Madam Secretary Season 1 Episode 15: The Ninth Circle (2015)

Episode 15 of the first season of Madam Secretary is all about betrayal. In the wake of discovering one of her oldest friends from her CIA days, Juliet, has betrayed her by involving herself in a plot to kill a mutual friend and start a coup in Iran, Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord must seek out the other involved parties in the plot that might be lurking in the United States government. By the end of the episode, CIA director Andrew Munsey is revealed to be Juliet’s secret handler, who has also betrayed the president and secretary of state. The Dantean connection is solidified around thirteen minutes into the episode when Elizabeth confesses to her husband Henry, a religion professor at Georgetown University, that she feels guilty over the death of an American operative overseas, and the fact that she had to lie to the operative’s wife because of the national security concerns. He reassures her, saying that it was Juliet’s fault that the operative died, and that she was betrayed saying “You trusted one of your best friends, yes. You were betrayed, babe. I think you can give yourself a pass for that. Dante classified it as the worst sin of all. He devoted an entire level of hell to its practitioners.”