The fourth season of “The Last Ship” started over the weekend with a double episode premiere. The show is a slightly more cerebral look at the apocalypse, with fewer zombies but superior firepower than other takes on the event. Having pretty much fixed the plague that killed five billion people and righted the ship of state in the much reduced United States, the officers and crew of the Nathan James are faced with a new problem that threatens humanity In the meantime, former Captain Chandler is discovering that he cannot hide from destiny.
Now the food supply is threatened with a blight
Some months after the events of season three, the Nathan James, now under the command of Captain Slattery (Adam Baldwin finally gets a ship of his own!) is docked off Morocco in search of oil palm seeds that have the genetic code that will fight off the blight that is threatening to starve all of humankind. Unfortunately, the seeds are in the hands of a gang who seems more inclined to shoot at the Nathan James and her crew than in doing some honest bargaining. As shows like “The Walking Dead” prove the main threat of the apocalypse is not the thing that caused the world to go to hell but other survivors who decide to take advantage of unsettled conditions to be jerks.
Meanwhile, Tom Chandler is for some reason hiding out in Greece
Chandler, the former skipper of the Nathan James, is hiding out in Greece with his two children. On the surface, his situation seems idyllic. He is in the company of a Zorba-like character named Alex, and there is a young woman he fancies. He spends his days fishing and his nights drinking ouzo and philosophizing with Alex.
Unfortunately, there is a snake in the garden consisting of another gang who steals all the fish as a “tax.” Since the blight, fish is all there is to eat, and that is getting somewhat scarce as well. So, Chandler and Alex steal back a load of fish. However, the gang retaliates by burning Alex’s boat with the old fisherman in it.
So Tom Chandler does what a man’s gotta do and infiltrates the gang through a bare-knuckle gladiatorial contest that it is running. He beats a man to death in a bout and then winds up in bed with the gang’s leader, a beautiful and very deadly young woman with a dubious past.
Where is the show going?
“The Last Ship” has set up the locale, Southern Europe, and North Africa. It has the McGuffin, the blight that is killing the world’s food supplies. The show has the villains, heavily armed, violent gangs who think they can take on the Nathan James. Let the season begin.
