Review: 'Last Resort' - 'Another Fine Navy Day': Bad Buzz
Sam and Marcus suffer hallucinations in a chemical attack
Scott Speedman on "Last Resort."
A quick review of tonight's "Last Resort" coming up just as soon as I peg you for an exotic fruit man...
"Another Fine Navy Day" was two-thirds of the way to being one of the stronger episodes so far, but ultimately it tried to do one thing too many.
As both a tense Problem of the Week outing where Marcus tried to keep the crew alive in a lousy circumstance, and as an expansion of the mythology about Pakistan, the SEALs, etc., I thought the episode worked quite well. (My only real complaint on that end was Sam letting Serrat walk away, in a circumstance when he could have easily gotten justice for the murder of Red — and the other people hurt and killed as part of this new scheme — and even blamed it on this new force.)
But the hallucinations didn't really work at all, telling us the same info we already knew — that Sam feels guilty about being away from Christine, and that Marcus is grieving his son — over and over and over again, in often clumsy ways. (The Christine scenes in particular.) Andre Braugher just about made the bedtime story scene work, but the rest of it felt like the show straining to draw a tighter connection between the island and the mainland, and provide a non-flashback excuse for Sam and Christine to interact in person. (And it also advanced Sophie's interest in Sam, which hasn't been one of the more compelling subplots.)
As with "Last Resort" as a whole, I admire the ambition of an episode like this, yet feel that in both the macro and the micro, the show might be better off simplifying for a while and focusing on what it does well.
What did everybody else think?
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupBruno
November 8, 2012 at 10:32PM EST Reply to CommentI'm enjoying watching this show, but I fear it will be cancelled, is there any news about this?
bitchstolemyremote No word on ABC picking up the back 9 yet, but it should come soon (possibly when the numbers for last night are revealed since it should be nearly completion of its 13th episode)
November 9, 2012 at 11:35AM ESTNot looking great, but ABC clearly likes the show so it may go for the full season
Matt
November 8, 2012 at 11:54PM EST Reply to CommentI actually liked the creative way in which we saw Sam and Christine interact, without one of those LOST-style flashbacks. We've never seen them together, and this was an important part of their character development. It seems that abandonment would be a prevalent feeling for how Sam would interact with his hallucinogen wife, because of his career in the Navy. The only thing I thought was hokey about it, was the picture of Christine and the "other guy" in the news, and how that led to a trepidation of betrayal. That seemed to be a TMZ-type of report, and I don't think a geek, even a drugged-up one, would be spending this time of high tensions, surfing the paparazzi. Also, what was up with the cross=hair in the picture -- that should have raised some questions about the source?
Jaxemer11
November 9, 2012 at 12:40AM EST Reply to CommentHated this episode (and I have been a fan of the show so far). Completely bored through the whole thing.
jack_is_laughing I can't believe people liked this episode. Man, it was awful. The acting was just painful, watching people attempt to pretend they were drugged. The hallucinations offered nothing new and the episode told us little or nothing new about any plot points or characters, except that the COB might not be as big of a meathead idiot as we thought. Plus, letting the island bad guy go when they just as easily could have shot him and saved everyone a lot of pain and suffering was nothing more than the writers saving him for later. This show is really treading water.
November 10, 2012 at 2:56AM ESTroxanne I totally agree this episode sucked. I fast forwarded through the whole thing. And I've been a fan of the show so far...I hope this isn't a sign that the show has tanked.
November 11, 2012 at 1:47AM ESTkeith
November 9, 2012 at 1:05AM EST Reply to CommentI like that they're trying stuff. I don't care about the melodrama bits at all though, they should just make it tense action.
bitchstolemyremote This only works if we care about the characters, though, so they have to give us some more background on them
November 9, 2012 at 11:36AM ESTAdam The action scenes were pretty strong, the physicality in the control room right was solid, and the actors (their stunt men I guess, there was a lot of cutting away from faces) put together a nice little sequence.
November 9, 2012 at 4:09PM ESTI'd watch a show where XO Sam and Seal Team James stage a two man war on just about anything. So far they, and Brougher, are the only things keeping me watching.
Where are we on the COB? Robert Patrick is too good to waste, but are we supposed to trust him already? He's been set up at the villain/heavy from the start, while the audience favours Brougher and Speedman. But they're all buddies again.
keith I think Robert Patrick is taking the Colonel Tigh role.
November 9, 2012 at 5:59PM ESTRachel
November 9, 2012 at 3:29AM EST Reply to CommentGiven the smaller number of female characters on the show, I've been a little creeped out by the "two girls for every boy" approach towards the hotter male stars since the pilot, (they've been hinting at the Sophie/Sam attraction as well as James/Grace as a supplement to James/Tani). And this episode really dialed that up to 11. It's like the writers want to have their cake and eat it too with Scott Speedman's character in particular. They want us to buy him as terribly, terribly honorable and in love with his wife, while also giving the ladies in the audience a chance to see him making with the sexy. I get (and applaud) the impulse -- Speedman is hot. But maybe it would have been wiser to have the "adoring wife at home" notes written for a different character so they could use Speedman's sex appeal without violating the character's integrity or the audience's trust.
My take on it is that Shawn Ryan's resume -- while AWESOME -- speaks pretty heavily to a male audience, but any show on ABC right now has gotta make women viewers breathless to stick with the brand. And let's all be honest here, it's not Ryan's wheelhouse, really.
mcm99
November 9, 2012 at 9:16AM EST Reply to CommentDidn't the husband/ boyfriend of the french chick leave the island an episode or two ago?
I really want to like this show but the characters are all so one note.
KP
November 9, 2012 at 9:21AM EST Reply to CommentReally, really enjoyed this one. About halfway through I thought it was close to the end, that's how tense it was. Slowed down the second half, but it was still pretty great.
Noticed that it was directed by Christopher Misiano. I know he didn't write the dialogue, but it was snappily delivered, and that combined with the flashback/forwards gave it a very West Wing-ish vibe.
Man I hope they don't cancel it. With Flashforward, it had this great premise, but I honestly hated almost everyone except for Demetrius. This show's concept is not as strong, but I am strongly invested in almost everyone except for the Washington people--who we fortunately avoided entirely.
bitchstolemyremote
November 9, 2012 at 11:34AM EST Reply to CommentDidn't mind the Christine hallucinations, though I agree that both Kendall's and Chaplin's visions weren't overly informative. I would have liked it if they had of focused on some of the other characters, but this feels like a step in the right direction and nicely balances the island conflict/character development needs of the show
Our take: http://wp.me/p2MfmI-1IA
Thomas
November 9, 2012 at 12:13PM EST Reply to CommentI must have missed something, but how did the bad guy with the broken arm go from being taped to the chair and getting punched by Sam to interrogating the French lady while Sam and King watched from the air vent?
I thought Sam met him in the medical clinic, went to the control room with him, eventually realized he was an intruder and them fought him and taped him to the chair. How/why did Sam leave and then come back with King to find Mr. Broken Arm with some other bad guys interrogating the French chick?
McTeague The story was told out of order. Sam met him in the clinic, took him to the control room, realized who he was, fought with him, then injected himself with the antidote and blacked out. (That was when the story started -- he was wandering around the island in a daze.) When he came back, the guy with the broken arm was interrogating the Navy SEAL who had woken up.
November 9, 2012 at 12:21PM ESTThomas Ok, but I still don't get how he went from injecting himself and blacking out to wandering around outside, and not encountering the other bad guys aside from Mr. Broken Arm.
November 9, 2012 at 12:58PM ESTDezbot I was also confused by that. Otherwise, it was an okay ep. The loss of the firing key should make for some interesting tension next ep.
November 9, 2012 at 1:36PM ESTStan
November 9, 2012 at 1:46PM EST Reply to CommentThis show is basically Star Trek, isn't it?
We have the ship, the "planet" location, the exotic locals, the High Concept Crazy Event of the Week style of episodes ("in this one, everyone goes crazy and has meaningful hallucinations")...
ver
November 9, 2012 at 2:19PM EST Reply to CommentI really enjoy this show. No mention of the hypodermic in Andre Braugher's chest and the oxygen back on when he "came to"?
berkowit28 Maybe there's a sort of mole on the other side too? Someone who's with the bad guy invaders but who knew that Marcus was the only one who could bring the sub up - if not even more supportive of Marcus running things - and so used an epinephrine on him and turned the oxygen on, so he could be up and running.
November 9, 2012 at 7:07PM ESTM
November 10, 2012 at 10:03AM EST Reply to CommentSam didn't kill Serrat, I think, because of the same flashback that stopped him from killing the SEAL he was punching.
M
November 10, 2012 at 10:04AM EST Reply to CommentI think Sam let Serrat live because of the same hallucination of his wife that caused him to stop punching the SEAL.