A Dramatic Turn For The Worse...(The Pacific Part 7)

Part 7: Directed by Tim Van Patton

Wow. That’s the word that came out of my mouth once the episode had ended. It’s an eye opener for sure. It is easily the most upsetting episode so far in terms of showing the real effects of war on a human being and it’s terrifying to say the least. Some of the sequences in this part were downright shocking, especially where one of the soldiers is throwing rocks into an open skull of one of the Japanese men. It’s revolting, but i guess it’s meant to be like that, it’s meant to show the brutality of the situation there in. The constant threat of death and the amount of destruction around him with their colleagues and sometimes friends dying or being blown up. The way the battle scenes are shot must take days, weeks or even months to perfect with the amount of timing and precise detail that does into them. To have it coming out the way it did, it proves that this show is one of the best on TV at the moment. The story at the moment has taken its chance to really show the horrors and the effects on the men and it shows none better than on Sledge, the innocent boy going into the war, being turned into the shell of the boy who first arrived. He’s seen things he wished he hadn’t and because of it, he’s changed. Sledge now moving into the limelight of the series, only small scenes with Basilone still not over the war and Leckie being hurt and being deported it seems only Sledge is left in the warzone. Maybe the next instalments will focus on the men outside the war, with Basilone trying to grip the reality of not being in a war, Leckie recovering from his injuries or being too injured and Sledge returning home to his family the man he was meant to be but something a little off about him. I’m looking forward to the direction this might go.

Simon Childs