The Last Ship (TV Series)

Safe Zone (2015)

Eric Dane: CO CDR Tom Chandler

Quotes 

• CO CDR Tom Chandler : You wanted to talk.

  Michener : Sending your X.O. in here first, that some kind of game?

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : I was in the combat center, monitoring Sean Ramsey's sub.

  Michener : Well, I imagine they'll be coming for me.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : Then what? They're gonna blow us out of the water if we don't release you?

  Michener : Something like that.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : So they're in the habit of using their missiles?

  Michener : You're talking about the labs.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : The labs, our scientists.

  Michener : Your X.O. tried to sell me on that.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : You think we manufactured that video?

  Michener : You went to great lengths to bring me on this ship. Doctoring a video would not be particularly difficult.

• CO CDR Tom Chandler : Took a cruise by the mess decks. Pretty hot topic of conversation why the president hasn't made an appearance. I said he was being briefed. That story won't hold after morning.

  CMC Jeter : Agreed, sir.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : I think I blew it. Trapping him like that. Got the intel. Might've lost the man.

  CMC Jeter : The Ramseys offered a narrative that made his tragedy something he could live with. You've got to gain his trust, sir. Then you'll need a new narrative that's stronger than theirs.

• CO CDR Tom Chandler : You should know, sir, I've given everything for my country to serve a mission I didn't ask for. And I'd be sitting safely in a cabin in the woods in Virginia with my family right now if I hadn't stayed with this ship. Instead... I lost my wife to the virus. Didn't even get a chance to hold her hand, or say goodbye. My children did. They watched her die, wondering where I was. I found them in an extermination camp, in a stadium like the one you were in. Had I shown up an hour later, they'd be dead. An hour earlier, I might've been able to save my wife. Now they're holed up in a ghost town with my father; 68 years old, a heart condition. If something happens to him and I'm out here in the middle of the ocean... I understand why you'd be looking for meaning, wanting all of this to somehow be fate or destiny; for it all not to just be... terrible, tragic, and random. I do understand.

  Michener : I held my son's hand. Watched him slip away. His breath so labored at the end... the wheezing, his lungs... he was in agony. I thought there could be nothing worse. And then... my daughters, my wife... knowing what was coming... that was the most unbearable thing of all.

• [SPOILER:] 

  Michener : After my son died, and my daughters started getting the symptoms, my wife, she begged me to put them out of their misery b... b... before it became...

  [starting to cry] 

  Michener : And I did it, with my own bare hands. I smothered them in their sleep. But Hollie... she woke up. A... and she struggled. And that's the last thing she ever felt, was her father betraying her. So... what do you say about that?Hmm? How do I live with that?

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : I've killed people. More than I can count now. Some of them were firmly aligned against us with the worst of intentions. Some of them were just caught up in the madness that all this has created and simply trying to survive. We've all done things that are hard to live with. So let this be your redemption, if it needs to be, because it might be mine.

• CO CDR Tom Chandler : According to Sean, you're the chosen, right? I would think a ship carrying the cure, labs trying to manufacture that cure, well... that would be the greatest threat possible to him.

  Michener : We are strong because of our strength. We don't need to destroy anyone else.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : So you believe we have the cure?

  Michener : I believe you think you do.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : And you've seen our instructions from the President, the Secretary of the Navy?

  Michener : I've seen them. They're from months ago. They're obsolete.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : Well, that leaves me in a bit of a bind. We have standing orders from the previous administration, orders that are consistent with national protocols. And then we have you, the new president, issuing orders that don't seem to be in the national interest at all.

  Michener : The national interest is saving what's left of this country. Sean Ramsey and our movement give the country the best chance at that.

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : Convince me. Tell me how it all happened; how you came to this point, why you're so sure of what you believe.

  XO Mike Slattery : [watching on a surveillance monitor]  Is he trying to turn him or get the intel?

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : Come on, Mr. President. You want off this ship, you're gonna have to convince me.

• Dr. Rachel Scott : Where's Niels?

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : Recovering in the medical bay. He'll be in a medically induced coma for at least twenty-four hours.

  Dr. Rachel Scott : How did he get to America? How did he find his way to the immunes?

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : Don't know yet. That's something I'll ask the president.

  Dr. Rachel Scott : Who you believe is one of them?

  CO CDR Tom Chandler : He seems to think so. We're gonna try and change that.