Props to Deborah. If you haven't read her latestWest Wingrecap, you should -- she's insanely intelligent.
V-E-T-S, Vets, Vets, Vets! This week, the theme is leadership. One man quite astutely points out that if you're a leader, you lead the way. And on tough and easy assignments alike. "A leader has to understand the people that are under him," posits another man. "Understand their needs, their desires, how they think a little bit." The third veteran recalls that "he" always made the right decisions along the way, and was one of the best soldiers around. The final man marvels that "he" survived. The "he" in question, I believe, is Winters, but the name is never uttered.
Pant-o-vision. Running. Blurry ground. Light glints off a bayonet. This soldier, it seems, is fleeing from the Blair Witch. He stops when he comes upon the Blair Nazi, and shoots the unarmed man at close range.
Oct. 17, 1944. Schoonderlogt, Holland. Captain Winters stands near a window, morosely looking outside, breathing deeply. "Lew?" he calls to a room behind him. "Wake up, they want us back at Regiment." There's no motion in the backfield, so Winters wheels around and charges into Nixon's sleeping chamber -- basically, a bed with a curtain drawn around it. Nixon lies sprawled atop his sheets, boxers twisted up around the end zone. Winters rewards his pal's refusal to wake up by grabbing an nearby pitcher and dumping it all over the bed. Nixon screams, then stops and sniffs the air. "Goddammit, that's my own piss, for chrissake!" Yeah! College rules! Nixon, pissed, on so very many levels, throws a urine-soaked pillow at the laughing Winters.
Ostensibly after a long shower, Nixon sits in a moving Jeep and blathers in Winters's direction. "We're the only unit in the group that has the Germans on the German side of the Rhine," he shouts over the din of the motor. "If we had taken Antwerp, [although] I'm not saying that would've been easy, we'd be over the river, well-supplied, and have the Krauts on their heels." He jokes that all he needs now is to get Ike on the phone. That, and to potty-train. The Jeep stops. Winters cracks that he's been hanging on Nixon's every word, then jumps out with his pal and heads inside HQ.
Apparently, Col. Sink is on some kind of rampage, but no one explains why he's so cheesed. He introduces Nixon and 1st Lt. "Moose" Heyliger to a British officer, Col. Dobie of the country's 1st Airborne. We're reminded just how decimated that airborne division was during the badly botched Market-Garden offensive: of slightly more than 10,000 men, 8,000 were killed or captured. Dobie is tasked with rescuing some of the soldiers who were trapped in Arnhem when it fell to the Germans. There's 140 Brits trapped fifty miles north of the Rhine just outside a town held by the enemy. The plan is to meet them at a river bank and ship them back across to the Allied side. Someone orders Heyliger to assemble an Easy Company team to handle the operation, aided by six boats supplied by Canadian engineers. "The rendezvous point is isolated and doable," Dobie says. "I swam it myself last night." Way to go, big man. But did you swim it uphill both ways in a snowstorm? Winters is watching this happen, anxious to jump into the discussion but biting his tongue. We're not told why. At 0030, apparently, the Brits will signal a "V" for victory with a handheld red torch, which Dobie smarmily translates as "flashlight" for the dense, dirty Americans with their decaf coffee and their inefficient vocabulary. Col. Strayer christens the mission Operation Pegasus, ordering 2nd battalion to step up and achieve the objective. Like they've ever needed to be told.
Strayer grabs Winters and demands his signature on the Market-Garden report; he also needs other battalion paperwork from him. Winters promises them by 1300, as well as a banal inventory of material that the British 43rd division left behind. Winters assents again. Col. Sink shouts out that he wants to give out citations for the Oct. 5 action Easy saw, and he can't do it unless Winters files a report. "Light a fire under it, Dick," he orders. Looking devastated to be away from the action, Winters leaves. Aw. Someone needs a cuddle.
In his office, Winters types slowly, as though the infernal letter-application machine is alien to him. He begins typing a report of the Oct. 5 mission, as promised, and his musing takes us back to the time.
In a wooden building, the lads are discussing where they are, and doing a mighty lousy job of it. All I can glean is that they're inside a wooden building, having a discussion. Talbert strolls over to Winters and smirks that the replacements are learning the ropes. They banter about a dog. They dance the polka and play freeze tag. I don't know. Suddenly, someone screams, "Penetration!" and we hear gunfire. A surprise attack outside has wounded Pvt. Alley, and the confused and scared men are pointing fingers, trying to blame it on Boyle's loud voice or Liebgott's incessant...liebgotting. Pvt. Alley is dragged inside, blood crusting the entire left side of his body. Someone blathers that they're at a crossroads, where a street crosses a Dutch dike. The Germans are defending the dike. Winters screams for everyone to gather all the ammo they can, while they wait for Eugene Roe -- the medic -- to arrive and tend to Alley. Back in his office, Winters types that an enemy grenade caught Alley and got Easy Company moving.
Winters has a squad from 1st Platoon with him, running through a ditch. They're trying to pinpoint enemy fire, but when an MG-42 fires near their location, the men dive to the ground. "They're shooting down the road at regimental headquarters. But that's three miles away," Winters says. "Why are they giving away their position?" Talbert doesn't know, not being clairvoyant or on the enemy side, or even awake. Winters tells him to await his signal; the word passes down the line that everyone is to hold his position until further notice. Leaping over a high bank, Winters slides down a slope, bolts across a dirt road, scales a fence, and hides again. This gives him a different vantage point, whereby he can see the German soldiers. Darting back over the fence and across the dirt road, Winters pokes his head over the grassy hill and signals to Talbert; looks like they're supposed to run across the field, pirouette three times, draw the Germans offside, and then thrust ahead to find the G-spot. Talbert nods, then gives the signal; the squad scampers over the hill, across the dirt road and over the fence. Now, everyone's with Winters. Phew. I'm out of breath.
Winters, at his desk, furrows his brow.
Back in battle, Easy's squad fans out along its new ditch. "This is the fallback position, here," Winters whispers. "Mortars, deploy here. First squad, on me. Go!" Fanning out in right angles, some men set up the mortar gun, while the others follow Winters, looking tired, dirty, sweaty, and ready to whoop some Nazi ass. Winters halts the run and studies the Germans from this new position.
Sitting at his desk, Winters furrows his brow.
Swiftly Winters counts the number of Germans manning the MG-42s and decides to fire upon them. He approaches six gunners and tells them to aim at a specific man, following him, ready to kill him on Winters's signal. Winters himself covers a seventh target. We see each man squint and take aim. One guy who doesn't have a weapon narrows his eyes just to share in the killing spirit. Winters shoots, and six other shots follow a second later; seven Germans drop, and the others run around squawking and trying to mount a counterattack. The mortar fire begins, and the gunners keep firing as well, in what looks like an even fight. Winters yells that it's time to fall back, and the mortar fire continues until Easy is safely back where it started. The ploy worked; the Germans' attention is away from annihilating battalion HQ and toward its new threat. Winters screams for someone to try to apprehend the Germans at the base of the dike. He also wants Boyle and Perconte to do...hell, something. Bullets whiz through the night, little neon sparks of danger. Winters gets on the radio and screams for Welsh to bring up Lt. Peacock with the rest of 1st Platoon and a backup machine-gun squad. "Dukeman," he screams, and someone who apparently answers to that name appears. Winters orders him toward the right flank, but as he goes, he's felled by an enemy bullet. Aw, Dukeman, we never knew ye.
The furrowed brow here shown belongs to Winters, who is at his desk, sitting.
Daybreak. Talbert tells Winters that the rest of 1st Platoon has arrived, and Gordon's toting a hefty gun. But enough about his trousers. Winters intently studies a grimy map, determining that the Germans are behind a solid roadway embankment and they're just in a small ditch. "They can outflank us along the dike and catch us here as soon as they figure it out," sighs Winters. But he figures that they have no choice in the matter, and must attack. Or they could adopt one of my patented techniques, which is to sprint like hell to the nearest tavern and clamp their mouths around a keg tap. Winters, being a stickler for honor and duty and courage, and all those pesky qualities, formulates a plan: Talbert takes ten men to the dike, Peacock takes ten along the left flank, and Winters takes ten up the middle. Everyone scatters.
Mid-brow-furrow, a knock at the door interrupts Winters. Nixon saunters up the stairs and dangles his empty flask from one hand, his facial expression conveying exactly why he's there. Rolling his eyes, Winters crosses to his foot locker and opens it, inviting Nixon to it with an exaggerated gesture. "I don't know why I'm still doing this," Nixon says cheerfully. Winter, back at his desk, looks up. "Drinking?" he asks. "No, hiding it in your foot locker," Nixon replies, filling his flask. "I'm a captain, for chrissake." Winters: "Why don't you just give it up?" Nixon: "Drinking?" Winters: "No, hiding it in my foot locker. You're a captain, for pete's sake." Nixon smirks. "Maybe you're right. Maybe this is the perfect place to stop drinking -- right here on the business end of an Allied advance," he says, pausing for a second before holding aloft his flask with a wry smile: "Cheers." Winters laughs. Look, they're opposites, but they're still friends! That Paula Abdul is one smart woman -- she sang about this. As Nixon replaces the bottle, he notices Winters's complete focus on finishing his report. "That's not lit," he offers helpfully. "Keep it simple. Try writing in the first person plural. Say 'we' a lot." Winters retorts, "Thanks for the tip," but with affectionate annoyance.
My roommate wanted to watch this show, but said he didn't have time to get involved in a good show. I had to point out that this isn't a good show, and here's why: the acting is super, and it sure looks slick and purty, but the content is lacking. I'm bored. The mini-series is a lovely complement to the book, but it can't stand alone. Moments of brilliance are too few; they'll solve one problem but create another. For instance, each show identifies more clearly the soldiers, but the initial efforts to explain how Easy's activities fit the grander scheme have fallen aside. This episode is a perfect example of that: it hasn't established the purpose of this mission Winters is recounting, so we're not sure how it fits or where they're going, or why, or on whose orders. It's frustrating to see so many good ingredients but a sub-par product; it's like Hanks and Spielberg shopped at the nicest markets in the world, baked a cake from the best, most costly recipe, but then let the cake burn to a crisp in the oven.
"Fix bayonets!" Winters screams. Perconte and Randleman oblige. So does Liebgott, who winks at me to prove his continued vitality. Replacement Garcia readies his weapon, looking like a seasoned soldier with the gritty determination in his face. Or maybe that's actual grit. Winters tosses a can of red smoke into the field, then takes off across the field. Alone. Not sure how this fits into his "I'll take ten men up the middle" plan. Everyone wants to run after him, but Talbert holds them back until the air starts to fill with red smoke from the hissing canister. Under this extremely dubious cover ("Oi, Helmut, vat is zat suspicious bright redness in ze air?" "Relax, Gunther. Zat is just ze vapors that little wee bunnies kick up ven zey run. All is safe") Easy runs safely to a new position.
Winters, during his mad sprint, comes upon a lone, unarmed German squatting in a field. This is the Blair Nazi from the first scene; Winters looks completely flustered to have come upon him, and abruptly shoots the boy. He continues the barrage of gunfire when he spies a pack of enemy soldiers, taking down several of them. Easy finally catches up to him and hunkers down to form a solid line of fire. It looks like an easy rout, which, as we've learned through Easy's history, means that some serious shit is around the corner. Sure enough: "Holy shit!" shrieks a gunner. We follow his pointing finger and see a fresh company of German soldiers pouring over a wall to aid in the attack. Winters flips and radios to the rest of Easy, begging for reinforcements as shots ring out around him.
Martin and a few other soldiers grab a gang of Germans and take them prisoner. The captives try to pretend they're Polish, but Martin hisses that there are no Poles in the SS. Another nameless Allied soldier screams, "Oh shit!" Luz gets on the radio and does...something. Winters calls it "send[ing] a lightning contact report," but for all I know, that means, "Turn it up -- Rick Dees in the Morning is on!" Winters yells for Sgt. Boyle to try to assess the directions from which enemy fire is coming, which means he's toast. An explosion on the road knocks him down, wounding his leg; as Winters calls for Easy to take cover, he screams for help dragging Boyle off the road. Webster appears just in time to fall down and unconvincingly yell, "Jesus Christ, they got me" in the same tone of voice one might use to say, "Jesus Christ, I asked for onion rings and got fries." Um, not that I ever say that, much less after I've already parked the car and started unpacking the Burger King bag. For our edification, Winters shrieks that they're facing German artillery and need to take cover, but not before yanking Boyle off the road.
At his desk, Winters engages in wild brow-furrowing.
The spat has abated, and Winters surveys the carnage. One man realizes with surprise that they were fighting the SS. Liebgott, though, is still shooting off into the distance, and Winters has to yell at the intense soldier to stop doing that. Look, baby, don't try to change him. Winters is alarmed to see Liebgott's neck wound, but my favorite undead man insists it's no big deal, so Winters decides to make sure he gets treated by sending him back to the command post with some German prisoners. Liebgott brightens. "Come on, Kraut boys!" he shouts gleefully, which unsettles Winters. Whirling around, he grabs Liebgott's gun and removes all but one round of ammo, thus ensuring that Liebgott can't brutalize the captives en route. Liebgott doesn't appreciate this, but he complies anyway.
Webster winces while his leg is bandaged. "'They got me.' Can you believe that? Can you believe I said that?" he groans, overcome with the triteness of it all. He limps to his feet and cheerfully bids farewell to his comrades. Meanwhile, Nixon arrives on the scene and gets a report from one of the officers: "The Germans were flooding back towards the ferry crossing when we hit them with artillery. It was like a turkey shoot. Then they hit us with 88s, zeroed in on this crossroad. Lucky, though, only twenty-two wounded." Nixon snorts, "Lucky?" and makes a beeline for Winters.
A brow, furrowed; Winters, seated.
In his flashback, Winters is also seated, this time on a field by a wooden fencepost. He's staring at the carnage. Nixon crouches to him and tries to be supportive, asking about his pal's health and the man who died. "Dukeman," Winters says sadly. "Dukeman," repeats Nixon, pretty sure he doesn't know who the hell that is. "Well, you're looking at two full companies of the SS out there, fifty dead, another hundred wounded...that's not bad, for Dukeman." Winters is too noble to think that way, so he asks Nixon for a drink...of water, but oh, that Winters scamp had us all going for a second! Nixon sniffs his canteen, proclaims it alcohol-free, and hands it to Winters. Although, I hate to point out, Steve Sanders pulled the same scam on Brandon Walsh, with disastrous consequences...but, as Winters gulps safely, it seems there's no such chicanery here.
Col. Sink explains in Spanish that the...whoa, Spanish? Somehow, my VCR switched into SAP mode. Okay. Bless the captioners. He says the 363 Volksgrenadier hit the town of Opheusden early that morning at exactly same time "your SS" made a run for the battalion command post. Apparently, the 506th third battalion got creamed and 2nd battalion took a brutal hit; Major Horton, who helps run the battalion, died trying to organize a defense. "Major Horton is dead?" Nixon clumsily exposits. Sink wants no more of this inane dialogue, so he grabs Winters for a moment alone. "How would you feel about handling the battalion?" he asks Winters, who blinks and says, "Sir?" Sink sighs. "I'm moving you up to executive officer, 2nd battalion." Winters smiles that he's certain he could command the men in the field. "You're a solid tactician and a good leader," Sink praises him. "Don't worry about the admin." Suddenly, it hits Winters just what this promotion means -- giving up Easy. "Moose Heyliger will command Easy," Sink informs him. Winters nods sadly and agrees with the selection. This explains his earlier reticence to contribute to strategy; clearly, his XO position has entangled him in more admin snarls than he thought. And, incidentally, Heyliger was not really the first choice; an unnamed officer came in first and failed to win the respect of his men; he was fired.
Nixon and Moose barge into Winters's office, interrupting a whopper of a brow-furrow. "Finish your novel yet?" breezes Nix. "That's a lotta homework," Moose grins. "Thought XO was supposed to be a fun job." Nixon eyes a small guy hovering near Winters's right elbow and unceremoniously asks, "Who are you?" It's Zielinski, an orderly who works for Winters. In a pointless aside, I'd like to point out that Zielinski looks like a friend of mine who we called Zippy. I am now having a private laugh at this, simply because I can; shamelessly, I am allowing my supreme recapping power to affect my judgment. And it feels good. Very good. Nixon rudely orders coffee and a bacon sandwich; cowed, Zippy leaves. Winters hands his two-page report to Nixon, telling him to deliver it to Sink "with [his] compliments." Nixon teases Winters about missing Easy. Eagerly, Winters tries to lap up details about Operation Pegasus, which will be Moose's first operation as CO of Easy. Dick nitpicks every detail of the plan, until Nixon finally interrupts, "Dick, Easy's in good hands." Winters looks deflated. "Yeah, right," he frets. "Hang tough." Moose thanks him and departs; before Nixon leaves, Winters has one more question. "Are we sure of the intelligence?...Is Easy walking into another company of Germans no one can see?" he frets. Nixon looks pointedly, but sympathetically, at his pal. "Why not ask Moose when he gets back?" he suggests. Downcast, Winters tries one more time. "If they do run into any trouble, will you let me know?" Nixon cocks his head. "Yeah. If you run into any bacon sandwich, do the same," he replies sarcastically. Left alone, Winters sits dejectedly and breathes, "Yeah," obviously lonely for combat.
Easy quietly rows across the river, safely dragging the boats onto the shore. "So, Colonel, where are they?" Moose asks. Col. Dobie calls for a guy named Leicester, who darts out of the bushes and greets the group enthusiastically. Nice secret signal. "Never thought I'd be so glad to see a bloody Yank," Leicester bubbles. Yes, well, you're welcome for all the help in World War I, asshole. Moose tells Dobie to go collect his men, and Randleman passes word down the line that the Brits are coming. This is tedious. What happened to the threat of danger? They're not hiding, they're barely whispering, and there aren't any code words. What's an operation without code?
Zippy hands Winters a sheaf of papers to sign, and he obliges, but not without tensely checking his watch. I do feel for him, but I also can't think of a more boring operation than Operation Pegasus. Winters is probably facing a bigger threat from the splinters on his wooden desk. Meanwhile, Moose is warmly greeted by another Brit. "God bless you, my man," he says. They load the soldiers onto the boats and push off back across the river.
Raising a glass of lager, the Brits toast their American rescuers. "Moose Heyliger and the American 101st" -- wow, that's giving Moose too much power -- "have done the Red Devils a great service, making it possible for us to return and fight the enemy on another day," Dobie shouts. "To Easy Company! Victory, and Currahee!" Everyone bellows, "Currahee!" and heavy chugging ensues. Winters, still holed up in his room, peeks at the site of the ruckus through his window and allows his mouth to form a teensy smile. He's proud of Easy, even if he can't command it anymore.
Oct. 31, 1944; Driel, Holland. Winters and Moose stroll beside a deserted railroad track at night. "I was only Easy's CO for four months, Moose," protests Winters, reluctant to give the man definitive advice about the job. Even if it was out of necessity, it's to Winters's credit that he moved up the ranks so quickly and with so little hesitation from his superiors. Moose insists that Winters is the only combat commander the men of Easy have ever known, and here Moose is, coming from a different company altogether.... "You know where they came from, and what they've been through," notes Winters. "Hang tough. Train the new platoon leaders and trust your non-coms." The non-coms (NCOs, or non-commissioned officers) are folks like Gonorrhea, Martin, Malarkey, and Bull Randleman, the staff sergeants who run squads. In Easy's case, most of them were the only original members remaining, and they had the enduring respect of men both above and below them. We witnessed that last week, when Randleman went missing and his squad risked its life to find him.
A man bellows, "Halt!" and before Moose can identify himself, he's shot and drops to the ground. Winters screams, "Hold your fire!" and a terrified soldier scampers forth to examine what he's wrought. Winters tries to be calm, asking the man to send for Lt. Welsh while also keeping Moose awake and focused. The soldier doesn't move, so Winters yells at him again until it takes effect. This explains what a dullard of an episode this is; the writers needed to establish Winters's promotion and the presence of a new Easy CO, but at the same time this inaction seems like such an awful waste of a budget.
Winters, Welsh, and medic Roe load the wounded Easy CO into an ambulance, aided by the frightened private from Wyoming who wounded him. Not sure why we needed to know his home state, but whatever, I'm not going to scoff at details. Roe asks how much morphine Winters administered, and he flippantly estimates two, maybe three syrettes. "Jesus, you trying to kill him?" barks Roe. He's angry that no one told him yet how much medicine has been pumped into his patient's body, but since Moose is a big guy, he should live through whatever overdose he might've been given. Welsh feebly says they were just trying to ease the pain of their wounded friend, and didn't know what else to do. "Well, you ought," Roe's neck vein throbs. "You are officers, you are grownups. You oughtta know." Winters slams the ambulance doors and pats the window in farewell. His bloodstained hand leaves a mark on the glass, which we see closely as it drives away; it looks exactly like damn Wilson the Volleyball from Cast Away. Same color, same sloppy spiky handprint style. I am ashamed of Hanks.
Dec. 10, 1944, Mourmelon-le-Grande, France. Men march and chant, because they're in the military. From the regimental HQ, Winters frets that Easy is only at 65% strength, with a hefty dose of replacement soldiers included in that number and a new CO, Lt. Dike, no one likes. "They're calling him Foxhole Norman" after only a few weeks under his command, Welsh giggles. Nixon tries to calm Winters by pointing out that nothing's planned until mid-March, which leaves ample time for training and restaffing before they "jump into Berlin and end the war." Winters panics that the NCOs are the only things keeping Easy together. Speaking of which, Gonorrhea's on the loose and he's spreading toward Winters with a quickness. Everyone greets him with smiles, and Gonorrhea pleasantly but sadly says, "Its true. I never thought I'd see you behind a desk." As you can imagine, Winters is thrilled at the reminder. Gonorrhea smirks and notes that he's just gone AWOL from the hospital so that he could rejoin Easy, rather than miss anything and get reassigned; this loyalty, as we've noted, was not uncommon. Popeye Wynn did the same thing. Gonorrhea pretends to worry that he's caused a problem, but then admits he'd have bolted regardless. Winters doesn't look up at him, ostensibly because he's pained at his desk job and misses working with guys like Gonorrhea in the field. Gonorrhea produces a letter for Winters from Moose, who is okay but still facing a long recovery. Awkward pause. Small-talk about a 506th vs 502nd football game, set for Christmas Day; when Gonorrhea notices Winters isn't playing along with the jabber, he ruefully takes his leave.
Winters sits mournfully, then balks loudly when Nixon produces something from his pocket. "What's that, a piece of paper? I don't want to see another piece of paper," Winters growls, at the end of his rope. I confess to feeling a sense of loss as well. When I found out he wasn't Easy's CO any more, I kept complaining in my mind that Stephen Ambrose was clearly telling the story wrong, and needed to cease examining the interior of his own colon so that he could correct the error. But, no. Damn true story. Nixon prefaces his announcement by saying that General Taylor is in Washington, Col. Sink is seeing Marlene Dietrich in a USO show, Strayer is at Lt. Col. Dobie's wedding in London, and Nixon is off to Aldbourne "to look up a certain lady." Nixon! You dog, you! Anyway, his point is that they've decided Winters deserves a forty-eight-hour pass to Paris for some rest and relaxation. And the love of a righteous, saucy French whore.
Eiffel Tower. Paris is crawling with soldiers on leave, most of them carousing -- and most of them striking the "c" as well. Winters is seated at a bustling café, listening to soldiers around him brag about the toughness of paratroopers and basically trying to one-up each other with tales from basic training. Winters isn't into the scene at all, much preferring to play the morose loner with a heart of gold, a visage of misery and a bod of mystery. He looks, if I may say it, outstanding in the uniform.
Winters scans the other Metro passengers, laying eyes on a young, amiable-looking French lad and an old woman knitting. He flashes in and out of his memories of Holland, Dukeman's death, and the wounding of his men. Closing his eyes, Winters relives running across a Dutch field and happening upon the unarmed German. He turns to smile at the French boy, but sees in him the countenance of the young Nazi he killed. The moment of eye contact with the German lasts forever, and for the first time we see fear in Winters's eyes, but not fear of death -- fear of himself, and of what he's about to do, and what he knows he must do. And he left the coffee pot on back at the barracks. His eyes flying open, Winters realizes that he's ridden the Metro through to the last stop. Slowly, and I do mean slowly, he rises from his seat, slinks out of the station, exchanges a half-smile with the French lad, and moseys through the dark, deserted section of Paris. He looks so lonely and troubled; this part touched me more than a lot of the WWII killing scenes have. Something about Damian Lewis's portrayal of Winters has me absolutely dying to see the man smiling, happy, and actually enjoying himself, and letting others enjoy him. When he reaches his lodgings, he can only watch people having fun; he doesn't participate.
But oh, forget all that crap. Winters is getting in the bath, and I spy a naked thigh. Exhaling elatedly, Winters leans back and revels in the warm bathwater, and he's all sinew and lean muscle and I've never wanted a bath more in my life.
At the camp in Driel, a John Wayne movie screens in a tent. Luz loudly tries to pull a vocal MBTV of sorts on the movie, imitating the Duke and making fun of the movie. Donnie and Toye get really mad at him for spoiling the movie, because John Wayne is really talented and he deserves his fame, and Luz is just jealous because he has no talent of his own and is just a big lame dorkwad with no life and it's not Jacob and Ashley's fault that they are in a boy band, and they dress really well so you just shut the fuck up about that, and O-TOWN RULZ 4EVA!
Suddenly, Malarkey dashes inside and throws sixty dollars at his pal Skip, from whom he borrowed the initial stake for what became an epic night of gambling. He throws Skip an extra tip and brags that he won as much as six thousand on the tables, but ended up with only $3600. Skip is shocked. Malarkey grins that he's going to blow it all in Paris as soon as possible. That's fairly insensitive, because in the book, Malarkey's excitement stems from his ability to pay for his remaining semesters of University of Oregon tuition. That's one of my favorite details from the book, and I'm sad they scrapped it here in favor of making him look like a total boner.
Winters creeps through the rows and sits directly behind Compton, who stares transfixed at the screen. He asks after Buck, and his four ass wounds, and whether he's seen the movie before; stony silence greets every inquiry. Dick slaps Buck's arm, and Compton revives himself long enough to call the movie "a real corker." I didn't quite understand this scene. Is Buck just shell-shocked from his injury, and facing his own mortality? Is he annoyed at Winters? Is he upset that Winters isn't commanding Easy? Is he upset because they ran out of supplies and plugged his four bullet holes with chocolate chips? Seriously, though, this just makes me even sadder for Winters. He needed a buddy, and Compton's all zoned out and useless.
Luz gets excited because the movie's female star is about to say her line. He imitates it really, really badly three times before she gets around to uttering it herself, and Donnie rightly spins around and shoots a major stink-eye at Luz. Suddenly, soldiers march through the tent, shut off the movie, and turn on the lights. Luz is under arrest for perpetrating an illegal assault of our senses, and will be flogged forty times in the town square with a copy of the regiment scrapbook. And once that's done, Easy will move out again. "Elements of the 1st and 6th Panzer divisions broke [into the] Ardennes Forest," a man barks. The Germans have overrun the U.S. 28th infantry and parts of its 4th, so the 101st is in line to reinforce the line. Dejected, Luz, Toye, Donnie, Malarkey, and Skip file out of the tent to collect their things. Compton sneaks one look at Winters, then stares straight ahead and doesn't move. Dick rises and briefly waits for Buck, then strolls toward the exit. Stopping, Winters makes a half-turn, which is enough to jack Compton's holy butt off its seat. Buck is not at his most strapping; I guess a bullet through the buttocks can do that to a person. But he can still swagger.
Near the vehicles, which are being loaded, Winters hails Lt. Peacock and asks him whether he's seen Col. Strayer yet. Peacock is too busy looking for the Easy CO, Lt. Dike, and complains that the 4th Army's problem is being unfairly dumped on the paratroopers. Suddenly, CO Dike appears and bitches that Strayer hasn't returned from London yet, of all the damn nerve. Winters is curt with him, pointing out that Dike's bigger problems are myriad: his men will return to action in the dead of winter without enough cold-weather clothes or ammunition. Dike doesn't get it. Winters doesn't order him to canvass the whole base and gather sufficient supplies like rations, clothes, and weapons; rather, he suggests it with an air of helpfulness and an undercurrent of menace, as if to imply Dike's ineptitude as Easy CO. Dike promptly turns forty-five degrees and delegates all those instructions to Peacock and Compton. It's barely perceptible, but I think Winters flinches.
Tires crunch on the snowy, icy road. Soldiers huddled in the trucks joke about the ruckus they're making in transit. "The Luftwaffe must be asleep," Compton says emotionlessly. Gonorrhea moans that he misses the C-47 jets, and another soldier cracks that this is just a tailgate jump. Everyone complains about the lack of socks, ammunition, coats, and hats, teasing the newbies and basically amusing themselves to pass the time. A new kid called Suerth Jr. has a carton of smokes that they goad him into sharing. When they finally disembark, they're disoriented, know nothing about the mission, and have full bladders that need relief. Officers create gas fires in snow pits just to provide a little light and warmth.
Col. Sink briefs Winters. "Welcome to Belgium," he says -- specifically to Bastogne, a vital crossroads town with seven roads leading in and out of the city. If the Allies can hold Bastogne, it will deny the Germans critical supply routes for the armored divisions, so Eisenhower ordered U.S. troops to surround Bastogne and "dig in tight as a tick." Col. Strayer returns. Sink explains that 2nd battalion will be in the woods, 1st battalion will man the left flank, and the third will be in reserve. Finally, they're ordered to snag ammo from any source they can find, because they're going in completely understocked.
An Easy private notices a parade of dejected, destroyed soldiers trailing away from the front lines. They're zombies in uniforms. "Jesus Christ," breathes the private. "Bill, Don, look at this!" Gonorrhea and Malarkey cease urination and drop their jaws at the sight of this trail of tears. "You're going the wrong way!" Gonorrhea shrieks. Grabbing one retreating soldier, Gonorrhea begs for an explanation. "They came out of nowhere they slaughtered us gotta get outta here," the actor says robotically, in the planet's worst interpretation of "shell-shocked." Scared, Gonorrhea and the Gang exchange looks and promptly start plucking ammo and grenades from every retreating soldier they see.
Jimmy Fallon to the rescue! In Stupid Cameo 101, Fallon drives a Jeep full of ammo up to the cavalcade, beeping to part the crowds as though he's on one of those irritating little airport carts. Winters calls him a Godsend. Jimmy says he heard the 101st was arriving, so he hightailed it to the site of a recent ammo dump and grabbed anything he could fit into the Jeep. He exposits in a monotone that the Germans attacked with Tigers, Panthers, and the rest of the Barnum & Bailey Three-Ring Artillery Circus. Winters praises his good work. Jimmy Fallon can't deliver a line without looking like he's chewing on the inside of his cheeks to keep from breaking character. Since he can't appear on Saturday Night Live without cracking up during a sketch, I wonder how many takes he needed here. Sitting back in the Jeep, Jimmy gets a glamour shot, set against a parade of soldiers. "A Panzer division is about to cut the road south. Looks like you guys are gonna be surrounded," he says flatly. Boo! Jimmy Fallon shouldn't be here. And I usually like him. Winters strikes a gallant pose and intones, "We're paratroopers. We're supposed to be surrounded." Propaganda 1, Fallon 0.
The men trudge toward the front lines, having reached a metaphorical as well as literal crossroads in the war campaign. Winters flashes his trademark look of somber contemplation, watching as Gonorrhea, Liebgott, Skip, and Toye pass by looking grimly intent on kicking some Nazi behinds. Pleased, Winters follows them toward battle. He's back where he belongs, fighting alongside the 506th's finest and commanding their collective fate.
A graphic tells us that Easy moved into the Bastogne woods without support from the sky or from artillery, and that they lacked food, ammunition, and winter clothes. Finally, a quote from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment's "Currahee Scrapbook": "Farthest from your mind is the thought of falling back; in fact, it isn't there at all. And so you dig your hole carefully and deep, and wait."
This episode, to me, is the worst of the five, but I have high hopes for six and seven because they've gotten critical raves and center on some of the most crucial Allied operations. See you in Bastogne.