This week’s episode was largely driven by Tani and her family. Sigh.
She broke up with Chad the SEAL! That is sort of good, I guess, in that we won’t have to watch Chad make pillow talk for a bit, but having them suddenly pop up as “the law” of the island just doesn’t work for me. There’s law on the island now? And this is the first time they’re bucking against the occupation? Eh, if you say so, Last Resort.
TV shows that are not courtroom dramas turning themselves into courtroom dramas for a single episode have never been my cup of tea. Battlestar Galactica acquitted itself okay with it, but that was a political hybrid show from the beginning. It’s iffy territory generally, and Last Resort does itself no favors by making both the victim and the accused people we hardly know. Plus, did anyone take a look at the sour engineer and have any doubt that he’d raped up the whole joint?
Also done no favors, Daisy Betts, who is asked to shoulder some seriously melodramatic material that she is simply not up to. I honestly don’t know what to make of the show reneging on Cortez’s rape one episode only to turn around and reveal that Grace had been raped in the next one. It feels very odd, although when introducing the rape of two female characters in a single episode, “very odd” probably isn’t as bad as things could get. I guess we can now be sure that they didn’t pull back on Cortez’s because they were afraid of handling such sensitive material. Though after this episode, I kind of wish that was the issue.
The storyline shows fitful signs of life when Serrat is revealed to have rigged the jury against himself, which is a decent twist that the episode doesn’t do much with, and when Marcus realizes Anders is actually guilty. Angry Andre Braugher confronting a rapist should be a slam dunk, drama-wise, but it’s like once he grabbed the guy even the show realized we can go to any of a half dozen episodes of Homicide to get this particular fix, shrugged and moved on.
On the homefront, the Christine and Kylie she-mance is also pretty clunky. I can sort of see their interactions working on paper, with Christine’s brusque reciprocation of Kylie’s awkward declaration of affection as a generous way of meeting her halfway and not forcing her too far outside her comfort zone, but the chemistry just isn’t there with these two. I kept hoping there could be some reveal that Kylie was actually the double agent, working with DefSec Dutch to gain her trust by helping expose the “real” traitor Paul, but that doesn’t really work with what we’ve seen of her on her own.
Bringing Christine to the island does have the potential for drama, though there would be more if the Sam/Sofie romance had progressed a little farther than one kiss. I’m pretty sure even the Taliban has an adultery exemption if you only get to first base under the influence of a weaponized hallucinogen. Nonetheless, having her and some other family on the island for the season/series finale should narrow the focus, even if we’ll probably still have Kylie running around in DC not convincing me of anything she’s doing.
No COB at all. I guess we’re to assume he’s off in the woods getting high or something, but still, boo. And no movement on the story of what the SEALS were up to on their mission, which is the thread that I’m most curious to unravel. Help me, David Rees Snell, you’re my only hope!
Unless you have to talk to Chad a bunch to do so. Then…eh, you know, I’m good. Pretty good.
The good part of the episode is the head games between Sam and Booth, culminating as all good head games do, with one guy snuffing the life out of the other with his bare hands. Knowing that the season finale is a few weeks away and that it will in fact be the series finale, I sort of wish they had drug this out and kept Booth around to the end, as another antagonist on the island, who is a little more cagey than Serrat, would’ve served to ratchet things up in the home stretch. Oh well. Nice knowing you, Booth.