Well, it's time for Ahab to get his whale. The civilians have created a blockade trapping the Nathan James and Sean is simply awaiting coordinates to unleash hell fire on the ship. Tom decides to use the Verizon network against Sean, placing phony sightings of the Nathan James, thus drawing the sub into a fight at their choosing. The only problem is that the Nathan James is loaded with children and important personal it cannot afford to lose like Michener and Rachel. Although I would argue that they could throw Michener overboard and not lose anything at all.
Michener wants to stay on board for the battle but is quickly ordered off by Tom. I actually giggled during this scene. If Michener is indeed the president of the United States, Tom would be able to give him a suggestion but not an absolute order that Michener would have to follow. It's as I said, Michener, despite being let in on all the action and decision making is simply a figure head and Tom is the one actually in control.
Before heading out we got a very emotional good bye between Green and Foster. It seems that whenever The Last Ship needs a softer moment, they remind us that Foster is pregnant. Interestingly enough, it's Green who is leaving the ship with Rachel, Michener and the other civilians while Foster is staying behind with the ship. Foster makes Green promise that he won't make her raise the baby alone. Slattery and Chandler share a testosterone filled goodbye and Chandler hands him a letter for his family in case he doesn't make it. We all know that the letter will never be read because there's no way that The Last Ship is going to kill off Tom.
The landing party makes their exit to wait for a message from the ship to say that everything is in the clear. Michener gives an order to the only person he can - Ray. The teenager is happy to hand out provisions and announce when the next chow time will be to the band of teenagers he commands. The Last Ship is doing a terrible job of portraying Michener as the POTUS and I find myself giggling at him more often than not.
As the land crew makes camp, the crew of the Nathan James begin to sail towards the site they have chosen for battle, with Valerie sending out fake messages on her network. Ganderson keeps a close eye on Valerie and makes it clear that the moment it appears that Valerie is not on their side, she will take Valerie out herself. For the first time, the smile is wiped off of Valerie's face. The sub picks up the bait and Ned snarks about the effectiveness of their civilians given that for the ship to be in that position, it would have had to sneak through the brigade. Let's face it, The Nathan James is not some tiny tug boat. Sean explains it all away by claiming that the Nathan James must have slipped away before the blockade was put into place.
On land an infected family comes across the crew. The husband has his gun drawn and repeatedly says that he doesn't want any trouble. Rachel notes that the family is sick and slowly approaches despite Slattery trying to call her off. Rachel gets on her knees breathing deeply on the child as she embraces her. The mother is confused because Rachel promised to heal her daughter and Rachel explains that she already had. Tex wonders if they shouldn't give the family a shot just in case but Rachel is confidant in what she has done. Personally, I'm with Tex, give this family a shot. The idea of contagious cure seems ridiculous to me. Happy to be cured and to have access to food, the family reveals that while at a camp run by immunes, they learned that Sean had a big weapon which supposedly is capable of taking out the Nathan James. Wow, aren't coincidences wonderful? Slattery takes off with Green and Tex to intercept whatever secret weapon Sean has cooked up, leaving Burk in charge. At the end of days, only White men can save people.
On the water, the crew of the Nathan James does battle with the sub with both Sean and Tom spouting off jargon I cannot begin to understand or care about. It begins initially with a stalemate when both Tom and Sean realise that the sub is directly beneath the Nathan James, making it impossible for either to fire. They both race towards deeper water so that they can fire but the sub being faster makes it there first. Tom orders two torpedoes fired which while missing their mark, do manage to cause some damage to the sub and Sean manages to fire as well, hitting the Nathan James.
On land, Slattery, Green and Tex come across what I think is a surface to air missile which Slattery calls a ship killer. There are three of them versus seven of Sean's men. Slattery's only command to his men is to win. A gun battle ensues and Green is shot in the chest but is wearing a bullet proof vest. It's Slattery who deals the final blow by killing that man attempting to shoot the missile at the Nathan James.
Tom directs the crew to put the engines into reverse to tempt the sub out of deep water. Due to damage to the sub, Sean orders the sub to surface and head after the Nathan James, despite the feelings of his crew. The sub surfaces and prepares to fire but is taken out by the surface to air missile now controlled by Slattery on land. Tom follows through and orders the crew to fire the four shots they have left.
It's celebration time all around as the sub begins to sink and everyone is safe. The last shot of the episode is Sean sitting next to a dead Ned, realising that everything was all for nothing. Sean screams in rage and the screen goes blank.
There you have it, Ahab has taken down his whale and made the world safe for humanity again. Fly your flags everyone and start singing the American national anthem. Once again, the Americans have faced down a British threat and emerged victorious. Woot. Yeah this needs all the snark in the world.
With Sean out of the way, it's clear that it will be time to get back to the business of running the country, that's if another another evil foreigner doesn't raise his ugly head. Where does this leave the Nathan James and Tom? I suppose we will have to wait for the big set up in the next episode.
