The Last Ship
Legacy
Original Air Date: Aug 28, 2016
Vincent Chia – Staff Writer
vincent@thetwocentscorp.com
Tonight’s episode felt a little bit like a season finale, even though we have two more episodes left after tonight. One of the major antagonists is dealt with and we get a major cliffhanger. We also got a brief flashback that showed something I suspected a little earlier: that former President Michener was actually murdered by one of his own secret service agents.
Roberta Price, the regional leader of the Texas region, has a few of her goons rough up Tex Nolan (from the first two seasons). Tex was the only one Kara still trusted and she left him a voicemail to meet at a particular gas station. The voicemail was intercepted. Tex soon escapes from his captors, but they already know where he will be heading.
At the Japanese National Archives in Tokyo, Peng stares down a large statue of a Japanese god of luck and detonates an explosive to destroy it. Peng (pictured above) wants to destroy everything in the National Archives. (Quick random question: why not just destroy the archives from afar by launching a missile against it? Hmmm… I guess it’s more satisfying to break things in person).
The Nathan James has detected the first Chinese destroyer in Tokyo Bay, but cannot find the second destroyer. Slattery’s plan is to board the first Chinese destroyer and take it over. With Captain Chandler leading Vulture team into Tokyo to confront Peng and Captain Slattery leading Cobra team onto the Chinese destroyer, Captain Meylan offers to lend a hand. Chandler says that Commander Garnett will be in command on the bridge but Meylan can help by being in charge in CIC.
At the gas station where Kara was supposed to meet Tex, a couple of Price’s agents intercept and try and kidnap Kara. However, Tex was waiting in a hidden position and takes out the agents. What has Tex been up since he parted ways with the crew of the Nathan James? He has reunited with his daughter. He has also been helping Price train some of her soldiers. At first, Tex thought he was helping train the locals to deal with rioters but he soon realized that he was helping to train her enforcers.
Vulture team, which includes Chandler, Takehaya, Green, and Wolf, lands in Tokyo and watches the Chinese soldiers burn Japanese art and artifacts.
Cobra team, led by Slattery and Sasha, easily board the Chinese destroyer Henan and take it over. This may have been the least plausible action sequence of the show thus far, and there have been many candidates. They take the Henan‘s bridge, CIC, and armory and ignore the rest of the ship.
Once Cobra team radios to Chandler that it has succeeded, Vulture team commence their attack on the Archives to capture Peng.
With the Henan‘s command officers detained, Cobra team hears a radio transmission from the captain of the second Chinese destroyer asking why the Henan has not yet answered Peng’s land team’s calls for help. Since the second Chinese destroyer has broken radio silence, the James can now try to locate it.
The second Chinese captain continues trying to get a response from the Henan. He says that if the Henan does’t respond, he will presume that the Henan has been boarded and compromised and the second ship will fire and sink the Henan.
With only 60 seconds left to comply, a Henan crewman eludes Cobra team for a split second and fires off three missiles towards Japan’s National Archives. (were they unconcerned that they might hit Peng by accident? I guess Peng would have known which exact areas to avoid being in). The James fires missiles to intercept, which are successful. Since the James just gave away their position, the second Chinese ship starts to target the James. Somewhat miraculously, Slattery operates the Henan‘s missile launch computer and is able to launch a missile to destroy the second Chinese destroyer. Aside from the fact that the second destroyer seemingly had no countermeasures, Slattery’s ability to operate the computer console’s Chinese language display was explained away by him saying that the launch sequence would have been the same regardless of the language. Ha.
As Vulture team subdues Peng’s men, Takehaya and Peng wind up in a one-on-one duel. They both shoot each other and injure one another, but Takehaya appears to be more seriously injured. However, as Peng approaches, Takehaya trips Peng and then stabs a sword through Peng’s torso. Chandler tries to get Peng to tell him who in America was cooperating with Peng, but Peng simply says that Chandler has nobody to trust and then twists the sword to kill himself.
Takehaya decides to remain in Japan, though he is probably close to death already. His wife is also deteriorating. She will join him in Japan and their son will be raised by close friends.
Chandler now has control of the only Chinese destroyer left. While he didn’t go into the details, I have a feeling he will give the ship to Captain Meylan and his officers, who lost their ship. I guess they will have to maroon the Chinese crew somewhere.
President Oliver tries to give the speech where he dissolves the U.S. central government in St. Louis. However, he is interrupted by reporter Jacob Barnes and then appears to try to say to the press that he has changed his mind. The secret service grab Oliver back into the White House. Inside the White House, Tex and Kara shoot the agents and rescue Oliver. Unfortunately, Jacob Barnes is captured and subsequently (seemingly) executed.
After finding evidence on the Henan, Meylan now believes Chandler’s theory that someone in St. Louis was working with Peng and gave the Chinese coordinates to ambush the Shackleton and the Hayward.
Jessie flies her helicopter to spread the cure over Asia and the James sets course back for America. So, the James is now sans any helicopter.
Chandler tries to make radio contact with Naval Base San Diego, but nobody is answering him. Meylan was also unable to get into contact with the the generals in charge of the Air Force, Marines, or the Army. We see that all three generals were assassinated.
Allison Shaw gives a press conference saying Michener was murdered by the same people who killed Sen. Beatty and Secretary Rivera. She says President Oliver was responsible and he wanted to create a dictatorship. Shaw says that authority will be given to the regional leaders until such time as a central government can safely be re-established. She also says that Chandler was guilty of treason.
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