While listening to the commentary for this episode, Shirl Hendryx (the writer) said that he felt the 3rd and 4th seasons of Combat were the best, and I would have to agree. I haven't seen any season 5 episodes yet, but by the 4th season, the show was having a greater percentage of amazing episodes than the 3 that preceded it. Whatever the reason for this, SIW has to be one of Combat's highlights, and is probably the installment I would choose to best represent the show in its entirety. I say this because it has all the hallmarks of what the show is all about: exciting gunfights, a moral, teamwork, distrust among soldiers who are supposed to be allies, and someone risking his life for the greater good. SIW begins with a soldier named Kalb (John Cassavetes) being assigned to Saunders. The latter already has another replacement in his squad, Fleming (William Stevens). Fleming despises Kalb, as he says he's a coward who got 3 of his men killed during the Normandy landings. In the squad's first encounter of the day, Kalb apparently wimps out and doesn't shoot at a German machine gun position, which ends up leading to the death of Sawyer, a squad mate. Fleming's already bitter hatred of Kalb intensifies. Later on, the squad comes to an abandoned town and Saunders orders the men to spread out and search the houses. After they start being fired upon, the squad has to take refuge in a church. All the squad members make it inside, with the noticeable absence of Kalb. He later shows up with a wound on his leg. As Saunders tells Doc to treat it, he notices something is wrong. Powder burns, a type of skin injury someone can only get if a gun is fired basically right on top of them, are on Kalb's leg. Doc tells Saunders about this. While not looking to start a fight, Doc knows the most likely way Kalb got that injury is if he shot himself. Saunders asks Kalb about how he got the burns, and Kalb tells an admittedly unbelievable and completely ridiculous story about how he fought a german at close range, got scratched on the face, and then shot him. Saunders isn't buying it. Fleming overhears what's going on and calls Kalb a coward for wounding himself so he wouldn't have to fight. Like a true liar, Kalb revises his story and says he didn't shoot the german as he couldn't raise his rifle. Instead, he pulled his knife on the german and stabbed him with it. Fleming pulls out Kalb's bayonet and finds that it's totally spotless and not a single drop of blood can be seen. Again, Kalb tries to lie his way out and awkwardly says it wasn't his bayonet he stabbed the german with: it was the german's bayonet. Everyone around him is sure Kalb is trying to deceive everyone. However, he says the german he stabbed to death had glasses on, and he killed him in front of the church. Fleming investigates the body and finds out that german wasn't wearing any glasses. Furious over the fact that nobody will believe his incredibly contrived story, Kalb starts yelling that he did kill that german, and that if he managed to crawl away before bleeding to death, that isn't his fault. Right after, another gun battle ensues and Kalb is wounded again. Fleming goes off on Kalb again and says he's going to get him court martialed for putting the whole squad in jeopardy, but just then, Saunders yells to him from further up the street. He's holding the glasses worn by the german Kalb killed. As it turns out, he was telling the truth. A few steps more, and the corpse of the german (with a knife in his back) comes into view. Fleming finally understands an important lesson in that you should only believe what you see with your own eyes. Caje appears driving a stolen german truck, and the squad jumps in and leaves. Like many other episodes I love from all the tv shows I've watched, SIW is so good that I kind of feel bad for watching it, since once you do, most other Combat episodes are going to seem average. It's hard to believe that even after seeing this, I still have yet to watch Hills are for Heroes, which is often considered the best installment of the entire show. What makes SIW great is Cassavetes' part: everybody thinks he's a liar because his story of events keeps contradicting itself, and the way the others look at him as he rambles makes it obvious they don't trust him, even if they won't say it to his face. Saunders also has to deal with someone who is as stubborn as he is, which (I've said a lot before) is a rare occurance. Seeing Morrow get confrontational with Stevens is one of the episode's strong points. Fleming looks for any excuse he can to justify his dislike of Kalb, as he apparently knows he's a coward firsthand. As the audience, you're probably going to regard Kalb as dishonest as well, since he seems to grin and pause often when telling his side of things. It makes it all the more surprising when you learn he did what he said. In all, SIW is one of Combat's most well made entries, and I can't find much to complain about other than it took about 15 minutes to get interesting. Hanley doesn't appear, but when Vic and both guest stars (as well as everyone else) act with so much tenacity and wit, this is barely even a downside.
Review of S.I.W.
