Broken Pawn: TV Review - The Last Ship Season 4 (Second Half)

   WARNING : THE LAST SHIP SEASON 4 SPOILERS BELOW!!!

  When I wrote my last review of TNT’s Sunday night post-apocalyptic drama ‘The Last Ship’ I expressed my disappointment at the transformation of an action-oriented show to a melodrama centered on the angst of the main characters. The show had deteriorated so much that I had been opting to spend my Sunday night post-apocalyptic television viewing time watching AMC’s ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ and catching up with ‘The Last Ship’ from the TNT website Monday nights. The fifth episode of the ten episode season was a low point in the series with the primary plot point Captain Tom Chandler’s angst over retaking his oath to join the Navy and take command of his ship and the rest of the crew’s angst over his upcoming decision.

  I had high hopes for the second half of the season with the promise of a confrontation between the USS Nathan James and the Greek warships commanded by mad scientist Dr. Vellek in a massive Mediterranean storm and I was not disappointed. Starting with this episode the show did an about-face and gone from the most disappointing show of the year to the most compelling.

  Having Capt. Chandler resume his command allowed the writers to put away the angst plotlines and put the show back on an action-oriented pace. ‘Tempest’ featured the chase through a massive storm with the Nathan James breaking through a blockade by the warships by heading past them directly into the storm knowing that the enemy would not engage in battle because the Nathan James was in possession of the seeds from the only plant that is naturally resistant to the ‘Red Rust’ plague wiping out all the food on the planet. The way the ship eludes their enemies was reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon heading into the asteroid shower to escape a horde of tie-fighters in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. The seafaring action was accompanied by the side plot of the British spy planted in a group of refugees that were rescued in a prior episode stealing the seeds that have been the focus of the season and passing them to Fletcher (the British liaison to the Nathan James). Fletcher has been instructed to betray the alliance and bring the seeds to Dr. Vellek in return for the assurance that Britain will receive the rust resistant crops that Vellek will be creating with the seeds.

The second half of 'The Last Ship' season four displayed excellent writing like this bit of naval trickery...

Episodes seven and eight are focused on away missions to determine Vellek’s location. ‘Feast’ brings Chandler and company to Vellek’s island that was used as a fighting arena where they hope to get their hands on Vellek’s communication equipment. When they arrive they see Vellek’s older son Giorgio throwing a party so they change their plan and kidnap Giorgio while they transmit the information to the ship. The plan changes yet again when a group of Middle Eastern terrorists that were betrayed by Giorgio earlier in the season invade the island. A firefight ensues with Giorgio escaping in the confusion, heading back to Vellek’s base which we later find out is one of the Greek warships. The crew of the Nathan James finds out that Vellek is experimenting with drugs to prevent aggression. Meanwhile we find from Fletcher and Vellek that the good doctor is adding his docility drug to the ‘Red Rust’ resistant crops he is creating. We see the experiment come to fruition on the former Greek Admiral who is drugged and is only able to meekly obey Vellek’s orders to take off his medals, eat more of his drugged food, and go to his room.

Another away team mission is on the docket in episode 8’s ‘Lazaretto’ as the team sneaks onto another island in order to bug a satellite and obtain Vellek’s real time location and communications. The fly in this ointment is that the island is the prison home to Vellek’s mind-controlled fighters who for some reason are guarded by a large number of heavily armed thugs even though the prisoners are drugged and completely docile, unable to summon the will to fight or their captors or even disobey their orders. Our crew sneaks in and pretend to be mind–controlled as well until the mission is completed. This was pretty much a repeat of the previous episode but was only the prelude to the most inventive plot twist I’ve seen in years. During the previous episodes we have seen Vellek collaborate with his youngest son Kristos (also a brilliant scientist) to bind the cure and drug to the crops that will be spread across the world. Kristos is clearly Vellek’s favorite and he continually rubs that in the nose of his older son Giorgio. Fletcher catches on to this and once he figures out Vellek’s mind control scheme tries to split Giorgio from his father. Giorgio doesn’t bite and turns Fletcher in to his father moments after Fletcher manages to get a message to the Nathan James. Giorgio then shoots Fletcher in the head. I was wondering about Giorgio’s blind loyalty to his father and expected him to turn at some point until it is revealed that Kristos died in a mugging years ago and Vellek is only imagining him via the use of the same mutated hallucinogenic drug that was seen in an earlier episode. This explains Giorgio’s blind loyalty and Vellek’s desire to use the crop cure to prevent all aggression, and set up the show for Sunday’s epic double episode season finale.

The 'Kristos' revelation was reminiscent of 'The Sixth Sense' and an equally stunning plot twist!

The double episode finale was indeed epic with a few blips along the way. The Nathan James heads to Malta to intercept the plants that will give Vellek world domination. The problem is three Greek warships are between the ship and Malta. The US warships and Greek Navy engage in a battle of wits where the Nathan James discerns that Vellek’s ship is not one of the Greek warships and the Greek Navy manages to shake one of their ships loose from the U.S. radar. The Nathan James loses its lone helicopter while managing to blow up one of the Greek warships. Vellek orders his boat to speed to Malta which gives its location away to the Nathan James, who use the new information to discern where the remaining warships will head to protect Vellek and manage to blow them out of the water also, killing Giorgio in the process.

The end of the season is the time to say farewell to some familiar faces. So long Sunshine and Giorgio....

  The season finale leads the crew of the James to Malta where Dr. Vellek has loaded three planes with the mind-controlling cure. After the epic sea battle of the previous episode the finale seemed rushed. The five member away team gets pinned down on an airstrip but manages to outshoot dozens of soldiers and a sniper with two or their number getting shot and even destroys two of the planes, leaving the James to shoot the third plane out of the sky. Chandler and his former romantic partner Sasha head to Vellek’s warship and sabotage it while the Nathan James rams the warship and boards it like some sort of pirate movie.

  Naturally our heroes all survive their encounter with the Greek warship, rescue the remaining seeds, and even get some of Vellek’s cured plants that have not been infected with the mind-control drug. At the climactic confrontation between Chandler and Vellek, Vellek’s daughter Lucia shoots Chandler in the leg before being gunned down by Sasha. I would have been happy to see the season end with Lucia crying ‘Daddy’ as she died but the plot turned maudlin as Vellek and Chandler have to share pontifications about how dark the world is and Chandler’s belief in humanity finding the light in the darkness before Vellek tells Chandler that heaven is ‘out there’ as he points to the horizon and jumps off the ship (presumably to his death).

  The second half of The Last Ship’s fourth season more than made up for a boring angst-filled first half. Peter Weller’s Dr. Vellek was fantastic up till the last episode where he inexplicably was turned from an evil mastermind to a sniveling drug addict searching his lab for one more fix of his hallucinogenic tea. Aside from that one quibble, the last five episodes were tightly written and self contained with each focused on a clear cut objective and was far superior to striving for the ‘epic narrative’ of Capt. Chandler finding himself that seemed to be the focus of the first half.

  Season five of The Last Ship was shot at the same time as season four and will likely be the final season of the show. The ratings have fallen of a cliff this season with not a single season four episode having two million viewers and the season finale ratings well behind ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ and even ‘Fear The Walking Dead’. A Season Five teaser shows a Pearl Harbor type attack with a South American protagonist with mad computer skills which holds promise for travel and action. I don’t think the show would have been picked up for a fifth season but having already been produced should ensure it making the airwaves next summer. I saw enough the second half of this season to make me look forward to the next season. Hopefully the show will be worth my anticipation.