‘When the Fate of the World’s At Stake, You Gotta Show Up!’: Inside the Third Season ‘Madam Secretary’ Finale

Who has time for family bonding? Certainly not the McCords. Madam Secretary heads toward the end of its third season with secretary of state and mother-of-three Bess (Téa Leoni) fighting to free an American reporter held captive in Sudan and jetting to Rome with President Dalton (Keith Carradine) for the G20 Conference. Then she’s off to Brussels, where she’ll urge NATO to mount a military response against Russia—a move that’ll threaten the very existence of the 68-year-old peacekeeping alliance. Bess is also stressing out over her hubby, Henry (Tim Daly), an expert in religious theology who has gone to Israel to locate a bioweapon created by a Christian doomsday cult that’s in cahoots with Al Qaeda.

Related

Ask Matt: Crying Along With ‘This Is Us,’ Plus ‘Madam Secretary,’ ‘The Good Fight,’ ‘The Americans’ and More

“It’s a scary scenario that’s unfortunately not so fictional,” says Daly, noting there are “a lot of religious extremists—in our country and around the world—who believe in the prophecy of Armageddon. And they want it to happen sooner than later.” Daly swears Henry is “just an everyman committed to doing the right thing. He’s no 007 or Jason Bourne, but he can sure get himself out of tight spots.” So can Daly. Last January, the actor broke his right ankle and left knee while skiing in Utah, an accident that could have sidelined him for weeks. Instead, he was back at work mere days after surgery to fight the good fight. Cracks Daly: “When the fate of the world’s at stake, you gotta show up!”

Madam Secretary, Season Finale, Sunday, May 21, 9/8c