendra and Hannah a letter pleading the case of a man who is going to be killed for killing a DEA agent -- the curious thing about this case is that he appealed the sentence but not the conviction; and Emily and Aaron are given the case of a widow whose husband was denied the Medal of Honor despite being told that her husband was a hero by his fellow soldier.

Forstell is willing to seal the proceedings of the case against Alex and her mother in exchange for Alex not moving to quash the subpoena. The only damning evidence against her is the bank account in St. Lucia, which was opened in Alex's name. Hannah visits a bank under the guise of trying to open an account in someone else's name in order to investigate. Alex wants her husband to fire Forstell before he can indict her or her mother, but he refuses.

Lyor finds out that the beekeeper's wife is the one that has been poisoning the bees because she was jealous of the attention he'd been giving them, and the husband reveals that he'd poisoned his wife's roses.

Hannah and Kendra find that the prisoner -- Dern -- is innocent and took the fall for his son, who killed the DEA agent. The knowledge and guilt of this led Dern's daughter Tracy to drugs. Hannah arrests the son -- Frank -- for attempting to kill her via hitting her with one of the cars he took from his shop. Kirkman pardons Dern's execution but decides that he will stay in jail until he confesses that his son is the true perpetrator.

Despite the widow's twelve letters to her late husband's commanding officer, the CO has not reached out to her. The CO tells Emily and Aaron that he's been avoiding her because when the soldier died, he wasn't in the action, he was a mile away, and he didn't want to tell the widow because he didn't want her to see her husband as anything but a hero. Kirkman's bodyguard Mike says that that doesn't add up because no soldier would have been away from his brothers in arms if they were taking fire. After more investigation, they find that the CO is withholding the Medal because the soldier had been having an affair with his wife. The CO says that he will give the fallen soldier the Medal, but he will also tell the widow the truth. To avoid disaster, Kirkman invites the widow and the seven year old son to the Oval Office, where he presents them with a flag and tells them that the man was a hero.

Kirkman reveals to Emily that he knew about Seth's arrest and that he is going to give him another chance. Emily tells Seth that she advised the president to fire him and that he said no. Seth says that she made the right choice like she always does and kisses her.

Chuck gives Hannah information that suggests that Damian is a traitor.

## Cast

### Main Cast

* Kiefer Sutherland as Tom Kirkman
* Natascha McElhone as Alex Kirkman
* Paulo Costanzo as Lyor Boone
* Adan Canto as Aaron Shore
* Italia Ricci as Emily Rhodes
* LaMonica Garrett as Mike Ritter
* Zoe McLellan as Kendra Daynes
* Ben Larson as Damian Rennett
* Kal Penn as Seth Wright
* Maggie Q as Hannah Wells