I enjoyed it, but I did have some questions.
Among them: Would a sub really play such loud music over its sound system? I thought they tried to remain quiet so other nations subs can’t find them.
I agree. The writers might think this is a good thing. If you don’t like one story line, maybe another will hook you.
The second episode was kinda messy and included a couple of disappointing cliches, clumsily done – the reluctant hero who saved the day (saved Grace anyway) and the gung ho guy who cried when the shooting started. I did like the Russian getting caught by the DOD guy, and the woman who designed (?) the cloaking system – she has a lot of energy.
Sepinwall says the third episode is better. I hope so.
I liked this second episode, though I agree with you about the cliches.
The twist (they’re not Deltas, their Russian) caught me by surprise, and I liked the subsequent fallout from that.
I wish they would clarify a little what the public perception is of the sub crew.
That too, and the fallout from the Pakistan strikes. Seems like the Navy would have better things to do with their ships than sending them to Marcus’s island.
How many times has the captain arrived to bail out 2nd in command now? Seems like he has to make An Inspiring Speech a couple times in each episode.
Nice twist with the Russians but if it had been Deltas, I assume their mission would’ve been kill everyone and sort it out later. So Shirtless SEAL guy would’ve been killed as well; he should’ve realised that.
But then, he was on the hilltop, did he know the incursion was Russian when he shot one?
Especailly, once word starts filtering to other crews that they were decieved by some sort of coup. At best, this is going to split crews apart as some side with the Governement and some side with the Coup and some side with the Colorado.
Sound waves (whether from voices or loudspeakers) inside of a submarine don’t readily travel beyond the hull. What travels are vibrations that directly contact the hull, like dropping a wrench in the bilge.
And that Navy personnel would have better things to do than whatever the plot is with Sam’s wife.
How does that plan work, they talk her into talking him into remembering how much he loves her so he turns the boat around? or something? because now they’re planning on making her distrust him so that she ______ and then PROFIT?
That seems like a waste of resources on everyone’s part and a waste of screen time.
And the arms dealer is horribly written and acted.
Who’s the arms dealer? Do you mean Kylie, the woman who schooled the guys at the bar about nuclear capability? I like her.
Indeed. Aside from feeding the audience another “there’s a real big conspiracy happening!” angle, that whole subplot looks pointless.
I don’t get her, either. “They’re gonna take away” her McGuffin machine because it works? No… they’ll rapidly install it on another sub so it can sneak up on the Colorado and blow it away. Why, like the XO’s wife, is she even in this show? If anyone stateside is going to be tracking down the mystery, I’d expect it to be the second officer’s high-ranking father. When the arms dealer’s blackmailed her DOD mole with a bachelor party indiscretion, I wanted him to say “Please. World War III could start any moment and you think your little blackmail ploy is going to impress me? Why don’t you find a nice little bed and breakfast somewhere, check in, have some wine, and GO FUCK YOURSELF!”
On further reflection, I’m really tired of the “conspiracy within the U.S. government” crap. It was old when X-Files started (19 years ago?! WTF?). I want the big resolution to be that a faction within the Indian government, using a highly-trained cadre of computer nerds with uber-mad hacking skillz, saw a chance to manipulate the U.S. Navy into toasting Pakistan.
What, you mean you wouldn’t be able to detect a super-stealthy Severny Flot boomer by the crew singing the Soviet National Anthem?
Stranger
Why hasn’t the captain demanded and received a conversation with the president? I daresay such a chat could be arranged. Given the stakes, why is he bothering to talk to secretaries of defense?
What manpower is being wasted? It’s not like those interrogation specialists are going to be crewing a stealth bomber to attack the sub if they weren’t doing what they’re doing. They’re trying to influence the crew to mutiny against the captain - promises of amnesty is a pretty good way to go about that. They’re trying to attack the situation from all angles. It would be strange if they didn’t persue that.
Although I wish they’d go a much more severe route and Gitmo some of the families of the crews. I wish some network show had the balls to show what can be done now in that regard.
Anyway, the whole cloaking device subplot is retarded and grates on me. Ohio Class subs are already practically invisible. It’s true to a small extent that subs have magnetic signatures and that there’s equipment used to track it - but it’s such a weak signal that you have to be practically on top of it to register anything, and there’s tech on new subs to help with that. I don’t think they’ve built magnetic anomaly detectors on antisub platforms for 20 years now.
It’s implied at the beginning of the episode that the navy could just track the sub at will before they turned the cloaking device on, as if the submarine had a transponder. Which is stupid - since we then see that the Colorado is in the immediate vicinity of the attack sub, and the attack sub could apparently easily pinpoint the Colorado - why wouldn’t they have sunk her right then and there? The whole prototype plotline makes no sense and just exists as a way to involve Exposition McTits in the plot. I’d imagine they could find a more elegant way to do that.
I was dissapointed that they didn’t just blow the specops guys away. You’re not taking your situation seriously enough if you’re not willing to kill the guys who were sent to kill you. I guess plot-wise it was necesary for the revelation, but in terms of the XO’s character - get your shit together.
It’s amazing how whenever networks give a show a premise that sounds like something I’d love - they somehow waste every bit of potential of that premise. I’m not willing to say the show won’t show the promise of its premise, but so far I haven’t been impressed. As per my earlier post, they wasted lots of potential drama and episodes by setting up the island status quo way too early. They should still be tooling around the ocean, actively hunted by the navy, trying to keep the ship afloat, unable to communicate with the rest of the world and figure out what’s up. This “settled into the island having spec ops dropped on us” shit should be episode 8 type stuff. It’s weird that they’re in such a rush to skip over their prime material when a premise like this is hard to keep going.
Just caught the first episode and was pleasantly surprised. What a ballsy premise. It’s probably a good thing they’re getting right into it and showing us how this is actually going to work in the modern day. If they just sat around brooding and saying “it’s complicated” about everything I’d dump it faster than Revolution.
I can’t imagine how the crew will stay intact for long though.
The crewman giving his mate up for execution – and the execution, which I thought was going to be a fakeout – that’s a dark turn right there, for network TV. As was the female sailor who tried to bargain with Julian. And seriously, she should have known better. He’s the alpha on the island, and offering him sex isn’t much of a bargaining chip.
So it wasn’t possible for Marcus to communicate with Julian somehow, tell him he’d been delayed?
That subplot was trite. Anything with a “sunrise” deadline, or a deadline at all, is trite, and it’s made more trite when you set a clock and we see the minutes ticking down.
I’m still watching, but (sigh) it’s because of the hot SEAL and Marcus.
Did the weapons lady’s father kill Robert?
ETA: Did they bring Red’s body back with them? I thought we’d see a burial, to tie in with Marcus’s son, and that lame threat.
They’re on the verge of losing me. That the Captain didn’t just blow the wannabe warlord away irritates me. When they dropped off the smuggled goods (conveniently not even inspecting them - would an Ohio class have an x-ray machine aboard?) and didn’t get back all three hostages, I wanted the Captain to say some prearranged codeword to order all the sailors to open fire.
Oooooh, there might be an insurgency… big fucking deal. Much worse to put the entire sub at risk to be a thug’s delivery service, on the thug’s timetable. “Oh, so you want me to return at dawn, huh? Tell you what, we’ll return when we can, and if I don’t get back all my people alive and well, I’m sending in a squad of heavily armed men to kill you and your goons and leave your decapitated body in the public square as a signal to everyone that contrary to what they might have heard, I’m the nigger in charge!*”
*Lean on Me quoted for effect
And as for people who don’t know how to make backups of important information - you deserve what you get.
This series is crippled by being on network television. It’s not violent enough, sexy enough or profane enough to do its premise justice.
I really wish this could’ve been an FX show like The Shield, although at least they had the guts to follow through with the execution.
The naval procedural stuff was actually fairly good in the pilot but it was a mess this episode. Alternately rigging the boat for silent running and then going to flank speed left and right, issuing pings for navigation, all sorts of dumb shit.
As before, I still don’t understand wtf the purpose of the whole prototype is supposed to serve except completely artificial plots where it apparently deactivates and suddenly the stealthiest nuclear sub ever made apparently has a transponder beacon activated or something. The fact that they kept popping up on the listening station whenever the prototype failed also makes no sense - where’s that station getting its sonar data? I guess the magical transponders again. There’d also be no way for them to have voice communication with the outpost at those depths.
Actual realistic or semi-realistic sub operations can be pretty dramatic - why the need to make up weird shit?
We haven’t seen the rest of the SEAL team since the pilot which is kind of weird. They should be off ending the drug lord and friends.
Edited the thread title (originally “Anyone planning to watch “Last Resort” tonight?”) since this has become a season discussion thread.
They also revealed a tidbit about the Pakistan story on a newscast in the background. The story the US government is pushing is that Pakistan apparently had suitcase nukes and (IIRC) they were intended to get into the hands of terrorists or someone who might attack the US. They knew the location, which was time sensitive. I suppose that’s one of the few plausible scenarios in which using nukes would be justified. It also gives a way for a fucked up SEAL mission to have made everything go to shit.