Téa Leoni and Tim Daly’s Marriage Is Clear Evidence the McCords from Madam Secretary Were the Best TV Couple

When Madam Secretary premiered in 2014, I was 14 years old. I’m 25 now, but the running joke remains that I’m actually a 55-year-old woman trapped in the body of a 25-year-old. This should help explain why my all-time favorite TV show as a teenager was a geopolitical drama that aired in the Sunday night 10 p.m. time slot on CBS.

(I did grow up to become a journalist, so maybe everything works out just as it’s supposed to). 

My old soul and penchant for history and politics aside, I loved Madam Secretary for myriad reasons. Yes, Téa Leoni’s Elizabeth McCord is up there on my Mount Rushmore of TV characters, but the show really stands out in my mind — even more than a decade later — because audiences also got to see inside Elizabeth’s personal life.

She was the secretary of state, but we got to see her sitting in the principal’s office with her son and eating cold leftovers after a long day at the office. We saw her messy closet and her idiosyncrasies (she always ate ice cream with a fork) and best of all, we got to see her marriage. 

Leoni, 59, met Tim Daly, 69, who played her dashing marine-veteran-turned-religious-scholar husband, on the set of the show. They began dating in real life during the first season, and 11 years later, they made their partnership legal when they wed on July 12.

Not to be dramatic, but it’s the best news I’ve ever heard. 

It’s always fun when costars get together in real life (I am an entertainment journalist, after all) but this instance is particularly special, especially if you’ve seen Madam Secretary. The McCords’ marriage was my very first example — on TV or off — of what a successful, healthy marriage could actually look like, and I’ve taken it to heart. They’re the best there is, and I’d be inclined to think newlyweds Leoni and Daly might just agree.

First things first — the McCords’ marriage isn’t perfect, and neither are the characters, but they’re perfect for each other, and that, to me, is what it’s all about. The characters are whole all on their own — accomplished, multi-dimensional, flawed — but the nuance and depth of their relationship with each other makes for a marriage that you can’t help but root for.

They’re also just really fun.

Elizabeth is bold and sassy and a born leader. Henry is calm and cerebral and philosophical. She talks, and he listens. He gets stuck in his head, and she cracks a joke. Henry and Elizabeth have a very yin-yang thing going on, and they still manage to meet in the middle of the Venn diagram where qualities like curiosity and intellectualism and compassion and general good people-ness are concerned.

The fictional couple has three children together, and they always present themselves as a united parenting front. One of my all-time favorite lines from Henry is the McCord rule that while life may not be fair, “in this house it is.” Henry also plays guitar and is a girl dad who quotes Thomas Aquinas and has no problem threatening anyone who so much as looks at his wife the wrong way, which, though she is more than capable of taking care of herself, is an utterly delightful combination. Talk about a true Renaissance man. 

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While so much of the show focuses on Elizabeth saving the world in 43 minutes, some of the series’ most endearing scenes featured Leoni and Daly goofing around (in one episode, they decide to repaint the kitchen cabinets in their gorgeous D.C. townhome, and they end up throwing paint at each other and devolving into a fit of laughter instead). In fact, more often than not, the characters were laughing. And when they weren’t, the foundation of their marriage — support, love, respect — shone.

At the end of a particularly tense episode featuring a fight between the two (I told you they weren’t perfect!) Henry surprises Elizabeth with a refurbished version of her late father’s watch and delivers a line about always making time for her. Swoon. I’m not even doing it justice — you’re not allowed to say it’s cheesy until you see how beautifully the moment is portrayed on screen. (And Netflix, I’m looking at you, please bring it back!) That man came in strong with words of affirmation, gift-giving and an act of service all in one. You had me at hello, Henry.

And what do you know — it’s a two way street. After a death on Henry’s side of the family leaves him struggling in season 2, Elizabeth drops everything to travel to Pennsylvania with him, where the rest of his, shall we say, rather prickly family resides. She manages to diffuse tensions between Henry and his sister, comfort her own children and show up for her husband with exactly the right words to make him feel better.

The episode is heavy on the theme of fathers and sons, and Elizabeth helps Henry work through his guilt and his grief with a beautiful line about how he’s going to have to be ready to forgive their teenage son when he inevitably makes a mistake, too. There’s this sense of two people deeply understanding each other, and in turn, knowing what the other needs without anyone having to ask. They make the idea of being fully seen by another human being look beautiful, because it is.

Henry also gets a shout-out for his unparalleled ability to be what he, early on, calls “the man beside the woman.” He doesn’t give up any of his own passions; nor does he resent his powerful wife. When a magazine dubs him the best “arm candy” in town, he leans in. He’s not emasculated, there’s no affair on the side, there’s no secret loathing, there’s no immature handling of arguments or true failures of communication with dire consequences. He’s earnestly proud of his wife for being a certified badass. I don’t know how else to define “healthy and successful.” These two not only love each other but it’s obvious they really like each other, too.

When I want my fair share of relationship drama and poor decisions, I have Sex and the City reruns (sorry Carrie), but I come back time and time again to Madam Secretary for its portrayal of a marriage that holds my heart in its hands and promises not to break it. It’s aspirational without being impossible, and though we don’t know the intricacies of Leoni and Daly’s 11-year relationship, hear me when I say: The world feels like a better place filled with more love, thanks to those two.

Cheers to my favorite couple — onscreen and off.