Replacements

Easy Company takes part in Operation Market Garden.

This is another excellent episode that recreates events from an important part of the European invasion.

The story is from the perspective of replacement soldiers and the experiences of more experienced men like Sergeant Denver Randleman.

One of the best aspects of this episode is how it depicts the bonds forming between the soldiers who have been through combat experiences together. It cleverly contrasts it with attitudes towards replacement members.

In most war films characters are usually portrayed quite generically and the above theme is not addressed. The opening interviews to 'Replacements' provide great context for the characters shown. It rings true with a first hand account I heard from an elderly member of my family who was a replacement soldier (drafted) during WWII who said he was never truly accepted by the more experienced career soldiers.

This is my third viewing of the episode and still the most impactful scenes I find are when Easy Company enters Eindhoven and it depicts both the joyous reaction and the ugly side of the town citizens during these events. I also love one very touching moment where a little boy receives a bar of chocolate for the first time. These scenes are incredibly powerful.

Sergeant Randleman and his exploits behind enemy lines are in heavy focus. These scenes are all portrayed with superb visual storytelling as there is very little dialogue involved. It is recorded that the real Randleman was trapped behind enemy lines for a period of time and had to engage an enemy soldier in hand to hand combat, but the details of what is shown here feel slightly too cinematic to all be true.

Generally the visuals and overall production values are great. Whether or not the combat scenes are realistic is not for me to comment on as I do not have a military background, but as a viewer, nothing looks obviously fake. The set designs, costumes, props, colour grading combine to make it a cinematic and engaging experience.

Michael Cudlitz leads this episode well and has great support from other cast members as always.

As ever 'Band of Brothers' piques an interest about some of the most important events of the twentieth century and hopefully it will prompt viewers to do their own research and find out more about what happened.

For me this is a 9.5/10 but I round upwards.

This is a freaking amazing episode. My favorite character in this episode was Bull. My favorite things about this episode were the storyline, the Protagonist, and the action. I actually really liked this episode, just a little more than Why We Fight. I really love Bull's character arc in this part of the story. This definitely should be at least a 8.9 or 9.0 od this app, because this was an amazing episode. This is just another episode as to why that this is a must-watch series. Just know that it's short and enjoyable at the same exact time. As I always say in reviews for this fantastic show, watch it if you have the chance or if you haven't.

Right before the woman who turns out to be a collaborator kisses Grant at about 20 mins, there's an old man in the bottom left of the screen who looks exactly like Babe Heffron. He doesn't seem to be referred to in the cast list and I wanted to be sure before submitting him as an uncredited actor.

This, like the later The Pacific, was an excellent retelling of the events of World War Two, good and bad. One knows they cannot recreate it perfectly, that is fair enough, but it is a shame they could not make every effort to get it as accurate as possible, that way we learn the truth. But we know that this is what movie makers do - they make up stories, else how would all the scriptwriters do, and how would they earn a living, if they couldn't lie their pants off ? Some shows are more precise than others. One true aspect I have mixed feelings about is the shaving of the heads of those women who collaborated. Now sure, in effect they were traitors - verraders - and as the Resistance leader said, the men were being shot. Certainly these women gave aid and comfort to the enemy - the Fascist Invader, and benefitted even at the expense of the honest fellow citizens, and were opportunists. But then, notice it is men taking these women out and punishing them, and yet is it not the men who let the country down by not fighting nor being prepared enough, got invaded, allowing these women to be in this position ? Certainly I was not there - I was not even born until over twenty two years after the end of it, and have never been in that position, but the idea still bothers me. I can understand that those men and women who lived through occupation would have their own opinion. This show does not justify nor condemn it - it just shows what happened. I have certainly learned a lot from this series over the years, and it is what it was made to be, even if from a serious source - entertaining.

WW2 history buffs (maybe 60% of people watching this series) already know how the centerpiece battle of this episode ends, so it is a bit of an episode to suffer through, even though it is has as much quality as the rest of the series.

To make it even more uncomfortable, Market Garden was the moment when the airborne soldiers, the protagonists of this series, would have decided the war in Europe. But it was not meant to be. Thankfully, this was not the end of Easy Company's adventures.