Band of Brothers

I was far from impressed by the first episodes of this series. Then came the sixth and seventh episodes where they really made use of all the potential the series has. I was very pleased with that and thought that perhaps they were just really slow starters and from now on the episodes would be great. Turns out I was wrong.



This episode was simply not good. It had nothing to say that hadn't been said a hundred times over, they didn't seem to make any real attempt of creating an atmosphere for the episode and in the end it was basically reduced to "in war people die for no reason, but some officers care about their soldiers". Which is pretty much what they've been saying in every episode so far.



In the previous episode they had one character narrate the episode, which worked decently. In this episode they did the same thing but it didn't work at all. The previous episode relied heavily on the narration, in this episode it was featured far less and mostly seemed like a way to fill out the episode. Plus the narration was provided by someone who had apparently been part of the group but had gotten wounded and now had returned. I couldn't remember him at all, much less how he had gotten wounded, so it seemed like a huge waste to have him as the narrator. If they must insist on narration then let one of the characters we're familiar with do the narrating. That's one of the reasons why it worked in the previous episode. This show keeps asking us to care about people that they don't care about introducing to us properly. If they don't care enough for us to get to recognise the characters then why should we care about the story?



This episode was very weak and a downright bore. I'm sorry, but you need something more than "they were soldiers and thus heroes" if you're going to do a tv-show. It's not automatically great just because it's about heroic men, it needs to be well produced, or at least it has to seem as if they tried to do something good with it. In this episode it seemed as if they decided "it's a true story about war, we don't need to try and make it a good watch".

I guess I'm a girl so I'm partial to the episodes where there aren't that many people being blown to pieces, this being one of them. Only one person dies, and I won't give it away because it comes as a surprise to anyone who watches it, but the way they handle it is almost graceful.



This episode is when the men are stationed in Hageneau, when they have to cross a river to invade the other side. I enjoyed this episode particularly when Winters goes to tell his men about the second invasion and how they are going to handle it.



The narrator is probably the worst in this episode, I never liked him to begin with, but that doesn't let down how great the storyline is in this episode in particular, especially the rewards the soldiers are treated to.

While there are very few action sequences in this episode, it still has a great storyline. As the Allies advance towards the Germany so do the men of Easy Company. You get to see how tight knit the remaining men is after Bastogne. The way they treat replacements like in previous episodes is shown here. The storyline is narrated by Webster as he rejoins the company after getting injured in Holland. The story portrayed that if you missed Bastogne your not really in the 101st Airborne. Winters leadership is shown once again in two instances. One he has a great plan to capture German soldiers. The other is how to relieve his men of the burden of their successes.

This episode is viewed though the perspective of Webster, ex- easy company who returns to front lines after a long stay in hospital. Is Webster a coward, an unlucky man or just another soldier is another debate..we will probably never know and that`s the realistic way to bring it...depends on people opinion.

15 men are chosen for a high risk prisoners capture mission and 1 man will tragically die due to that mission. The death of Jackson, all his suffering and all his helpless mates was so intensely exposed again.

Winters will finally pulled out a heroic, yet against the orders move when asked to prepare yet another similar mission. How would a couple of more Germans prisoners hep them? Winters makes a noble move and proves that he cares for his men. Webster is right in the end, how can we know in what hell these men has been though without witnessing horrors like Bastogne and Normandy. This is not reality but this show sure help to expose it.

Overall not the best episode but still pretty damn good.

Well the war is coming close to the end and this episode is shown from the point of view of Webster who has returned to Easy Company after being injured. You can see that it is not the same as when he left and it shows just how quickly things can change during war times.

After the first mission where one of the 15 men died Winters knows if he sent them back it would be suicide and more lives would be lost. He gives the men thier orders but then tells them not to go and covers for them. This shows that he really does care about them.



Over this series Malarkey has become another of my favorite characters.