Chandler’s struggling with what’s becoming his white whale.
What They Say:
Long Day’s Journey – Chandler tracks the immunes to Northern Florida; Rachel comes across a secret formula that her mentor was working on; Chandler’s team locates an immune compound.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The Last Ship had a pretty good episode the last time around as it focused on some time at sea rather than some of the land based material we’ve had recently. Giving Chandler and his crew a chance to deal with something different with a submarine out there causing problems challenged them all to do something new in order to survive and push back against Sean and his group down there that are working towards their own larger goals. With Niels on board and a certain fanaticism starting coming into play, it certainly has the makings for a proper villainous side that’s not focused on old nationalist rivals. The show also won me over a lot the last time around just for the riffs on the Hunt for Red October aspects of it.
With the bulk of the labs destroyed out there now, this episodes kicks off by putting Sean and Ned ashore in Florida where they’re talking about the overall plan. Ned’s not keen on it at all and isn’t one that really believes like Sean does. In fact, he’s not believing that Sean believes, but it becomes clear to him that Sean has gone over the edge now. Ned’s more intent on just getting back to England, making it clear that this is not fanaticism for him, but it’s clear that Sean is very much a believer now. And he’s tied himself to Niels, someone that Ned views as an angel of death. With Sean intent on bringing on more of the immune and figuring that there’re probably fifteen million of his potential chosen ones out there in America, he has grand plans for essentially setting himself up in this new world.
With the submarine being repaired after their scraping maneuvers before, that puts them out of the picture for awhile though. That puts some of ours focus on Chandler as he’s intent on making the submarine his target now that the network he had put together has been utterly destroyed. It’s a crippling element mentally for him and he’s returning his focus to what he can with going after the submarine with a real hunt. Rachel’s doing her best to convince him that they have to keep the course, but he’s intent on the hunt. What gives her a chance at her course though is that a message came in from Dr. Hunter in Florida that reveals he had figured out a way to deal with the cure and dispersal. It also reveals that it was through the attack on Hunter’s lab that they got the information on all the other labs. The reveals are decent here overall, but it’s Chandler’s frustration and narrow focus that’s getting the most grief, especially since he’s ignoring his core mission.
Chandler does his best to blend the two missions together though and with their arrival in Florida, they use it as an opportunity to find clues about who attacked and their relationship to the submarine crew itself. That leads them out to the swamp itself and they make a pretty good attempt at finding out where this group is hiding. The obsessive side of Chandler is very much in evidence, as even the master chief makes it clear that he’s heading down a bad path. Obsession is definitely a theme of events here as not long after that, we also see Sean’s fanaticism coming back into play as Ned basically calls him out about how he’s really just afraid to head back to England to see what happened there and what he’s lost. Sean’s intent on working through this culling though, being a part of Niels and his whole plan to bring the worthy up from the ashes. You really do wish someone would kill Niels first out of them all though.
It doesn’t take long overall for the UAV that the Nathan James sends out to find where the attackers are holed up and it’s an interesting little safe zone in the midst of the swamps, but one that has some mercs there from the Solace that are in communications with the sub. That starts to draw in some decent range finding moments to try and track the sub, which is still Chandler’s bigger goal. Amusingly, it’s Tex that blends in the easiest and becomes one of the camp for a bit before reporting back. That and a bit more intel gives them what they need to go after the Solace members though it’s all by being part of a convoy of school buses heading away from there. It’s amusing to see a few of them go into civilian clothes mode to blend in. The time on the bus gives Chandler a chance to finally put a bit more of all of this together since there are some that will become the faithful, talking about Sean and his sermons that they’ve got the videos of. It’s bringing the various sides and elements into contact with each other in some form, and that’s only going to harden Chandler’s resolve.
The final act brings us a few things moving forward as we get Rachel figuring out a way to disperse the cure in physical form, which is what’s getting ready to advance there. With Chandler’s team, things have split up a fair bit as those on the bus get taken to the main building while those in the pickups are sent elsewhere for a job to be done. And with one of the team slipping outside of both of those options, it definitely makes for a complicated moment to pull things together if need be. What Chandler’s group does find is the man leading the cult here, at least on this part of the ground, and that gets him ready to spring into action. Bringing Sean into the mix here as well makes for some fun, but knowing that Ned and Sean are there as well makes it far more dangerous since they can be spotted in a crowd. What we do see though is that Sean is definitely playing with some basic political motivation here in an attempt to cement his own power, and it’s definitely very fun to watch as he finds a way to introduce a new American President.
In Summary:
The Last Ship is working through a few different things here once again and there’s some potential for good, if light, stories to be told. With a political and patriotic play put in towards the end that will definitely be a challenge for Chandler to adjust to, depending on how it plays out, we get to see more of what kind of big game Sean is working at here. We also get to see more of some of the divisions that exists between Sean and Ned, not that either will be of much use to Chandler in dealing with them, at least in a big and clear way. The show makes a return to land with this episode overall though and it’s not a surprise after a heavy sea-based episode the last time around. It’s dealing with some decent things, but like what happened at the beginning with Baltimore and the pseudo-government setup there, it’s all very superficial. That makes it hard to really invest in, but it’s still a fun watch overall.
Grade: B
