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The Last Ship
Cry Havoc
Original Air Date: Aug 30, 2015
Vincent Chia – Sr. Reviewer
vincent@thetwocentscorp.com
Airing against the MTV Video Music Awards, tonight’s action-packed episode was probably the more exciting option. I mean, how could he VMAs compete?
The Nathan James and the Achilles continue their mutual cat-and-mouse game against each other. Commander Chandler decides to engage the Achilles instead of hiding and waiting. A classic naval battle gets underway!
Chandler tells Michener that he’ll send Dr. Scott, the cure, and Michener off the ship with the XO onto land for their own safety.
The civilians from Louisiana are now working in concert with Ramsey to help blockade the area and possibly corral the Nathan James into a trap.
Valerie is included in the senior officers’ meeting and she brings up the idea of sending false messages through her Valkyrie communications network to draw the submarine to a false location.
Green and Foster kiss (possibly for the last time) before splitting into separate dangerous missions. Green will go with the XO while Kara is staying onboard to help hunt the submarine.
Slattery and Chandler chat for a brief moment. Slattery says it figures that he’s assigned to lead the land team on one of the few times that the anticipated action is on the ship. Chandler does seem to go off the ship a lot, but in this case, it makes perfect sense for him to stay with the ship and lead it into battle.
Val sends the spoofed messages through her communications that various civilians have spotted the Nathan James at a location well north of where they actually are. Other civilian boats seem to respond and move to intercept. Ramsey also maneuvers his sub in response to the messages. He reasons that the Nathan James slipped past the blockade before it was put in place effectively.
Chandler hopes that all of the civilian boats have abandoned the blockade to chase after the ghost Nathan James. The real Nathan James slowly sails out of its hiding spot and does not run into any civilian boats.
Garnett has devised an improvised sonar from the ship’s depth finder.
On land, Dr. Scott sees a sick child and wants to help. Against Slattery’s orders, Scott leaves her hiding position. A standoff ensues but the child’s mother eventually tells the father to lower his rifle. Scott then breathes on the child. We will later see that the vaccine was in fact contagious and the child starts getting better.
The parents soon realize that the group is from the Navy ship they’ve been hearing about. They warn Slattery that when they were at the immune camp, they overheard the Englishmen from the sub say they were bringing in a secret weapon to Lotus point. The father surmises it is some type of artillery piece.
Slattery takes Green and Tex to Lotus Point, leaving the rest of the land party to remain in hiding.
The naval battle soon commences!
Ramsey plots the various sightings of the Nathan James from the spoofed messages and realizes he’s being tricked! The sightings seem to be too far apart. One of Chandler’s lieutenants screwed up!
Chandler orders a sonar burst.
Ramsey’s sonar operator has detected a faint signal. He recommends going to active sonar, but Ramsey says to wait.
Chandler stares out into the waters. He orders a second sonar burst. In one of the craziest coincidences of all time, the submarine turns out to be directly below the Nathan James. Now, both Chandler and Ramsey know this.
Chandler orders his ship to move all ahead full.
Ramsey does something similar. He needs to stay under the Nathan James so that the James can’t fire on him. However, once Ramsey reaches deeper water, he can fire on the Nathan James without risking damage to his submarine.
Chandler realizes that the Achilles is trying to reach deeper water. He orders his ship to reverse course, all back full. His improvised sonar burns out but he is able to fire off four torpedoes. There are explosions in the water, but it is unclear whether the submarine was hit.
At the same time, the Achilles has reached deeper water and dives. Ramsey is able to fire off two torpedoes before his sub is seemingly hit.
The Nathan James is hit! Chandler orders that the compartments being flooded get sealed. Ah yes, the required scenes where the compartments get sealed. We don’t get any super-sad scenes where crewmembers are trapped on the wrong side of the door and need to get sealed in so that the ship and the rest of the crew will survive. That’s usually a classic scene from various submarine/rocketship adventures. Though, Garnett does seem to almost not make it. The Master Chief saves her.
The magazine compartment of the Nathan James gets flooded, they can no longer fire any torpedoes. However, the ship still has surface weapons.
The Achilles was indeed hit, but it has survived. Ramsey orders the sub to periscope depth and orders a course toward the Nathan James.
Slattery’s team finds a truck with missile launchers. There are seven men guarding the truck. Slattery thought about perhaps warning Chandler over the radio, but it is too late, the ship is already inside firing range. Slattery’s team engages. After a protracted gunfight, the immunes are taken down and Slattery has reached the missile launcher in the nick of time.
The Achilles surfaces directly behind Nathan James, just 600 meters behind. Chandler orders his ship to break starboard.
Ramsey is about to fire a torpedo, but just then, a missile hits the sub.
In characteristic rough-around-the-edges style, Slattery mocks Ramsey, saying “Cheers, a-hole.”
Chandler orders his 5mm cannon to also fire on the sub. Slattery fires 3 more missiles. The sub sinks. Congrats to our heroes!
So now with Ramsey out of the way, the main enemy of this season is gone. However, the preview for next week appears to reveal an even deadlier nemesis. Sigh. It never ends. Next week will be the season finale, and I hope they’ll finally get the cure to a large population.