One success can turn things upside down.
What They Say:
Friendly Fire – Rachel works on a more efficient version of the cure; Alisha decodes a message found on a cell phone; a suspicious death forces Chandler to launch a murder investigation.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The Last Ship has mostly picked up over what it did in the first season, but it still makes some of the same mistakes when you get down to it. The potential for the larger world is there and while it’s obvious like most shows it will focus on the smaller aspects we end up with the larger events being handled hamfistedly. When it focuses on the core crew it tends to work better and we’ve seen some solid progress in making the cast a bit more accessible this year, especially with Chandler. But we’ve also finally gotten an event that we’ve needed for some time with the death of Niels. Unfortunately, the show wants to really hew towards the rule of law at a time when there has to be some shades of gray. But Chandler’s need for chain of authority and respect for authority is what drives him in this direction.
Conducting an investigation at this point isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do and for Chandler to have it run by the book only adds to it. With Rachel having switched from working on the cure as an aerosol delivery to one similar to what Niels was like as a carrier, she’s got Rios helping her with it though he’s got at least a hint at what may have happened for her to go this route. So while they do work at it towards the larger goal it all ends up being put on hold for the investigation that gets underway. Shutting down research feels like a weird choice even if going by the book and part of it comes across as though Chandler may be a bit out of the loop as to how it’s being done. Which isn’t a bad idea. Rachel, for her part, isn’t acting too guilty, but she’s showing enough signs of duress that it’ll be figured out eventually.
Rachel’s motivations make sense on a number of levels and with her pursuit of the cure and disdain for Niels considering what he’s responsible for. But we also get some flashbacks to her childhood where we see the death of her mother because of her father’s inactions in trying to cure her. So seeing her taking the chance on the cure delivery that she’s got and injecting herself with it doesn’t surprise, even if it is traditionally bad scientist storytelling material. So while she tries to use this as a means to reassure Chandler that she’s doing the right thing when he confronts her about it, I rather like that she doesn’t beat around the bush and admits to what she’s done. Both of them get quite emotional about it as they stake out their positions and it’s hard to argue with either of them because of their perspective and trajectories of their lives.
Where it takes an interesting turn though is that Chandler, needing to talk about this, actually has someone to turn to now with Michener. Chandler’s got to decide what to do with her, especially since as the crew gets briefed on what’s going on most end up rallying behind Rachel because of all the good she’s done so far. It’s a complicated situation because of what Chandler knows he should do and what he needs to do but he finds a temporary balance of sorts, one that while it does work is just going to keep things tense for some time to come. Granted, getting her to keep working on the cure and its delivery makes a lot of sense and keeping her locked up in her quarters the rest of the time as well. But one can imagine some of the tension that will add as it goes on. Not that I expect this to last the season.
While the ship continues to head to New Orleans now that they know that there’s a fleet of fifty ships there offshore that’s full of survivors, Chandler and the crew are working towards figuring out how the Immunes are communicating. It’s revealed in an interesting way as their cell phones are pretty standard, but they’re obviously not being used in traditional form since there’s no towers, no texts, and not even any selfies. While they do reveal that they’re working through Bluetooth with its short distance relay approach, it’s something that really feels kind of awkward to work in that form. Though they have this they have to crack the code to be able to understand the messages, which means attempting to break one of the prisoners they have to give up how it’s all done. It’s familiar material, but it at least lets Michener play a bit of a role in it by offering one of them a pardon to get what they need. Michener also factors into the New Orleans fleet a bit as we get to see how part of his past job was setting that in motion, which gives him a chance to talk about the details in a good way.
The New Orleans fleet offers up a lot of potential, but it’s also something that can be a real lure as well as we see play out here. While they get closer to where they are and are practically ready to celebrate connecting with a lot of people it all goes to hell quickly with the ships starting to blow up. This turns into a really good tense sequence where we get the Nathan James under attack from the sub. There’re some really good bits to it as the crew works to survive the attack and we see the quality of their defenses and what they have to do to make it through it. After the lengthy game of cat and mouse we’ve had this season between the ship and the sub it’s good to see that there’s some actual damage happening here with the attack on the ship. Not enough to really change the status of the Nathan James but it ramps up the tension a good bit.
Even worse though is that when Sean does call into the Nathan James to gloat he reveals that he’s set an even larger fight ahead for the crew. With some weakly edited video that’ll be enough to convince a good many people, Sean’s made it seem like the Nathan James fired on the fleet and took them out. Combined with the previous communications that were sent out about the ship and that they’re the bad guys, it just ups everything even more. Revealing that the message could have traveled as far as Ohio only makes it all the worse for Chandler. It’s a moment where as much as they struggle to do the right thing they keep getting pushed back harder and further. It’s a nice element to add into the show but one that I’m not quite sure was necessary considering the general level of distrust already out there.
In Summary:
The Last Ship hits some predictable moments here because it’s all laid out clearly when Chandler says that the reason things function on this ship as they do is because of routine, tradition and codes. With Rachel breaking such things with her murder of Niels, no matter how justified it may be in some ways, he’s intent on upholding what he’s sworn to do as captain. Both sides are completely understandable. Less understandable are the lengths that Sean and his brother are going to in order to sink the Nathan James and her crew. While his anger is pushing him in dangerous ways and he’s plainly unhinged, the death of ten thousand people on board the fleet feels like it’s even too far for him, turning him into caricature the same way the Russian captain was in the first season with his insistence on the finer things amid events. It’s not a bad episode but it’s following the pattern of what we’ve seen before and again showing that Chandler in his role of a captain isn’t going to handle nuance well. He’s no Kirk to be sure.
Grade: B-
Rachel was up front with Tom that she couldn�t deal with
Niels. It disgusted me when Tom bragged that he could deal with Niels and his
wife had died because of him so that obviously she should have no problem
dealing with Niels. So what? Niels didn�t personally set out to kill Tom�s
wife. Whereas in Rachel�s case, Niels had the Russian Captain stalk her and
then capture her. Everything that Niels did to Rachel was personal. She�s a
civilian, not in the military or police.
If a civilian who had close family die in the Holocaust was
told to make nice with Adolf Hitler so that he�ll help him for some reason and
had to deal with him personally � well I wouldn�t be surprised if the civilian
killed Hitler.
I also don�t believe that Rachel could have gotten the virus
from Niels� lungs without killing him. She said that it was likely deep in the
lung tissue so that a biopsy might not find it. And even if they could operate
on him, I doubt that he would have given his permission. She told Niels that
when he was dying.
In times of war, revolution, natural disaster, you operate
under Marshall Law. It would have been appropriate to just have executed Niels�
on the spot when they captured him. They don�t have to have a trial. Niels� was
facilitating the murder of children.
I feel bad for Rachel because really Tom put her in a
position for this to happen. I hope that the crew stand up for her. I liked
that Tex told her that it didn�t matter to him.
The war with Sean Ramsey and the Immunes is boring and
ludicrous as far as I�m concerned. It�s just a reason to shot and blow things
up and adds nothing to the show. I also don�t believe that Ramsey has all these
followers considering the only immune person that the Nathan James came upon
was Bertrice. All of a sudden there�s hundreds of thousands immunes everywhere and they don’t need to do much to find each other? Not believable at all.
And I�ve got to applaud Rachel for killing Niels so that I
don�t have to see him anymore.