#captain marcus chaplin

[dailytvcaps]

Last resort 1x12: The pointy end of the spear

[hulu]

Interview with Andre Braugher: On Last Resort, Playing Hard-Nosed Crusaders, and Our Favorite NYC Detective, Olivia Benson

Andre Braugher has made a career of playing tough crusaders for justice, starting with his Emmy-winning turn as Homicide’s Detective Frank Pembleton.  His latest role, Captain Marcus Chaplin on Last Resort, is no exception.  Faced with an impossible choice—either follow orders from a suspicious channel to fire nuclear weapons, or defy the chain of command and commit treason—Chaplin stands up against the leaders of the country he swore to protect in order to do what he believes is right.  While Chaplin’s journey has been cut short (ABC has decided not to pick up the series past its concluding 13th episode), it is still one of the most riveting and ambitious hours on network television, forcing viewers to question what it truly means to be a patriot.  It is definitely worth your time.

We spoke to Andre Braugher about what drew him to Last Resort, working with creator Shawn Ryan (The Shield), his admiration of Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, and his thoughts on our favorite New York City detective, Olivia Benson.     

On what drew him to Last Resort.

It really wasn’t one factor. I mean, this is a show with a very ambitious premise and it could easily evolve into something kind of silly. But [creator] Shawn Ryan has a craft for making very interesting, provocative television and his abilities are apparent. So that’s one consideration, the script was another consideration. [Director] Martin Campbell and I’ve worked [together] before and [I] admire him a lot, was another consideration. So it was a confluence thing. No one would have made it possible but all three of them together made it a very attractive prospect to be a part of the show.

  On the challenge playing Captain Marcus Chaplin presents.

Well I think all the roles I’ve played really center around either the great conflict or how the great conflict affects the people that I love. So when I go back to any of the miniseries I’ve done or the series I’ve done, the heart and soul of the show always centers around how the people that we love are affected by our decisions.  I’ve been cast often times as a hardnosed, hyper confident kind of guy and so this seems always to be the main consideration, how to help the people that I love live with the decisions that are necessary for our survival. So it’s a challenge that I’ve taken on before.

  On developing a character over multiple episodes.

We do serialized television and really it’s an opportunity to explore a world that you usually don’t in procedurals.  Procedurals always stand alone every episode is essentially the same. I mean, that’s true of Homicide. The episode is going to open with someone dead and we’re going to avenge that person. And so that happens again and again and that’s typical of SVUs or the other cop shows that I’ve been on.

But to absolutely do a serial means we’re going to go forward and we’re going to progress as characters and in terms of story. And so I look up and I just say to myself, Shawn Ryan was able to do that brilliantly with The Shield and so I’m going to take my shot on trying to take on the challenge of living and breathing in this character and growing with this character.

So he’s going to be transformed and I want to be there for every step of the way. Rather than developing a character and then freezing it, it’s just much more exciting to really live in this guy’s skin and go through the changes that he goes through.

  On the ambiguity of good and evil on Last Resort.

Right now I don’t think we do [know who the bad guys are]. I mean, I suspect that not even the Secretary of Defense as much as this plays into his ambitions, I suspect that even he is somehow being played by someone.  Perhaps it’s the president, perhaps it’s some other part of our administration, perhaps it’s the puppet masters, I don’t know. But right now it doesn’t look to me like anyone has the complete story.

There’s a lot of different things happening. We picked up the Seals, we got the bad order, we questioned the bad order, and then we were attacked. And so the question is it the prototype [aboard the ship], is it the bad order, is it the picking up the Seals? I’m not sure. But there is something - something came together in the pilot that made them want to destroy us. And so we’re trying to get to the heart of that.

  On how he would have liked to see the show progress.

I anticipate surfacing in the Chesapeake and taking a drive down the Beltway to DC where I can surrender myself honorably for my court martial. But that’s far off in the future. You know, survival really is the question now. There is basically a world war starting and with bombing of Pakistan and this is the most dangerous time at the beginning of the war.

And so we’re looking for a lot of different things. We’re looking for breathing room, we’re looking for food and water, we’re looking for peace on the island, we’re looking for peace on the boat, we’re looking for a great patron who can protect and shield us from the United States, and we’re also looking to get into the heart of this mystery so that we can clear our names and return home. I mean, we’re patriots and we’re designed to return home, not to be devious or traitors or pirates on the high seas.

  On his favorite TV shows.

I don’t watch a lot of TV while I’m working. I usually go back in iTunes or Hulu some of the previous seasons of shows that I do like.  But once again it’s a Breaking Bad thing for me, that’s one of my favorite shows. Bryan Cranston is the only guy on television whose role I want. And then I’m looking forward to watching the first season of Homeland.

  On the possibility of a return to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Bayard Ellis and a relationship with Detective Olivia Benson.

I was only on for four episodes because I came to do this. But number one, Warren Leight has really transformed the show and it’s quite a pleasure to work on it and the stories have taken on an incredible freshness. And so I really enjoyed being a part of the show.

And what’s going to happen romantically, well right now we’re friends.  The other good-looking guy [Executive A.D.A. David Hayden, played by Harry Connick, Jr.] came in. The guy with the shoulders.  So as it stands right now I think Olivia Benson is an extraordinary woman and I admire her and we’ll see what happens on that fateful day that I return to SVU.

--Andrea Marker

[thescarswillremain]

Sometimes the enemy is just the man keeping you from getting home.

Captain Marcus Chaplin

[thatonereviewblog]

TV Review- Last Resort 1.01: "Captain"

Note: Spoilers through Episode 1.01.

Another Note: I'm going to be putting my Last Resort reviews in the "Misc. TV Reviews" tab on my Tumblr page until I know for sure that they're ordering a full season and not cancelling the show.  If there's a full season, I'll create a tab for it.

Kinda weird that I’m reviewing this show, right?  Well, now you all can’t say that I’m some sort of hipster TV show elitist who’s unwilling to give network shows a fair chance.  There’s a couple different reasons that I wanted to review this.

1. I’ve never reviewed network television before.

2. I review WAY too many critically acclaimed shows/movies and want something different.

3. I’ve never followed a show with reviews from the very beginning.

4. Shawn Ryan co-created this show and his work on The Shield is absolutely phenomenal.

5. The Shield had a rocky start like this show but went on to be one of the greatest shows ever made.

So, all things considered, how good is the show?  Well, it’s got potential, that’s for sure.  It’s ambitious, it’s intense, it’s suspenseful, but it still has a lot of work to go.  I’m confident that it can improve since a lot of the show’s issues revolve around the structure of the episode.

Before I dig into the rest of the episode, I’d like to address the concept of realism with respect to the show.  I’m fairly certain that this show is unrealistic.  I’m actually 100% certain that the show is unrealistic.  But it doesn’t really matter.  Television is supposed to reflect a facet of reality, not mirror it entirely.  The only show to come close to mirroring reality is The Wire, and that show had a crew that KNEW the reality that they were trying to craft.  So, when some people complain about the unrealistic qualities of Last Resort, they’re complaining about something that doesn’t really matter.  Because as long as the show’s components fall within the show’s particular reality, it maintains the immersive quality that television tries so hard to create.

So, the structure of the episode.  It’s easy to tell that this show is moving at breakneck speed in order to set up a starting point from which to base the rest of the show around.  It has to get from status quo to unbelievable tension in 44 minutes, and believe it or not, that’s not a lot of time when you also want to introduce 10-something characters and four different locations (submarine, NATO base, island town, DC).  Considering the breadth of Last Resort’s ambition, it does a fairly good and economic job getting us from point A to point B.  But the speed at which we’re thrust through the plot feels WAY too fast to give us much other than plot.

For the first ten or so minutes, we’re hanging out on the Colorado with the rest of the crew.  We’re introduced to Captain Marcus Chaplin, the leader of the crew, played pretty damn well by Andre Braugher.  I’d have to say that even though Chaplin hasn’t been developed very well so far, Braugher will definitely do the best acting out of everybody.  Not much is said about his character other than his ability to lead and his strong personal conviction, but I’m sure we’ll get more as we go on.  The other two standout characters are Scott Speedman as XO Sam Kendal and Daisy Betts as Lt. Grace Shepard.  Those two get a simple framework for later character development in this episode: Kendal has a wife and Shepard is trying to prove her strength as a female military officer.  Shepard’s honestly has the most room for development, but both have potential.  No one character really gets more than a one-dimensional starting point with room for expansion.  Not very impressive, but still a good starting point.

So the Colorado is told through a secondary channel to fire a nuke at Pakistan, and after questioning the strange nature of the orders, other American subs fire missiles at them, forcing them to retreat to a nearby island.  Other secondary characters established on that island aren’t very impressive, though it is only the pilot episode and the plot did overpower all else thus far.  The local gang leader Julian feels menacing, but we haven’t really gotten an understanding of the depth of his power yet.  Hopefully, later episodes will cover that.  Despite his somewhat clichéd, lame scene where he threatens Julian, the one character that floats under the radar that I believe will be fantastic is James King.  He gets the one true moment of poignant character emotion in the entire episode when he watches Pakistan burn on the television and asserts that “it’s his fault”.  And considering how much time the episode spent lingering on the bar owner Tani, we’re going to be seeing the two of them together for a bit. 

And then we have the worst character on this show so far: Kylie, who we see back in DC periodically throughout the episode.  Not only is she boring and useless so far, but her “underwear” scene was so contrived and written so poorly that it was laughable.  That’s absolutely where they need to improve the most. 

What’s interesting about this pilot episode is that despite it being somewhat predictable, it’s tense and exciting.  The stakes feel high from the very beginning and while we know who will live for now, lives do feel like they’re in danger.  Sure, when the stakes run too high (Chaplin bombing DC if the bombers don’t turn back), we know how it’s going to turn out.  But it’s still exciting to watch it all unfold.  The plot grabs hold of you from the very beginning, remaining rather frenetic and intense all the way through.  The conspiracy as to who triggered the nukes is, at the very least, is interesting and immersive and I’m excited to see where it goes.  So, at the end of the show, when Chaplin declares the 200-mile no man’s land around the island, you really do feel like you’ve been on a rollercoaster of a ride.  And hopefully now that the set-up is over, we’ll get more meditative scenes with some of the characters and slow things down a bit. 

Another thing that the show does a fantastic job of is establishing who these characters are and the locations that they inhabit.  Each location is vivid and interesting, the only blandness coming from America/DC.  Hopefully, that’s expanded in a way that adds more meat to that part of the show.

It may seem like I’ve been bashing the episode, but it’s still exciting television with GREAT potential, especially considering Shawn Ryan’s participation in the project.  I’m going to be covering it weekly until the thirteen-episode season is over (or it’s cancelled), and I hope you’ll tune in with me next Friday to converse with my opinion of the second episode.  I can tell that, at the very least, it’ll be a fun ride.

Also: When the two crew members were captured at the end of the episode by Julian, it doesn’t feel like a big deal because we’ve only seen those characters maybe once.  Just another casualty of the speed-of-light pacing.

Also also: I haven’t spoken about much (if any) of the thematic content, but I’ll dig into it as subsequent episodes reveal more.

Final Thoughts: Not a fantastic first episode, but one that keeps you engaged and tense the entire time, all while establishing a fair number of characters to connect to.  Definitely has a ton of potential.

Grade: B-

I’ll be reviewing God of War: Ghost of Sparta tomorrow (I promise).  After that, it’s really a shot in the dark between Breaking Bad, a movie, or Before They Are Hanged, whichever one I decide that I have the time to do.  We’ll see, I suppose.  I might review another fall TV pilot if I feel so inclined.  Shoot me some requests.  I’m always interested in watching or reading or playing new things.  Until tomorrow, loyal followers.

Previous Review- Breaking Bad 4x02: "Thirty-Eight Snub"

Next Review- God of War: Ghost of Sparta