THE LAST SHIP Season 2 - discussion, spoilers and general mayhem

[FPAlpha]

I am waiting for Sean to get his band of merry men up to Norfolk, after learning that Chandler has family there. Given how the country has fallen apart, Norfolk would probably be considered the nation's capital and the Nathan James needs to defend it.

And why do I get the feeling a season 3 will revolve around reuniting the country after it breaks into regional governments, ala Jericho.

Well, they can't keep milking the cure storyline forever. They found the cure pretty fast and started to distribute it only to have the labs destroyed by the sub. However the theoretical knowledge is still there and we have now established that humankind won't die out (they have enough people to form a stable genetic pool, no hillbilly inbreeding needed) so even without the cure humankind will survive.

So they are establishing an additional storyline that will be able to carry the show onwards to how many seasons they can make and it's an interesting storyline.

I just wish they'd abandon the central villain of the season .. 1st season saw them battling a russian destroyer, now it's a british sub.. what's next? A Chinese carrier? It get's a little stale and they can go so many other ways.

 

[Gaith]

^ Yep, it could theoretically turn into a mostly action and ocean-free series about the difficulties of piecing the government back together. Call it The Last Ship Sean Four: The Post-Red Flu West Wing...

 

[Aragorn]

The whole Baltimore thing with with Alfrie Woodard could've lasted a lot more than 3 episodes.

 

[The Wormhole]

^^To be honest, I'm glad it didn't. That storyline got very tiresome in just three episodes.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

They could've easily stretched it out for an entire season if they had wanted to. Good thing they didn't or the season would've gotten too slow actionwise.

 

[Caretaker]

One of my disappointments is that with the focus being on the cult/sub storyline, we've seen no followup to the chief engineer's story. A few episodes ago she found out that her husband and daughter are dead. But absolutely no followup to that was made beyond the episode in which she made the discovery.

 

[The Wormhole]

One of my disappointments is that with the focus being on the cult/sub storyline, we've seen no followup to the chief engineer's story. A few episodes ago she found out that her husband and daughter are dead. But absolutely no followup to that was made beyond the episode in which she made the discovery.

To be fair, though, she's not actually part of the main cast. It sucks to be shafted yes, especially since they seem to have been going somewhere with her story the week later when the engineering staff seemed so concerned with how distant she was. Then it was dropped and all we know is that she apparently recently helped Dr. Scott build that mouse testing apparatus. But for understandable reasons, the main cast take precedence. And, there's also Slattery (who's third in the opening credits) who's family story was left a bit more open-ended in that episode (they're just missing) and that hasn't really been touched since then either.

 

[The Wormhole]

A smaller scale, quieter show this week but enjoyable all the same. Chandler spends a night trying to turn Michener back to the Light Side, we get some emotional stuff, learn that Michener was hiding a secret that he performed mercy killings on the rest of his family after watching his oldest child die of the plague, and that he bought Sean's ideology as an escape from the guilt of this. After an emotional breakdown and a suicide attempt, Michener faces his inner demons and now rejects Sean and his followers and is now allied with the Nathan James.

Along the way we hear a radio transmission presumably of Sean's doing warning that the Nathan James doesn't have the cure they claim to have and is in fact a threat. Chandler believes that with Michener on their side they can combat this propaganda, but will that work? Even if Michener identifies himself and states that there is indeed a real cure aboard the Nathan James

-How many people at this moment know who Michener is and will believe the words of some guy on board this ship they've hear warnings about claiming to be the US President?

-Can't Sean just tell his people that Michener's been brainwashed to keep his control over his flock?

I did enjoy the scene at the end where they're having a conference in the wardroom, reminded me of briefing room conferences on Star Trek. Really funny bit, surprisingly just before a really dark and dramatic turn with the reveal of Michener slitting his wrists, when Tex is explaining to Chandler "he said he needed a leak. What if he's doing the other thing?"

Oh, and the episode settles the discussion going on here last week about when this show takes place. When Chandler was looking over Michener's files and data regarding the outbreak, we see it was dated 2014.

 

[Kirby]

Thanks Direct TV; my reception was all but unwatchable on every channel last night. I missed 80% of the show due to pixelation and frozen screens. Does anyone know if I can watch the show on line?

 

[The Wormhole]

^^Assuming you're American, in which case the show's official site has full episodes, updated up to this week.

 

[Kirby]

Thanks Wormhole, I'll check it out tonight.

 

[FPAlpha]

That was a nice change of pace for the show and a terrible personal tragedy.

Shows to me that the show doesn't want to be only a poster show for the US Navy or military porn, good on them.

 

[davejames]

Yeah that was a surprisingly compelling and well-written episode, and they actually did a good job making the President's allegiance to the crazy sub commander feel halfway believable.

 

[sojourner]

It was also an exceedingly cost saving episode. Taking place on standing sets without a single shot being fired.

 

[Gaith]

-How many people at this moment know who Michener is and will believe the words of some guy on board this ship they've hear warnings about claiming to be the US President?

I imagine the C-SPAN video and other documentary evidence will accomplish that. Plus, he's white, so no one'll be demanding his birth certificate.

Chandler seemed to forget his ace-in-the-hole argument - that they know who started the plague, and it wasn't God - but other than that, aye, a well-written and -acted ep.

 

[Admiral2]

Everything I could say about the episode has been said, so I'll just add "Agreed" and wait till next week.

 

[Scout101]

yep, good episode.

 

[Admiral2]

Ding dong the f---er's dead! The creepy little f---er's dead!

 

[The Wormhole]

Pretty good episode this week. The stuff between Dr. Scott and Sorensen was interesting to watch. I thought it was a nice touch that even now that he's deprived of his omnipresent toothpick he still regularly reaches for his for his mouth as though it were there. Also, I kind of wonder when Dr. Scott was pretending to seduce him, did he realize he'd been had but didn't actually care? Something about his expression when she got up and left was kind of disappointed but not surprised. One the one hand, I'm kind of disappointed he's apparently killed off, those two worked well together. But then, how else do you get such perfect poetic justice for the character?

The stuff with Michener and the Master Chief was also pretty good. We continue to see Michener is uncomfortable in a leadership position but is gradually easing into the job. The bit at the end where he takes charge of the briefing seemed a bit too far too quickly, but I can understand the show has other stories to tell and other things they want to do with the character, so I'll let that slide.

The stuff with the teenagers was kind of a low point. Granted, the teenagers themselves were alright characters, not annoying like kids in these type of shows tend to be. My main problem was that everything about it was practically telegraphed from the beginning. Ray's betrayal and subsequent change of heart, the other kid staying behind and getting killed, Ray now looking up to Chandler as a kind of fatherly role model.

 

[sojourner]

I figured out one of the reason's I like Tex. He has the same hat as I do.

So, My guess is they were somewhere on the Alabama coast considering Chandler's "passed Florida" comment. Seems like a big chunk of coast to skip considering they were still near St. Augustine last we saw. Would have loved to see them in Miami or Tampa.

Frm a navigation point of view though, once they rounded Florida, they shouldn't have been near the coast again until they hit the mouth of the Mississippi. Unless they intentionally followed the coast.