Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Ron Fitzgerald
Directed by Paris Barclay
It’s too late to wonder if this show will live on so it becomes hard to see how plots would unfold if given a full season. Since this is the second-to-last episode to air, there are so many things up in the air and changing loyalties that it can cause a whiplash effect. Last episode, it looked like Sam was playing both sides. He was cozying up to the COB, going along with the mutiny, and also following Captain Chaplin because he’s the commanding officer. Now, it looks like he’s leaning towards the mutiny, seemingly to numb his grief over Christine’s death.
It’s hard to know Sam’s definite position when the series ends. Especially when Marcus continues to make clear and concise arguments about his position and actions. Meanwhile, the coup to oust the President on the mainland is just getting started and then somehow gets shut down before the action even has a chance to form. It’s a product of the rushed back end of this season so that doesn’t leave much on the table for the series finale to resolve. I’m thinking the finale will be part mess, part fitting conclusion, but my hopes aren’t going to be very high. The recent episodes have been really consistent so it could go either way. This episode only continues that trend, and the end is suddenly come about.
There are lots of things happening on or around Sainte Marina. The Chinese supply ship is fired on, possibly destroyed here, and Zheng is understandably none too happy about it. But he seems to be thinking in the long term, using the incident as a chip to legitimize a war with the United States. That takes a backseat to the mutiny brewing with the Colorado crew. The COB and Sam step things up, accelerating to the point of gathering weapons and finding a way to remove Chaplin as captain of the ship. It’s fascinating to see this battle of wills and wits between Sam and Chaplin. Sam is struggling with his overwhelming grief (and I’m tired of the overuse of alcohol to drown or numb any emotions a character would have), which gives him pause to what he and the COB are doing. The COB has already made his decision. He desperately wants to take out Chaplin. Sam remains on the fence, though he goes so far as to arrange a “kill list” to give to King to ensure that the Colorado doesn’t fall into bad hands. Both he and Chaplin are going around, making sure they can gather as many allies as they can for the inevitable showdown. Grace straddles the fence as well, though after receiving a disturbing call from her father on the mainland, ends up throwing her lot in with Chaplin.
All of this is going on while an island celebration is happening in the background. The relative peace on the island is about to be shattered, as the crew of the Colorado look to be arming themselves for battle. It’s a really chaotic situation, yet Chaplin remains surprisingly calm throughout. There’s the very real possibility that he may not get out of this alive or that the crew won’t get home. The final episode should resolve all of this, though it’s hard to see from what happens here how everything will turn out.
Like the last episode, we follow the coup and ouster of the President through Kylie’s eyes. It isn’t the worst perspective, though I would have liked to have seen it from someone more directly involved, perhaps Admiral Shepard as an example. Going with Kylie removes the audience from the immediacy of the episode’s most shocking event: the Speaker of the House, the main person who is supposed to engineer the coup, giving a speech on the Senate floor then pulling out a gun and committing suicide with the cameras rolling. The audience shouldn’t see that moment, but keeping the shot on Kylie distances us from the event as it’s occurring. The coup fails before it even has a chance to get going. Like Sainte Marina, chaos ensues and Kylie manages to get away safely with her father’s help.
The end reveal that the limousine which picks Kylie up stops next to Air Force One implies that Kylie’s father has a deal with the President. It all happens very quickly so it’s hard to get a bearing as to who is going where. If the show were allowed to have a full allotment of episodes in a season, this might have played out in the space of two or three episodes. The truncated end of the show doesn’t allow this so it looks like the writers were forced into it due to network mandate. It’s going to be a real challenge to see how the plot on the mainland ties in with the other plot on Sainte Marina. That is something the show has struggled to do within the space of these dozen episodes so there’s no expectation that the finale can do it. The creators of the show have promised that they were given ample enough time to set up a definitive conclusion to the show’s story so we’ll have to see if they live up to that. Expectations are as low as they can be with the show ending so soon.
Score: 8/10