Grid Effect

“Bomb In the Garden” really had everything. Half political, half personal, as frustrating as it was relieving and was akin to The Wire in as many ways as it contrasted it, and even a literal bomb in a garden. We were just completely and unnecessarily hooked by this episode, and even rewatched it immediately afterwards, putting Mad Men on the back burner. Read previous write-ups for the past six installments here.

What was amazing about the storytelling, especially from the political/tactical side of things, is that you knew what kind of state they would leave Baghdad in, but we were still captivated in seeing it develop/devolve. You knew the Marines would wind up in the heart of the city being its at least temporarily ruling class, while everything around them fell to shit without having the power to do anything about it. But seeing an interpretation of it from ground zero is something that has been sorely lacking.

A telltale sign of things not going according to plan was every time they ventured away from the friendly confines of whatever building they were held up in (Saddam’s sons cigarette factory for most of it), their safety was always in question. People could be hiding in any building, in any alcove dressed as everyone else and you would have no idea. The entire landscape was entirely too tenuous to actually consider it safe or conquered or liberated. Though we did get to see Evan Wright’s ridiculous Serpentine run from the sniper.

If the marines or the US’s entire foreign policy was ran by people like Nate Fick, Brad Colbert, Doc Brown and the like instead of Encino Man and his superiors, the outlook might be a little more sustainable. They might have more than one, indifferent and untrustworthy translator, for instance. While things are improving now, we can understand why it was such a long time coming: people like Encino Man dolling out absurd orders and Captain America types following them. At least we got to see Encino leveled by Patterson under the guise of a football game. How can someone be so fucking oblivious?

It wouldn’t have been Generation Kill if we didn’t get one more needless tragedy, this time two of the marines, one losing a limb and the other an eye on the pointless marking of a mine field at Encino Man’s orders and Captain America’s complacence. The bottom lime is, EM is in over his head as a captain and CA is unfit for command. Of course this is all only one man’s opinion (Evan Wright) filtered through another’s (Simon), but considering how untenable the situation was for about four years after the fall of Saddam’s army, we are inclined to believe it.

Ultimately it is better for people like Colbert and Fick to be out of active duty. Or rather, better for themselves, not necessarily for the world. If they weren’t present to counterbalance the utter fuck-uppery that makes up so much of Battalion, all of the ill-advised orders that were altered by the capable underlings without Battalion’s knowledge would have been carried out as requested, just doubling up on the tragic scale. Look at the bomb Colbert detinated in the garden. He does it cautiously yet hastily, and accomplishes it successfully but does so at such risk that it is out of frustration as much as it is out of a sense of obligation. He isn’t Doc, his specialty is reconnaissance. But since the war and command is such that those skills are rendered useless, he is in a garden playing EOD (what our best friend from high school is trained in and currently putting to use in Iraq.)

Also in Baghdad, we finally got to see a recon mission. Albeit it was to break into a building to spite some other marines only to turn some random executives office like only a team of frustrated marines could, but it wasn’t until that scene that we realized what Brad Colbert was pissed off about. He is as effective as hell in traditional battle, can you imagine what he is capable of if put in his trained environment?

Evan’s final conversation with Godfather (Ferrando) was quite an eye-opener but still ambiguous. We think Godfather brings up an interesting point in terms of responding to complaints from his unit, but at what point does a complaint actually warrant attention? Does Captain America have to kill someone? When Evan suggest he considers his sources, is he supposed to value one soldiers distress over another’s. In the scope of the series, obviously Fick was capable of managing and any complaints about his were done out of personal animus rather than actual issues with command. But how is that supposed to be addressed, particularly when the majority of those who have Godfather’s ear are like-minded in that they are nothing like Fick.

His revelation that he enjoys the thrill of being fired at were kind of disturbing. If something like that is so appealing to him, it seems like his judgment can be considerably altered to the point that he is putting his division in harm’s way. I mean, if you enjoy the thrill of being shot at and actively seek it out, then obviously when everyone is following your lead, they will be under fire as well. And being that he is Battalion commander, he isn’t literally on the front line like all of his command is. Evan Wright, appropriately, looks disgusted.

The last twenty minutes of this episode are really what put it over the top from a great episode to maybe the episode of television we’ve watched in the past season. After the conversation between Wright and Godfather, we are privy to all the camaraderie and frustration from all of the soldiers. The football game kind of tipified that on both the personal and professional levels.

Patterson clocking Encino Man for being a dipshit was obviously on the professional, considering EM’s orders had cost one soldier a leg and another an eye just minutes earlier. And his enthusiasm and success in the pickup football game I think got to Patterson more than the incompetence itself. Encino Man would be an ideal corporal, he rivals Rudy in physicality and he certainly seems capable of doing grunt work, but putting him in charge of people like Patterson, who sees every angle like Encino Man could only dream of, is insane. Basically, EM’s height as a marine is a rich man’s Manimal.

But Ray attacking Rudy in a pent-up form of aggression stemming from his high school years was done out of a sense of lost identity. If he isn’t the stud CPO for Bravo Platoon’s 2nd team, then what is he? Or rather, what does he think he is? It seems the only other identity he’s ever assumes is as the eccentric high school kid who used to get picked on by the meathead jocks, who don’t necessarily act like Rudy but at least look more like him than Ray. In about a thousand ways we felt bad for him, because you can’t do what he did in the past three weeks for a lifetime and expect to live a long, happy life. And he most certainly did not look forward to going back home.

Person on the left, Ransone on the right. Nothing pithy. I just thought you would want to see the uncanny resemblance.

And the final scene, with the ongoing story of Lilley making his movie about the war finally airing it for Bravo two was just high art. As great as all those season ending montages were on The Wire, they had nothing on this. Mostly because this was contextual (a video made by one of the soldiers). We couldn’t figure out if there was a reason the soldiers left in the order they did, as they all seemed to file out of the mess hall either out of boredom or disgust. But naturally Colbert isn’t interested in seeing a millisecond of it and Trombley’s lunatic ass was still sitting there till the credits rolled, because nothing excites him as much as death, destruction and carnage as Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” Chillingly plays over the video. We would kind of like to hear a follow up on Trombley. As well as the rest of them for that matter.

Other notes from “Bomb In The Garden”:

-Speaking of Trombley, his “see, we do kill dogs in Iraq” after asking Colbert if he could shoot any strays for the past three weeks was meant to be amusing, it was also somewhat troubling. As in, what rules aren’t made to be broken.

-Also in Baghdad, we finally got to see a recon mission. Albeit it was to break into a building to spite some other marines only to turn some random executives office like only a team of frustrated marines could, but it wasn’t until that scene that we realized what Brad Colbert was pissed off about. He is as effective as hell in traditional battle, can you imagine what he is capable of if put in his trained environment.

-The letters from home really seemed to dictate the behavior of the soldiers for the rest of the episode. Person fell into a mild depression after not getting any letters, and Manimal pissed all over a stranger’s office after the callous divorce letter he got from his either horrible or horribly vindictive wife.

-Espera’s letter was just brutally honest and sad. For the first time since Colbert’s exposition on his relationship with his best friend and ex-girlfriend we saw a lot of vulnerability amongst any of the soldiers.

-All of the interactions with the civilians brought something to the table. Either they were funny (bartering for valium) or depressing (all the despair, the sick children and the people stealing candy from them) or interesting (everything with the translators).

-Fick discussing writing a book with Wright seemed a little too meta for a series that is already heavy on it. But since we tend to believe the conversation actually happened, it worked.

While we thought this miniseries was utterly depressing as many ways as it was interesting, we are disappointed that our Sunday nights will be cut in half. We will probably end up reading the book now just for a deeper understanding of everyone involved, as we’ve been lead to believe that the book goes into much greater detail.

But if the first six episodes felt a little meandering to you without a point, they really gift wrapped it last night. Our only complaint was much like with The Dark Knight, it seemed to venture into being too heavy-handed at times. But since this series is portraying real people and real soldiers, I like the notion of acknowledging what they went through with some hyperbole, especially when so few people in this country seem to acknowledge it themselves (as pointed out in the final conversation or forum or whatever it was that rolled over the credits).

Back tomorrow with posts about unicorns and ice cream to lighten the mood.