First of the Last

[bryant]

After a really jam-packed first episode of Last Resort, I wound up with a multitude of questions filed into two slots.

First: is the plot in any way believable? You have to buy into the captain of a nuclear sub refusing orders, plus he’s gotta have enough charisma to make his crew more or less stick with him. Also there’s a huge conspiracy in the background. Said conspiracy does some pretty outrageous things even if the Reagan quote at the beginning is taken as good foreign policy. What I’m saying here is that I’m not entirely certain that we’re watching actual humans making sane decisions.

Second, though: is the situation as presented at all stable? And the trick here is that I don’t think it is, but I also don’t think Shawn Ryan necessarily thinks it is. If I’m looking for a showrunner who’s willing to mess with the status quo in a big bad way on his shows, I’m looking for Jeff Pinkner and J. H. Wyman of Fringe. But Shawn Ryan is my number two choice; The Shield went all in on actions with consequences, and Terriers had no qualms about major alterations to the show’s world.

That’s the hook for me. If Last Resort digs into the consequences of all the messed up things that happened in the first episode, it’s gonna be awesome and I will forgive the implausibilities. We’ll see.

Mirrored from Population: One.

Comments

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

Acting/cast: Good.

Pacing/camerawork/production values/sense of technothrillery urgency: Good.

Premise: Absolutely fucking bonkers. I basically have to treat the show as science fiction, because when I think about the concept of a US nuclear sub captain firing a missile across the bow of DC and detonating a nuke off the eastern coast of the US, and how the nation and the world would react to that, and Pakistan getting nuked, and how the world would react to that, I get dizzy. I realize Shawn Ryan is bold and everything, but I'm not yet at all convinced he's really grokking scope and full implications of the scenario he's laid out. As it is, I'm fascinated by how he plans to make it into a weekly TV series.

[bryant]

I know. I cannot imagine why the US and Russia and China aren't currently negotiating who's going to send in the special forces unit to assassinate the guy. Ryan's got to be treating it as science fiction, right? In other words: I'm fascinated by the same thing.

One of the reviews I've read says there are a lot of motivation revelations in the next couple of episodes. I note with interest Braugher's comment at the end: "Maybe this is home now." That was a pretty quick epiphany; I wonder if there isn't something under the surface there?

... nothing says Braugher isn't playing the villain, right?

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call him the villain, he didn't nuke Pakistan and he didn't nuke DC. There's clearly some kind of shadowy conspiracy of people who come and make you hang up the phone when you're talking to a loved one back in Washington.

But, there's nothing saying Braugher isn't crazy crazy not pretend crazy. And I'd be interested to know who it was who decided him and his particular ship should be the ones to get the order to nuke Pakistan in the first place, and why.

[bryant]

True, true.

He had the ship with the magical technical gizmo on it; that's gotta be related. But clearly nuking Pakistan is the primary goal and the magical technical gizmo is secondary. And probably nuking Pakistan is a coverup for the SEAL mission gone wrong.