Prior to this week's installment, we get a literal recap of the last episode. It's not all germane, so I'll fill in my own: Winters accepted a promotion to Major, and we learn Webster and Liebgott both speak German. Incidentally, in the show's recap segment, Colin "Why Couldn't I Be Aaron Spelling's Son?" Hanks gets two featured moments, which, unless he's in the finale somewhere, seems excessive to me because his character came and went during the hour and isn't a face we need to remember.
Vet-tacular. A man opines that people felt like the war was finally coming to an end, and that the Germans just didn't have the heart to keep it going. "We used to say the only good Kraut was a dead Kraut," recalls a second veteran. But he marvels that, behind all the bravado, everyone realized the enemy soldiers and Allied soldiers alike were just kids. A third man takes it further, noting that, just like their German counterparts, "we did the job that we had to do." The fourth man remembers entering the war firm in his belief that Germans were the evilest people in the entire world -- but as the battle progressed, and when they arrived in Germany itself, they realized that Nazis and Germans weren't always one and the same. Another veteran muses that, sometimes, he'd spot an enemy soldier and wonder whether they shared common interests or personality traits. "Under different circumstances, we might've been good friends," he says.
April 11, 1945: Thalham, Germany. We fade up on a violin slowly being lifted out of its box; as it moves, the shot remains tightly focused on the bridge of the instrument. It turns, rests snugly under a man's chin (of which we only see a tiny, tiny part), and a bow gently begins caressing the violin's strings. The camera backs out to reveal the doleful musician, who pours as much feeling into his face as into his instrument. We now see he's standing in a makeshift clearing, one of few empty spots in a town of rubble piles. A handful of other musicians plays with him, bowing violins or violas with equal emotion.
As the camera continues its backward journey, the villagers reveal themselves. Quietly, they sift through rubble, forming human chains stretching to the top of a pile and helping pass down salvageable remnants. There are tables with three legs, cracked chairs, and pieces of serviceable lumber. But the people move slowly, ghost-like, through their motions, as though the soul of Thalham crumbled with its buildings. Importantly, fanatically, a villager stacks whatever whole bricks he can find amid the wreckage; another couple carries rolled-up rugs and still more people collect a set of intact, if dirty, dining-room chairs.
Some Easy men -- Webster, Liegbott, Luz, Perconte, and Randleman, at least -- breathe in the music and watch this ballet of the damned from a balcony overlooking Thalham. They smoke. "Tell ya one thing about the Krauts," Luz offers. "They sure clean up good." But the men aren't relishing the sight. Liebgott sighs. "All you need's a little Mozart," he says. "Beethoven," a voice calls out. Nixon emerges, hypnotized, from the shadows, inhaling as though the music's bars are balm to his fraying nerves. "That's not Mozart," he repeats. "It's Beethoven." Dave Beethoven? Of the Long Island Beethovens?
Leaving Nixon to stare at the violin players, we backtrack a month, rejoining Easy during its stint in Sturzelburg, Germany. "Moo," a cow says. "Moo," agrees its sister. "Moo MOOOOO," the first cow argues, because she hates it when Hilda gets all compliant and doesn't form her own opinions. Luz and Perconte are in a barn, engaging in some hijinks with chickens. The animals squawk and cluck with enthusiasm, trying desperately to out-act the cows. The director is pleased. There's nothing like a chicken or three to ensure a little comic relief. Luz and Perconte are trying to steal eggs; a young maiden catches them and flees, scared they'll want her woman-eggs as well. Pitching a sturdy trouser-tent, Luz bolts after her. "I just wanna talk to you," Luz shouts after the fraulein. Perconte feels totally dumped.
Strolling into another barn, Perconte finds Luz still trying to work his native lass. "Luz, leave her alone," he complains, but Luz spits at him to piss off and let him work the mojo. Except he's not quite so Austin Powers about it. Luz offers the girl chocolate. "You don't like chocolate? Okay, I don't like it, either," he amends, proffering cigarettes instead. She gingerly takes one, clearly unaware of the cigarette's enduring sexual symbolism. Perconte again whines for Luz to cut it out. "Frank, please, go make your omelet, okay?" Luz pleads, the desperation seeping through his pores. He's sweating desire. Perconte gripes that he won't be sharing his eggs, and leaves in a huff as Luz guides his fraulein to a nearby seat. "Moo," the cow suggests.
Perconte stalks away alone, but in a few seconds, Luz bolts from the barn to join him. "Hold on," he calls, but Perconte is dishing out a deluxe version of The Silent Treatment -- new this fall in card form from Mattel. A Jeep whizzes past, a grim Nixon sitting in the passenger seat. "What the hell's he doing in his harness?" wonders Luz, referring to the parachuting equipment strapped to Nixon's back. Perconte decides they've jumped into Berlin and ended the war. "So what happened?" he asks Luz. "No dice with the fraulein?" Luz admits she socked him in the mouth, which is German for "Not tonight; I have a headache." But he's still encouraged that Germany will prove excellent fraternization territory.
Indeed, some enthusiastic fraternization is happening in a nearby bedroom -- and by "fraternization," I mean "penetration." A blonde lady vigorously rides a tall, skinny, pale U.S. soldier named Janovec. While she moans and quivers, he stares entranced at her bare breasts, looking completely fascinated by this thing called "acting" and wondering if every job is this fantastic. He's going to buy his agent a Jaguar for this. Is there a boob mandate at HBO? I can just see the programming execs giving notes on the concentration-camp episode. "Love it. Good stuff. Groundbreaking television," they gush. "But didn't World War II have more boobies in it? Because there's no Emmy without breasts." And so Restraint gets drop-kicked out the window and replaced with Gratuity, who's just as nice but dresses real slutty and has wandering hands. Gracefully, Janovec flips his bitch over and pumps her with renewed interest, all the while carefully holding onto the covers so as to shield the fact that she's probably wearing jeans. As she's shrieking, "Ja! Ja!" Janovec freezes, hearing Speirs's voice and footsteps. He leaps off Fraulein Boobenklaus and stands at attention, nude, saluting the entering Speirs with whatever happens to be rigid. Speirs doesn't even react. "Where's my stuff?" he asks, as Fraulein Jumblyheisen giggles in bed. Janovec points to a silver tea service sitting atop a dresser, untainted by the sin of fornication. Speirs grabs it and leaves, totally unfazed. Janovec snickers.
Speirs carries his loot through town, but a Jeep nearly flattens him, which would be tragic -- after all, brain matter and blood can really devalue a piece of silver. Nixon sits in the Jeep. Looking sullen, he tells the driver to stop and let him out. Speirs continues into the post office, bumping into two men on their way out. Vest cheerfully greets Speirs. "Got a box all this stuff will fit into?" Speirs asks, dumping his loot on the counter. Vest promises to box it all up and send it first thing in the morning to the usual destination. "Boy, your folks will sure have quite a collection by the time you...get home, sir," Vest says. I can't figure out why he paused like that, but whatever. The book reveals that Speirs sent everything to his wife in England. Bitch ended up leaving him for her presumed-dead first husband, and keeps the goodies and Speirs's son. Now, I know Matthew Settle isn't the real Speirs, but still -- you don't leave that. Speirs looks at Vest and grins coolly. "Finders keepers," he says, a twinkle of mischief in his dark eyes.
In his room, Nixon downs shot after shot of Vat 69 whiskey. This is what Nixon calls "brunch." Shrugging off his jacket, Nixon stares at himself in the mirror, splashing cold water onto his face and thinking how pretty he looks when he's drunk. Nixon flicks off his suspenders and plops down on the bed just as Winters appears in the doorway. "Dog," Winters grins. "Making combat jumps with the 17th while I'm in supply briefings all morning." Nixon heaves a huge sigh, sarcastically blessing his good luck. Winters congratulates him, guessing that he's the only man in the 101st Airborne with three combat stars pinned over his jump wings. Nixon, based on his expression, figures three pieces of dung pinned over his jump wings would mean about as much. "Not bad for someone who's never fired his weapon in combat," he says. Winters can't believe that, with all the action Easy has seen, Nixon never once pulled the trigger. He's intrigued. Nixon is intrigued by the empty shot glass, and promptly fills and drains it once more. He exposits grouchily that, during his freelance ride with the 17th, the plane got hit and went down, exploding over Germany. Everyone died except Nixon and two others. Winters apologizes blandly for the trauma. "Oh, the boys -- right, terrible," Nixon brats. "Oh well, wasn't me!" His false cheer drives home the point that Nixon's grown embittered of late and is disenchanted with the idea of war and wasteful death. And he really, really wants some pancakes. "You know, the real tragedy is, they also lost the CO, so guess who gets to write all the letters home?" grouses Nixon, throwing the empty Vat 69 bottle into a metal trash can. Swoosh. Nothing but net. "Goddamn nightmare," he breathes through clenched teeth. Winters stares straight ahead, unflinching but concerned.
Nixon charges into the building's dining room and opens a fresh bottle. Winters strolls in and exposits that Col. Sink paid him a visit that morning. Nixon cares more about navel lint. "How is the good Colonel?" he says flatly. "Concerned," responds Winters. "Still drinking nothing but the Vat 69, huh?" Nixon smartmouths, "Only the finest for Mrs. Nixon's baby boy." Winters grimly explains that Sink is demoting Nixon back to battalion S-3; Nixon had been working on the regiment level. Nixon ignores this. "What do you think I should write to these parents, Dick?" he asks. "Did you hear what I said, Nix? You've been demoted," Winters booms, in case the whiskey dulled his pal's hearing. Nixon continues on his subject of choice, noting with a tinge of anger that he can't quite find the words to tell these families that the sons died before even evacuating the plane. "You tell them what you always tell them -- their sons died as heroes," Winters heroically intones. Nixon marvels that his friend still believes the propaganda. "Yeah, I do," Winters calmly states. "Don't you?" Nixon wears the rueful smile of one who no longer believes in anything.
Outside, Nixon delivers a current-events briefing to some assembled Easy Company men. He talks about a charity drive in the U.S. to help aid European families who've been displaced because of the chaos, reading a plea for soldiers to write home and encourage their own families to be generous. Very sneaky. Nixon scans the list. "I'm sure you'll be happy to know Oklahoma! is still playing on Broadway," he notes wryly. Luz jovially gets the guys to sing one of the show's songs, then cuts everyone off so that the young replacement, O'Keefe, sings the last line alone -- and hits a high note. "O'Keefe, you sitting on your bayonet, there?" they tease. Aw, O'Keefe looks primed to drop through the Earth. He tries to be a good sport, but he'd clearly rather romance his bayonet than repeat this experience. Nixon blahs about Rita Hayworth getting married, then finds an item about news that German resistance in the Ruhr is crumbling. "The boys in the 17th Airborne did okay after all," Nixon muses. Luz pshaws this. "We'd be in Berlin right now, sir, if it was us instead of them," he blusters.
Later, O'Keefe and Perconte stroll from town to the observation post, the former impatiently wondering when they'll jump into Berlin so that he can see some real action. That does strike me as slightly insensitive, given that O'Keefe is talking to a guy that endured some of the most hellish action of all -- and I'm not talking about sex with Marilyn Manson. "What, you in a rush?" snaps Perconte. "Wanna go home and get a Congressional Medal of Honor, or something?" O'Keefe looks startled. "No, just thought I'd ask," he mutters. Perconte snipes that O'Keefe should probably stop thinking. "Damn replacements," he growls, speeding up to walk ahead of O'Keefe.
Garcia and Hashey are psyched that Perconte and O'Keefe are relieving them. Besides some light artillery fire from the German side at dawn, there isn't much happening at the OP. Hashey tosses Perconte a book to read. "Any sex in it?" he asks, interestedly. Um, no. As he curls up with it, we see the title, and it's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. And unless two trees mate in graphic detail to produce the scrappy little titular sapling, I'm pretty sure Perconte won't be getting off on the novel. O'Keefe clumsily moves around and bumps into anything metal, totally uncoordinated and making a ruckus. This irritates Perconte who himself has never made nor caused a ruckus of any sort. "O'Brien, relax, would ya?" he groans. O'Keefe quietly corrects him on the name. "Patrick O'Keefe," he says. "My friends call me Paddy." And Perconte will henceforth call you O'Deadmeat. Perconte picks up the book again, but gets distracted anew by O'Keefe's attempts to load the machine gun, and his amusing insistence on peering through the sights in anticipation of heavy combat. He begins to whistle "She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain," which irritates Perconte further and certainly doesn't help take his mind off sex. "O'Brien, shut up!" Perconte barks. "I told you, it's O'Keefe," snaps the young private. Perconte loses it, bitching that no one knows his name because no one cares enough to remember it -- too many O'Replacements show up anxious for action, eager to prove themselves and begging for fights without understanding how grueling and gruesome war really is. They replace Toccoa men -- original Easy Company members -- who died because they were forced to compensate for ill-prepared rookies, Perconte insists. "Two days later, there they are, blood and guts hanging out, screaming for a medic," he sneers. O'Keefe wants to cry, I think. "Do you understand that this is the best part of fucking war I've seen?" Perconte rages, explaining that hot food, showers, a bed, and toilet paper constitutes luxury that borders on overindulgence. He yells at O'Keefe to quit blathering about war action. O'Keefe hangs his head, smarting like a kicked puppy. Didn't we tread this ground in episode four? And didn't we get it then? Didn't The Point try to buy me a drink and cop a feel? Perconte, overcome with guilt at his outburst, positions himself to O'Keefe and shares another hard-luck story, but in a more genial tone. "It's been two years since I seen home [sic]," he says quietly. "Two years. This fuckin' war."
Winters and Speirs confer about failed night patrols. Nixon enters. "The President is dead," he says. Everyone looks mildly surprised, but not broken, as though they just learned it's meatloaf night in the mess tent. And just like that, we're done with the Roosevelt stuff. Granted, the book glosses over it a bit, too, but this exemplifies part of what I dislike about this episode. Many details feel like useless filler, shoved in to flesh out the hour. This whole scene took thirty seconds. Why bother? Maybe a thirty-second pause in the storyline passes for a sex interlude in Spanks World.
Welsh, Donnie, Nixon, and Speirs enjoy a late-night poker game. At least, one assumes Nixon is having fun -- he's drained another whiskey bottle, so every hand for him has at least ten cards and a whole lot of pairs. But because the booze is gone, Nixon wants out -- he's got an important scouting mission, and must apprehend the runaway amber liquid. They chatter that Eisenhower seems ready to let the Russians drop into Berlin instead of American airborne divisions. "This war's not about fighting anymore," Speirs notes. "It's about who gets what." This from a man who would loot a raisin store if the shopkeep disappeared for thirty seconds. Nixon curses energetically, having searched the rooms for liquor and come up empty-handed. He storms out, barking for the gang to deal him out of the hand.
Rain pounds the pavement as Nixon staggers outside, scanning the streets for anything vaguely resembling a liquor store. The CGI rain is pretty nifty, falling all around Nixon, yet never striking his body and splashing off. He breaks a shop window, rousing the owner, who screams and shouts in German, and whose dogs bark in protest. When Nixon realizes he'll score no whiskey there, he staggers away just as some apparent looters arrive to fill their pockets.
The morning, Nixon staggers to the post office, a black cloud of withdrawal and hangover lurking above his no-doubt-aching noggin. Aw, muffin. Vest greets him too brightly to have ever so much as fondled the cruel mistress that is whiskey. He hands Nixon a letter, but that's not why the good captain came; Nixon leans across the counter and quietly explains that he's encountered some trouble finding a particular brand of the booze. "Vat 69," grins Vest knowingly. "Gotta be honest, that ain't gonna be easy to find here in Germany. Pickings are slim." Vest conspiratorially whispers that, should he happen to snag some Vat 69, it wouldn't come cheap to Nixon's tumbler. "Well, that won't be a problem," Nixon promises, aware he's being swindled to a degree but appreciating the artistry involved. Janovec, our naked sex officer, charges inside, pauses to salute Nixon, then exposits that 300,000 Germans surrendered. "We're moving out in an hour," he chirps. Nixon is startled, and begins to bolt without his mail; Vest hails him and hands over the envelope. "Keep looking," he says pointedly, pretty sure he'll need alcohol now that Easy's calm respite has momentarily ended.
Roughly an hour later, the battalion packs up and loads the trucks. Nixon, dressed in full uniform, strolls outside absently, nose-deep in is letter. "Jesus Christ, the dog?" he moans. Winters strolls up behind him. "Cathy's divorcing me," Nixon spits. "She's taking everything -- taking the house, she's taking the kid, she's taking the dog. It's not even her dog! It's MY dog! SHE'S TAKING MY DOG!" screams Nixon, his tantrum mounting and culminating in an angry toss of the helmet. All the extras stop on cue and method-act that Winters is naked, and whisper their "peas and carrots" gibberish before strolling off-screen to update their résumés. Winters, as usual, does little but breathe a bit harder and don a concerned expression. Oh, but he does it very well.
Bull Randleman helps the men load bags onto the trucks. Speirs appears and asks Perconte for a lighter. "No, sir, I don't smoke," Perconte says. Bull asks where they're headed. "The Alps," Speirs answers. "Let me see that lighter." Reluctantly, Perconte hands it over; maybe he's scared to give Speirs anything for fear the man will ship it to England for his wife to pawn. Speirs fondles it. Webster makes a big show of realizing they're headed for Bavaria, "the birthplace of National Socialism." Methinks Webster wants a cookie. Speirs informs the men that Hitler ordered the Waffen S.S. to hole up in the mountains to repel invaders via guerilla warfare. Bull drawls that he likes the sound of that. Bull has gotten chunkier and more Southern since that tank almost killed him. Same old story. Speirs starts to walk away, forcing Perconte to yell after him to return the lighter. Speirs, cradling the thing in his palm, thinks at least four times about it before finally tossing it back to its rightful owner. "Nice lighter," he says, thoughtfully. Shaking his head, Perconte turns back to the assembled men in the truck. "Waffen S.S., huh?" he says, telling "O'Flannery" that he'll likely get his combat wish. "It's O'Keefe," the kid practically whispers.
As they drive, the men loudly and merrily sing a song to the tune of "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah." The chorus goes as follows:
Gory, gory what a helluva way to die!
Gory, gory what a helluva way to die!
Gory, gory what a helluva way to die!
He ain't gonna jump no more.
The men sing with vigor, harmonizing and occasionally shouting. They love this song. For them, it's Top 40. For me, it beats half the Top 40 crap assaulting us today. Nixon scowls in the back seat of his jeep. "You okay, Nix?" shouts Winters. Nixon grunts that he's doing just fine. "She hates that dog," he mutters. Winters smiles. His boyfriend is free and clear and ready to embark on a new life without needless estrogen. Conceding to the mood of the moment, Nixon half-heartedly sings along with the rest of the men.
"It's gonna be good times, Web," Liebgott says. We cut to the truck, where Webster is chowing down and listening to Liebgott wax rhapsodic about his post-war plans. "First thing I do is get my job back at the cab company in 'Frisco," he begins. "Make a killing off the sailors coming home. Then, I'll find me a nice Jewish girl with great big, soft titties and a smile to die for." He wants to marry She of the Chest Pillows and buy them a huge house for all the MiniLiebgotts they'll conceive. Webster doesn't look too interested, but Liebgott doesn't notice, grinning elatedly at his little plan. Across the truck, Luz asks Janovec about the article he's reading so intently. "It's about why we're fighting the war," Janovec replies. "It seems that the Germans are bad. Very bad." Luz deadpans, "You don't say. Germans are bad, huh? Hey Frank..." He passes the newsflash down the line. Aw, I laughed out loud. But we switch back to Liebgott, who asks Webster to share his dreams for the future. Webster totally acts uninterested in being social, which sort of sucks for this man's real-life family, because the book portrays Webster as being enamored of the sense of fraternity engendered by the men of Easy. Here, though, Webster looks like he's tempted to scalp himself rather than chat. He does choke out something about finishing college, and Liebgott immediately stops him, amazed that with all his tales of Harvard, Webster somehow glossed over the wee detail that he isn't yet a graduate. "I haven't told you anything!" Webster fumes. Liebgott backs off, sensing he's gnawing on a very sensitive nerve. "It's just the way you always talked, you know? We all figured that..." Liebgott begins, but he sneaks another peek at Webster's face and retreats anew. "Hey, you know what? So the fuck what," he amends, changing course and asking what Webster studied. "Literature," Webster smarms. He doesn't expect a peon like Liebgott to understand a four-syllable word. "Get outta here! Are you serious? I love to read!" exclaims Liebgott, happily. "Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, mostly." Webster cocks his head and regards Liebgott with amusement, and more than a little condescension. Damn this show for making fun of Liebgott! I want to force-feed Webster my fist.
The caravan of soldiers passes a sign warning that this is an area of heightened alert because it's enemy territory. This sign is pretty -- clean, white, with important-looking black lettering. It's downright civil. When did anyone have time to do that? I had no idea the Army was so committed to proper signage. It might as well say, "Welcome to Enemy Territory! Visit our prison camps! Watch our guns blaze! Be Kind -- Please Rewind! And keep our streets clean." Charging into German houses, Easy evacuates the families inside with something less than the civility displayed on its lovely signs. They barge in, and demand that everyone evacuate in five minutes or less. Some of the soldiers protest this rudeness, pointing out to Speirs that the people have nowhere else to go; Speirs shows no mercy, ordering them to leave for one night. Liebgott tries to translate this gently, but it's total chaos anyway.
Two little moppets scamper about on a roof, the sound of ordered marching piquing their curiosity. Skipping to the edge, they peer over and gawk at a thick column of German soldiers marching between two Allied vehicle cavalcades. The expanse of prisoners extends into the distant horizon. Winters watches, amazed, remarking to Nixon that even in defeat, the Germans march with pride and dignity. At this point, Webster decides that the Germans need to look even classier. "That's right, you stupid Kraut bastards," he shouts politely. "That's right! Say hello to Ford and General fucking Motors, you stupid fascist pigs!" Where is this coming from? Last week, Webster was so comatose, I could've dissected his pelvis and he'd have yawned. He was Mr. Calm and Collected; during the patrol lunacy, Webster never so much feigned disillusionment or distress. Now, he's a loose cannon, rambling stupidly without any story arc to back up his fury. Plus...what the fuck was that about Ford? This scene grates me like cheddar. "Look at you! You have horses! What were you thinking?" Webster screams. The men with him try to calm their newly apoplectic friend, but Webster woodenly slings a few more arrows. "Dragging our asses halfway around the world, interrupting our lives, [and] for what?" he booms. "You ignorant, servile scum! What the fuck are we doing here? Huh?" It looks like that last line took quite a lot of effort. Eion Bailey couldn't quite pull it off. His problem? Talking. In this role, he can't use words like he means them. If anyone out there is making another ballet movie, please help this guy out; otherwise, he's doomed. Nixon engages in a very satisfying, hard think. He's somber. He read the book and can't believe how hard this scene sucked in comparison.
Cut to a country road, across which the Allied vehicles trek, having passed the German soldiers. Two more soldiers roust three Germans from a random shed, shooting them one by one. A geyser of blood squirts up from the first man's head. O'Keefe's eyes bulge to the diameter of Jupiter. Scanning his comrades' faces, he sees nothing but resignation and disinterest. As the last of the cars passes, the two Allied soldiers loot the bodies of the Germans they just killed.
Finally, the cars arrive in town, and everyone leaps off elatedly. Winters locates Speirs and informs him that some patrols should scour the area in case they stay overnight. Easy and Fox companies are to take the woods, with Dog Company scouting the village. Speirs turns around and tells Donnie where each Easy platoon should go; in the true spirit of delegation, Donnie runs off calling for 1st Sgt. Talbert. Then he tells two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on until the plan is clear: Easy will play the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl. "Not worried about an ambush, are you?" Nixon asks Winters, who just shrugs and suggests that they make sure the town is secured.
A group of men -- including Perconte, O'Keefe, Bull Randleman, and Luz -- tiptoes through the forest, illuminated by light gently filtering through tall trees and lush foliage. They clutch their guns, but without menace; it's as though they're genuinely afraid of having to use them, because to pull the trigger is to admit this war isn't quite over yet. Bull Randleman is stolid, though, as usual -- and he teases O'Keefe for being so jumpy. "Can hear your heart pounding in Arkansas, boy," he drawls. What's his heart doing in Arkansas? Yes! Thank you, thank you. I'll be here for one more week, folks! Don't forget to tip your internet service provider. Perconte opines to Luz that this forest evokes memories of Bastogne. "Yeah, now that you mention it," Luz says. "Except, of course, there's no snow, we got warm grub in our bellies, and the trees aren't fucking exploding from Kraut artillery. But yeah, Frank, other than that, it's a lot like Bastogne." Wow. When did Luz and I become the same person? Luz asks Randleman to smack Perconte; he obliges.
Nixon warily enters a lavish, well-appointed house. He receives no response to his shouts, and assumes the place is deserted, which can mean only one thing: kegger! Feel the rage! But first, Nix hunts for booze, as is his custom. Do you suppose...gosh, I'm going out on a limb here...that Nixon is something of an alcoholic? I wish Spanks would stop doing the tango with Subtlety, because what with all the shots of Nixon drinking, and the demotion, and the drinking, and the trying to find booze, and the drinking, plus all that drinking, it's hard to tell whether Nixon has a problem with excessive drinking. Opening a carafe of liquid, Nixon inhales deeply but does not drink, satisfied momentarily with the aromatherapy. A collection of photographs on a tiny end table diverts his attention. Nixon grabs a large, framed glamour shot of a high-ranking German officer and stares tensely at it. I would love it if he hurled it to the ground and screamed, "Damn you, Father! DAMN YOUR DISAPPOINTED EYES!" But that's just because I watched a lot of daytime drama last month. Like, a lot. Like, suddenly, I'm fairly certain I was switched at birth and then adopted, and now I work as the maid at my actual birth parents' house, so I'm secretly the heiress to a multinational conglomerate that's headquartered on an obscure island nation. Anyway, Marion Ross's stunt-double enters, all gray-coiffed and nervous in the red cardigan she ganked from the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood set. Mrs. Cunningham takes one look at the shattered glass of the photo, which Nixon did at least drop, and eyes the culprit sternly, a silently scathing rebuke. Nixon stares at her, then makes a hasty exit. A dog barks at him from the stairs. "Woof," it explains. Nixon stares at the pooch, unable to conjure a reason for its presence in this scene.
Meanwhile, a handful of men from Easy still creep through the woods. No one talks. "Sure is quiet," O'Keefe finally says. Clearly, the silence unnerves everyone. And here, quoted verbatim, are my notes from the ensuing sequence: "Nothing around, nothing nothing, nothing, Bull and his gun, nothing, creeping, silence, nothing." I think that about covers it. Slowly, the men edge toward a clearing, forming an impromptu line with guns raised half-heartedly. As they inch closer and closer, their arms begin to falter, and disbelief takes over their faces. Cut to a frontal shot of them emerging from the forest, smoke and dust blowing across the clearing. They stop, agape.
Perconte sprints back through the woods toward HQ, darting alone down abandoned roads and evoking images of the Greek myth of Marathon. Panting, he scrambles through the town trying to find any available officer. Confused men beg him to stop and explain why he's in such a state, but Perconte won't. Finally, he grabs Major Winters (I love typing that) and coughs, "Sir, we found something." But he can't quite get out the words, leaving Winter s a bit confused. "What, what, what?" he asks, worried. "Frank, what is it?" Perconte simply shrugs. "I don't know, sir," he replies, helplessly. Webster hears this, but it doesn't matter, really. I just happened to notice him in the background, camera-hogging like a pro.
A Jeep speeds toward the patrol's location, with Perconte guiding Winters and Nixon. As the trees thin out and reveal the clearing, we see a high, wire fence and a locked gate, forming a very makeshift open-air prison in which stands a long line of human beings who are each physically and mentally emaciated and destroyed. Their fingers wrap weakly around the fence's chain links, heads bobbing low, eyes skittishly avoiding contact with these soldiers for fear of whatever new torture they might bring. Nonplussed, Winters cautiously walks toward the fence, passing Bull Randleman, who has perched on a rock and turned himself away from the horror. Easy gradually congregates behind Winters, every man equally startled by the discovery.
The men's complexions are gray, sallow, with sunken cheeks and dark-ringed eyes. Ghostly, they stand, like dangling puppets without a guiding hand. Winters quietly orders his soldiers to open the prison gates; they do, but can't get all of the men out of the way in time, so many end up swinging backwards with the door. Nixon removes his helmet, proceeding forward with trepidation. A bony man in a black-and-white striped jumpsuit and hat -- the standard "uniform" for this torture chamber -- hugs one of the gate's poles, but loosely; his defeated, dead-eyed gaze never rises above knee-level. Another man clutches the precious blanket wrapped around his shoulders. All heads are shaved bald. No one can speak.
As Winters gingerly walks forward, weak fingers reach gently toward his arm, touching him in gratitude and disbelief, clasping him with the desperation of men too long denied strength and good health. The gesture speaks volumes of their despondency, louder than any oration. One man's skin is literally green, so deprived of nourishment is he. Winters removes his helmet as Nixon did -- he's uncomfortable, but not because he fears these creatures; rather, he fears the breed of man who could perpetrate such atrocities, and he fears the bigger force propelling them. Winters chokes that he needs Liebgott immediately, because Liebgott can speak German. Donnie runs back outside the camp to fetch the soldier, ordering the remaining men to distribute water and rations to these starving, dying people.
Nixon stops moving. "Oh my God," he almost gags. "Dick?" Winters joins him, emptily staring ahead. We suddenly see what they do: hovels lining two sides of a dirt passage, extending deep into the horizon. Prisoners stagger brokenly into the light, squinting as if they hadn't dared step foot outside since being herded into their caves. Thick smoke clogs the air. Men limp in droves toward their saviors, barely able to milk movement from their diminished legs, hobbled into twisted, weak echoes of humanity. Malarkey covers his nose and mouth, sickened by the smell of decay, death, and charred ruins. Prisoners grab each other, drawing whatever support they can from each others' frail frames. Bones protrude from under waxen skin, dangerously close to penetrating the surface. Sunken bellies turn concave, flanked by starkly visible rib and pelvic bones. One fragile man carries the wispy skeleton of another, magically still breathing despite legs feebler than a string of rags. His bones have all but disintegrated, his body barely human, his eerie, ashen skin stretched like tissue paper over his skull. He is a feather. Faltering, the man with him sinks to his knees, unintelligibly begging for help. Speirs stares bewildered at this, and finally sputters that someone needs to give this person water. Either Talbert or Grant doubles over and vomits. "Jesus, Web, can you believe this place?" Luz whispers. "No," Webster answers grimly.
A prisoner, his eyes liquid pools of undiluted emotion, stumbles toward a soldier and limply embraces him, kissing his cheek. The man cannot speak, but his body convulses with sobs pent-up from month upon month of barbarous oppression. "It's okay," the officer murmurs. But the man weeps anyway.
Winters, Nixon, Speirs, and others listen intently to the statements of one low-voiced prisoner who responds sadly to Liebgott's questions. As he delivers his answers in hushed German, Liebgott translates, never tearing his eyes from the man's face. I can't think of a name for this prisoner, so I'll call him Bob for simplicity's sake. Bob reveals that the guards deserted the camp that morning, but burned a handful of huts as a final, brutal parting gift -- without evacuating the prisoners first. "They killed as many as they could," Liebgott translates. As Bob talks, he nervously rubs his bald head, as if shielding himself or preparing to cringe, or perhaps just simply trying to shrink into himself. Several other prisoners do this, too. It's an incredibly natural, heartbreakingly vulnerable motion. The camera swings in a circle around Bob as he speaks, catching Winters and Nixon's suppressed horror, Speirs's unease, and Liebgott's sympathetic intensity, which we see through the crook in Bob's raised arm. Bob begins to tremble. "Jesus Christ," Winters says. Liebgott relays that several prisoners tried to stop the guards, but failed, and their watchdogs responded by trying to kill as many people as they could before finally fleeing and locking the gates behind them. Nixon seethes. They all guess that a villager alerted the guards to the oncoming Allied forces. Winters, with considerable effort, swallows his mounting emotion and rasps that Liebgott must ask what manner of camp this is. He's barely preserving his cool-and-collected façade. Liebgott learns that it's a work camp for a certain type of person, but he doesn't understand the translation -- he thinks it's "unwanted," or "disliked." For clarification, he asks Bob if they're all criminals. "No," Liebgott translates. "No, no. Doctors, musicians, tailors, clerks, farmers, intelligent -- I mean, normal, people." Bob stammers with anguish, "Juden...Juden. Juden." Liebgott's face freezes. "Jews," he chokes. "They're Jews. [And] Poles and Gypsies." Bob reveals that the women's camp is ahead at the railroad stop. He can't continue; wailing, he wanders away, unable to relive it. Cries of anguish erupt throughout the camp. Winters can't look up, too immersed is he in roiling shock and grief.
The charred huts continue to emit noxious fumes. Lumber, having fallen in careless piles, sticks up from the rubble at odd angles that give the appearance of skewed crosses marking the mass graves. Malarkey comes upon a pile of dead bodies. "Hey Babe," he calls to Heffron. "Look at their arms." Imprinted on a wasted, wan wrist is a black-ink number. "Like cattle," laments Heffron. "Goddamn," Malarkey says, shaking his head and covering his mouth anew.
Coughing, Bull and Luz open a door to one of the huts. Inside, men huddle in bunks, crammed tightly into tiny spaces and trembling from trauma and terror. Bruised and battered, they gag and cringe at the specks of light streaming in from the insufficient doorway. Outside, Winters and others slide open the door of what looks like a train compartment, revealing by far the biggest stack of dead bodies we've yet seen. Perconte can't even look at it, and neither can I. Feet and hands and shins and ribcages stand out, along with lifeless, lolling heads, but bodies become indistinguishable in this repellant flesh pile.
Elsewhere, Janovec sadly removes his helmet to pay respect to another pile of corpses on the ground. The misshapen torsos and jutting jaws, hollowed cheeks, further illustrate the appalling conditions in which these people were expected to...well, not to live, but to wither, and languidly expire. A grateful walking cadaver claws his way out of a hut, spots Perconte, and smiles feebly, saluting. Touched, Perconte stiffens and salutes back.
Winters approaches Nixon, stopping to him; the men face away from each other, as if to lock eyes is to break face and break down. Winters plans to call Sink; in the meantime, he wants Nix and Speirs to somehow get food and water to the tortured masses. Nearby, a scraped and wasted man kneels, caressing the head of a dead friend, which rests in his lap. The corpse's skin is loose, hanging in folds from his emaciated body.
In town, Donnie and Martin try to double-time the process of loading food onto army vans. A red-faced, puffy German baker protests the pilfering of his food, but Webster has no patience for this and shouts for him to shut up. The baker screams anyway, until Webster whips out a pistol and shoves the man backward against his own counter, gun pressed to his neck. "Shut up, you Nazi fuck!" he yells. The baker, frightened, swears he isn't a Nazi. "You're not a Nazi? My mistake, you fat fucking prick," Webster fumes. "How about a human being? You one of those? Are you gonna tell me you never smelled the fucking stench?" A fellow soldier tries to calm Webster. "He says he doesn't know what the hell you're talking about," the guy insists. A few people have questioned why Webster didn't know that, given his working knowledge of German; I posit that his anger made him deaf to the other man's words. He just didn't listen, because he was too caught up in spitting nails at the baker's doughy head. Webster menaces, "Bullshit," but does withdraw and leaves the quivering baker alone with his yeast and flour. This reaction seems much more organic than his earlier tirade at the German prisoners; in fact, I feel like that scene might have actually made sense had it followed this stuff instead of preceding the concentration-camp discovery.
Hungry hands reach up at the Army truck, grasping for the crumbs of bread being torn from towering loaves and distributed by soldiers. "There's plenty to go around, please!" the men yell, trying to calm the frantic masses. Col. Sink arrives, summoning Winters and Nixon and introducing them to a Dr. Kent, who has an important medical bulletin. "Stop giving them food right now," Kent insists. "They're starving. If you give them too much to eat too quick, they'll eat themselves to death." It's true -- they're not used to nutrients of any kind, so eating will give them diarrhea, among other ailments. "Keep them in camp until we can find a place for them in town," Kent urges. Nixon can't believe this. "You want us to lock these people back up?" he gapes. Sink sadly says that they have no other choice, and Kent chips in that it's a convenient centralized location in which doctors can monitor their food, drink and medicine intake. "It's a crying-ass shame, but let's get it done," Sink says. Strolling over to the phone, he dials General Taylor and informs him that they're in Landberg, on the other side of Buchloe. "We found something you ought to see, sir," he sighs.
Winters has relayed the orders to Liebgott, who can't believe what he's hearing. "I can't tell them that, sir," he panics. "You've got to, Joe," Winters replies. Why can't Webster do it? No one's respecting how crushing this must be for Liebgott as a Jewish man, and one who's tightly tied to his faith. Finally, Liebgott whispers, "Yes, sir." Slowly, he squeezes through the starving throng and scoots up onto the back of the truck. "Achtung! Bitte!" he calls out. Leaning against the back of the truck, addressing the collective face of ultimate suffering and a group of his spiritual brethren, Liebgott shakily tries to explain that they must stop eating, and remain in their prison until further notice. The men grow afraid, rubbing their heads and wailing, their liberation suddenly disappearing. Liebgott bites his lip and tries to continue, but his voice grows heavy with emotion. His face twitches and trembles, tears visibly welling despite his most fervent attempts at stoicism. Ducking his face away from the group, Liebgott's voice breaks, and he backs away to slump down in the back of the truck, gutted. Sniffling softly, Liebgott fights sobs until his body can't steel itself any longer. Rubbing his head and covering his face, Liebgott weeps. Brilliant performance -- subtle, totally lacking in histrionics, yet stunningly moving. I'm so glad he didn't die when I claimed he did, back in episode two, before I understood The Power of Liebgott.
Nixon knocks on Winters's door. "Turns out I'm staying in the only dry house in Germany," he complains, rifling through the bottles lined up in Winters's lodgings. "Thought you weren't drinking local," observes Winters, amused. He somberly adds that the division headquarters is reporting several more concentration camps dotted throughout Germany. "It seems the Russians liberated a worse one," Winters says, shaking his head. Nixon can't imagine anything worse. "Apparently, ten times as big," Winters marvels. "Locals [at the prison Easy found] claim they never knew the camp existed. They say we're exaggerating." Laughing without mirth, Winters notes that the villagers will get an immersive education tomorrow -- General Taylor declared martial law in the town, ordering any able-bodied person from age fourteen to eighty to help bury the dead, supervised by the 10th Armored. Easy and its battalion will leave for Thalham at noon. Nixon exits, haggard.
Cut to Nixon speeding through the German countryside in a borrowed Jeep. He's unshaven and smoking, ash dropping off a cigarette that's practically affixed to his lips. He parks outside the concentration camp, having returned to remind himself of all the things that were at stake in this war -- things he didn't know about even as he helped fight it. The guard offers him a handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth. A gaggle of nuns in bizarre habits strolls past. There are bodies on stretchers. A gangrenous green-hued man is carried to a mass grave. Women wince; everyone cries, either silent tears or body-shaking sobs. Charred corpses are carried one by one by women and men of all ages. Can you imagine being a fourteen-year-old and cleaning up this pit that so encapsulates the worst humanity can do to itself? How harrowing, especially when it's your army that perpetrated it. Nixon's eyes fall upon Mrs. Cunningham, doubled over and trying to drag a dead body from the pile. She meets his gaze with an air of defiance, almost daring him to define her in the kind of heartless terms usually reserved for the German soldiers. Nixon can't stop staring at her, stunned and moved that she -- the military wife -- is cleaning up this mess. Nixon's face is the last shot we see in the concentration camp...
...and we're still looking at Nixon, but it's the shot from early in the episode, where he's on a Thalham balcony listening to the violin group play Beethoven. Bull, Luz, Liebgott, Webster, and Perconte listen silently to the gorgeous string melody. "Hitler's dead," Nixon announces. "Shot himself in Berlin." Bull wonders whether this means the war has ended, but Nixon shakes his head and reveals they've received orders to Bertesgaden -- the site of Hitler's famed Eagle's Nest hideaway. Webster snarks that Hitler should've killed himself three years ago and "saved [them] a lot of trouble." Nixon sighs, tired. "Yeah, he should've," Nixon agrees. "But he didn't."
The band lightly bows their instruments while townspeople continue to tidy up their hobbled town. The camera zeroes in on the original violin just as the musician plays the last note, gently laying his instrument inside its case and clicking it shut. Don't you wonder what became of a violin like that, and in whose hands it might be today?
"During the following months, Allied forces discovered numerous POW concentration and death camps," the screen reads. "These camps were part of the Nazi attempt to effect the 'final solution' to the 'Jewish question.' Between 1942 and 1945, five million ethnic minorities and six million Jews were murdered -- many of them in the camps."
The credits roll, this time set to gentle violin music and a slower, more classical version of the theme song that's very stirring. week, we get the finale, and a peek inside Hitler's Eagle's Nest.