Welcome back to the HBO Official Band of Brothers podcast. This is Roger Bennett, you

say flash, I say thunder. Episode 6. Baston. To me, this is one of the series most

humanly compelling, poetically written, visually thrilling, deeply personal

installments. An episode with a tenderness so incongruent to its setting. The battle

of the bulge, which has easy company pinned in frozen foxholes in the Ardenne Forest,

where General Anthony McCallif, played by Bill Armstrong, ladles out the orders and

portends what's to come. As easy company digs in and waits, this episode unfolds

through the eyes of one of its most singular characters. Doc Eugene Row. A man whom we

encounter in Baston's opening shot, trudging through the fog in snow. We see a close-up

at the Red Cross on band, before we even see his face. From there, we follow Row on the

endless quest for supplies. From foxhole to foxhole as the German's

drain artillery on to easy company. A storm of steel, during which the explosions are

mixed with the anguish cries of, ultimately, we follow Row back and forth to the town of

Baston behind the lines where he forges a bond, one born of empathy really, with Renée

Lamar, a remarkable Belgian nurse who, light row, is perpetually pitted in a staring

match with death as she works to treat wounded soldiers at a makeshift field hospital located

in a church. When Baston first aired, many hardcore viewers were surprised. They tuned

in, expecting to be exposed to epic set pieces and Michael Bay scale battle scenes. Instead,

they were served a show of subtlety, tiny moments, a narrative that captured the big story

in a death nuanced way. And to me, was all the more powerful for it, but without sacrificing

any of the resolute nurse that had become a core value of easy company. Whose tenacity

is best summed up by Colonel Sink himself.

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