Oh, I see. THAT’S what you’ll be doing for the next two episodes of ‘The Last Ship’. Really, REALLY making sure you have a vaccine and maybe SORTA getting wifey out of the way for Dr. Red and Captain McSteamy to get down. Gotcha.

Things are bad in the good old USA. Even out in the hills of Virginia, people are still catching the bug. Doesn’t stop folks from just walking around searching for stuff or hunting without some kind of respirator on. We learn this because Captain McSteamy’s dad is out dragging around a deer he bagged, and only until he gets to an infected pal’s house does he don his facemask. I wonder if this might be important later.

Back on the ship, it’s time for human vaccine testing. “There’s no way anyone is gonna line up for this crazy idea.” Next scene: Nearly the entire ship crew lines up for the crazy idea. Dr. Red, the ship’s doctor and Dr. Googly Eyes test the volunteers for a wide variety of traits to make sure that they have the broadest spectrum of human drama once they’re all infected. The final contestants: Tex, Chief Engineering officer lady, Girlfriend, Master Chief, “Miller” and random Ms. Crewmember who had a line (maybe) in an early episode. I wrestled with who I thought would kick the bucket. It’s the 9th episode; will the writers go all ‘Game of Thrones’ on us and kill the Master Chief? Will they wuss out and kill Ms. Crewmember? Ms. Crewmember even has a monologue about how no one is missing her? Yeah. My money is on Ms. Crewmember.

Meanwhile, back on the set of ‘The Walking Dead’, Mrs. Captain is taking a leisurely stroll to get Mr. McSteamy, Sr. a transistor for his old-ass radio. She peruses the aisles at the local woodland Radio Shack when zombies attack! I mean, some non-infected dude with a big revolver yells at some infected lady. Stay back! Uhhhh..I need help..uhhh.. BLAMO! Mrs. Captain makes a lot of noise trying to hide, but non-infected dude hardly makes an effort to find out who made all that noise. Of course, Mrs. Captain all but sits on a fella who suspiciously looks like he bit it from the virus. Yeah, Mrs. Captain ain’t wearing a respirator and we all know if you even look at a virusy dead dude, YOU are gonna be dead soon.

How are the human trails going? Like summer camp! Spirits are high! Engage: Character Development! But not too much, because Girlfriend has a fever. That doesn’t sound good. Just then, GIRLFRIEND GETS HER SEIZURE ON! They save her by jamming a bunch of ice water down her throat. We should give them an immune system booster shot thing, just in case. WHAT? You didn’t give them the immune system booster shot thing right off the bat?! Someone at Doctor School needs some serious firing. Wait! Tex has a rash on his back! Everyone looks really sweaty and sick. Quick! This scene is getting too exciting! Back to the Mrs. Captain story!

Mr. McSteamy, Sr. has fixed his old-ass radio and picks up a recoding from Terminus… errr, Olympia. “We have the cure. Get your butt here and we promise not to eat it.” Snap, Crackle and POP the radio blows out. Mr. McSteamy, Sr. sighs and hopes someone out there is doing better than they are. He contemplates this as Mrs. Captain touches everyone’s face/mouth with her cootie-infected fingers. Yeah, I sure hope whoever is doing better than we are is coming to look for us in the next episode, because otherwise our dumbasses are screwed!

Back to the much more interesting human test subjects. Things are really bad. As a last ditch effort, the docs decide to drain the Last Jamaican’s blood and inject that into the test subjects. I’m glad Dr. Red got all this worked out BEFORE infecting everyone with the world’s deadliest virus. While she’s getting it ready, the captain decides to have someone else brief the crew. “Anyone who wants to see their pals about to die a horrible death should get down here quick.” Boyfriend dons a HAZMAT suit for a little HAZMAT fraternizing. He and Girlfriend snuggle a little bit and sad music plays, but don’t worry, Girlfriend is going to make it. We learned earlier that she’s preggers. We have other visitors, including comic relief second-in-command of engineering Chung. He pleads with the Chief Engineering officer not to die, because he would then carry the title of “CHENG”. He says: “CHENG Chung? Come on!” Hee hee.

The Jamaican blood doesn’t seem to be working and things look pretty dire for the volunteers until Dr. Red asks the lone surviving test monkey why it worked on him. She then realizes that the monkey isn’t human! Dr. Norway spliced a human gene into the virus, and the Trojan horse vaccine probably can’t deal with human stuff. So, if she injects everyone with the blue penguin poop primordial sample, that will do something that will work! And it does! The Last Jamaican asks how it went. Not only did Dr. Red make the vaccine, she made the CURE! HOORAY!

OK, so all’s we have left to do in this season is to set up the next season. How will we do that? We have THE CURE. Which basically means we have no need to get back on the ship once we get to America. Well, unless Cartoony Russian Admiral, who we didn’t ACTUALLY see blow up, shows up for another go.

Welp, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see after next week’s episode: Commando’ing through the U.S. countryside to find Mrs. Captain right before she inevitably croaks, leaving the Captain nothing left to do but rule the world with Dr. Red as his queen.