The Band Of Brothers Scene That Went Too Far
"Band of Brothers" is an award-winning miniseries from HBO and DreamWorks Television that revolves around the lives and day-to-day events of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (nicknamed "Easy Company") during the final and fateful days of World War II. The show won seven Emmy Awards, including one for outstanding miniseries, and a Golden Globe in the same category back in 2002.
What many viewers may not know is that the production was largely based on memoirs and testimony from actual soldiers in the battalion (via LADBible). The show itself even splices in video interviews with some of the surviving soldiers at the beginning of each episode. It's a visceral and harrowing tale of the ugly realities of war, which should come as no surprise since it's produced by Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the masterminds behind a similarly compelling war drama, "Saving Private Ryan."
If you assumed that the entire show could qualify as a piece of entertainment that went too far, you wouldn't be wrong. Much of the series is certainly hard to watch. Still, despite it all, there is one particular scene that really plunged viewers into despair.
It's when the American soldiers liberate a concentration camp
Near the end of Episode 9 ("Why We Fight"), the battalion discovers a very recently abandoned concentration camp. The inhabitants who remain are beyond emaciated. Many of the former prisoners are unable to walk around on their own and are forced to lean on others for help. Deceased people are everywhere, and the soldiers have to hold rags to their faces because of the overpowering stench of death. The battalion's translator starts getting information from one of the healthier prisoners, informing the soldiers that their captors fled earlier that morning and murdered as many prisoners as possible before they left. In a particularly poignant moment, an old man stumbles up to one of the soldiers, hugging and kissing him with gratitude.
Needless to say, this scene is burned into the mind of everyone who watches it. A variety of Reddit users shared their feelings on the episode in a thread on the r/television subreddit. When u/shootstarpress binge-watched it for the first time, they said, "The concentration camp episode in particular absolutely shook me to the core." Indeed, for many viewers, this scene stands out in a crowd of difficult-to-take moments throughout the series. In response, u/Lasky21 said, "The scene of the soldiers walking into the concentration camp had my gut aching." "That concentration camp scene is so powerful," u/Imagelicious_JK said. "I had to stop the show after the scene and cry for a few minutes. Just couldn't continue watching right away."
When it comes to a scene that so accurately portrays how harrowing the horrors of war can be, this is definitely one that takes it to the extreme.