Well, it's taken more than a month but we finally got Eugene Sledge into the thick of it. I can't say that all the time we've spent watching him mope around his stately Mobile, Alabama house has been important, nor was his friendship with Sid all that moving, but Sledge's presence in Part Five of The Pacific did manage to make the best battle scene in the series so far.

Until this week's landing on Peleliu, the battles in The Pacific have been a bit lackluster. The night fights have been far too dark to make out any meaningful detail, which has seemed to be an aesthetic choice more than a sign of incompetence. I understand that for the men fighting those battles, that very same darkness created an atmosphere of terror and confusion, but for us watching at home it's really more frustrating than anything. Getting to see a clear, crisp assault in broad daylight made for a nice change of pace.

But before we get to the battle, there's the matter of Pvt. Sledge's arrival on Pavuvu. He goes through all the usual tropes of any story involving The New Guy in Camp. He gets pushed around by surly superiors, shocked by the uncouth behavior of war-hardened veterans and given vague warnings by the more sympathetic folks around him. I can't help but think the first half of Part Five did more to build Sledge's character than all of his appearances in previous episodes, such that those appearances seem unnecessary. Also unnecessary, or at least confounding, was Sledge's conversation with Leckie about religion. We get it, Leckie is a cynical sod who doesn't cotton to other people's traditions and Sledge is a naive child by comparison. Let's save some film on revelations like that in the future.

The battle on Peleliu really turns the episode around. It was a great choice to follow Sledge in profile during the entire beach landing. Joseph Mazzello does an admirable job of conveying Sledge's gradual transformation on his journey to the tree line. He launches from the battleship an anxious boy and bit by bit evolves into a startlingly proficient man of war. We get to watch his training kick in like someone flipped a switch. It's only after the slog up the beach is over that the action cuts between Sledge's and Leckie's parties. The latter looks so experienced by comparison, taking the hail of bullets and explosions like an inconvenience rather than a nightmare.

Best Moment: Sledge's run for the tree line. It was so artfully shot and well-acted, it's in competition for the best scene in the entire series.

Notes: I didn't get to it in the review, but Part Five also checks in with Basilone. He's enjoying a life of selling war bonds and screwing actresses. He also doesn't seem eager to go back to the front lines.

Episode Rating: 4/5- The preliminary minutes are weaker than the battle, but it was still a mostly solid episode with some of the biggest thrills in the series thus far.