(132) Conflict

SYNOPSIS: Exhaustion and lack of sleep cause a breakdown of morale in Saunders' squad. After two days of continuous patrol in bad weather, Caje and Littlejohn are at each other's throats. Saunders looks scared as he follows his squad out into the rain. For once, he is unsure of the core group of men he has always counted on. The animosity between Caje and Littlejohn threatens to get everyone killed. But when Saunders and McCall are wounded, the squabbling duo comes through.

REVIEW: This gritty story presents the members of the squad at their worst and their best — and, therefore, at their most human. In "Conflict," the unending rain is as oppressive as the squad's humor. These conditions and privations effect the closest of comrades-in-arms and the audience watches helplessly as characters they have come to love begin to tear each other apart. For the first time in the series, the greatest danger to the squad's survival is the squad itself.

Kirby's absence from the episode works well. The audience expects conflict from Kirby. But trouble coming from the gentle Littlejohn and easy-going Caje is jarring. Pierre Jalbert is particularly frightening when he lets Caje lose his temper; in the dark, brooding shots, he looks positively satanic.

William Bryant as McCall

The scene as written between Saunders and McCall is weak. McCall asks questions when he and Saunders scope out the farmhouse, great dialogue such as "Sure looks quiet," "What do you think?" and "How much further, Sarge?" Such dialogue would have been excised in earlier seasons. The better written Combat! scripts don't require supporting actors to ask stupid questions.

Stunt coordinator Earl Parker is the German smoking a cigarette in the corner of the farmhouse. He later dies rolling down a tree log — managing to lose his helmet to reveal his blond hair. He is killed again later when a grenade explodes in his face.

• During the final firefight, after McCall has left and Saunders is alone behind the tree trunk, the tip of a B.A.R. is in the corner of the picture.
• Opening sequence is "colorized" war footage. Even the lightening is reused from "Second in Command" and colorized.
• Almost all the episode was filmed on the green set at CBS.
• At MGM, the walls were really falling apart. At CBS, they had to paint the walls to look that way. Very apparent as "painted" decay in the final scenes when Littlejohn leans against the two-color textured cracks in wall and in back of Saunders and McCall in hospital.
• Only seven Germans are at the farmhouse, but the squad kills eighteen and takes one prisoner. Germans killed in this episode: 25. Americans: none.

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