[TP REWATCH] Part Seven and Part Eight

[thrillingdetectivetales]

Welcome to the rewatch discussion post for PART SEVEN and PART EIGHT of The Pacific.
You are welcome to discuss any and all aspects of the episodes in the comments on this post. Please recognize that others may hold different opinions than yours and continue to abide by our #1 rule: don't be a dick. Additionally, I ask that y'all take care to keep spoiler content off of spoiler-free threads. Otherwise, have fun!

Part Seven
Spoiler-free thread.
Spoiler friendly thread.

Part Eight
Spoiler-free thread.
Spoiler friendly thread.

If you'd like to chat about the episode in real time, join us over on Discord.*

To participate in discussions about previous episodes, you can visit the posts below:

Part One & Part Two
Part Three & Part Four
Part Five & Part Six

* Please note that during this rewatch, we have done away with spoiler friendly and spoiler-free Discord channels and will simply be using the dedicated channel for The Pacific. As such, if you participate in the discussion on the Discord server you may encounter spoilers.

Comments

Part Eight [SPOILER-FREE]

[thrillingdetectivetales]

This is a comment thread for spoiler-free discussion of The Pacific: Part Eight.

For spoiler friendly discussion of the episode, please see the thread above.

Re: Part Eight [SPOILER-FREE]

[yourlibrarian]

Unbelievable that all that suffering and loss was for nothing. I wish they'd said a little bit more about how the Philippines were retaken though.

Also amazing to think that the Japanese took even more casualties, given what was said about Iwo Jima.

It's interesting to get a look at the wartime propaganda through Johnny's story. Looks like we'll finally get some insight into training as well.

I noticed that Lena said that he would want seconds of the French toast, but it looks like neither she nor Johnny actually ate anything!

The looks on his men's faces when Johnny fell were pretty understandable. He must have seemed superhuman to them, undaunted by anything, and their lucky token to survive the war.

Re: Part Eight [SPOILER-FREE]

[thrillingdetectivetales]

When I first watched The Pacific I fast-forwarded through most of the Basilone bits, largely because they felt very tonally disparate from the stories of Leckie and Sledge. I've definitely developed a greater appreciation for them after sitting through them but I still feel like, overall, the creative team did Basilone a disservice by trying to jam his story in alongside two others.

I would have loved to see it have the space to really detail how heroic the stuff he did truly was, or seen it from Lena's POV or something. As it is, I definitely feel for his men, and for Lena, but the show doesn't do a very good job of explaining what exactly John did or why it was so heroic and I think his storyline overall suffers for it.

He would have made more sense in a series that had a slightly more guts-and-glory focus, like BoB, I think, though Jon Seda is a very pretty man and I didn't mind watching him one bit.