Madam Secretary season 3 finale spoilers: Elizabeth takes on Russia

Looking for some further Madam Secretary season 3 finale spoilers prior to Sunday night’s new episode coming on the air? The sneak peeks below give you a good sense as to the story of “Article 5,” and a further sense of just how art can imitate life. Russia is going to be at the center of the story — it’s in a different way than it is in the headlines at the moment, but it’s Russia nonetheless.

Here is the crux of the story: Russia is seemingly threatening to invade Bulgaria, and in the process of this, there are further threats starting to come America’s way. President Dalton and the United States Government are worried enough about this in order to send Elizabeth overseas; in the process, she needs to ensure that Article 5, a key part of NATO, is utilized in order to ensure that the countries are all in this together.

The central struggle with this is rather simple: This is not as cut and dry as when Article 5 was invoked in the past. Just wrong move can trigger NATO falling apart at the seams, and if that happens, countries could be left to fend for themselves. That’s bad news when one of them outnumbers the other in size, capabilities, and a whole lot more.

By the end of the third sneak preview, you’re going to specifically see things get especially teste between Elizabeth and Mike when it comes to his connections. He’s incredibly defensive, but does he have a reason to be? Does he have anything to hide? There are elements to certainly explore further.

As for the video below, this one is a little bit more domestic, and it features Elizabeth effectively trying to get back in touch with her roots with the family. She wants some family time at a cabin, but unfortunately for her, the family isn’t biting. Her motivation here seems to be largely twofold: She wants to be able to cherish the time with her family, but she also wants some sort of distraction from the panic and the chaos that she’s dealing with at her day job, which is perfectly understandable just because her said day job is by and large chaos.