The Last Ship
Scuttle
Original Air Date: Aug 21, 2016
Vincent Chia – Staff Writer
vincent@thetwocentscorp.com
No good naval story is complete with some type of mutiny or attempted mutiny. In tonight’s episode, we get one!! How will Chandler react to the mutiny? How will the ship’s crew?
Captain Joe Meylan, former captain of the U.S.S. Hayward, joins Captain Chandler as they both watch the Hayward burning in the distance. Chandler has salvaged some of the Hayward’s equipment, including the windows for the bridge of the Nathan James that were previously destroyed. The Hayward is scuttled in order to prevent sensitive secret equipment from falling into enemy hands. Meylan thinks they should go home, but Chandler disagrees and thinks they should stay in Asia to prevent Peng from re-establishing a weapons factory and carrying out the green mist plans.
Meylan also wants to contact the President but Chandler says they will remain at radio silence.
In St. Louis, Kara has sent her baby away with her mother to join Chandler’s family heading somewhere out of town where Kara thinks it will be safer. President Oliver declares that he has reversed some of Michener’s former orders and has activated the National Guard to act under the command of the regional leaders.
Kara calls Allison Shaw and tells her there is a mole in the White House. Unfortunately, as we know, Shaw is the mole. Kara tells Shaw that she is at the S&W Diner. Soon afterwards, Kara watches from across the street from the diner as two agents arrive to search for her. She now knows that Shaw can’t be trusted. (Though, how does Kara know that Shaw’s phone line wasn’t simply tapped? Either way, Kara knows she can’t communicate with Shaw)
Back onboard the James, Slattery asks Takehaya for help.
Meylan seems to think that Chandler is a little bit too obsessed with Peng, almost like Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick.
Japanese pirates climb aboard the Nathan James. They have the decoding cipher from the sunken Chinese destroyer that Chandler wanted.
Shaw forces President Oliver to sign an arrest warrant for Chandler. Shaw reveals that she cooperated with Peng for the specific goal of getting rid of Chandler. She and her benefactors do not care too much what Peng does against China’s neighbors.
Meylan and his senior officers from the Hayward are upset that Chandler is giving a lot of the ship’s food rations to the Japanese pirates.
Granderson uses the cipher from the sunken Chinese ship to decode Chinese communications. She establishes that Peng is actually on one of the Chinese destroyers heading to Tokyo.
A double-encrypted message is send to the James from central command. The message is directed at Captain Meylan, who decrypts it. Meylan goes to the bridge and shows Chandler the order from the Commander-in-Chief that Meylan is to place Chandler under arrest. Chandler believes that the White House has been compromised. There is a short standoff before Chandler tells his people to stand down and he volunteers to surrender command. Does this count as a mutiny? I guess it’s complicated. Meylan was technically following orders.
Meylan relieves the James’ senior officers of duty and installs his own officers. Meylan has also detained Green, Burk, and Wolf in the captain’s mess, probably since those three are viewed as Chandler’s most capable bodyguard types. They are the normal composition of Chandler’s Vulture team. Meylan has the ship set course for Pearl Harbor.
Chandler tells Sasha that he will request a court martial and Sasha will be his defense counsel. He also tells her his plan to re-take the ship, which we don’t see explained.
Back in St. Louis, Kara is hiding at the apartment of a reporter named Jacob, who she trusts for some reason. Perhaps because he has in the past been antagonistic against the White House. She tells him that she suspects that Shaw killed Rivera and perhaps even Michener. Kara also calls an analyst named Dennis, who is the one person she still trusts in the White House. She tells him that Kara is the mole. Dennis arrives and is able to get a computer file from Senator Beatty’s office which shows a map of the U.S. being divided among the several regional leaders.
The crewmembers of the James and Hayward get into a huge melee in the mess hall. This causes the master-at-arms to be called in (the chief security officer of the ship). We soon see that the melee was a subterfuge in order to get the sailors into a seemingly organic scuffle to get close to the master-at-arms and tackle him and secretly lift a set of keys to secretly pass to Captain Slattery, who also arrived at the mess deck under the rouse that he was trying to help break up the fight.
After a little bit more sleuthing, Kara discovers that the regional leaders have been hoarding food. Suddenly, a secret service agent arrives out of nowhere and shoots the reporter and Kara runs. Kara manages to kill the secret service agent. It wasn’t totally clear to me whether Dennis had betrayed Kara or if his phone line was bugged or if something else happened. Though, I did wonder why only one agent was sent.
Slattery and Sasha attack the guards stationed outside of the officer’s mess where Green, Burk, and Wolf had been detained. And thus, the mutiny-within-a-mutiny commences. This is very similar to the submarine movie Crimson Tide. In that movie, the XO took command under what appeared to be proper regulations, then the captain stages a reverse mutiny to re-take command. A third counter-reverse mutiny is soon engineered by the XO. It’s actually a pretty fun movie to watch. Though, I presume in our tv series, there won’t be a third change of power.
Chandler sits at his court martial while Slattery and his team free the Japanese pirates whom Meylan had previously arrested. In turn, the Japanese pirates help Slattery retake the bridge. Finally Slattery bursts into the room where Chandler’s court martial was taking place. We see that Chandler called for a court martial so that he could isolate Meylan and a few of his senior officers from the bridge and it would be easier for Slattery’s reverse coup that way. Meylan is outraged, and Chandler says that if he is proven wrong about Peng, he will be judged, but by someone more qualified then Meylan. Meylan and his senior officers are detained in helo bay 2.
Jacob Barnes survived the gunshot. Kara is driving herself and him away from St. Louis. They hear on the radio that the two of them are suspects in the deaths of Secretary Rivera and Senator Beatty. They also see large concrete barriers being erected. The regions are being walled off from each other.
So, I’m glad Chandler was able to retake his ship in such short order. Though, to be honest, I was a little surprised Meylan was able to take command so easily in the first place. What will Chandler do with Meylan? I would be tempted to maroon Meylan and his officers somewhere to head off any future trouble.
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