Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
This episode breaks convention as soon as it begins. There are no survivor interviews this time out, and it’s disorienting. We’re so used to them setting the context of each episode by this point in the series that it seems odd to not see them. I’m not sure what the reason is for the decision, but there’s not a wasted moment in the actual episode. Maybe it was a matter of available time. Whatever the case, the episode starts simply with a date: January 2, 1945.
It picks up almost immediately after the events of “Bastogne,” the previous episode. Easy Company has been ordered to push into the woods near the town of Foy and clear those woods in preparation for a move into the town itself, which is heavily occupied. At first, it’s a cakewalk, 1000 yards of only occasional resistance.
Donald Hoobler, one of the guys who’s been in the show since the very beginning, shoots a German who he surprises in the woods and finally gets hold of a Luger, something he’s talked about wanting since we first met him. There’s a sad irony to the way Hoobler ends up leaving the series, and it sets the mood for this episode, one of the hardest to watch. “Bastogne” may have been marked by horrible conditions, and it may have featured a wrenching conclusion (Doc Roe using the kerchief of the nurse to bandage the hand of one of his soldiers), but this is by far the saddest episode of BAND OF BROTHERS. Be warned; if you have a heart, it will be broken by the end of this hour.
As it is with each episode, the point of view has shifted once again. This time, 1st Sgt. Carwood Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg) is the focus of the piece, narrating for us. There hasn’t been a lot of narration in the series so far, and allowing us this glimpse at Lipton’s inner life really opens him up as a character. So far, he’s been a solid presence on the series, but quiet. I find it unthinkable that this schlub with the sad eyes was once a New Kid On The Block. Mark Wahlberg may be a movie star, but Donnie is an exceptional character actor. Unrecognizable at the start of THE SIXTH SENSE in a key role, he’s virtually invisible here as well. In some ways, that’s what makes Lipton so great. He’s as ordinary as can be, a great personification of the average American at war. He’s not a great strategist or a fearless warrior or a rugged G.I. Joe. He’s just a guy doing what he’s asked to, doing what he must. If there’s a job to be done, no matter how small, Lipton steps in to help. He’ll dig foxholes with the men of Easy, even after his own is taken care of. He’ll do his share and more in each case. And when he has to, he’ll cover for his C.O.
By this point, Lt. Dike (Peter O’Meara) has taken over command of Easy, and he’s “an empty uniform,” as one character puts it. He vanishes for long stretches of time, abusing his connections to upper brass to shirk responsibility. He’s the exact opposite of Lipton in many ways, and the relationship between them is key to the episode as a whole. Lipton covers for Dike not because he likes him or even respects him, but because he feels it’s important for the overall integrity of the company. Winters (Damien Lewis) and Nixon (Ron Livingston) both know Dike is incapable of doing his job, but they also know there’s no way to remove him gracefully. All Winters can do is hope Dike rises to the occasion at the right moment, and that no one gets hurt in the meantime. They discuss possible replacements for Dike, and we get a frank assessment of each man’s faults and weaknesses, a sign of how well Winters and Nixon know these men. The only person who comes even close to measuring up, in their opinion, is Buck Compton (Neal McDonough), but both are acutely aware of the shift in Compton after being shot in Holland and hospitalized. There’s something more serious about him, almost haunted. Even the men notice, and that worries Winters and Nixon.
As they dig into their positions above Foy, the men use that time to talk and joke and reflect, and it’s rough to watch. There’s no sign in these moments of a war. It’s just a group of men doing any job. By this point, seven episodes in, we’re really starting to recognize the faces, and we’ve seen these men change over the course of the series. Bill Guarnere (Frank John Hughes), Lipton, Donald Malarkey (Scott Grimes), Babe Heffron (Robin Laing), Shifty Powers (Peter Youngblood Hills), Frank Perconte (James Madio), Popeye Wynn (Nicholas Aaron), Bull Randleman (Michael Cudlitz)... these men have come to be closer than friends. They really are a band of brothers, as the title suggests. The ties they share go deeper than typical friendship. They’ve suffered together. They have matching scars. At one point, they do an injury roll call, and we realize just how much of Easy’s blood has been spilled on the soil of Europe, and just how tough these men are to get back up and soldier on.
Once the bombing starts, the episode starts to get crazy. The German artillery shreds the forest, turning the trees into firebombs, sending sprays of flaming wooden shrapnel everywhere. There’s something oddly beautiful about it, and Lipton compares the moment to the Fourth of July at first. That’s before the men start to get hurt, and hurt badly. Joe Toye (Kirk Acevedo) is the first one down, and here’s one of those moments where a reality-based makeup goes so far beyond even stuff like GUINEA PIG or Bill Lustig’s MANIAC for me in terms of impact. Toye has one of his legs blown off, and the way the scene is orchestrated, the way the makeup is shot, and the way Acevedo acts all combine to really sell the horror of the image. You ache out of empathy as you watch Toye struggle to find cover. Guarnere hears Toye’s cries during a lull in the shelling, and goes to try and help. What happens next is so horrible that it literally ruins Buck Compton once and for all. There’s a shot of Compton that is show each week during the show’s opening titles, him dropping his helmet in the snow, and this is the episode where that shot finally shows up. It speaks volumes about the emotional wounds that war inflicted, and how in some cases, those were deeper than the physical ones. This is his breaking point, the end of his leadership.
Warren Muck (Richard Speight, Jr.) and Alex Penkala (Tim Matthews) also suffer a shocking, terrible fate during the shelling of the woods, inches from where George Luz (Rick Gomez) is crawling towards them, trying to join them in their foxhole. He ends up huddled with Lipton in another hole, and when a shell lands in the hole with them, they have no reaction. They are frozen by fear, by what they’ve already seen, and they simply wait for the inevitable. It doesn’t come, though. The shell is a dud. They are spared, free to join the other men to pick up the pieces, both physically and emotionally, of what’s left of Easy Company. Lipton finds one private who is so scared, so freaked out, that he’s trying to dig a foxhole with his bare hands, shredding his fingernails clean off in the process. Lipton sends him away, commenting in his narration that “fear is poison in combat... destructive... contagious.”
When the assault on Foy finally comes, there is both total failure and total success, depending on which characters you’re referring to. Dike screws the pooch, but Lipton and Ronald Spiers (Matthew Settle) are there to make up for it. They’re the ones who prove to be real leaders, natural leaders, and they both exhibit heroism that can only be called uncommon during the battle. It’s amazing stuff, strongly etched here by Graham Yost, who wrote the episode, and David Frankel, who directed it. In the end, this episode is terribly sad, as is fitting, since it demonstrates the enormous cost these men continued to pay, even this far into the war, and just how many scars were left, both seen and unseen.
As always, HBO premieres BAND OF BROTHERS on Sunday night at 9:00 with repeats throughout the week.
"Moriarty" out.
