The Pacific ep. 4: Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika
I binged into episode 4 of The Pacific right after watching episode 3, which was kind of a letdown. My hope was that the action would pick back up in ep. 4 and it'd thus be way better than the dead-end love story that filled most of ep. 3. Alas it was only a little better.
In episode 4, "Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika", the marines redeploy from Australia to their next combat mission. Time for some action driven plot, right? Eh, no. This episode is one of those "War is Hell" war stories. But instead of doing it really, really well- like Saving Private Ryan did with its intense opening act, or like this show's small-screen brother Band of Brothers did with its excellent "Bastogne" episode, the "War is Hell" theme here falls flat.
It falls flat for two reasons. First, the writers fail the Writing 101 lesson of show, don't tell. Instead of crafting a story around how brutal the environment is and how the soldiers struggled with it, they mostly tell us it was brutal and a struggle. In fact a narrator (I think it's Tom Hanks) literally tells us over stock footage. Lame.
Second, the episode's viewpoint character, Pvt. Bob Leckie, is not sympathetic. From late in ep. 3 we know he really doesn't care to be in the war. But unlike what made the darkest episodes of Band of Brothers great, Leckie isn't even motivated to tough through it by wanting to protect his fellow marines. Not only does the episode not show show action to contextualize Leckie's struggle, they just show Leckie being despondent. He's got a viral sickness, he's depressed (or "shellshocked"), and he doesn't care about anything. While I sympathize with his plight, it's hard to sympathize with him as a character. The seven deadly words ("Why do I care about these characters?") started echoing in my head.
Leckie is sent to a field hospital on the island of Banika to clear up his virus and get him back on his feet. The second half of the episode is Leckie at the hospital. He finds himself assigned to a mental ward. The doctor in charge assures him it's because the regular wards are full and he's just taking the overflow, but the story drops a few hints that maybe he was sent there on purpose to suss out whether he's really sick or just malingering. Alas it's never made clear enough.
At the hospital Leckie works on building relationships with the doctor, the orderly, and one or two of the clearly mentally ill patients. This kind of feels like episode 3's dead-end love story all over again, in that at the end of ep. 4 Leckie ships out from the hospital. The writers just wasted another 30 minutes of air time starting subplots that will never go anywhere. Also, one of the mentally ill soldiers, I believe it's Gibson, is more sympathetic in his 1 minute of screen time than Leckie is in 60 minutes. Gibson's genuinely hurting, and it's impossible not to feel for him. Leckie, by contrast, just seems like a bit of a malingerer.
In episode 4, "Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika", the marines redeploy from Australia to their next combat mission. Time for some action driven plot, right? Eh, no. This episode is one of those "War is Hell" war stories. But instead of doing it really, really well- like Saving Private Ryan did with its intense opening act, or like this show's small-screen brother Band of Brothers did with its excellent "Bastogne" episode, the "War is Hell" theme here falls flat.
It falls flat for two reasons. First, the writers fail the Writing 101 lesson of show, don't tell. Instead of crafting a story around how brutal the environment is and how the soldiers struggled with it, they mostly tell us it was brutal and a struggle. In fact a narrator (I think it's Tom Hanks) literally tells us over stock footage. Lame.
Second, the episode's viewpoint character, Pvt. Bob Leckie, is not sympathetic. From late in ep. 3 we know he really doesn't care to be in the war. But unlike what made the darkest episodes of Band of Brothers great, Leckie isn't even motivated to tough through it by wanting to protect his fellow marines. Not only does the episode not show show action to contextualize Leckie's struggle, they just show Leckie being despondent. He's got a viral sickness, he's depressed (or "shellshocked"), and he doesn't care about anything. While I sympathize with his plight, it's hard to sympathize with him as a character. The seven deadly words ("Why do I care about these characters?") started echoing in my head.
Leckie is sent to a field hospital on the island of Banika to clear up his virus and get him back on his feet. The second half of the episode is Leckie at the hospital. He finds himself assigned to a mental ward. The doctor in charge assures him it's because the regular wards are full and he's just taking the overflow, but the story drops a few hints that maybe he was sent there on purpose to suss out whether he's really sick or just malingering. Alas it's never made clear enough.
At the hospital Leckie works on building relationships with the doctor, the orderly, and one or two of the clearly mentally ill patients. This kind of feels like episode 3's dead-end love story all over again, in that at the end of ep. 4 Leckie ships out from the hospital. The writers just wasted another 30 minutes of air time starting subplots that will never go anywhere. Also, one of the mentally ill soldiers, I believe it's Gibson, is more sympathetic in his 1 minute of screen time than Leckie is in 60 minutes. Gibson's genuinely hurting, and it's impossible not to feel for him. Leckie, by contrast, just seems like a bit of a malingerer.