The ship faces off against a new foe who demands Chandler hand over Rachel and her research. When Chandler refuses, he and his crew are put to the test as Chandler engages in a series of risky strategic moves. But it turns out their new enemy has his own horse in the race to find a cure for the virus.
The Last Ship is very much an action-adventure series with various missions-of-the-week that are cumulative to a larger narrative. For the first two episodes, the show was mostly comfortable with knowing how to execute those action sequences well and just inform us about the larger issue at hand - the global pandemic. In "Dead Reckoning," the show actually starts asking some really compromising questions. Do these ships and crew still serve allegiance to their old countries now that the world has gone to hell? Should the vaccine be made available to the whole world or should it just be for the elite few? Lastly, how would this entire situation have played out if it was someone else's family on the Russian ship? None of these questions have any clear answer. The Last Ship is in unchartered waters. It should continue to ask these types of questions. Then, it may be more than just a summer action show.And yet, the show continues to execute those action sequences remarkably well. The true highlight this week of course is the ship navigating through a narrow canal while trying to escape from the Russians. That was just well executed tension. And yet, it was almost completely derailed because the lead mission guy had to stop because of his great lover for his fellow officer who also was put on that mission. If that love story was given any kind of importance, sure I could have bought that moment of him trying to protect her while completely disregarding the mission. But the show hasn't been interested in them. They've literally only been given a few minutes of screentime as a couple and that mostly amounted to them just kissing. We know next to nothing about them but in this moment it's suppose to unnerve us and what it will mean for the immediate future of this precarious mission. Fortunately, everything went off swimmingly after that. So, I'm not too mad but that moment definitely wasn't earned at all.
I'm also really glad that the show is over and done with the whole mole story already. It felt like one contrivance too many at the end of the pilot. And now, it's almost completely mute. The other doctor tries to get Dr. Scott to the Russians and fails which leads to the great distraction allowing the Nathan James to escape. No one really cares about his family at all until he does a guilt trip on Chandler at the very end. It is a profound question to ask - and one that I hope we see the consequences of very soon.
Some more thoughts:
- "Dead Reckoning" was written by Steven Kane and directed by Jack Bender.
- It only took us three weeks until we heard a tale of one of the crew members not suppose to be on this mission but a reassignment forced them here.
- The tin foil trick was a lot of fun. However, I still don't understand it at all.
- Russian Admiral, don't you know that you never should prematurely celebrate anything? But hey, at least you do have a scientist working on the vaccine as well.
- Is there something that Dr. Scott needs and she doesn't have like the Russian Admiral says? Or was she right with calling him on his bluff? It was mysteriously left open-ended.
