S12.E07: Cold War

[thewhiteowl]

Quote

Captain Edgar Hansen is losing control of the Northwestern with a mutiny on his hands. A couple of drunk deckhands put the Saga at risk. Jonathan Hillstrand bets it all for a hopefully big end to his season and Freddie Maugatai takes honoring his skipper to the extreme.

[toodywoody]

While I agree Edgar shouldn't have kept on, I also think Nick should have stfu and not called Sig like he was telling the teacher. Always liked him but now dont.

[HoodlumSheep]

Yeah, Nick pulled some shady tactics by calling Sig. I'm sure Sig doesn't like his time being wasted too. 

I don't understand why Edgar seems so...frazzled. He's fished opies before, so I don't really understand what the problem is. Like, I know he's not catching any crab so there's frustration, but his disorganized behavior seems very un-captain-y. He's usually more put together. 

i wonder what Norm thinks of all this.

cpt. sean continues to outshine Josh and basically all the other captains. Love how he's not into hazing the greenhorns. 

I'm crazy tired right now, so I'll save the rest of my thoughts for tomorrow. 

[merylinkid]

Sig is such a hypocrite.   He's run the boat in worse weather.   He should have told Nick "Edgar is the one there, he is in charge."   Instead he let Nick know that tattling works.  Man, if Nick has called someone else to complain about Sig captaining we would never hear the end of it.

I am not liking Sig so much this season.   Which makes me sad, because he was always my favorite.

[walnutqueen]

Total bitch move by Nick.  And then he has the nerve to tell the camera "I've done nothing but support Edgar".  Really?  Except for the constant undermining trash talk on deck, and calling Sig TWICE, you whiny little narc. Sig should've told Nick to talk to his Captain - Edgar, instead of butting in and undermining Edgar in front of his crew..

I'm really enjoying Sean on the BrennaA; humble, quiet, and seemingly competent.  Refreshing change from Josh!

[scootypuffjr]

Disappointed by Nick and Sig, for the reasons stated above.  Edgar has to feel like the most disrespected captain on the Bering Sea, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did the complete opposite of his original plan just to show who's boss, if you know what I mean.  Edgar is not the first captain to pull bad numbers and he won't be the last.  It's not like it's his first rodeo, either - no need to go behind his back and cry to "daddy" for help. Sig should have told the crew that Edgar is the captain and hung up.

Impressed by Sean and Jake.  I like the idea of giving greenhorns a chance to learn and grow without constant harassment.  Sean seems like a nice guy, while still competent and staying in charge - a good captain to work for.  I thought Jake handled a difficult situation very well, though it was clearly hard on him.  I think Jake grew up some that day.

Eta - a skateboard fish!  Now I've seeneverything.

Edited May 11, 2016 by scootypuffjr

[brgjoe]

Pretty much agree with everyone else here.  Edgar certainly has had his issues in the wheelhouse during that trip.  But to phone Sig and basically go behind his back like that was a total dick move.  I guess two things that surprised me about all of this.  1)  That Sig would even help out here.  I figured he'd say something like, "Edgar is your captain now.  Talk to him.  Stop bothering me now!"  And 2) that Edgar took it so well.  I thought he would really be pissed that Nick pulled that crap on him.  I mean, you can tell he didn't appreciate it.  But I thought he would really be upset about it.

Don't know if it's the sort of edit that's causing me to say this, but I think Captain Sean is amazing.  Really incredibly competent and mature for someone of his age and experience.  Am so glad he's apparently doing well.  I realize he wants to protect his childhood friend too, to a certain degree.  But I am very happy to hear him say he doesn't want the typical greenhorn hazing to occur on his boat.

Definitely wise beyond his years.

[millennium]

Edgar should have keelhauled that asshole Nick.    

It almost seems as if Edgar was on the brink of deciding to head in, but after seeing Nick on the phone with Sig defiantly came down hard on the side of staying at sea.   Not sure if making choices out of spite is the best plan.

I sat here watching Sean in firm control of his vessel and wondered, "why is it again that Josh needs another captain to hold his hand when Sean is younger than Josh?"

[kassa]

I'm going to go way out on a limb reading between the lines on the Northwestern drama.  Given Nick's recent arrest, I think he's been having issues for a while and that was the source of Edgar's very pointed warning to him last week when he came into the wheelhouse and offered to help.  I forget Edgar's exact words, but basically they implied that if Nick kept pushing, something might be said that Nick wouldn't want said on camera.  And Nick backed off.  

Sig has said in the past that in the worst weather he wants Nick at the rail.  So to me, that means Nick calling to say  it's too bad to work would carry a lot of weight with him, especially when the weather report is stating in clear language just how bad it's going to be the next day.  So I can see why he wouldn't brush Nick off, especially given how little he already trusts Edgar.  It's also possible that if Nick is having issues, Sig doesn't know it (and Edgar does).   

It's hard to tell with Norman, but he was neither telling Nick not to do it nor encouraging him to, from the looks of it.  Two NW owners are on board, so if he wanted to side with Edgar, or appeal to Sig himself, he certainly could have.  He seemed to be amused by the phone call and what might come of it, either for Edgar or for Nick.

Love the new Brenna A kid.  I assume DC doesn't have that many more seasons left in it, which is a shame, because I'd love to see how he changes in 5-10 years. 

Jake A also carried himself mostly pretty well, though I laughed at his plaintive "you crossed my BOUNDaries!" which is a phrase that I suspect has not been spoken by a crab boat captain in the history of the fleet.

There were some bonus scenes in the rebroadcast of last week's episode, one of which was Casey on the CM exuberantly recounting the hernia story with the crew, and what a badass mother-f'er fisherman that deckhand was for carrying on on deck while dodging his giant testicle, while Josh leaned against the wheelhouse wall with a panicked expression of "Wait, wait -- this isn't how it's supposed to be.  This season is supposed to be about how badass I am! Don't you remember all the crab I found?"  Seriously, instead of joining in the fun and laughter and bonding, he just looked panicked and confused.    

[merylinkid]

It is also well within the realm of possiblity that the whole NW drama was manufactured.   That;s why Norman didn't intervene.   That's why Sig was so calm when he called "Yeah I hear the weather is bad, what are you doing about it."   You can tell when Sig is reading lines, he goes into Shatner mode with odd pauses.   This was all a set up by Disco "Old trusted deckhand undermines new insecure captain."   Except Edgar is not that new at captaining.   But you gotta have SOMETHING happen on the NW other than just competently fishing.  

[storyskip]

I would never dismiss the possibility of manufactured drama.

But merely devil's advocate here.  What if it's the other way; an attempt to avoid drama/bad edit on the NW because the NW is such a Discovery favorite?

We know Edgar has had substance abuse issues (hell almost everyone on the NW is a recovering ... insert substance here) which is both known but since it seems to be in the past for most of them, Discovery has never really highlighted it?  Not like they did with Elliot and the Saga.

We're all saying the same thing, Edgar being scattered in the wheelhouse is uncharacteristic of him.  Maybe there was a concern from Nick that something has happened and Edgar's judgement is genuinely compromised, either do to cold turkey sobriety or use.  I'm NOT suggesting that's the case, just that it could be the read Nick and others are getting from the fact that Edgar is losing his bags, keeping bad logs, refusing to even listen to someone else.

Bad fishing is one thing, and barridi are notoriously difficult.  But losing a string?  Untidy log books, which is both a regulatory risk if they lose track of their quota and bring in too much/too little (fines) and I think the Coast Guard, if they pop up for an inspection, get tough about badly kept log books, all of it is just more than bad fishing.  Think about it, have you ever seen any of the other captains let their log books get out of hand just because they're frazzled over bad fishing?  Keeping an on point log book seems like Captain responsibility 101.

Just from the way their relationship has been portrayed over the years I think whatever happened with Edgar during his using period, put a great deal of strain on the relationship between him and Sig.  I think they have been trying to work it out since Edgar has been sober but trust has definitely been an issue.  So maybe that's why Sig wasn't ready to just blithely tell Nick to stfu and "trust" his captain.

It seems like the whole situation runs a lot deeper than just the clips Discovery shows in the show, so I'm not particularly ready to vilify Edgar, Sig, Nick or anyone else on the NW.  Over the decades I think that family and that crew has gone through a lot of ups/downs and sideways, which they've never hawked to Discovery for ratings (looking at you Josh) but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect some of the decisions on that boat from time to time.

[HoodlumSheep]

You can tell Jake's done a lot of yelling this season based on how he's practically lost his voice. It's a lot raspier than usual :P. but he handled things pretty well this episode.

I'm actually surprised to see all the Sig hate. At least for this episode, because I didn't think there was any problem with him on the phone. Nick called telling him that the weather is bad (70 knots is no joke--even if they've been in bad weather before). To me it sounded like Sig didn't really know why he kept on getting called. He was very much, "why are u people calling me to discuss the weather??" People were telling him that they thought they should head in, so he was just like, "if you think you need to go in...then go in. Go! Whatevs. Why are you sitting around calling me about whether or not you should head in??? Stop being wishy-washy????""" It didn't come off to me like he was yelling at Edgar to turn the boat around and head in or anything like that. I don't think Sig should be getting sort of hate this episode??? It's all on Nick, imo.

Or at least that's how I interpreted stuff. And Norman was clearly amused by the situation. 

*shrugs*

Edited May 11, 2016 by HoodlumSheep

[SRTouch]

6 hours ago, brgjoe said:

Pretty much agree with everyone else here.  Edgar certainly has had his issues in the wheelhouse during that trip.  But to phone Sig and basically go behind his back like that was a total dick move.  I guess two things that surprised me about all of this.  1)  That Sig would even help out here.  I figured he'd say something like, "Edgar is your captain now.  Talk to him.  Stop bothering me now!"  And 2) that Edgar took it so well.  I thought he would really be pissed that Nick pulled that crap on him.  I mean, you can tell he didn't appreciate it.  But I thought he would really be upset about it.

Exactly right. It's not the first time we've seen crew turn on the captain when fishing is bad (which I think is petty and essentially chicken sh*t). I'll always remember how Wild Bill acted so hurt and betrayed listening to his son trash talk on deck. This time I even think I heard someone saying Edgar was making the decision to keep fishing because he didn't know what it was like on deck - huh? How many years has Edgar worked on deck? I'd even be willing to give Nick a pass for calling Sig IF he had made the call in private, off to the side without making a big production of it. As a senior deckhand, I can see him calling if he thought Edgar was putting lives in danger unnecessarily - not that I saw Edgar doing anything every captain hasn't done in the past. That's not what happened, though. Both times, Nick made a big production of the call, the second time making the call with the rest of the crew listening while sitting around the table below deck. As walnutqueen pointed out previously, that is NOT supporting Edgar. That wasn't the act of a senior deckhand agonizing over skirting the chain of command to report a dangerous situation  - that was the act of an immature jerk backstabbing a longtime coworker and friend. 

And Sig - I don't even know where to start. I think Nick may well have been acting as a spy at Sig's direction. Sig has always acted like sh*t towards through relief/acting/student captains. Instead of firmly standing behind Edgar, he accepting calls from deckhand and making decisions without even talking to his brother, who is the guy on scene. How many times have we watched Edgar save Sig's a$$ when something goes wrong? EDGAR KNOWS THE BOAT! Sig needs to back off and let him run the boat.

6 hours ago, brgjoe said:

Don't know if it's the sort of edit that's causing me to say this, but I think Captain Sean is amazing.  Really incredibly competent and mature for someone of his age and experience.  Am so glad he's apparently doing well.  I realize he wants to protect his childhood friend too, to a certain degree.  But I am very happy to hear him say he doesn't want the typical greenhorn hazing to occur on his boat.

Definitely wise beyond his years.

Yeah, I like the way he's running things. My only complaint/suggestion would be that they need someone to get some advanced first aid training. I mean, if the GH, Per, had possible rib injuries, why was he living flat on his back. Don't know if heading to town was called for, unless there was a lot more that we didn't see. Did someone ever feel his ribs to check for an obvious injury? Did they call to get medical advice before heading to port? I get putting him on light duty, since heavy lifting could cause further injury, but don't see the heading to port without medical advice. 

Different matter, different boat, Jake A did good in his dealings with his two drinkers. My question there, why not invest a hundred bucks and have a breathalyzer on board (not a bad idea on all the boats)? And, as long as I'm on the subject, have something like http://www.medicaldisposables.us/SalivaScan-Oral-Fluids-10-Panel-Drug-Test-Kit-p/ofd-81000.htm?gclid=CjwKEAjwsMu5BRD7t57R1P2HwBgSJABrtj-RxDQHFSfbE0148I359gxPL3fE2H_OMipZni_PxAKmVRoCB3Dw_wcB on hand to check for other drugs - but then maybe they already have those. If, as Jake implied, the captain is responsible for crew hurting themselves or someone else while drunk, why not include a paragraph in the crew contract saying the captain can demand a test if he suspects someone is high. Heck, if the captain can get in hot water, why not take along a dozen piss bottles, and give the captain the option to demand a piss test. Sure the results have to wait, but as long as he can secure the specimen and maintain a chain of custody it might scare some crewman into staying straight on board.

[gryphon]

Quote

You can tell Jake's done a lot of yelling this season based on how he's practically lost his voice. It's a lot raspier than usual :

It also may be because he's smoking more than usual, too.  I don't remember him smoking that much until he got to the wheelhouse...but, I can understand he's probably doing that due to stress.  He handled the drinkers pretty well.  Good on him for firing that dude.  And good on the other deckhand for coming clean about the cheated test strip.  Yeah, having  a breathaliyzer on board is a good idea to me.

It does seem that Edgar is more disorganised this time around...he's usually not so discombobulated.  I understand that he's not getting crab, and the crew stuff is difficult...but I've never seen him like this.  As I remember in other seasons, Edgar was just fine...sure a few problems here and there, but he was not as disorganised as he is shown now.

[Neurochick]

On 5/11/2016 at 1:43 PM, kassa said:

Love the new Brenna A kid.  I assume DC doesn't have that many more seasons left in it, which is a shame, because I'd love to see how he changes in 5-10 years. 

Is that true that DC doesn't have that many more seasons left?

[kassa]

Oh, that's not based on anything in particular, just the way things go.  It's been 10 years.  Even the biggest fans complain a lot of about stuff being boring.  They've exhaustively covered the weather, substance abuse, injuries, and the family dramas on each boat.  When was the last time anything happened on the Time Bandit?  

I adore the show, but they kind of peaked with Phil's death and the season where Jake lost his father.  The rest has been enjoyable because I'm fond of the participants, but I don't know how many new viewers they're pulling in, and it can't be cheap to make.  

[Neurochick]

I think this show has been on longer than 10 years.  I wonder if new people watch, people who haven't been watching for the show's entire run.

[kassygreene]

We are currently watching Season 12.  Next episode on May 17 (I Kid You Not): Winter Is Coming.

(I will never watch GoT, but I love that phrase.)

[walnutqueen]

15 minutes ago, kassygreene said:

We are currently watching Season 12.  Next episode on May 17 (I Kid You Not): Winter Is Coming.

(I will never watch GoT, but I love that phrase.)

The night is dark and full of terrors.  :-)

 

(And I've watched all 12 seasons!)

[Lonesome Rhodes]

This may just be me, but I saw a glint in Edgar's eyes when Sig called him and especially on that second call, where he seemed to be recognizing a big, fat, Disco rat at work.  If either incident actually had deep meaning to Edgar, we would not have seen his nonchalant response.  Edgar has always, to me, been that guy who has stood to the side, observing shenanigans, all too happy that Sig had to play act.  He could just go fish and he liked it that way.

The difficulty Jake had in mooring the Saga was very disturbing to me.  I know the "real"  captain was there, but I am rather shocked that in the moment of trial, all Jake could do was react.  Instead of taking his neophyte crew through each step, he just screamed when they made a false move.  He simply must understand when to turn off his anger and disappointments and fully concentrate on tasks when they become an issue.  There'll always be plenty of time for recriminations and retro-training.  That moment demanded his full attention and he simply had to recognize the (lack of) ability of his crew in that place and time.  

It was also telling to me that each offender was automatically given a chance.  The whole fleet knows he is soft.  'Tis a shame.

The season edit for the TB seemed so off.  They were still fishing for Reds after everyone else had already off-loaded Tanners at least once and many were potentially done in a couple more days?  If the computer was to be believed, there were quite a few F/Vs who were that late.  I really, reeeeeeeally doubt that was the case, given the bounty we all saw earlier.

I very much liked the edit we got with Per and his injury.  We got a taste of the natural resentments crew can have for anyone who is costing them time and cash - especially someone new who has not proven themselves.  Yay for keeping it real.  I was less enamored of how most of them seemed to be rooting for Per to be able to throw the hook well.  That seemed pretty contrived.

We better get a payoff on that allegedly worst storm evah. 

Edited May 14, 2016 by Lonesome Rhodes

[Fostersmom]

I keep forgetting to watch live or DVR the show, so I've been an episode behind all season, damn OnDemand schedule. I just watched this one today. I don't know what to make of Nick calling Sig. He's not a whiner from what I remember, so it seems out of character and makes me think Edgar was even more distracted and disorganized than the story let on. If it was just Matt bitching… well yeah, that's the usual. The logs were a mess and even drug addicted Elliot managed to keep decently organized logs. I do like seeing Norm look so amused at the situation. 

I'm loving Sean and the Breanna A. He's beginning to remind me of crunchy granola Captain Eric of the Rollo (do I have those old names right?). His crew is green and so is he, so I like he's not taking crazy chances. He seems well aware of their abilities as a whole and isn't ready to push things too fast and too hard yet. From what we've seen, I think he's got the makings of a really good crew and boat so good on him!

Why was the Time Bandit still fishing reds when the rest of the fleet had moved on? I LOVED seeing Freddie lead the guys in a Haka though. I could have done without the blood, but loved it nonetheless. 

[qtpye]

I sometimes worry about Jake Anderson.  He has been through so much in his life.  He always seems simultaneously too young and old for his age.

[thewhiteowl]

1 hour ago, qtpye said:

I sometimes worry about Jake Anderson.  He has been through so much in his life.  He always seems simultaneously too young and old for his age.

That's the best description of him that I have seen.