3 Burning Questions for The Last Ship S5 Ep3 – El Puente

Daley Review

6 years ago

The Last Ship 503 - El Puente - Sasha (Bridget Regan)

3 Big Questions…

That lead to more questions.

Last Week’s Questions Answered

What’s Tavo’s beef with the US? This episode (El Puente) didn’t answer that. But it did add the dimension of Tavo’s wife having quite a bit of control over his “revolution”.

How long until Chandler is back at sea? This episode, by creaky old helicopter. So much for the battleship I wanted.

Who will side with us? Mexico and Cuba

Now that we have allies, can we trust them?

Looks like the United States finds itself in entente under the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” banner. In the show’s mythology, Mexico and Cuba have been at war at least since the plague. During the plague, resource-stricken Cubans apparently tried sailing west for Mexican shores in search new lives. Instead, the Mexican government saw them as invaders and took them out. With guns. Fired by soldiers. Both governments say they want no part of Tavo’s revolution and have agreed, through delegates, to assist the United States. But can we trust them? (there’s no racial component here, so let’s skip that)

Mexico lies right in the path of the “To the North” shouting firebrands of Tavo’s army. They’ve already killed the Mexican ambassador to apply pressure to their president. Why stop at the ambassador? Why wouldn’t Tavo’s men try and apply pressure using people closer to the president? If that happens, can they hold firm and be counted on? I could very much portend a version of this where the Mexican pres says, “Take over the ship,” but the troops stay loyal to Nathan James. People have had very bad luck trying to take over that ship anyway…

Then there’s Cuba. If ever a country would probably feel -no- loyalty to the United States, I have to think it would be Cuba. Given that they have almost no resources in reserve for making war, Cuba seems to only have fighting men to contribute (and there can’t be many of those). Luckily, Cuba’s loyalty to this cause probably doesn’t have the same vulnerabilities as Mexico. By that I mean, if Tavo wants to start pushing Cubans around like he’s trying with Mexico, he’ll have to swim there. I think Cuba stays loyal to the cause throughout.

The Last Ship 503 – El Puente – Slattery (Adam Baldwin). image by TNT copyright 2018

What’s going on with Danny Green?

We’ve gotten a few bits here and there suggesting Danny’s not ok. In the premiere, we learn that he’s deployed with Sasha, Wolf, and Azima to Panama, which doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary. When we catch up with everybody else, however, most of them have moved on to bigger and better things, including his wife, Kara. When asked about Danny, Kara replies in very wife-ish, yet diplomatic terms that he’s doing what makes him happy or some such. She delivers the line perfectly to let us know the couple has had MANY words on that exact topic and this is where they landed.

We’ve gotten to watch Danny operate a little in these first three episodes. It’s not like he’s throwing himself on live grenades or anything suicidal. But he has been acting with more reckless aggression than we’ve seen him use before. This episode in particular showed a cruel side of Danny, that while effective, marks a change in his character. Sasha played that moment (the hand stabbing) real cool, but she looked up at him like, “I didn’t expect you to do that. Ever.”

I’m not with it enough to know the technical terms, but it looks like Danny has become more “at home” in a fight than actually “at home”. Doesn’t matter that he’s got a wife and family waiting for him, something drives him to need to keep fighting. If we’re honest with ourselves, I think we’d find that we need Danny out there, very tangibly saving the world with the actions he takes. But I think he’s earned some rest by now, too.

The Last Ship 503 – El Puente – Chandler (Eric Dane). Image by TNT copyright 2018.

Is Tom Chandler as “tired” as the president thinks he is?

We had a few moments with Admiral Tom Chandler this episode where he got a little spaced out. The show’s audio people were kind enough to play some indistinct machinery and vaguely warlike sounds during Tom’s momentary mental fugues. Then we have the president wondering out loud to Admiral Meylan about Tom’s resilience after coming out of retirement. Mind you, we’ve also had two episodes of a perfectly fine Tom without any PTSD type stuff going on. This reminds me a little of last season when Master Chief hid some injuries from the doc for a few episodes. Remember that? It was like a punctured lung or something like that. Anyway, it -could- have been a big deal and cost the ship in a critical moment. But it didn’t. This feels like a red herring type story that adds some tension for a few episodes, but ultimately doesn’t stop Tom from saving the world all over again.