Again forced to contend with raw recruits, Sledge (Joe Mazzello) and Shelton (Rami Malek) are now the experienced and bitter marines. It was absolutely distressing to watch as one of those new recruits made mistake after mistake, costing the lives of many of the others, and finally going insane. The pressures on the mind of man when living in those conditions are something I am glad I will never have to experience.
I was very moved when Shelton noticed that news from home upset Sledge. It turns out that his dog died, which, compared to all the death surrounding him at Okinawa, seems a small thing, but losing a pet, a friend from home, someone whom you consider safe because he or she isn't with you in this Hell, that is harder than losing yet another recruit to the stupid mistakes only the green make.
I was also impressed with the balance between Sledge pulling his side arm to kill an enemy in this episode and Leckie (James Badge Dale)'s decision to do the same in the premiere. Here, Sledge was fulled by hatred and disgust, wanting the Jap dead, as he wanted all Japs, while Leckie had been unable to watch the Japanese soldier suffer and be toyed with. Throughout the war, Leckie had managed to retain his humanity, while Sledge lost it for a while.
But the horrors of what happened to the civilians helped bring him back.
We started by seeing them only on the road, trying to evacuate from the areas where fighting was going on. Then we saw them die as they tried to escape the Japanese. Next, we saw a woman holding a baby explode because she had been outfitted with dynamite, and following that, the enemy used those people as human shields. And Sledge and the rest of them men shot them to get to the Japanese behind them. Finally, in a shack, Sledge and Shelton found a crying baby, his mother and father both dead. They stood there and stared until another soldier came and took the child away.
It was after all this that things finally came back in focus for Sledge, when he found an old woman, her guts split open, slowly dying. She wanted him to kill her, to shoot her in the head and end her pain, but he could not do it. His compassion returned, and he held her in his arms until the light went out of her eyes.
After all that, a bomb was dropped on a Japanese city, killing men and women, the elderly and infants, and leaving behind devastation that would take decades to fade.
The last episode, entitled Home, will hopefully be full of hope, rather than the horror we have witnessed throughout the series. But, regardless, who could forget what we have already witnessed?
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