‘The Last Ship’ 2.12 Recap: “Hell of a Day to Sink a Ship”

That byline you see on this article is correct. Unfortunately, our ‘Last Ship’ recapper Wayne had the gall to take a vacation before the season ended, leaving me to fill in for him on the last two episodes. That’s a shame, because I have a feeling he would have liked this one. Torpedoes! Rockets! FIVE-INCH! Explosions! Explosions!! Explosions!!! This episode has plenty of both “BOO-YAA!!” and bass.

And sticky sentimental stuff too. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

The episode is called ‘Cry Havoc’, which suggests that one of the show’s writers is either a fan of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ or, perhaps more likely, a fan of ‘Star Trek VI’.

As we begin, the evil sub is closing in on the Last Ship. Cap’n McSteamy says he won’t run. He wants to fight. “This ends today.” Oooooh… tension!

But with the ship’s sonar busted, how will they find the sub? They need to lure it into an ambush and get it to surface. Newly-reformed hacker chick Val has an idea. She’ll flood the Valkyrie network with false reports of yokels spotting the Last Ship, thus drawing the sub up the coastline in pursuit. This girl’s pretty clever. He dad’s Benjamin Linus, after all.

Before the battle, the Cap’n sends Mr. President and Dr. Hottie off the ship to hide on land with a contingent of badasses to protect them. They’re too valuable to get caught in the crossfire. He also sends Rufio and the Lost Boys. They’re not so valuable, but I think the Cap’n is grateful for an excuse to get them off the boat.

Everybody puts on their finest civvies. Boyfriend1 says goodbye to Lt. Preggers and their fetus. “I’ll see you soon.” Oh crap, somebody’s gonna die today!

Mr. President orders the badasses: No killing civilians; set weapons for Stun. The land crew then goes dark. No communication with the Last Ship until the battle’s over.

The decoy works! The network gets buzzing with yokels following Val’s false trail to chase the Last Ship. The sub sets course for Quarantine Bay.

A remarkably crappy CGI Last Ship (seriously, it looks baaaaaad) sails up a channel to intercept the sub, but this plan won’t work unless a blockade the yokels had set up has disbanded. Luckily, it has!

The sonar may be out, but Chief Engineer and Master Chief are able to MacGyver a new one out of a depth finder. The problem is, the thing overheats really fast and may be good for One Ping Only.

While the land crew hides in the jungle, a family of Sickies trudges near their location. One of them is a little girl. Dr. Hottie causes a big scene by running out offering to cure them. Father Sickie wards her off with a gun. He’s heard nasty stories about the Navy lying about having a cure. Buddy, you’re clearly about three minutes from death. What have you got to lose here?

Dr. Hottie eventually talks some sense into them and is allowed to approach. Father asks when she’s going to cure them. Dr. Hottie blows a big breath right into the little girl’s face. “I already have.” Lady, that is soooo fucking creepy!

She explains about how the cure is contagious now. The family is so relieved that they tell the Navy about how the evil Subbies have set up a big land-based weapon on shore and are planning to fire it at the Last Ship. Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good. XO Jayne, Cowboy Tex and Boyfriend1 head out to investigate. Rufio stays behind and promises to keep Mr. President safe. That’s very reassuring.

On the sub, Older Bruv figures out that he’s being led into a trap. That sneaky Cap’n! No worries, mate, we’ll lead them right into our own trap instead.

The Last Ship reaches Quarantine Bay. The Cap’n orders the sonar fired up. One Ping Only. Nothin’, no contact. Where the hell’s the sub?

On their respective ships, the Cap’n and Older Bruv engage in a psychic battle of wills, each trying to figure out where the other is simply by intuiting it.

The Last Ship’s sonar has one more Ping in it. Contact! The sub is right below us! FULL STOP! REVERSE ENGINES!!

The sub hears the ping and knows where the Last Ship is, but can’t fire until the two boats are clear of each other. DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!

The sub fires torpedoes.

The Last Ship fires its own torpedoes and drops acoustic decoys.

EXPLOSIONS!!!

Older Bruv: “Did we hit ’em or not?”

Cap’n: “We’re hit!”

SEAL THE DECKS! But wait, Chief Engineer and Master Chief are trapped. Oh, no, it’s fine. They get out in time.

The Last Ship is all out of torpedoes. All it has left are four rounds in the FIVE-INCH. To use that, the sub needs to surface.

The sub is damaged too. Older Bruv wants to drive the Last Ship toward shore, where the waiting ROCKET LAUNCHER can blast it!

On land, XO Jayne, Tex and Boyfriend1 find the Rocket Launcher and a crew of evil Subbies. They also see the Last Ship sailing towards shore, a plume of smoke rising from its battle damage.

Jayne: “Here’s the plan: WIN!”

Lots of shooting! Boyfriend1 takes a shot to the chest. OMG, Boyfriend1, I totally didn’t see that coming at all!!

Tex takes out Subbies with headshots left and right. Jayne takes a round to the arm. Eh, he’s fine.

The Rocket Launcher operator targets the Last Ship and programs a firing sequence. Jayne bum-rushes the guy. Knife-fight!! Who will win???

The sub surfaces and acquires a torpedo target lock.

EVASIVE MANUEVERS!!!

A rocket launches. It hits the sub, not the Last Ship! Jayne won his fight! And Boyfriend1 was wearing body armor, so he’s totally fine too.

Fire the FIVE-INCH! BLAMM!!!

ROCKET! FIVE-INCH! ROCKET! FIVE-INCH! ROCKET! FIVE-INCH!!!

HELLS TO THE YESSSS!!!!!!

The sub is wrecked. On the bridge, Older Bruv regains consciousness to find Younger Bruv dead beside him and realizes that the sub is sinking to the bottom of the bay. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm… We don’t actually see him die on camera, though. According to the rules of TV logic, he must somehow survive to pester our heroes another day. Perhaps he’ll form an alliance with that Russian admiral from Season 1 we also never saw die?

Meanwhile, somewhere in Vacationistan, Wayne connects to the internet, reads this recap, and sobs at having missed the most epic, action-packed episode of this show yet.

We’ll forgive it some shitty CGI, even though there’s a lot of it and it’s really shitty. The sinking sub looks like something out of a computer game circa 1998. Oh well. A TV show only has so much budget, right?

How is this not the season finale? What’s left to do?

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