At the end of the first season of The Last Ship, the crew of the Nathan James thought they’d found home again.  But they were wrong, because President Granderson (Alfre Woodard) was playing God and selecting who was to live and die.  Captain Tom Chandler (Eric Dane) discovered that she was having people killed and burning their bodies to power the city.  Granderson sent out a team to take over the Nathan James and find the cure, and that’s how last season ended.

Last night’s two-hour premiere was nonstop action and if you haven’t watched, stop here!  Spoilers ahead!

Everyone is in chaos as the new season begins.  The Captain has just been reunited with his father and children, but his wife is gone and he knows Granderson’s dirty secret.

On board the ship, Quincy (Sam Spruell) was shot in the takeover and the doctor is called to help.  Before he goes to the bridge, he hides the primordial, the key for the cure.  The scene on the bridge is brutal as they even have badass XO Mike Slattery (Adam Baldwin) defenseless for now anyway (but we’ll get to that).  The ship’s doctor begins immediate work on Quincy.

Back in Baltimore or Hell, Chandler comes up with a plan to take down Granderson and save the woman responsible for finding the cure on his ship, Dr. Rachel Scott (Rhona Mitra).  His plan is simple but effective, take down the power plant.

Granderson is back in Avocet, her safe city, trying to convince Dr. Scott to help her scientists manufacture the cure but she won’t do anything unless she can use what she has to help people on the outside.  Granderson agrees to the terms, which leads to a heart wrenching scene where Scott runs out of the cure and can only save a mother or her child.

Back on board, O’Connor (Paul James) turns up the heat to get the engineer out and the crew, currently hostages, into a more comfortable setting.

Tex (John Pyper-Ferguson) left at the end of season 1 but after meeting a stranger on the street who clues him in one the red X’s in the town (label sick people) and what Granderson’s doing, he heads back to Avocet.  His goal, to save Dr. Scott.

Chandler and his small team infiltrate the power plant by stealing a truck and the Captain hiding among the dead (gross).  They succeed and leave Lt. Danny Green (Travis Van Winkle) behind to shut down the power when the time is right.

Captain Chandler decides the next step is to team up with the man Granderson fears to take her out.  They make a plan to hit the building from the basement as soon as the lights are out.

Back on the ship, Granderson’s team figure out that Quincy’s wife and daughter are on board and they try to use the wife to get him to give them the primordial.  She sees his injury and begs him to give them what they want.  They put a gun to her head to threaten Quincy.  Slattery attacks but gets knocked out and Quincy tells them he has it.  Instead of surrendering he allows himself to bleed out and die to save the cause right in front of his wife!  The episode was so heartbreaking on so many levels.

President Granderson is busy worrying about what Captain Chandler is up to and her daughter, one of Chandler’s people, questions her.  Lt. Alisha Granderson (Christina Elmore) wants to know why her mom is doing what she’s doing, even offering to accept her mother’s surrender.  Momma Granderson rejects the offer and tells her daughter to stick with her and see who surrenders to who.  She even tells her Quincy died instead of helping, making him sound like a traitor to his country.

The baddies on the ship figure out their next move surprisingly quickly. They discover that Lt. Kara Foster (Marissa Neitling) is pregnant and they take her so they can get the cure from the baby.  Before they take her off the ship, they make the mistake of ‘locking up’ Slattery.

Once they get Kara to Avocet, things get heartbreaking again as we watch her struggle to try and protect her baby from the horrors about to be inflicted on her.  Luckily, this is the same moment Captain Chandler calls for ‘Lights out.’  With some help, Kara grabs a big ass needle and takes out the doctor before Tex and Rachel show up to save her.  Tex saved Rachel in an elevator, sorry it was such an overwhelming episode.

Granderson does exactly what Chandler hoped and sends a massive amount of her soldiers from Avocet and the Nathan James to get the lights back on.  Chandler and his team move in.

Slattery finds his way to the Comm station on the ship and sees some of ‘his boys’ loading up in the armory.  He and those boys free the Nathan James.  Slattery also gets revenge on the guy who knocked him out earlier with a damn axe!

After a long battle, Granderson finally surrenders to Chandler after they’ve taken out everyone.  Even her daughter was hurt because of her actions.  After calling for her few remaining people to stand down, Granderson explains she’s ‘not a monster.’  In a scene of exquisite acting, Alfre Woodard pulls at your heart strings even though you’re still so mad at her, and then she kills herself the same way they’ve been killing everyone.

Chandler returns to the Nathan James where the crew is cleaning and handling casualties.  The scene is grim but those who survived have lived to see another day.  He gets his family settled in and then in the final scene where Slattery has joined him, he says, “So this is home.”  They never needed to leave the Nathan James and now they’re in a bigger fight then they could’ve imagined.

I’m sure I’ve left things out because this premiere was intense and amazing.  I’m looking very much forward to the next episode.  What did y’all think of our return to The Last Ship?