Adam Baldwin Reflects on ‘The Last Ship’ and Previews Series Finale [Exclusive Interview]

The Last Ship ends its five-season run this Sunday, and as it stands, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

The post-apocalyptic series, which began in 2014, has followed the crew of the USS Nathan James on some powerful journeys, and final season hasn’t held anything back.

I recently had the chance to speak with Adam Baldwin, who plays Admiral Mike Slattery, about what it’s been like filming the series and what we can look forward to from the series finale.

In addition to The Last Ship, Baldwin is also known for his roles on Firefly and Chuck, among his many other projects. Getting to work on the show for as long as he was able to, and knowing they’d get to finish the story were just two of the things that made The Last Ship a particularly special experience for Baldwin.

“It’s always bittersweet when a show comes to the end, but I’ve been blessed to have been a part of two different shows that have gone five years or more, and that’s quite a blessing. You know, you get to finish the arc. Especially when they give you the heads up that, yeah, this is gonna be the last season,” Baldwin said.

More than that, this series offered him a unique opportunity.

“It’s one of the great milestones of my life. I’ve had experiences on this show unlike any of the others. I’ve actually gotten to ride aboard Navy ships and go over the horizon and go on exercises, and I’ve met the men and women of the US Navy. I’ve said this before in other interviews, but it goes without saying how impressive it is that these platforms of war are run by, basically 19, 20, and 21-year-olds. It’s humbling for a simple actor wearing a costume to be overshadowed by true men and women in the Navy in uniforms. I completely appreciate and respect the difference. I wear a costume; they wear the uniforms.”

“The men and women of the Navy, they are committed. The marines, they are committed. And they work their butts off, man,” he added.

Baldwin believes the way the Navy is portrayed is a big part of why the show has resonated with fans in the way that it has.

“Their attention to detail and being as accurate as we can in portraying the men and women of the Navy has been something that’s resonated with fans, I think because it’s authentic. It’s as close as we can get to actually living aboard a ship [while] allowing us to play with some of our dramatization and the heightened realities of our wartime frame, our post-apocalyptic action-adventure series, as it were.”

As much as The Last Ship focuses on action, it also has remarkably complex characters. Baldwin spoke a bit about how Slattery has evolved over the course of the series.

“In the previous seasons, he’s come to an acceptance that he’s not going to be reunited with his family, that they were lost to the plague,” he said. “He’s surrendered to being a leader among the crew and the rest of the nation, and rebuilding, and that’s going to be his purpose in life henceforth. He doesn’t really have his home to retire to and he doesn’t really see himself in civilian life until this threat has ended, and there’s no end in sight, as the season unfolds.”

“But Slattery, he’s still a committed friend to Chandler, he’s still a leader among his crew, and that’s kind of what drives him,” Baldwin continued.

“He has to go forward. His responsibility is to protect his crew and his nation. And you know, he’s an honorable man, not a coward. He’s courageous, to the sacrifice of his own well-being and his own sense of calm.”

Making that kind of sacrifice — as other characters, including Tom Chandler, have also done — is part of what makes him a real warrior.

“We all want love. We all want food, and water, and shelter, and safety. But you can’t have any of that until you have peace. And so a warrior, a good warrior, is looking for peace so that people can build their love and pursuits of happiness. But without the peace, secured by warriors — unfortunately, that’s just the world we live in — without that peace first, we can’t have all those other goodies.”

As for what we can expect from the series finale, Baldwin said he thinks that the audience will be satisfied by the way the series ends. The finale will also answer some serious questions.

“What is the ultimate fate of the characters of Chandler and Vulture Team? What is the ultimate fate of Slattery? Where do we go? How do we win? Do we end in victory? Do we end in a stalemate? A lot of the times, there are no solutions and they’re just ongoing ceasefires in war,” Baldwin noted. 

“There are places all over the globe where you see there are ceasefires, and people think that’s peace, but it’s temporary. So how do we resolve the star of the show, the ship? What happens to the Nathan James? What happens to the crew?”

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You find out the answers to those questions when you watch the series finale of The Last Ship, airing this Sunday, November 11th at 9/8c on TNT.

*As a side note, this was just the first part of our conversation. Part 2 contains spoilers and will be posted after the series finale airs.

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