Spoilers

“Bastogne”

As we start the second half of the season, the soldiers of Easy Company are in bad shape. The defense of the Belgium city of Bastogne was part of the Battle of the Bulge and was one of the most important moments of the war.

One of the key parts to this episode was the focus on the character Eugene Roe, the medic with the group. The horrors he had to endure in an attempt to keep the soldiers of his company in one piece was devastating. I was always a fan of the TV show MASH, but this took the realism to an all new level with the injuries and the blood. It truly gave a portrait of a man trying to hold his own self together to do what he could for the wounded.

Eugene met up with a nurse in the town of Bastogne, Renee. They connected over their efforts to save people and their wartime moments were the sole peace in this episode. Sadly, I knew what was destined to happen here, as Renee appeared to have died in a German bombing run on Bastogne (although no body was found).

Eugene went through the mental wringer in this episode, but the final moments with him seemed to indicate that he was going to make it through. He had slowly been starting to become like a zombie, but the final moment in a foxhole with Heffron, who he calls by his nickname “Babe” which was significant because Eugene did not use the nicknames before.

One of the more haunting moments of the episode came when there was a lull in fighting and the Germans could be heard singing “Silent Night” in German from out of their locations in the woods. Since it was Christmastime, this little bit of singing humanized the Germans, reminding us that they were just people fighting for their side, even if the Nazi Party was completely evil.

Another brutally powerful episode of this mini-series. Just four more weeks to go for this series in the Sunday Morning Sidewalk.