Ask and ye shall receive! Thank you, ‘Last Ship’, for the fireworks! God Bless America! Although, let’s not all go Yosemite Sam guns blazing just yet. We’ve still got some rough waters to navigate.

First question: How the heck are the crack team of TNT writers going to transform the loveable beach dwelling “Chosen” immune cult into an adversary more dangerous than crazy Russians or Costa Rican warlords? I mean, they wrapped up the Baltimore storyline lickety split. Who can the Last Shippies fight now?

Opening scene, subtitle: “Five Months Ago.” SUBMARINE!!! Two deadly-sickness-immune brothers happen to be shipmates on a sub where everyone else is totally croaking. Sure. Why not? SUBMARINES!

Cut to the Last Ship – no subtitle – presumably not five months ago. The crew is doing lots of important things like baking two loaves of bread, polishing the giant brass ship’s bell and arranging the cast’s coffee mugs in a special coffee mug holder. Apocalypse life is good and returning to normal.

Then, all of a sudden, there might be a Hospital Last Ship nearby?! “We’re getting another ship.”

After the credits, we’re immediately introduced to a couple of new crew members: Royal Australian Navy diver/EOD expert/Badass (and incredible chin owner) “You can call me Wolf,” and Israeli tough chick who also happens to be an EOD expert/Bitch. (EOD stands for “Explosive Ordnance Disposal,” which will certainly have just as much plot importance as the SUBMARINE.) Since this show seems to think that it has a lack of romantic fraternization opportunities, one of the Last Ship’s crew, who will further be known as Boyfriend2, gets a shot. He tries to move in on the Israeli exchange soldier, who I will now refer to as Girlfriend2, but she’s as cold as ice. Good, he likes his ladies hard to get.

Next, we get lots of radioing and calling and hailing of the ghost Hospital Ship. None of which get any response, mostly because good reception always kills lousy writing. But wait! Standard Hospital Boat protocols warrant a timed broadcast peace beacon. They hear THAT. Soon, FAST BOATS are deployed! MACHINE GUNS are loaded! Coldly and with practiced precision, Girlfriend2 shows Boyfriend2 that there are LOTS of clicks and racks to be racked and clicked in order to get an Israeli automatic weapon ready for action. Who’s ready for some ACTION?!

Quick side note: If you’re not drinking heavily during ‘The Last Ship’, this should help. At this point in the episode, you may want to begin the “Starboard” drinking game. You guessed it, anytime someone says “starboard,” take a drink. You should have no less than 42 drinks by the end of the episode. I think, mostly, the writers forgot to add anything remotely nautical sounding in their script. So, to make up for it, they dumped the same nautical word a zillion times.

The Last Ship approaches the Hospital Boat off the starboard bow. Still not getting any response. Not to worry, the Captain, always the first to sign up for a mission, climbs aboard. The Away Team whips out machine guns. There is no one to be found, anywhere. The team splits up. Nope, no one home. UNTIL, they find an iPad playing birthday videos and coffee that’s still warm to the touch! A light goes out in the room across the hallway. LET’S GO! These MACHINE GUNS ain’t gonna fire themselves!

They find a dead body, shot recently. They know this because someone stepped in the corpse’s blood and left boot tracks. Then they find a boatload of dead folks. All lined up and shot in the heads. Radio reception works fine in order for the script to inform the Last Ship to sound the BATTLE STATIONS alarm.

Finally, they find a surviving Hospital Boat crewmember, Officer Gonzales. He informs our heroes that the baddies are quite possibly still on board. Radio reception immediately starts to suck again.

Back to the Last Ship. Girlfriend1 checks in to let us know that she’s gonna be out back on the starboard Mark 38. You know, a giant ass MACHINE GUN that fires bullets nearly an inch in diameter. (That might also make its way into this episode. Fingers crossed!!)

After the MACHINE GUN foreshadowing, the baddies are located. Lots of shooting commences. The best scene in the episode involves Wolf and his new best bud Miller. “You ever been shot, Miller?” “Nope.” “It sucks. Let’s try to avoid that.” “OK.” Wolf then charges into the hallway, gunning down any enemy in sight. He drops his MACHINE GUN and martial arts up some dudes. Then he pulls a knife and gets rather stabby. Finally, he produces a handgun and wastes at least two more baddies. WOLFMAN!

The other team finds the lab where baddies are, presumably, doing bad things. Boyfriend2 and Tex hesitate, contemplating a plan. Girlfriend2 waltzes up, dressed in a clever lab coat disguise and proceeds to singlehandedly take all the baddies out. Boyfriend2 is impressed.

Despite the bad guys getting their asses COMPLETELY handed to them, “5 Months Ago” immune Cocky Submarine Guy gets on the PA. Says something lame like: “We’re soooooo gonna win because we’re totally awesome!” It’s the Cocky Submarine Guy! That means the SUBMARINE has to be around here somewhere!

Meanwhile, back on the Last Ship, there’s some confusion about where all these bad guys came from. Is there another ship? Some kind of aircraft? There’s nothing in sight! It doesn’t occur to the Last NAVY WAR Ship to consider a SUBMARINE? They have a new guy manning the sonar and he sees a submerged blip, but only for a plot-necessary second so everyone can remember that they DID see the pre-credits sequence. Ok, whatever. It’s not important, because the battle is still raging. In the second best scene of the night, Girlfriend1 ANNIHILATES a baddie with her Mark 38/GIANT starboard MACHINE GUN. Fine work, everyone.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get more exciting, a firefight! Boyfriend2 jumps in front of Girlfriend2, taking a bullet to his bulletproof vest. Girlfriend2 is clearly impressed. No time for love, Girlfriend2! There’s a BOMB! Girlfreind2/previously noted Explosive Ordnance expert defuses it by cutting a wire. WHEW! Oh no! ANOTHER bomb?! Mofos brought TWO bombs? What to do?

Tex to the rescue! After some EOD advice about keeping metal connected to metal or something, Tex uses his Rambo knife to pry off the detonator, keeping the metal connected, and then runs it up to the top deck. His timing is perfect, because the Captain has hunted down Cocky Submarine Guy, who arrogantly shows him his dead man’s switch for the bomb Tex is currently running with. By the hair of Tex’s chinny chin chin, he tosses the detonator overboard just as the switch is flicked. His planned foiled, Cocky Submarine Guy jumps overboard and, presumably, swims down to his submarine. Is that a good way to re-board a submarine? Not that anyone’s really sure there actually is a submarine.

The episode winds down. The head doctor we met on the Hospital Boat wants to join the cast. OK, sure. But just so you know what you’re getting into, our last head doctor guy got shot and bled out when we were all being held hostage back in Baltimore.

Girlfriend2: “Hey, what’s up? How’s that bullet you took for me feelin’?”

Boyfriend2: “Yeah, it’s all good. I’m sensitive, but also tough… and you let your hair down. Nice.”

Girlfriend2: “So, you wanna go… uh… polish a giant brass bell?”

Two final important plot points:

1. During the Battle of Hospital Boat, Cocky Submarine Guy’s brother gets captured but is unconscious. Boy, does the Last Ship have a lot questions for him!

2. Mouse Wrangler is boated out to meet “The Boss.” On the way, his new friends talk about how that ship he told them to find was TOTALLY a Navy ambush. Mouse Wrangler doesn’t immediately notice the coincidence. After a long awkward pause, he gets the hint. But in the very last seconds of this episode, he’s saved by a surfacing SUBMARINE. Stay tuned for the next episode! Maybe there will be SUBMARINES!

I’ll admit, I don’t come here for Shakespeare. Good episode, infinitely better than the last one, and with lots and lots of shooting.