7 Big Questions That Designated Survivor Season 4 Needs To Answer

Note: contains spoilers for Designated Survivor season 3.

Cancelled after two seasons last spring, Designated Survivor got a welcome reprieve when Netflix announced they it was making a third season of the political drama series starring Kiefer Sutherland as reluctant POTUS Tom Kirkman.

After it premiered last week, fans were quick to binge-watch the shorter 10-episode season – surprising Sutherland, who tweeted his thanks for everyone’s support – and, following a gripping finale, hopes are high for a fourth season.

There’s no word from Netflix – yet – as to whether the show will be renewed, but there are certainly some very big questions that need to be answered after the tense events of season 3:

(Warning – only read on past the trailer if you’ve seen season three, as this does contain some plot spoilers!)

1. Has President Kirkman gone to the dark side?

Tom Kirkman never dreamed of being POTUS – it was only thanks to a disastrous attack on Washington DC that killed just about every political player in the first-ever episode of Designated Survivor that he got the job.

The first two seasons focused on the dilemmas that the idealistic, independent (as opposed to Democrat or Republican-leaning) Kirkman faced in office, but by the time we caught up with him at the beginning of season 3 he'd decided he wanted to keep the position of most powerful man in the Western world (well, it does come with a nice house), and planned to fight for it in an election.

However, as anyone who reads the news knows, political campaigns are underhand and dirty, and by the end of the season it looked like even our hero could be corrupted. Given an audio recording that proved his opponent Cornelius Moss wasn’t as bad as everyone thought, Kirkman didn’t release it to the press in case it hurt his own chances – horrifying his close advisor Emily (Italia Ricci).

Could keeping this secret this be the first glimpse of a darker, more politically calculating Kirkman as he begins his second term in the White House?

2. Has Emily gone for good?

Kirkman’s closest aide, Emily, walked out of the election celebrations in tears (and they weren’t happy ones) in season 3’s finale, shortly after the FBI came to arrest Tom’s scheming campaign advisor, Lorraine – possibly on Emily’s tip off.

Emily’s actions are pretty understandable. Her mother had just died, she’d had an ill-advised one night stand with new vice president Aaron (Adan Canto) and she’d just discovered her white-knight boss Kirkman was withholding the evidence she’d given him.

So will she be back, or has Tom Kirkman just lost his most trusted advisor and friend? And will she tell the FBI of his involvement?

3. Will Isabel tell Aaron she’s pregnant?

Aaron’s girlfriend Isabel Pardo (Elena Tovar) proved herself to be a political force to be reckoned with, steering Kirkman and new chief of staff Mars Harper (ER’s Anthony Edwards) through various crises and earning the job of Mars’s deputy by season’s end.

She ended her relationship with Aaron after discovering he had slept with Emily and realising he wasn’t that supportive of her career – and then discovered she was pregnant with his baby.

Will Isabel tell him she’s pregnant? And if she does – how awkward will it be in the hallways of the west wing, with her being deputy chief of staff and him Vice President?

4. Is Lorraine going to jail, never to be seen again?

Julie White’s performance as Kirkman’s feisty and unprincipled campaign manager Lorraine Zimmer was one of the biggest highlights of this season, but Lorraine’s unorthodox ways of winning an election (that included recording the opponent’s phone conversations) led to her being arrested by the FBI.

Will Lorraine implicate someone – maybe Emily, or lovely social media whizz Dontae (Benjamin Charles Watson) – to save her own neck? Or will she go to jail – probably for a very long time – for her illegal activities during Kirkman’s campaign?

We’re sort of hoping she gets away with it, just to have her return for more scheming in season 4…

5. Is the bio-threat over?

While FBI-turned-CIA agent Hannah Wells (RIP) helped foil a plot to infect large chunks of the American population with an engineered disease (it sounds bonkers but apparently the science is almost there, fact fans), the scientist who helped her, Dr Eli Mays (Chukwudi Iwuji), warned that other terrorists could use the same method of attack in the future.

Could another disease be created and released while Kirkman is President? Will Mays step into Hannah’s shoes to stop any future bio-terrorism threats? Oh, and could you please put your hand over your mouth next time you cough?

6. Where’s Leo?

While we saw Kirkman’s daughter Penny (McKenna Grace) around the White House this season and met his sister-in-law Sasha (Jamie Clayton), there was one family member who was conspicuous by their absence: Tom’s sullen son, Leo (Tanner Buchanan).

There was a fleeting mention of him being off at college but he didn’t show up for his dad’s victory party – surely he could have got a few days off from Stanford University to celebrate his dad becoming President again?

Of course, the most likely explanation is that actor Buchanan is busy elsewhere (he co-stars in the Karate Kid web-TV spin-off Cobra Kai and has a couple of movies in the pipeline) but perhaps we’ll get a glimpse of how the brooding teen is coping at college, presumably with presidential bodyguards in tow, if there is a season 4.

7. Will Kirkman ever go on a date?

Kirkman’s wife, Alex (Natascha McElhone) was killed in a gruesome car accident midway through the second season which feels like an age ago, so we think Tom’s had a respectable amount of time to mourn her death by now.

There was a hint of romance with businesswoman Andrea Frost (Kim Raver, who also played Kiefer Sutherland’s love interest in 24) in season 2 but it didn’t go anywhere, and her character is unlikely to return to romance the president again since Raver is now a series regular on Grey’s Anatomy.

We’re not expecting the leader of the free world to start using Tinder, but it would be nice for Kirkman to have some hint of a private life in the next season. Perhaps the Designated Survivor team could bring in another of Sutherland’s 24 co-stars – we want Mary Lynn Rajskub, who played tech analyst Chloe – as a new White House aide and potential love interest for widower Kirkman?

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Freelance film & TV writer, Digital Spy Critic and writer Jo Berry has been writing about TV and movies since she began her career at Time Out aged 18. A regular on BBC Radio, Jo has written for titles including Empire, Maxim, Radio Times, OK!, The Guardian and Grazia, is the author of books including Chick Flicks and The Parents’ Guide to Kids’ Movies.

She is also the editor of website Movies4Kids. In her career, Jo has interviewed well-known names including Beyonce, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise and all the Avengers, spent many an hour crushed in the press areas of award show red carpets. Jo is also a self-proclaimed expert on Outlander and Brassic, and completely agrees that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

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