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There are still a lot of pesky morale problems going on aboard the Colorado, and Chaplin gets so tired of it he hangs a sign-up sheet in the mess where every member of the crew can mark down their names as staying or going. It's not looking good for retention. And to make matters worse, SecDef Curry has sent secret messages to several of the crew ordering them to take out Chaplin, Kendal, and if necessary the Colorado itself, a fact which comes to light after a failed assassination attempt against the commanding officers. Chaplin, however, refuses to be bowed, and holds a drill exactly as planned.
Elsewhere, evil mayor Julian has gotten it into his head that the island might be rich in certain minerals that could make him even richer. Sophie pulls some soil samples and confirms as much, but hides the results from Julian, then cryptically passes stewardship of the island on to Kendal. Who has no idea what is going on. Really playing nicely to Scott Speedman's strengths there.
And back in D.C., the pressure mounts on Kendal's wife Christine, who accepts a visit and some help from Kendal's old college buddy (if that's who he really is), then yells at the news cameras in her yard about wanting the truth. Kylie Sinclair learns that it was her dad who arranged for the drive containing the Perseus plans to be stolen. He tells her to drop it, but she's still meeting in secret with Admiral Shepard and intrigued by what she sees of Christine Kendal on the news.
As for the drill on the Colorado, that goes fine. But after it's over, Brannan, who's been doing a slow burn since sacrificing Redman to Julian, snaps and threatens the sub with a grenade, thinking he'll be a hero if he puts an end to this. Chaplin handles him with care, and even lets him talk to the Secretary of Defense. But when Curry orders Brannan to go ahead and sink the boat, he backs down and the day is saved. And so is most of the crew, after hearing Chaplin's weekly inspirational speech. He really needs to come up with a speech that has a little more staying power, though. If he gets throat polyps they're all screwed.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Last week it was a run; now it's a swim, with Kendal fairly far out from shore. Swimming seems like an underrated skill for a submariner. But suddenly we're on board the Colorado, including Kendal. We're in the regular timeline because Lieutenant Shepard looks mostly healed from her misadventures with the Spetznaz a couple of weeks ago, but the bad news is that the sub appears to be in an engagement. Chaplin gives Shepard the conn as she deals with a nearby torpedo strike, flooding in the torpedo room, and -- oh, never mind, it was all a drill. Chaplin is impressed with Shepard's performance, but not so much with the actual crew.
And here are some of them now, nearly fighting each other in the mess over what they're even doing here until Prosser cools them off. And then suddenly Prosser's back on the conn with the officers, as Cahill gets an order off the dot-matrix printer that delivers the urgent dispatches from D.C. This time it's not a firing order, but notice a charge of treason and terrorism against Chaplin and Kendal. Okay, so does that mean they can safely go home and have their trial like Chaplin said he wanted?
Back home, Christine Kendal is on the phone with someone insisting that her payments are current, but maybe the problem has something to do with the news report on TV showing that her hubby and his boss have just been indicted, a mere five days after Chaplin's nuke strike off the capital. Christine looks out at a white, dark-windowed van parked across the street and looks weirded out. Probably because on top of everything else, this is the first time we've seen daylight in Washington, D.C. on this show.
Redman's dead body is discovered washed up on the beach. Among the witnesses are his former fellow captives, Brannan and Cortez, the latter of whom tells the former ha had no choice while Kendal notes their sketchy behavior. Back on the boat, he tells Chaplin he's got a meeting with the two later today. With Shepard, they enter Chaplin's quarters to find a sailor named Anders already in there, demanding to go home now. Shepard drags Anders's whiny ass out, but Kendal reminds Chaplin that this is only one example of a big morale problem. So Chaplin suggests releasing the ones who want to go home. "If we can't trust them to stay, what can we trust them to do?" And how do you plan to get them home, exactly?
During Kendal's interview with Brannan and Cortez, Brannan says nothing about giving up Redman to Julian. Kendal asks if they were ever separated from each other, and Brannan lies about that too, with Cortez backing him up. Afterward, she says he did good, and he responds rather ungraciously. I liked him better when he was beatboxing.
On his way through the mess, Kendal finds Shepard reading a notice that Chaplin has posted on the board inviting anyone who wants to leave to do so, although it says everyone has to keep doing their job until they can get safely back anyway. So it's not exactly a choice. Still, there are already names up on the board, a lot more in the go column than the three in the stay column. Kendal goes right to the captain to insist he keep him in the loop from now on. And he's a little crabby about it, too.
At the bar, Tani asks King if he's got any long-term plans for the corpse of his SEAL friend that he parked in her fridge, but before he can answer, the other two SEALs still in good enough shape to walk come to summon him to the hospital, where their wounded comrade Hopper is coming around. They find Hopper in pain, all the morphine gone from the supply cabinet, and Shepard as pretty much the only person watching over the patient. King tells her to stay away, but she says that she needs to know what's really going on so she can hold onto her crew. "You guys bug out of Pakistan with a wounded man and a couple hours later the U.S. is nuking the joint?" King still isn't sharing.
Kendal finds Cortez keeping herself occupied in the torpedo room and asks her discreetly to convince the other enlisted women in the crew to sign up to stay, which he hopes will help shame some of the men into staying as well.
Walking through town, Shepard reports the minimal results of her talk with King, and he tells her to stay on him. Kendal's got the bad news, which is that they're in danger of losing three quarters of the crew. Suddenly Shepard yells, "Gun!" and dives to the ground, throwing herself over Chaplin while shots ring out from the bush. Not sure how she saw the gun without seeing who was shooting. Kendal dashes off in pursuit after a man in Navy fatigues, and eventually catches Wallace, one of the would-be brawlers from the mess. Not cool, Wallace.
Later Kendal and Shepard are interrogating Wallace, who claims to have been operating on orders from a higher authority. "You guys are all dead. All of you." I seem to remember Stern saying something like that in the pilot. And look what happened to him.
Cortez puts her name up on the stay list, which is now longer but still much shorter than the go list. Reynolds from the pilot adds her name as well. As does Brannan, vowing to Cortez not to leave anyone behind. Again.
Shepard, meanwhile, is working on the COB, who says Chaplin already knows he's lost. "You put your name on that go list, this thing is over," Shepard says. Don't do it." Prosser isn't about to give up his "front row seats to the end of the world," and vows to personally paddle Shepard, Kendal, and Chaplin to their treason trial. That should be fun after the end of the world. Also, I wonder how Prosser thinks that treason trial is going to play out when the prosecution has a big list of names who literally signed their names to it and his is among them.
On the conn, Kendal quietly goes to Cahill and asks if there have been any secret messages lately. After Cahill's guilty look, we're suddenly in the monitoring station, watching a video of Secretary of Defense Curry ordering someone to take out Chaplin and Kendal and either seize or scuttle the Colorado. Cahill confesses to Chaplin that he got it yesterday and didn't know what to do. Chaplin dismisses Cahill, and Shepard reports that the same message has shown up in five family-grams and she wants to do some checking. Chaplin's fine with that, but insists they're still running today's drill, as planned. What could go wrong, after all? Five times?
Kendal sits down in front of the video camera operated by Sophie, who promises she can get the tape off the island without saying how. Kendal starts by telling his wife that there's something she needs to know.
Cut to Sophie at Julian's place, where he's taken delivery of a big box of crap that her geologist ex-boyfriend apparently ordered before bugging out. Julian explains that certain minerals and chemicals are going to be mined for billions of dollars over the ten years, and if there are any on the island he wants a piece of that action. She tries to demur, but Julian insists that he owes her. No sooner has she carried crate of stuff out of there than Julian turns around to find himself not alone; King and another SEAL are in there with him, armed, and they want the morphine back. Julian's pretty accommodating when he's outgunned and outnumbered, as it turns out.
The crew is mustered on the dock as planned, with Chaplin joining them, also as planned, all but daring anyone to take a shot at him. Or at least that's what the musical score wants us to think.
While the Colorado is underway, Anders says to Kendal that the list is bullshit. "I'm the senior nuclear chief on this boat. He's not going to let me go no matter what... Look at me, I'm indispensable." He doesn't seem as happy about that as a lot of people would be. You know, in this economy.
Things are back to normal in D.C., meaning it's nighttime again. Christine becomes aware of a media circus setting up outside her house. Elsewhere, in a very nice mansion that I assume belongs to Mr. Sinclair, Kylie and her dad are watching a news report about the "Bolton Doctrine," meaning preemptive nuclear force. I don't know if that refers to John Bolton or Michael Bolton; they both have a lot to answer for, if you ask me. He turns it off, and Kylie's still upset about her specs being gone, even as he tells her to let it go. Well, and then he confesses that he was the one to told Robert to take it in the first place, at the president's request, insisting that he was protecting their family's future. "There are a lot of nervous, powerful people in Washington right now so we are going to sit this one out." She agrees to trust him, whether she means it or not.
In the island hospital, King gives his hurt friend Hopper a shot of morphine and starts asking him about what happened and why they killed someone. Hopper says something about orders changing, but the morphine kicks in and he's done talking. Even opiates are part of the conspiracy now.
On the Colorado, Chaplin gives Shepard the conn and announces the beginning of the drill.
Paul Wells shows up at Christine's house. Remember him, the guy who swooped in to rescue her from the government spooks, saying he was a friend of Kendal's, but secretly working with the bad guys? To, I guess, find out how ignorant she really is about all of this? She's out of cash, gas, groceries, and support, so she reluctantly accepts the $217 in his wallet. He warns her that it's going to be tough, but he's there for her. She accepts a comforting hug, but not his advice to not go out onto the yard swinging a baseball bat at the noisy reporters. Which she does. Someone also spray-painted the word "TRAITOR" on her garage door, so she goes up to that white van and starts trying to break the windows and demanding the occupants come out. Neither of which succeed. Then she turns to the cameras and says the government is lying about what happened with the Colorado. "I want the truth, and you should too!"
Sophie is on a hill working with the geological equipment her own damn self. She adds chemicals to a soil sample, which turns green. Sophie looks pensive. Uh-oh, does this mean the island is pregnant?
Kendal is on video telling his wife he's staying, but it's being watched not by her, but by Julian and a couple of his girlfriends at his house. Obviously Sophie's not pleased when she walks in and sees it. Julian agrees to send the tape without apologizing, adding a dig about how Kendal wasn't talking to Sophie, and she shows Julian some fake, red-colored results of her soil samples, saying the minerals Julian's looking for aren't on the island. Threateningly, Julian orders her to keep looking.
The Colorado finishes the drill, and Chaplin's pleased enough about the ten seconds they shaved off to reward the crew with ice cream. But the mood is rather spoiled when Brannan shows up on the conn and pulls out a grenade, ordering Chaplin to set a course to the blockade and surrender. Chaplin clears everyone else off the conn while Kendal hands out small arms below decks, including to Prosser, who reminds Kendal, "He's threatening my boat too, and my men on it." Good enough for Kendal. Up on the conn, Chaplin's trying to talk Brannan down, giving him credit for standing up to authority, just like Chaplin is. Cortez tries to stop Kendal, but Kendal isn't stopping. Chaplin is still lecturing Brannan about how they signed up to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Brannan reminds Chaplin how he disobeyed a direct order. "You stole a nuclear submarine and fired on our country!" "I guess it sounds pretty bad when you put it like that," Chaplin admits. He goes on to say that it's tough to decide what's right in this situation, but he's already made his decision, and Brannan needs to make his. Hence the stay/go list in the mess, which Chaplin says is a declaration. "What are you really staying for?" And he's got the PA open, so everyone on the boat is hearing this. Chaplin bonds with Brannan over their shared childhood dreams of Naval glory, before realizing that something else is up. Brannan starts to confess that Redman's death is his fault. The other sailors storm the conn, rifles leveled, but Chaplin tells them the stand down when Brannan pulls the pin out, keeping only the lever in place to prevent it from exploding. Brannan decides he wants to talk to SecDef Curry, and Chaplin decides to make it happen. So Julian's not the only stubborn leader on this show who gets all reasonable when threatened with a horrible death.
After the ads, Curry's voice is on speaker, and Chaplin hands the call over to Brannan, who he says has taken control of the boat. Brannan asks Curry for instructions, saying he's on the conn with a live grenade, acting alone. There's a long pause, and then Curry says it's four hours to the blockade, which is too long for him to hold off the armed men on the conn. He orders Brannan, "Blow it. Sink the boat." Wow, that's cold. But then if self-sacrifice were Brannan's thing, he wouldn't be here now. Chaplin has Kendal cut off the call, then reminds Brannan there are 120 people on the boat, but Curry and the people he's working with want it all to just go away. "I am trying to bring the truth out to light, but I need your help." Brannan lets Chaplin gently take the grenade from him, holding down the lever and replacing the pin while Brannan is taken away. So how does Brannan get to help now?
In their parking garage, Kylie tells Admiral Shepard that she's done helping him. In turn he guilts her some more, and says her order number was a dead end. But she's there because she figures that the government must have had some reason not to enlist the Sinclairs in helping defeat the Perseus rather than just having the plans stolen. Kylie relates another magical feature of the Perseus, which is that it constantly transmits the Colorado's GPS coordinates back to the drive that Kylie had the specs stored on. Wow, that seems like a pretty major security hole. But Kylie figures that it was taken because "they" don't want anyone to know where the Colorado was before the attack. The Admiral reveals that he's been invited to a meeting at the Pentagon with Curry tomorrow. "Just so you know, I'm not allergic to shellfish, either."
At the bar, the other two ambulatory SEALs show up and tell King that they're leaving the island. King isn't ready to go yet, nor is he ready to let them take Langston's body. In fact, he fights them to stop them getting to the fridge. Even though he loses, badly, the other two SEALS give it up as a bad job while Tani comes around the bar to help a badly beaten King. Not sure she'd be so solicitous if he'd broken her bar.
Back at Chez Sinclair, Papa Sinclair finds his daughter asleep on his living room couch. He says he's proud of how hard she worked on Perseus, but this is out of her league now. She continues to pretend to agree, and after he returns to bed, Christine's angry diatribe at the news cameras comes on the screen. Kylie smiles at it like she may have just found an ally. Not a powerful one, by any means, but it seems like all the powerful people she knows are either working against her or skulking around in parking garages.
Cortez visits Chaplin in his quarters and confesses that Julian made them choose who would die, and Brannan chose Redman. "If he hadn't, it would have been all three of us," she says. "So you let a time bomb fester on my boat," Chaplin says calmly. Cortez says she was worried about what the crew would think of Brannan if the truth was known. Well, I don't think that's an issue any more.Morning on the island. King is digging a grave for Langston somewhere overlooking the ocean, and takes a moment to extol the view to his dead buddy. "It ain't Arlington, though. You deserve Arlington." What he deserves, King, is a grave deeper than the three-footer you're about to roll him into.
Cahill crosses his name off the go list and puts it on the stay list, like we can see that a lot of people before him have already done, while Chaplin and Kendal watch. Kendal says Chaplin won back a lot of people, but Chaplin thinks he could have done better with a better speech. At least he seems to know what keeps this show moving Just then Anders shows up, and Chaplin sends Kendal to talk to him, impassively sipping his coffee while watching from across the room. It's an awkward moment, because Anders sees that his name has already been moved from one side to the other, just as he feared. "The captain and I both appreciate your service," Kendal says. Well, that appears to have smoothed over nothing.
Tani looks after King in what I guess is her apartment behind the bar, and they talk about what his dead friend meant to him. "He was my brother," King agrees, and either passes out or falls asleep. Tani gives him a little peck on the side of his mouth. Aw, he's a SEAL with a kiss! Somebody fire me now, please.
Back to Kendal's swim. He looks up and sees Sophie standing on the beach waiting for him. She leads him up to another spectacular view, so she can show him how the island went unnoticed and unspoiled for so many centuries. "Guess we changed things a bit, didn't we?" Kendal says. Well, not as much as Julian will when he finds out the dirt is just ripe to be strip-mined and molded into iPhones. She says Kendal and his crew are the power on the island now, so they have the responsibility to care for it. "If something were to happen to me..." Kendal jumps on that, but she forces him back on point. "Look at it. It's magical. And it's yours now, whether you want it or not." Kendal does not, which Sophie understands. She says it was exile for her when she first arrived, but "There are things here worth more than you could ever imagine." Okay, if she leads him to a hatch in the ground I'm done.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter , or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.