S03.E08: Sea Change

[HalcyonDays]

Quote

Episode synopsis: America copes with tragedy while Chandler further investigates the possible virus mutation.

[ottoDbusdriver]

So President kills himself, and Chandler is all "screw that, possible virus mutation needs investigating".  

Really ? I doubt it -- he would be on the first plane back to the US from Okinawa.

[Raja]

It is not like anyone showed great respect and love from Michener. He just held constitutional authority being a Secretary of Whatever. And now whoever was Vice President can be sworn in and the CNO will treat him just the same. 

[JackONeill]

Seems like the new political crew is either going to screw up and blame it on the NJ, or will cut a deal with some bad guys and give up the NJ. I have a feeling that this show is going back to where the NJ is on its own, cut off from the rest of the world. (Until that's resolved and they find some other direction to go.)

[ottoDbusdriver]

So, in a world devastated by the red flu, Peng's government whipped up this 'green mist' before they even knew the cure existed ?  Because it's only been 6 months since they started distributing the cure.  How would they even know what to make to prevent the cure from working ?  WTF ?

How was Peng going to fire this missile stashed away on the drug smuggler's boat ?  This makes ZERO sense.

And the governors and the new President bitching about the fact that they can't get video comms working is ridiculous -- oh you can't get a Skype call connected.  What assholes !!  Is the Internet even working ?  Do they not realize the complexity of doing this without satellites ?  Or without working trans-pacific cables ?

And Kara gets herself disinvited to Presidential briefings after her outburst -- I thought she was a deputy chief of staff, not just naval liaison.  She invoked the deputy chief of staff creds when trying to find the President last episode.

[Raja]

Up to 80% are already dead with the Americas in position to increase its population as the contagious cure is already being spread. So now for some reason Peng wants to kill the other Asian ethnic groups?

[HalcyonDays]

Is anyone else already looking at Newbie President Oliver with huge amounts of shade?? In the beginning of the episode, I had hope he was fair and decent...but now....

And c'mon Elizabeth's Rohm character - really?? Playing these political BS games when people are starving?? (TBH, this doesn't surprise in one bit - welcome to the typicality of humanity).

I knew that Peng and his little buddies were messing around with the vaccine and finding ways to kill his "enemies". Again, never underestimate how much humans generally suck and are assholes. Always expect the worst and never be surprised at how cruel and evil they are.

Good episode. I would like to see if this new Pres. Oliver eventually realizes how corrupt his little "cabinet" is - aka, those Reps from the other districts.

Also - nice to see that apparently Takahaya realizes what happened - i.e. Peng sent him and his people to a death sentence. Knew it was something he did. I assumed the "cure" was faked initially. Instead, the green gas was released to ensure that the cure - while real  - was rendered ineffective.

[Dowel Jones]

So the radio officer went down to the comms room to check something out, which I'm betting is a very local jamming device.  But he never came back.  I hope they don't just drop that storyline, and when the show returns it will become a major plot complication. 

With the pandemic effects spread all over the US, manufacture of food isn't going to be the problem that distribution is.  Kansas can grow all the wheat it wants to, but unless there is someone to turn it into flour and spread it around, the ration cards are pretty much useless.

[thuganomics85]

Took me a while to place New President Oliver, and I realized that the actor (John Cothran Jr.), was on Murder in the First last season.  I guess he's got good relations with TNT!  Not sure what to think.  It started out like he wanted to keep on the path, but now he let the territory leaders and the other two cabinet members talk him into pretty much undoing all of Michener's policies, and even kicking Foster out of the club, after she tried to stop it.  I'm guessing it will stay this way, and she'll end up teaming with the reporter.  I also still think Elizabeth Rohm's character is going to end up having a major part in all of this.

Round Two of Wolf vs. Tiger (har har) happens, and the feud it already over, with Wolf snapping the guy's neck.  I guess he needs to find another, more worthy opponent.  Maybe someone name Lion?  Or Bear?  Or maybe go small, but something poisonous, like Black Widow or Cobra!

Chandler sure did let his normal "cool in a crisis" persona fall, when he just wanted to tomahawk Peng's mansion, without waiting for permission or even proof that no one innocent is around.  It's bad when Slattery of all people, is the one telling someone to take a chill pill, and hold off on the missile dropping.

Basically, Peng has created some kind of "green mist", that makes the cure worthless, unless you already have taken it (hence why the Nathan James crew is OK.)  Did they say how Peng figured out the science behind it, or will that be explained later.  I would think it would have to be a scientist who had the knowledge Scott had, to pull all that off.

[Netfoot]

When by threat of arms, you stop and board a vessel on the open ocean, and seize her cargo (whatsoever it might be), isn't that called piracy?  

Or does Maritime law not apply to the US Navy?

[Lonesome Rhodes]

I was pretty certain we were gonna hear about tachyon radiation as an issue with the cure.  Hmmm.  Maybe that's what is jamming the comms from Asia.  What?  We're about due for Picard and Data to come back in a time warp.

Why was Wu still unwilling to speak?  Why wasn't his former ally Takehaya helping with the interrogation, at least via radio?  When Wu Momma was yelling, there were no translations?  I think that was the most ridiculous moment of this ep.  Chandler babe knows all those dialects, repeated everything by all characters who have contact with him, and stood mute.  Wasn't even asked to share.

I liked the drug runner dude.  He kept it real.  This show is starving for such.

I'm not an expert, but I would bet a lot that the USN retains the right to board any vessel it deems to be a pirate, or a drug or arms runner on the open sea.

The new Prez screwed up large by giving the "Governors" ultimate authority over the equivalent of the National Guard.  We now have a de facto confederacy.   Then again, where is any semblance of Congress?  

It does seem we are heading for the next season to be the NJ as a singular entity, if not a rogue entity.  Total guess?  Chandler returns to St. Louis and is imprisoned.  Charged with treason, or whatever.  Wolf, Slattery and the boys put the gang back together to free him, and then grab the NJ for new adventures.

[JackONeill]

5 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

So the radio officer went down to the comms room to check something out, which I'm betting is a very local jamming device.  But he never came back.  I hope they don't just drop that storyline, and when the show returns it will become a major plot complication. 

If I remember correctly in the first episode this season, Val, while on the plane and just before it crashed (thus killingone of the better characters), seemed to have figured out the communications issue. Why has this subplot been going on for so long, and why has no one clued. Yeah, I know in the world of the show, it's only been days maybe a week or so. But still - these are supposed to be smart people. Does this mean that Val was the smartest of them all? Is that why they killed her? Like Rachel. I felt sorry for the doctor having to fumble around with all her equipment and notes.

it took 3 fights for Wolf to get the better of that dude? It's times like that that you have to take a cue from Indiana Jones playbook - just shoot the son-of-bitch! I couldn't read Chandler's reaction after Wolf's fight. Was he pissed that it took so long, or was he saying "atta, boy"?  (Then again, I can rarely read expressions off a piece of rock.)

[JackONeill]

5 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

 

It does seem we are heading for the next season to be the NJ as a singular entity, if not a rogue entity.  Total guess?  Chandler returns to St. Louis and is imprisoned.  Charged with treason, or whatever.  Wolf, Slattery and the boys put the gang back together to free him, and then grab the NJ for new adventures.

Sounds like many of the Star Trek movies (circa, the Kirk years). Does anyone know how or why Kirk wasn't thrown in the brig for some of the shit he did? Ah, the parallels with Chandler. But, still no green women on this show, just green mist.

Yes! We need the drug dealer back!!! And Val. And Tex. They could team up and run a little "business." I think that'd be more interesting than the story about the NJ.

And don't you reckon Slattery is all kind of pissed. Here he gets his own ship and damned if Chandeler isn't there 24/7?

Edited August 1, 2016 by JackONeill

[ottoDbusdriver]

6 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

With the pandemic effects spread all over the US, manufacture of food isn't going to be the problem that distribution is.  Kansas can grow all the wheat it wants to, but unless there is someone to turn it into flour and spread it around, the ration cards are pretty much useless.

It was nice to see during that Presidential funeral that what with all the food shortages that the flower industry is back up and running.

[Raja]

And that the Navy has taken over all ceremonial duties. All of the sudden the Assistant Chief of Staff is now Lt Commander Green.  It seemed like they filmed a few episodes and changed their minds about her

[Dowel Jones]

8 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Or does Maritime law not apply to the US Navy?

I have long been puzzled by that, IRL.  The US Coast Guard routinely patrols off the coast of Chile and intercepts ships they suspect of carrying drugs or anything else.  As far as the show goes, the world's navies seem to have been reduced to the Nathan James, two off camera USN destroyers, and three Chinese naval ships, so basically anyone can do whatever they want, minefields notwithstanding. Sasha's statement that possession of the M-16s was a violation of international maritime law wouldn't seem to hold water either (bad pun), but I'm no expert either.

I did like the smuggler's complaint about seizing the heroin.  "It's not even illegal anymore!"  He has a point.  I was just surprised that Sasha didn't have some sort of bloodhound scenting talent to go along with her other mad skills.

[ottoDbusdriver]

24 minutes ago, Dowel Jones said:

I have long been puzzled by that, IRL.  The US Coast Guard routinely patrols off the coast of Chile and intercepts ships they suspect of carrying drugs or anything else.  As far as the show goes, the world's navies seem to have been reduced to the Nathan James, two off camera USN destroyers, and three Chinese naval ships, so basically anyone can do whatever they want, minefields notwithstanding. Sasha's statement that possession of the M-16s was a violation of international maritime law wouldn't seem to hold water either (bad pun), but I'm no expert either.

I did like the smuggler's complaint about seizing the heroin.  "It's not even illegal anymore!"  He has a point.  I was just surprised that Sasha didn't have some sort of bloodhound scenting talent to go along with her other mad skills.

Who's upholding this International Maritime Law Sasha speaks of ?  That is an agreement between all the countries of the world, but since nearly all the world's governments have collapsed, it's basically Mad Max: Fury Oceans out there now.

So the smuggler was right about the drugs being basically legal, but did he not load his own boat ?  That's what surprised me when he saw that missile -- wouldn't he have seen the MSS bring it on board ?

I get that he hid the drugs in case he was boarded by other pirates, but it was the smuggler's boat (at least he said it was).  Or did the MSS provide the boat as well ?  And was the plan to deliver the missile to a Chinese Navy frigate or cruiser to launch -- so why wouldn't the navy just transport it themselves ?

[Joimiaroxeu]

Still feeling like Allison (Elizabeth Rohm's character) is wrong and is working with the Chinese. 

Wolf's big fight scene was kinda ridiculous to me. Are we to believe that the other guys in the team didn't hear what was going on and come in to help? That fight went on a relatively long time for no one else to have picked up on it. Chandler came strolling in when it was over like he was going for a leisurely walk.

[Netfoot]

9 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

The US Coast Guard routinely patrols off the coast of Chile and intercepts ships they suspect of carrying drugs or anything else.

Can't speak for Chile, but when they stop suspected vessels in Bahamian waters, they have to have a member of the Bahamian Defense Force on board.  So the USA technically doesn't stop the vessels.  They simply help the Bahamian Defense Force to stop the vessels.  

But in international waters...  what do you think?  I'd like to see the Navy of South Yemen or Turkmenistan fire a salvo across the bows of a US Navy warship, and say "Prepare to be boarded!"  The entire Yanqui nation would shit a brick.

9 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

Sasha's statement that possession of the M-16s was a violation of international maritime law wouldn't seem to hold water either (bad pun)...

Every yachtsman I know is pretty heavily tooled up for ocean voyages.  (AK's were pretty thick on the ground after Grenada.)

[iMonrey]

Quote

So, in a world devastated by the red flu, Peng's government whipped up this 'green mist' before they even knew the cure existed ?  Because it's only been 6 months since they started distributing the cure.  How would they even know what to make to prevent the cure from working ?  WTF ?

This doesn't make any sense, at all. If you consider how long it took Rachel to discover, develop and then spread the cure, it would mean the Chinese government scientists had simultaneous knowledge of this cure and were working in parallel to develop the anti-cure to that specific cure. Without having any access to it or having any idea of how it worked. 

Not only that, this "mist" was apparently visible, Kyoko said so. Which means everyone who got misted would have seen it. Which means they should have figured something was going on, which means Takehaya should have been a little less than 100% certain the Americans were responsible for his continued illness. Duh.

And don't you love how China has become the new Russia in today's fictional universe of ultra villains? I guess making Russia the Big Bad would hit a little too close to home but . . . screw China! We don't have any issues painting them as the Big Bad.

[BasilSeal]

On 01/08/2016 at 6:17 AM, HalcyonDays said:

Is anyone else already looking at Newbie President Oliver with huge amounts of shade?? In the beginning of the episode, I had hope he was fair and decent...but now....

My guess is that he is decent, he has the pedigree of having saved many through running an effective quarantine, but that he's weak and out of his depth, and so will defer to his advisors who will be able to manipulate him for their own means. I think it opens up the possibility that Michener didn't kill himself but was murdered, Alison tells Kara Green that Michener had confided in her that he'd tried to kill himself before on the NJ, i'm wondering now if his confession gave her an idea, and She leaked the information about Michener's culpability in breaching the quarantine he was in charge of in order to give him a motive to kill himself

[BasilSeal]

of course what annoyed me most is that on last week's thread i spent literally ages on google (five or six minutes at least) finding out who was next in line to be president in light of Michener's  apparent and rather  inexplicable choice not to appoint anyone to be vice president or any of the other designated successor roles, only for the show to pull a previously unmentioned vice president out of its arse.

[JackONeill]

3 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

of course what annoyed me most is that on last week's thread i spent literally ages on google (five or six minutes at least) finding out who was next in line to be president in light of Michener's  apparent and rather  inexplicable choice not to appoint anyone to be vice president or any of the other designated successor roles, only for the show to pull a previously unmentioned vice president out of its arse.

I know you guys will know (if it's known), but since I tend to nod off when the show returns to the "domestic" storyline, what role in the government does E. Rohm's charcater have and what about the little bald guy who's always squinting like he's constipated (in many of the scenes with E Rohm)? They seem to be the "second's in command", although I understand there is a constitutional chain of command. Then again, the world's fallen apart and they were lucky to find Michner and he was already at the bottom of the "traditional" list.

[Raja]

43 minutes ago, JackONeill said:

I know you guys will know (if it's known), but since I tend to nod off when the show returns to the "domestic" storyline, what role in the government does E. Rohm's charcater have and what about the little bald guy who's always squinting like he's constipated (in many of the scenes with E Rohm)? They seem to be the "second's in command", although I understand there is a constitutional chain of command. Then again, the world's fallen apart and they were lucky to find Michner and he was already at the bottom of the "traditional" list.

Those folks are part of the Presidential Staff not in the line of succession, maybe they are surviving talk radio host or high school government teachers. They made such a deal out of finding the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and given the world condition his first step when setting a capital in St Louis would have been Vice President, which we now know was the Mayor of St Louis. The third step would have been Secretary of State and the rest of the cabinet. With the Vice President on a diplomatic mission to South America and the Chief of Naval Operations on one in Asia the Secretary of State has to be active, just unnamed as yet.

[xaxat]

This show was so much better when the plot was just "Go from point A to point B in order to achieve objective C in researching a cure." A more complex world is not something the writers do very well.

Ninety percent of the country's population died and the governors' priority is restoring property rights? 

[Raja]

2 minutes ago, xaxat said:

This show was so much better when the plot was just "Go from point A to point B in order to achieve objective C in researching a cure." A more complex world is not something the writers do very well.

Ninety percent of the country's population died and the governors' priority is restoring property rights? 

Actually I think that it would be pretty high on the priority list otherwise the warlord must willing to use violence will rule like the world in Revolution.

[iMonrey]

I don't know - if 90% of the population has been wiped out are property rights really something anyone cares about? Seems like property and land could be had for the asking at that point and while some might be fighting over it, what is the real value of it in this world? I'm not sure I believe rations are so important either, it's only been like a year since everyone's been wiped out. I'd think gas production and energy are more in demand than food. 

I think I read somewhere if the world's population was suddenly halved then resources would be plentiful for everyone. This world's population has been cut by 80-90% according to Season 1. Resources shouldn't be as much of an issue as infrastructure and keeping things running like power plants and hospitals. 

[BasilSeal]

4 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I don't know - if 90% of the population has been wiped out are property rights really something anyone cares about?

Yes.  If you lost 90% of the population that's an awful lot of property with no owners. the people next door have died, so you can have their house, right? but wait, their long lost son has returned from the other side of the country now that normality is being returned, and wants his parent's house back. There's a great deal of potential for conflict there.

I would imagine there's big money to be made here if one could simply take possession of valuable real estate by force, the regional governors are empire building, Michener asks one if he knows who the mansion he has seized actually belongs to, there was also mention of the governors controlling their own militias. In the absence of federal laws to stop them they could seize vast amounts of property for themselves and their followers and build a long term power base. Michener's policies were preventing this and i would guess that it may be one of the key motives for a potential conspiracy to get rid of him.

My guess as to what will happen is that there will be revealed to have been a conspiracy against michener by the governors which Elizabeth Rohm's character and the bald guy will have been party to. When Val told the pilots to turn the plane round, i assumed it was because she'd figured out there was a bomb on board, but she tells them that it's a matter of national security, i think she'd figured out what was jamming the signal from the NJ, and that it was coming from the white house end, and hence the white house was compromised.

Kara will discover the conspiracy, probably with the help of annoying journalist, so she'll be in danger, and at least some of the key NJ crew will have to come back to st Louis and save the day.

[xaxat]

1 hour ago, BasilSeal said:

Yes.  If you lost 90% of the population that's an awful lot of property with no owners. the people next door have died, so you can have their house, right? but wait, their long lost son has returned from the other side of the country now that normality is being returned, and wants his parent's house back. There's a great deal of potential for conflict there.

I let him have it. And move into one of the other five/eight neighboring houses that are empty. 

Besides, I'm too worried about growing beets in my bathtub to really care. (Jericho reference.)

[BasilSeal]

1 minute ago, xaxat said:

I let him have it. And move into one of the other five/eight neighboring houses that are empty. 

All those houses have been annexed by the local militia controlled by your new regional governor.

Who gets to decide who has what? are we just going to leave it down to whoever has the most guns?

If I'd been stuck on the other side of the country during the epidemic, i'd expect to be able to come home and claim property that had belonged to me and my family once the epidemic was over, i wouldn't be too happy to find it claimed by opportunists, and i'd not be pacified by the opportunity to steal property of someone else myself, i'd want what was mine.

there'd be an opportunity in such a scenario for individuals, particularly ones with a decent power base, to claim vast amounts of land and property for themselves, history has taught us that such a move would secure immense wealth for them and their descendents in the future. just because there are more houses than people right now wouldn't mean that protecting property rights wouldn't be an important issue.

[JackONeill]

3 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

 

there'd be an opportunity in such a scenario for individuals, particularly ones with a decent power base, to claim vast amounts of land and property for themselves, history has taught us that such a move would secure immense wealth for them and their descendents in the future. just because there are more houses than people right now wouldn't mean that protecting property rights wouldn't be an important issue.

Without getting into politics, think about the family of ranchers in the last few years that siezed that land in Oregon(!) and earlier their father (?) had a standoff with the govt. over grazing rights. So, we already have people like that. (Again --- no real life politics.) And the religious extremists with tha compounds. And the survivalists. And the dope-growers. Lots of people who don't respect authority or boundaries. Yes, they've lost their share of people, but if The Walking Dead is any occasion, it seems like more bad people survive than good. (Hardly scientific. Still.)

Yes, Val had the answer back in Ep 1, but here we are all this time later............and we lost a fun character. I think Tex needs to ride a horse into St Louis. Let Chadler deputize him. He can go help what's her name at the White House. Do you think they painted the house when they moved in? Do they have china? (Pun intended.)

But where's the military? (That's sort of rhetorical, but I guess the show can't emphasis or rely on that because it would take away from the NJ riding to the rescue.) And, do we know anything about Europe's shape. Didn't we learn that they weren't hit as hard, or that they were hit first, so should be further along in nation building?

Edited August 3, 2016 by JackONeill

[Dowel Jones]

I think that any society or state that lost 90% of its population, which would primarily occur in urban areas, would devolve into either a hunter-gatherer society or small agricultural communities.  Someone seeking power would have to control hunting on their lands, along the lines of pre-Industrial Age Europe, and offer protection to the communities that still exist.  There's not enough people around anymore to maintain the technology-dependent society that we take for granted now, and certain jobs, such as energy production and transportation, would carry a much higher premium than, say, op-ed journalism or clothing retail.  Personally, I think I would rather have a toll booth concession on a major highway than be a landlord of a thirty story condominium.  And forget your paper money.  I want coin of the realm.  Chickens, vegetables, ammunition, etc.  Anything worth trading.

[BasilSeal]

1 hour ago, Dowel Jones said:

There's not enough people around anymore to maintain the technology-dependent society that we take for granted now, and certain jobs, such as energy production and transportation, would carry a much higher premium than, say, op-ed journalism or clothing retail. 

At a 10% survival rate you'd have around 32 million people left in the whole of the US, the place would be a whole lot less crowded, but that's still quite a lot of people, just under half the current population of the UK. I'd agree that some people would be more useful than others, there's a whole load of people in today's society who don't actually have any practical skills as such, they don't make things or have specialist skills like engineering, medicine, farming etc. arguably it's possible that the more practically minded will have been more likely to survive, but even if that isn't the case although there are now far fewer skilled people, there are also fewer unskilled people for them to support. it would be problematic in some respects that the infrastructure you'd need to maintain is still as big as ever, the power grid, road network etc, but in terms of manufacturing, food production etc, the demand is now 90% less and you have a stockpile of goods from when factories were churning out goods for 320 million rather than 32 million.

Once the existential threat has been removed, in this case by curing the virus, i can't see why you couldn't continue with modern life. The Australians seem to manage it, and Australia is slightly bigger than the united States, minus Alaska, with a population of around 23 million.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I think that any society or state that lost 90% of its population, which would primarily occur in urban areas, would devolve into either a hunter-gatherer society or small agricultural communities.  Someone seeking power would have to control hunting on their lands, along the lines of pre-Industrial Age Europe, and offer protection to the communities that still exist.  There's not enough people around anymore to maintain the technology-dependent society that we take for granted now, and certain jobs, such as energy production and transportation, would carry a much higher premium than, say, op-ed journalism or clothing retail.  Personally, I think I would rather have a toll booth concession on a major highway than be a landlord of a thirty story condominium.  And forget your paper money.  I want coin of the realm.  Chickens, vegetables, ammunition, etc.  Anything worth trading.

Yeah - I don't think we'd have any value for certain things after losing 80-90% of the population (and to be honest I can't remember how much of the population has died according to this show). It seems like people in rural areas would be forced to congregate in urban areas just for available resources. A loss of population that massive would be across the board - a loss of the majority of the armed forces, police, government, and any other way to enforce law. I'm not sure how these "rations" would even work, with every Tom, Dick and Harry armed to the teeth these days it would be total anarchy.

[Netfoot]

Some sort of Feudalism would probably be unavoidable.

[BasilSeal]

Feudalism is kind of what the regional governors are aiming for. The reason that Michener was so important in series 2 is that he was the only person left alive from the official succession line to the presidency. he was the only person with the legitimacy to claim the presidency and restore some sort of federal government (which given the patriotic focus of the show, is kind of the only outcome option they could go for).

It's why Chandler persevered with Michener even though he was flawed and not the most suitable leader, because he was the only person that had the authority to take charge, without him there'd have been a free for all, any government Chandler had tried to establish could have simply been ignored by the regional governors on the prtext that it wasn't any more legitimate then they were.

the immunes seem to be few and far between so it was a long shot that someone on the relatively short list of presidential succession happened to be one, but if you accept this plot device, i don't think it's infeasible that Michener's short lived administration would be able to maintain a semblance of federal control.

there would be massive logistical problems, but the key here is that the existential threat that caused all this in the first place has now been neutralised, the red flu is cured, so the authorities can concentrate on the rebuilding, it's not like the walking dead where the zombies are an ongoing threat to the survivors.

I think it's likely that proportionally higher numbers of military personelle could survive simply because they do contingency planning for this sort of thing and those on base would be more likely to establish and maintain effective quarantines, but even if you've lost 90% of the military and the police, there are 90% fewer people for them to maintain order over, but there is still 32 million Americans left alive to recruit new ones from.

So i don't think that in a scenario like this one, it would be inevitable that society would break down completely, though arguably one of the flaws with this show is that it's failed to give us a picture of what sort of world the 'post plague' US actually is. Perhaps that will change in the second half of this series if the action shifts at least partly back to the US.

[Dowel Jones]

On 7/31/2016 at 8:21 PM, ottoDbusdriver said:

How would they even know what to make to prevent the cure from working ?

To change tack completely (no, I'm not a sailor, but I've seen people play them on tv), suppose  Dr. Scott, in concert with the US military or other unnamed players, developed the barrier to the cure, as well as the cure, in order to weaponize the virus.  I know that is an extremely cynical view of our own, but, within the confines of an ongoing plotline, it is plausible. Plus, that might have something to do with Dr. Scott's disappearance/alleged murder.   IRL, I would bet money that Lockheed, while developing the stealth technology, was actively developing (also in strict secrecy and under contract), various means of defeating it. 

[Edie Wharton]

The new president reminds me of Burl Ives. That's all I've got. 

[TV Anonymous]

I want to talk about "Doc" Rios. So in between seasons he received his commission and became the Chief Medical Officer of Nathan James. However, when did he suddenly get the knowledge and experience as a physician? Not only that he now conducts C-section, he is also well-versed on the pathology of the virus, another discipline that requires another training in pathology.

[Raja]

5 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

I want to talk about "Doc" Rios. So in between seasons he received his commission and became the Chief Medical Officer of Nathan James. However, when did he suddenly get the knowledge and experience as a physician? Not only that he now conducts C-section, he is also well-versed on the pathology of the virus, another discipline that requires another training in pathology.

. Just as the surviving mayor of a mid sized city and the HUD Secretary becomes Mr President. 80% death rate and the medical profession being the front lines of the war. I would expect all surviving LVNs to be RNs, PAs to be MDs, dental hygienist to be dentist. Even before the big death "doc" was the slang or should we call it an honorarium given to combat medics and corpsmen because they were the only ones there and doing the work even if the AMA or St Louis University did not bestow the title. I would expect the pre plague MDs are out serving a crew of a couple hundred, but then they were on a medical missionary trip. What surprised me was that Doctor Rios, a veteran sailor was only fleeted up to Ensign from Warrant Officer and not a new Lieutenant or even lieutenant Commander

[leslieo54]

On August 3, 2016 at 10:47 AM, JackONeill said:

I think Tex needs to ride a horse into St Louis. Let Chadler deputize him. He can go help what's her name at the White House.

Okay, you're psychic - well done, you!

Very late to the party as I've been saving these up and just marathoned, but I'm pretty impressed with this prediction. 

[Raja]

opps,

6 hours ago, leslieo54 said:

Okay, you're psychic - well done, you!

Very late to the party as I've been saving these up and just marathoned, but I'm pretty impressed with this prediction. 

spoiler alert.