What They Say:
We’ll Get There – The ship’s propulsion system suffers a catastrophic event; Chandler’s leadership and ingenuity are put to the test.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The Last Ship did a pretty good job of closing up the first arc of the series with the previous episode as we got a handle on the Russian side of the equation, a few more deaths and an explanation of what Quincy was up to all this time. Some aspects of it were handled a little loosely when it comes to the characters and some of the larger implications of the actions taken, but the series is working a pretty decent premise with what it wants to do and is finding its footing. The big draw for me continues to be the way that we get a solid group of military men working the situation and that does introduce a little more in terms of execution than most shows like this tend to work with. Of course, we get the random civilian influence moments from Rachel, and I’m curious how Tex will fit into things, but by and large it has a pretty good vibe that reminds me of the film The Final Countdown.
Thankfully, they are seeding in a few non-military aspects to help smooth out the characters a bit. This one opens with a nice bit of Chandler before he heads off on the arctic mission that changed everthing and getting a chance to see him in plainclothes, a family man and interacting with his wife and kids goes a long way towards altering your view of him a bit. He’s been a constant in uniform and that little bit of him i a normal setting is definitely interesting. That also factors into how he is in the present as we see him spending time in the radio room listening to what’s going on in the world, which draws up all those emotions from the past with his family and how they’re handling the situation. This also factors a bit of follow-up with Slattery as the two of them talk and we see just how bad things went with his own wife, having lost a son to what happened but not being there to help her through it. It’s definitely defining for both of them.
With the ship moving on to their next location with the plan to hit up a monkey preserve in Costa Rica for Rachel to get some primates to work with, things are starting to fall apart in small ways. With pretty much all of the crew having been on the ship for five months, there’s some tensions starting to fray around the edges. The enlisted men are finding it harder to just do the basics enjoyments they get, those in the engine room are finding that the ship is struggling mechanically in ways due to a lack of parts and the command structure is holding up as well as it can. Even worse for Chandler though is that Rachel is insisting that Quincy be brought back into the lab for some work because she needs someone as qualified as him. Chandler’s not keen on that but there is a lack of resources that she can use, so it’s easy to see her getting her way, even if it is just degrees.
Of course, before any of that can be dealt with, the mechanical issues end up becoming significant, enough so that because of what they did to get our of Guantanmo ended up causing a lot of damage that went unknown until it reared its head. Add in a brief fire and a lot of other small ripple effect pieces and it’s definitely an unfortunate challenge that they have to cope with. There’s a good way it’s handled when it comes to the dialogue between the sailors as they try to figure it out and with Chandler himself, as he takes the blame where appropriate and just sets them to fixing things and working that task. Knowing how to use people to achieve goals is the big push that Chandler excels at and we even see that when he sends Slattery down to play the heavy on Quincy to get him to be more cooperative with Rachel. This provides a little back story for Slattery that definitely changes the view one has of him a bit, though it doesn’t do much for our view of Quincy at this stage of the game.
While their drama plays out, the big issue here is keeping everyone alive as the ship struggles to make any distance. With rations cut to severe levels to try and maintain a semblance of some water that’s drinkable due to a cascade of effects since going into Guantanamo, there’s not even a tight window to do things but a closed window when you get down to it. they put a few things into play with short bursts of movement to be careful so they don’t worsen the damage they have to repair when they do pull into port, such as setting course of a place that should give them more drinking water. They also put a UAV into the air to scan the area for potential other ships that may be about and abandoned that they can scavenge for useful items. They’re doing all the right things, and methodically at that, but doing the right things won’t actually work in the long run and they have to hold out for some luck along the way as well to really make it work.
The show takes a bit of a fun low-tech approach to things for a bit with what it does, first with coping with the lack of power to keep the lab cool and lack of power to get moving and things started again. There’s a bit of a higher power moment that’s put into play, which is certainly warranted among those that are feeling such challenges all around them, and it’s not overplayed which is nicely done. There’s a good moment where it’s said how Chandler is there to execute a vision that they’ve all been put there to bring about for him and with the way the fate of mankind is at stake, it’s easy for even a non-believer to buy into it with what they see continually unfolding. It’s not something Chandler seeks or encourages either, but rather accepts as something that some of the crew will run with. It’d be interesting if it becomes a problem later on, but part of what can temper that is their general sense of duty to the Navy and the mission itself.
With things ending as it does, without surprises, what we get instead is a series of character moments that are fun to watch. While we’ve seen the crew hard at work and doing their jobs to the best of their abilities, when they get some down time on the island for a bit and get to relax in their basics and largely out of uniform, that lets them be a bit more humanized than they have been before. It drives home a kind of hope and optimism tempered by what they’re going through and experiencing and the balance of the two can be tricky, but hugely important. Getting a look at them in this light definitely helps as it not only allows them to be more than their positions, but we see how they’re coping with it in the grand scheme of things by being a larger family of sorts in a very different way.
In Summary:
Admittedly, everything does eventually end in a fairly predictable way. The point of an episode like this is to show how some of the key players handle a stressful situation like this and how far they’ll go. In that regard, it does it pretty well as we get a few of the command structure characters fleshed out a bit with what their pasts are like, some of their motivations and the kind of faith that also comes into play for it. There’s some good stressful moments that comes into play with it that are right and natural and also some good payoff towards the end that lets everyone have some much needed rest and relaxation. We also get a good look at how people view Chandler here and how Chandler interacts with his crew. It’s very different from what we might have seen twenty or thirty years ago in a series like that and it’s definitely interesting to see it.
Grade: B
My biggest problem with this episode is the fact that they are in the Carribean and didn’t use their helicoptor to go to any of the thousands of islands withing the range of their ship.