S02.E09: Uneasy Lies the Head

[HalcyonDays]

Episode synopsis: With Dr. Scott on the verge of a breakthrough, Chandler and his team set out to land in search of much needed supplies and materials for her lab.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Chandler and his team set out to land in search of much needed supplies and materials for her lab.

 

And by needed supplies and materials, we're talking about mussels.

 

Cody !!!!  That was really bad as Chandler gallivanted around the perimeter of the firefight looking for that kid.

 

As for Ray listening into the NJ's comms, I find it hard to believe that NJ and its teams are broadcasting in the clear.  Because that is just stupid.

 

At least Neils got what was coming to him.

 

And POTUS has finally got his shit together and being helpful, with a little help from the Master Chief.

 

ETA: And where's Lt. Green's dog ?  Still no sign of him.

Edited August 10, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[bmoore4026]

Well, we got the cast of Dangerous Minds living on the ship now.  Where does everybody sleep?

 

And I as cold Dr. Scott's actions were, I can't condemn her for it.  Better that Neils at her hand, his body providing information about how the virus works, than continuing to live in the hands of the enemy while thousands left on Earth continue to suffer. 

[TV Anonymous]

So that is the end of Niels Soerensen. I am good with it. His story line has certainly passed its expiry date.

 

I wondering that apparently in USS Nathan James officers, CPOs and enlisted sailors mess together. Also, why do the sailors usually go ashore uncovered? As well, does the Royal Australian Navy not have grooming standards?

[Raja]

. Also, why do the sailors usually go ashore uncovered? As well, does the Royal Australian Navy not have grooming standards?

I remember on the Flashpoint pilot the SWAT team wore helmets, once the series got under way the helmets went away making it easier to identify individual actors.

As for the Australian Navy Wolfman is their equivalent of a Navy SEAL and normal grooming standards don't apply due to the possibility of undercover assignments.

[Lonesome Rhodes]

I gotsta admit, the terrorized bloody death mask (face) of Niels was tremendous!  

 

Well, we are now reduced to risking multiple personnel in a hot zone, most especially the commanding officer of the entire military, on a couple of boys who refused to follow stern orders.  We then have as hardened a soul as there is - The IDF special forces lady losing it over the potential, not the guarantee...the possibility...that they may be repatriated in a bad spot.  Never mind that they were already dead once they did the Immunes' bidding.  

 

WTH is it with these producers???  The entire world is at risk, and we are supposed to invest all care with any given few?  It's outrageous.  Rick Blaine had it right.  He will always have it right.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGEhZMaH7Lc

 

So.  TPTB have now let the cat out of the bag.  The NJ can't outrun the advance teams and mayhem created by the Immunes all along the Gulf.  There is nowhere near the time imperative they are pushing.  They will face what they will face.  

 

Does POTUS have an illness which causes his physical instability?  Or is it that just thinking rocks his physical world?  Ay yi yi.

 

Interesting question of law now emerges with Niels being the unwitting recipient of the newer virus.  He is clearly a war criminal, so his execution is not the problem.   A summary execution is entirely within bounds.  It's basically the torture that is problematic as I see it.  If I were that POTUS, I would pen an instantaneous pardon for her.  End of story.  Oopsy.  TPTB can't have that, can they?

[StatMom]

Well, we are now reduced to risking multiple personnel in a hot zone, most especially the commanding officer of the entire military, on a couple of boys who refused to follow stern orders. We then have as hardened a soul as there is - The IDF special forces lady losing it over the potential, not the guarantee...the possibility...that they may be repatriated in a bad spot. Never mind that they were already dead once they did the Immunes' bidding.

WTH is it with these producers??? The entire world is at risk, and we are supposed to invest all care with any given few? It's outrageous. Rick Blaine had it right. He will always have it right.

Yes, this! If they wanted us to plausibly believe that the NJ people (much less us viewers) cared so much and were so broken up by these dopey kids, they needed to set it up a bit more. Or made the guys more likable. SOMEthing. That part of the story did not work at all.

I was kind of surprised that a mere almost-kiss had Niels give up the important info. I thought for sure they'd have it seem like he was softening, only to rebuff her attempts. Plus did she really have to let him know? I thought that was risky, but I suppose she wanted his last moments to be especially bad. Oh well, glad he's dead.

[MissLucas]

There was a lot of science talk in this episode. I'm sure people with the degrees necessary to understand it all are right now nursing a migraine but for the rest of us the idea to make the cure contagious sounds pretty cool. Can't fault the good Doctor for finally relieving us of Niels though I'm sure we'll get some angsting about that.

 

Not enough Navy porn and unlike last week's episode the writing didn't make up for that. IDF lady starts to grate as does Chandler putting himself constantly in the line of fire. I even started to miss HMS Benny Hill.

[Raja]

 

 

Interesting question of law now emerges with Niels being the unwitting recipient of the newer virus.  He is clearly a war criminal, so his execution is not the problem.   A summary execution is entirely within bounds.  It's basically the torture that is problematic as I see it.  If I were that POTUS, I would pen an instantaneous pardon for her.  End of story.  Oopsy.  TPTB can't have that, can they?

A summery execution is totally out of bounds if the mission is to rebuild civilization and the rule of law Otherwise you will just have Captain Chandler or whatever local warlord who holds the biggest stick like Gunderson doing as they please and no reason for the HUD Secretary to take his constitutional place in the line of succession. The  actual  question of what do we do with Dr Scott does leave for drama beyond Miltech porn as the season comes to a close

[HalcyonDays]

Whoa, Dr. Scott. Didn't know you had it in you? Honestly was no expecting that at the end. When Scott was talking, my mind was going from aspirating deep from the lung, to then thinking, no, she has to cut him open to access the lungs, then the blood and I was like, keanu!whoa...holy crap! Yeah, she wanted to cut him open - once he was a corpse. So next episode, I expect Neils opened up on an autopsy table.

 

Okay, the more advanced scientific minds can answer this because all of the talking, I'm semi-lost. Dr. Scott basically removed the portion of Neils DNA from the virus, therefore Neils now can be affected by it?? But there are certain diseases out there that human's share a large percentage of DNA with, and they still make us sick. So she retools the virus, removes Neils DNA and now it's lethal to him. Then she is somehow going to pull "DNA" from his lungs, determine how it can reside in the lungs, and then "infect" humans, so they can spread the "cure" via aerosolization. Shit, they should just mutate the cold virus with this thing, and we can have some sneezing coughing humans run around and spread the cure quicker. I feel I am missing something (and have been from day one) with how the virus works, and with this cure formula, etc.

[StatMom]

Yeah, that whole explanation was along the lines of: yeah, he needs to die in a horrible way, yadda yadda yadda, then we can make a cure. Just throw in a couple references to DNA to make it seem plausible.

[iMonrey]

I got lost in the medical jargon too. What I did grasp is that she's moved past trying to turn the cure into an aerosol and is now trying to make the cure "contagious" the same way the virus was. So they just need people with the cure to go spread it around. The former plan sounded better.

 

I was kind of impressed that they didn't shy away from killing one of the kids. That's typically a no-no on TV shows. But what happened to the immunes who showed up to collect their bounty? Did they just kill them all off? What was the point of that? Why not just take the kids and go?

[Julie23]

I wasn't following all the sciency logic as to how removing Neils' DNA from the virus was going to enable the cure to be contagious, but I am glad Neils is dead. About time is all I have for that.

Sorry for being harsh, but its hard to care about the kids, even the dead one, since I just met them, and basically have spent no time with them.

Where were the guys they captured? Did I miss that somewhere?

I liked that they used the ships big guns, but wasn't that a little risky with there own men running around?

Nice to see the President be presidential, but I still am slightly suspicious that he is still under the control of the bad men. Maybe its just the actor, but his face seems sneaky to me.

[Raja]

But what happened to the immunes who showed up to collect their bounty? Did they just kill them all off? What was the point of that? Why not just take the kids and go?

They were looking for prisoners to interrogate. All they got was the cell phones which they couldn't explain what cell network was still up.

[Latverian Diplomat]

Well, we are now reduced to risking multiple personnel in a hot zone, most especially the commanding officer of the entire military, on a couple of boys who refused to follow stern orders.  

I can't help but feel that a large part of the thing with the kids, and especially, the leader kid bonding with the captain, was a little bit of recruiting aimed at the adolescent demographic. Not anything nefarious, but the show does have a good relationship with the Navy, and they might occasionally take an opportunity to write something that will make Navy PR guys happy in one way or another. 

 

Personally, I think seeing the main artillery piece (a  5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun -- according to wikipedia) score a hit is probably more effective. Because they do a good job of showing that thing kick ass.

[Machiabelly]

They took 3 prisoners. They said they were going to lean on them to find out how the phones worked.

[thuganomics85]

I actually didn't see Scott killing Niels coming.  I thought for sure they were going to keep him around for a bit, and force Scott to work and even flirt with him, to keep getting info.  But Scott apparently had other plans.  I couldn't make heads or tails of all the science talk either, but it does sound like she basically was saying that him dying means that they can use his lungs are something, to make them spread the virus better.  So, there are legit reasons to do this, but this is clearly showing that Scott is willing to go into dark territory.  I'm fine with it: it gives Rhona Mirta more to do, besides spouting scientific exposition.

 

The stuff with them looking for mussels (hey, if Scott plan doesn't work or if she ends up figuring it out quickly, the Nathan James' kitchen staff at least has a lot of seafood options now!) and then finding those kids, mainly felt like a filler, with a couple of explosions and shootouts, to make it go by more quickly.  I wonder if we'll see the kids again, or they'll already be sent off to a new place by the next episode.  I was also confused over why Ravit was mad at Chandler for what happened to Cody.  Chandler was the one that wanted all the kids on the ship. so had Cody listen, he would have been alive.  Or was it about what she said in an earlier episode, where she thought they should have just taken the mussels and gone, and not get the kids involved?  Either way, it's kind of lame to blame Chandler for Cody's death. Whatever: I think the main reason was so she can give her dramatic speech and end it with Burke looking at her wistfully.

 

Milcher starts out still being uncomfortable as The Prez, but seems to be getting the hang of it better at the end.  Jeter is the best choice to help him.  I can only imagine what, say, Slattery would have been like instead, heh.

 

Immunes seem to have cellphones, but no calls or text were on them.  Hmm... curious.

Edited August 11, 2015 by thuganomics85

[crabbypants]

Technobabble was technobabbly.  I thought she was going to convince him to give up a lung.  Instead, it took a really dark turn.  Chandler is not going to be pleased. 

 

Since last night was the night of me getting things wrong, I also thought Chandler was going to be taken out by his own ship with his unplanned running around.  One of these days I'd like to see Mr. President object to him going on every away mission.

 

The kids could've been interesting, but they were in and out too fast to matter.  They could fix the President, but they couldn't recruit a few kids?  They're going to need to train the next generation of sailors at some point.

 

Poor Ravit.

[futurechemist]

The science made no sense to me.  The disease is in Niels' lungs, so every time he breathes he spreads it.  So therefore Scott needs to mutate the virus so it moves back into is blood, therefore she can get the virus from his blood and use it to make an airborne cure.  What?  Why couldn't she have him just breathe into a bag?  And if the virus wasn't killing him while in his lungs, why did it instantaneously kill him once it moved back into his blood?

[HalcyonDays]

The science made no sense to me.  The disease is in Niels' lungs, so every time he breathes he spreads it.  So therefore Scott needs to mutate the virus so it moves back into is blood, therefore she can get the virus from his blood and use it to make an airborne cure.  What?  Why couldn't she have him just breathe into a bag?  And if the virus wasn't killing him while in his lungs, why did it instantaneously kill him once it moved back into his blood?

 

In trying to understand the technobabble, I really though it was more like the virus behaves like tuberculosis does (except TB is a bacterium). Anyway, TB bacteria lodges deep within the lungs, then gets aspirated into the air as the person breaths, and others inhale it, and it settles deep in the lungs. So I kinda thought that's why the virus was doing, somehow attaching itself deep into the aveoli tissue of the lungs. But then, what does that have to do with DNA? They have the virus already and are experimenting with it, so this is where I'm lost. It's almost like they are implying that somehow the virus attaches to the lungs and somehow inflitrates the DNA or something and kills you immediately?? But it then goes into the bloodstream, so....

 

No clue.

 

I love that we are trying to rationalize the science on a TV show were you know damn well, it's all nonscensical technobabble. Hee.

[MissLucas]

I've read several recaps/reviews wondering if someone out there managed to get a grasp on the pseudo-science - didn't help much. It wouldn't bug me that much were it not for the promo. My understanding of the scene was that there was no other option to get whatever DNA-gizmo was contained within Niels'lungs that Dr Scott needed to make the cure airborne. But judging from the promos where Chandler is having a hissy fit about Niels' demise it looks as if he at least thinks that there must have been another way. Man, imagine him having to deal with Laura 'Airlock' Roslin!

[crabbypants]

I think the key is that Niels' DNA was integrated into the virus and that's why he was immune. Not sure how that works. Dr. Scott excised his DNA from the virus, rocks fell, he died. The science made no sense to me but immunology wasn't my strong suit.

[Donny Ketchum]

Given that Niels was Patient Zero, I thought he'd be around till whenever the series ends to serve as the final villain.  I did not expect to see him check out just like that.

 

He had it coming, though.  All these deaths were of his doing.  He told Dr. Scott that it was never his intention to spread the virus, but many of his actions spoke more loudly than his words.  He intentionally infected that beach full of people, as well as an entire town.  He meant to do it.  He needed to die, for sure.

 

While this was technically murder . . . I don't mind that Dr. Scott committed it.  I think there's more than enough to build a case for justifiable homicide here.

Edited August 12, 2015 by Donny Ketchum

[Lonesome Rhodes]

I wait in great anticipation for the Tachyon rays to be fired by the NJ against the H.M.S. Whackjob.

[Hanahope]

Gotta wonder about kids who play too many video games and suddenly believe they have enough training to go on a military assault. Its nice to see how all that training pays off with the firepower of the NJ and pretty precise hits.  Even with the one kid being a few months away from the recruitment age, the key is that he will not be participating in any real military boot-camp type training, which is important to create that 'follow the orders' mentality that is needed a lot of time in those situations.

 

Glad to see the prez got his act together.

 

If Dr. Scott had to kill Niels in order to create an effective cure delivery system, especially after Neils helped destroy the labs, then that's justifiable homicide in my book.

[xaxat]

I find myself not putting a lot of effort into deciphering the medical techno babble for the show. It's pretty much "blah blah blah aerosolize..." "blah, blah blah DNA from your lungs. . " to me. 

 

What I do like is the fact that none of these smart people (Scott, her mentor, Neils, the medical ship) have been able to figure it out own their own. I'm sure part of it is to stretch out the drama, but it's nice to see science portrayed as something that takes a lot of hard work and collaboration and is not just geniuses sitting around waiting for a eureka moment.

[Donny Ketchum]

I guess one thing I like about this show is that the heroes, at least so far, have been smarter than the villains.  They've outwitted every single one they've come across this season -- Alisha's mother, the Ramseys, Niels . . . not one has defeated them yet!  It's kind of refreshing not to see the villains running circles around the heroes, for once, but rather the other way around.

[LuLu123]

I guess one thing I like about this show is that the heroes, at least so far, have been smarter than the villains.  They've outwitted every single one they've come across this season -- Alisha's mother, the Ramseys, Niels . . . not one has defeated them yet!  It's kind of refreshing not to see the villains running circles around the heroes, for once, but rather the other way around.

I like this too.  There are currently 62 Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyers (the Nathan James is based on the USS Halsey) in service and these are ships with very sophisticated systems including weapons.  It makes sense that the highly trained Captain, the XO and the rest of the crew can more than hold their own against Maryland State Troopers and megalomaniac Russian captains. 

 

The Russian Navy during the Cold War were no slouches themselves as they were more professional, better trained and equipped than the their army.  The British Navy today is probably on par with our own but bringing the crazy often tends to overshadow good command decisions. (see the Ramseys)

[Caffae]

It feels like they killed Niels Soerensen too quickly, there were only a few snippets of what he had done but it did develop him as a character and his actions were understandable (except the bit with the children which made him seem completely creepy) as at first he was trying to find a cure, he stayed in a quarantine for what seems to be an awful long time and in this episode they showed up his "good" side - i.e his original intensions were good - afterwards he spiralled from being an unwitting Patient Zero to actively killing people which was interesting and could have been further developed upon as it would have made an interesting side plot. 

 

His actions of not owning up to being Patient Zero could be justified as the basic human instinct to survive... although intentionally spreading it was of course wrong, it was not worse than Grandis. - Even though she killed on a much smaller scale, she used people as fuel which is really sick but she died with a 'painless' jab while he died pretty betrayed and really grotesquely.

 

So yeah,  I feel kinda cheated as the series would have been more interesting if he had escaped or somehow bargained his way out of it. In addition to that, Dr.Scott's way of getting the information out of him made him seem rather vulnerable (i guess?) and it feels wrong for one of the main characters that are supposed to be on the good side just remorselessly kill someone she worked with using information she had got by manipulating his feelings using such a cruel method.