State of Affairs is an American espionage thriller drama series that debuted on NBC, starring Katherine Heigl as CIA analyst Charleston "Charlie" Tucker, and Alfre Woodard as President Constance Ryan.
One year ago, Charlie was in Kabul with her fiancee Aaron, then-Senator Ryan's son, and their motorcade was ambushed by terrorists, with Aaron dying in the attack. Fast forward one year: Senator Ryan is now President of the United States, and Charlie is working as a CIA analyst responsible for compiling the President's Daily Brief
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This show contains examples of:
- Arch-Enemy: Omar Abdul Fatah is Charlie's.
- Broken Bird: Charlie puts on a strong facade, but she's still pretty messed up from seeing her fiancee dying in front of her.
- Establishing Character Moment: Charlie's therapy session, interposed with flashbacks of her partying.
- Expy: Omar Abdul Fatah is one for Osama Bin Laden.
- Friendly Sniper: Syd Vaslo occasionally helps Charlie and Nick in this capacity.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Charlie's way of coping with her fiance's death.
- The Lost Lenore: Aaron Payton is Charlie's dead fiance, killed by Omar Abdul Fatah.
- Meaningful Name: Charlie's code name for Fatah is Pegasus. Unbeknownst to her, he uses that moniker as a symbol to plan a strike on US soil. Fortunately, Charlie is able to figure out the symbolism based on the code names of his contacts, which match the Arabic names for some of the stars in the Pegasus constellation.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Fatah's justification for his actions. He claims that the West would never accept moderate Islam, since it needs a threat to rally behind. So, he is happy to provide that threat. As far as he's concerned, both the US and him get what they want.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. Charlie is seeing a therapist, but she's not very cooperative on her part.
