Long Day's Journey is the sixth episode of The Last Ship's second season.
Nathan James has been at sea longer than anticipated due to hunting Achilles. Running out of fuel and Dr. Scott insisting that they go back to focusing on the cure, Chandler is forced to turn away from his single-minded hunt to head towards the lab in Florida, where Dr. Scott's mentor is based.
Unfortunately, the lab was raided by the Ramseys' immune forces and there are no survivors. Chandler leads a small team to track down the immunes and find their on-shore base of operations while Dr. Scott sifts through her mentor's notes to try and find the revolutionary discovery he'd told her about before his death.
This episode provides examples of:
- Acting Unnatural: Danny makes a bad attempt at a southern accent while undercover among the immunes. Tex quickly takes over to preserve their cover.Danny: I'm from Connecticut!
- "Eureka!" Moment: Bacon lovingly describing the process of making a roux leads to Dr. Scott realizing that she was looking in the wrong direction while trying to figure out her mentor's aerosolized delivery system. Further research and experimentation leads to her concluding that corn starch would be the ideal base.
- Faux Affably Evil: Sean Ramsey puts on the facade of a genial, even slightly sheepish, public speaker when he's rallying civilian support. The polar opposite of how he is when he's leading mercenaries on their mission of mayhem and destruction.
- Moby Schtick: Master Chief Jeter counsels Chandler to not make Achilles and the Ramseys his white whale.
- Oh, Crap!: The Ramseys turn out to have an ace up their sleeve: the US Secretary of Housing and Development, constitutionally twelfth in line to become the President of the United States. This poses a dilemma for Chandler, as there is now a legally-recognized politician he must answer to but it's also obvious that the new president will be under the control of a foreign power intent on leaving a large portion of the world's population to die.
- What Have I Done: Chandler is beating himself up over the destruction of the lab network that was working to manufacture and distribute the cure. He's especially hard on himself because he'd added Baltimore to the list that the Ramseys used to target their missiles.
