Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Karl Gajdusek and Shawn Ryan
Directed by Martin Campbell
Throughout the opening scenes of this first episode of “Last Resort”, I kept wondering why networks don’t do more submarine military dramas. Enclosed spaces, lots of pressure, real potential for drama. “Captain” hums along in the first half to show regular life on board a US nuclear submarine. Then it ramps up the drama and action and complications. There is a lot stuffed into this pilot episode, and there is a lot to chew on by the end.
It asks some intriguing questions about the nature of command and whether or not to trust the orders of your own government. Especially if the government in question is in potential chaos. The crew of USS Colorado are left with the only choice available to them: Taking over a small island in the Indian Ocean and declaring a no-man’s land perimeter around it with the US and Pakistan coming after all of them. The situation is a hot one, and that’s not mentioning the natives of the island who aren’t too keen about a rogue military element just taking over their home.
There is a lot going on here in this first episode of “Last Resort”. It starts with a routine pickup of a Navy SEAL team somewhere in the Indian Ocean after a mysterious black ops operation that went wrong. That will figure into the plot later. We are introduced to the crew of the USS Colorado, headed by Captain Marcus Chaplin (the always-dependable Andre Braugher) and Sam Kendal (Scott Speedman) as the XO. There’s also Lt. Grace Shepard (Daisy Betts) and Chief of the Boat Prosser (Robert Patrick) for good measure. Everything goes fine for a little while, so much so that Chaplin encourages his XO to take a desk job in Washington to be closer to his wife. The main conflict is whether Lt. Shepard, the lone female senior officer, is getting enough respect from the crew or whether it’s a byproduct of her being an Admiral’s daugther. The action gets ramped up very quickly when the Colorado receives orders to fire on Pakistan.
The strange thing is that the orders come from a secondary command station rather than the main one in Washington. Both commanding officers of the USS Colorado break standard procedure during the launch of nuclear weapons, calling the legitimacy of the orders in question. What’s interesting is that the group of Navy SEALs take particular notice of this deviation from orders. Why? What appears to be a mix-up in orders from Washington leads to another US submarine firing on the Colorado and nearly blowing it out of the water. That is, in fact, the cover story in Washington, D.C., where the Colorado has been declared lost because its Captain and XO went rogue and in contradiction of orders. Captain Chaplin steers the submarine to a tiny island called Sainte Marina and takes over its NATO listening station in the course of claiming the island for his own, then launching one of the sub’s nuclear missiles directly at Washington in response to a pair of bombers coming to the island to blow everyone up.
It all makes for a compelling first episode, and I especially like where the lines are drawn amongst the crew. Captain Chaplin has Commander Kendal and Lt. Shepard backing his decisions, even as Washington relieved him of command and placed Kendal in as Acting Captain. COB Prosser initially was with Chaplin but it seems that his loyalties are in question by the end. The Navy SEALs are a volatile wild-card in this situation. There was apparently something that went wrong in the mission that we don’t see, with the injured Hopper screaming that their intelligence was wrong and that one of the SEALs (I don’t remember if his name was mentioned in the episode) feels that it’s his fault that everyone is in the situation that they are in. The episode moves along at a very brisk pace, with plenty of urgency. There is talk that something is going on within the highest levels of the US government. A lie about a launch from Pakistan triggers a mutual response from the United States, resulting in the destruction of two Pakistani cities. Why would they use a secondary channel to send the nuclear strike order?
The botched SEAL mission and the chaos with the President in Washington has to be interconnected somehow. Not to mention another US submarine firing on the Colorado. Someone high up had the gall to declare Chaplin rogue and order that the Colorado be destroyed. A lot of it doesn’t make sense from a command standpoint and Chaplin is correct in questioning whether any of the orders coming from Washington are legitimate. There is something much larger at work here, and I look forward to seeing the next few episodes flesh that out. When everyone on the Colorado reaches Sainte Marina, there is the introduction of a new threat from the natives led by a man named Julian. He has kidnapped two of the Colorado’s crew, which isn’t going to sit well with Chaplin.
So the threats from all sides are laid out. Washington is likely to send a big force to Sainte Marina in retaliation for the nuclear strike off the East Coast of the US. The show’s first episode oddly puts a lot of focus on Commander Kendal and his zealous desire to get back to his wife, and yet, I found Chaplin to be the more compelling character. His takeover of this little island has echoes of what happened to Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. I think it would be interesting, though not really original, if the show headed in that direction with his character. This first episode was more concerned with developing the complicated situation instead of the characters so I think that will be the job of the coming episodes. One could argue the pilot episode moved through a little too much plot in the space of an hour. Everyone besides Chaplin is pretty thin in the character development department. If the show as a whole can live up to the good potential of this episode, though, this could be the gem of the new season.
There are hints of a big conspiracy occurring outside of Sainte Marina and the USS Colorado so I’m anxious to see where that goes. I don’t feel it’s a bad thing to mix political intrigue with military drama. There are some shocks in the episode designed to hook viewers (For example, I was aghast that Chaplin would go ahead and fire on US soil to demonstrate threat of force) used in cavalier ways so we’re left to wonder what the writers have left that will come next. If it’s done well, then it’s going to be an enjoyable ride. If they’ve used up all of its firepower in the first episode, then this show will not last very long.
Score: 8/10
