Courtesy of TNT
Warning: Spoiler Alert
Almost as year ago we began a journey to stop a planet wide epidemic. 80% of the population already lost and a single Navy ship charged with creating a cure and staving off catastrophe. By the conclusion of season 1, a cure was found but that’s where the good news ends. While the Nathan James worked to find a cure, the world as they knew it began to change for the worse. In addition, Ms. Granderson (Mother to Lt. Granderson played by Alfre Woodard) is playing God as it were, selecting those she deems worthy. To make matters worse, XO Slattery (and by some extension CDR Chandler) no longer have control of the Nathan James.
The crew slowly tries to find the right moment to retake control while appearing to comply. Quincy Tophet took a bullet to protect Slattery in last season’s conclusion and is currently bleeding out. They need Dr. Scott. Granderson’s men are searching the ship for the primordial strain and pretty much anything else they can carry. The lower ranking crewman know something has to happen before they get locked in the ship. One says for the other to meet him in the DC locker, then makes a break for the edge of the ship diving into the water.
Dr. Tophet is fading. Dr. Rios comes to help. Slattery notices that in his medical bag is the primordial strain. Lt. Green patches up CMC Jeter when Chandler shows up. Jeter is to stay with the Chandlers while the rest decide to hit Granderson where it hurts. Chandler’s guys have disguised themselves as workers to infiltrate Granderson’s plant. The plant is not for manufacturing, but instead is for eliminating bodies from Olympia. Literally, workers place bodies on a conveyor belt and send them into an incinerator.
Green backs the truck in and attempts to fit in. When that doesn’t work, Green knocks out the questioning worker. Then right on cue, Chandler jumps out from the stack of dead bodies. The team take out all of the workers and halt ‘production’ on Granderson’s plan to eliminate those who are not worthy. As the team moves through the plant, they come across a man who raises his hands to say he’s on the right side of this. And will take them to the ‘rebel’ leader. The highest ranking ‘warlord’.
Our ‘diver’ (O’Connor) has made it back onto the Nathan James and is adjusting the heat. Granderson’s team try feverishly to find the primordial strain but won’t find it, because it’s not there.
Tex almost gets hit by a kid hell-bent on trying to keep anyone with Granderson off his turf. There is a real concern that Granderson is collecting people to die, healthy or not. Tex is able to talk the kid down and convince him to tell him exactly what’s going on right now.
Sam, Chandler’s youngest doesn’t feel well or look well. The Jeter babysitting the family plan just became more difficult.
On board the Nathan James Garnett and a handful of the crew stage a wonderful almost brawl in order to gain leverage, access and a new resting place on the mess decks. Upon their move to the mess decks, Garnett again distracts the guard in charge allowing two other crewman to escape undetected.
Tex, after learning what he knows, is able to sneak into AVOCET as one of the ‘worthy’.
The meeting between Chandler and the Warlords starts off like a Tarantino close, but cooler heads prevail. “Operating under the premise that my enemies enemy can be my friend”. The Warlords are planning to take AVOCET tonight.
Granderson’s team on the Nathan James just pieced together that the blonde woman and child are not nobodies. They are the wife and child of the Dr. dying a deck above them. Before they can take them Bacon steps forward to inform them that they would not be taking them anywhere. Garnett adds a little perspective then Mrs. Tophet volunteers to go. Thus creating leverage over the doctors and their attempt to keep the primordial strain from Granderson’s team. In order to keep the strain safe, Quincy has to do something. He has to take one of the pieces out of the equation. He pulls his stitches so he can bleed out buying the rest of the Nathan James time to seize control of the ship. Once sacrifice to save everyone else. The scene is graphic to say the least.
The elder Granderson makes a feeble attempt to convert the younger Granderson. That conversation ends abruptly when Lt. Granderson informs her mother that she is qualified to accept her mother’s surrender.
With Tophet dead, Granderson wants Dr. Scott back on campus. As they board the elevator, Tex appears as AVOCET Security to escort them. When the elevator doors open, the one person in the elevator still on Granderson’s side has been taken out. Leaving Tex to escort Dr. Scott, or not.
The bad guys discover that Kara’s pregnant and plan to use the unborn fetus to reverse engineer the primordial. Tex and Dr. Scott see her being brought in unceremoniously. Chandler and the Warlords get ready to knock out the power. Which they do at literally the last second before Dr. Med School tries to perform an amniocentesis to extract the embryonic fluid.
With no power Granderson calls the plant immediately only to get Lt. Green who is doing a lovely comical impression of the automated message you hear every time you’re on hold with a service provider. This prompts Granderson to send as many troops to the plant as possible.
Foster is able to appeal to a medical aid in the room with her eyes. The aid unlatched one of her restraints. This frees her right arm which she uses to stab the doctor in the heart with the very large needle.
Back on the Nathan James, Slattery was able to free himself from the room they stuffed him in by way of a hidden hatch. Slattery plus the other three crewman makes 4 loose on the Nathan James. On the mess deck, Bacon was able to grab a butter knife. He has cut his restraints and suggests to Garnett that the time to make a move is now. At the same time Slattery makes his way to a control room. Where he can not only see guard movement but also that a few of his men are already securing the armory.
Chandler’s team takes the west wing while the Warlords take the east. The two teams advance right about the time Granderson gets all of the bad news. At the plant, Green from an elevated vantage point takes out Granderson’s men like fish in a barrel.
On the ship, Slattery communicates with his three men using some form of Morse Code. They show him via the cameras that they have night vision gear. It’s at this point that the butter knife is making its way around the mess. At the right moment, Slattery cuts the lights. And just like that, Granderson’s men are neutralized. When the lights come back up all that’s left are Nathan James sailors.
Jeter returns to aid the Chandlers. A street kid apparently tipped off AVOCET to the location of the Chandlers. They do their best to hide behind furniture and evade the flashlights from outside. The AVOCET team advances regardless and meet their immediate fate.
Green escapes the power plant on foot. The elder Chandler convinces Jeter to take the second van and help his shipmates, Green included.
Inside AVOCET, amidst the chaos, Lt. Granderson tries to get people out. In the process, Granderson’s lackey finds her and in the struggle gets shot in the abdomen. Not unlike Tophet’s injury.
On the Nathan James, the repossession of the ship is almost complete. But they forgot about the Helo’s circling above. O’Connor makes a mad dash for the high-caliber gun on the ship’s deck. It takes a few shots, but he takes out the Helo.
With everyone pretty much secure, (Titus Welliver-character name not given-head Warlord) finds himself face to face with Granderson with nothing but his assault rifle between them. Curiously, they are on a first name basis. Face to face or so I thought. Granderson hid a guard in a dark corner and with one head nod he takes out the head Warlord. Shortly thereafter, Chandler finds him. All the Warlord can muster is: Roof. They went to the roof.
On the ship everyone was accounted for except the over zealous cop that is responsible for setting in motion the death of Tophet, the capture of Kara and the detainment of the entire Nathan James crew. He finds Slattery and there is a brutal fight. In the end the cop gets what he deserves. A fireman’s ax to the chest.
Slattery is able to send out a message for all of Baltimore to hear (somehow?). The Nathan James has been restored and AVOCET has been taken. Anyone in support of Amy Granderson is to surrender immediately. Which leaves us on the roof. With a guard on either side, it takes Chandler only a few sentences to convey one important truth. Granderson has lost. Even her men won’t engage. The conversation escalates to a point where both are shouting. She actually believes in her mind that what she was doing was good. Yet even after they had the cure in hand, she continued to kill off those she deemed unworthy. When a few of those unworthy were Chandler’s family, that is a detail he cannot dismiss. So, she’s given a choice. Tell her remaining troopers to stand down and stand trial of a jury of her own peers or perish. Surprisingly, she complies and calls everyone off. But she was never going to face a jury of her own peers (likely those she deemed unworthy), so instead she took the cowards way out and injected herself with essentially liquid cyanide.
CDR Chandler arrives on the Nathan James with his family in tow just in time to witness one of the casualties being carted away. When Dr. Scott meets with Slattery, he gives her the primordial strain and informs her that it was Dr. Rios and Dr. Tophet that saved it. Chandler returns to his quarters to find it ransacked. He then outlines a plan that involves finishing what they started in Baltimore, then off to Norfolk so his crew can hopefully find their families, then on to what’s next. Which they will figure out in time.
A long musical montage later and they tie up a series of loose ends. Tex is back on the ship. Kara is fine and helping the medical staff. Green is reassured that Kara is alright. Lt. Granderson is not dead, and of course CDR Chandler is back at the helm of his ship. Ending with Slattery joining him on the deck as they look out of the observation of those lost in the battle. They both look out across the water and Chandler says one simple thing.
Chandler: So this is home?
