Now this was *real* terror! The truly horrific nature of 'honour' on the path to glory is laid bare in this episode which right from the impressively vast opening scene of warfare carnage at the beginning, is one you can tell in a good way that is anything but a traditional Tales From the Crypt story. It's very much an anomaly of the series - containing no supernatural elements, schlock, grim irony, overly-grisly gore for gore's sake, or technically horror unless of course you count the horror of war or that of a father sacrificing his own son just for the sake of saving face, which despite not being done in a overblown spectacular fashion, I find to be one of the more bold and shocking moves that the show ever did. I enjoy it a lot, I like how it's different than all the others, I think the story's beautifully balanced, it's very sombre and serious, very engaging, I love how authentic the WW1 looks and feels, the sets are excellent all around, especially the church where the father sentences the son to death while the hanging image of Christ looks on in the background. How appallingly biblical.. This story needed the extra bit of time than usual to flesh out the characters and hopefully make one care enough about them and the impossible situation that by the time it reaches the tense climactic moment it has a greater emotional impact. And who the hell cares if you can see the twist coming, that's part of what makes a great episode like this so effective, when you know what's coming as it builds to the big finale, but it still works anyway. And besides which, this show being what it is, the outcome was never really in doubt! It does have a twist ending but it's a realistic twist, as even the stony general is unable to completely witness the execution of his own flesh and blood and gives the game away as he averts his eyes for one terribly telling moment... However you may look at it, it's a coldblooded heartless act and a very cruel deception, he lied right to his son's face about the nature of the lethal volley of the firing squad, perhaps partly to spare him fear, but doubtlessly mainly just so that he could die putting up a false pretence of courage and dignity. Only it was a lie, they were not blanks, and as the old general looks down at his son lying in a ditch of corpses knowing the dark secret that only he ever will, he doesn't look particularly regretful or pained that it came to such an unspeakable course of action, he looks satisfied with an outcome that has allowed him to keep his twisted code of honour intact. And it's not as if he was hopelessly bound by the wartime protocols of the day, it was his decision, he could've punished his son, a man who was no soldier and was only ever in the army in the first place to please his father, by locking him up for life for his cowardice, but it was like it was all about the shame to him and the pride of his military family name, he was just too proud to stop. Such a chilling performance. Kirk Douglas was fantastic and for me he's really what makes this one great by the subtle strength of his commanding presence alone. And it has to be said it's saddening and sort of eerie how you know, in real life Kirk actually would go on to outlive his son Eric and see him die after years of addiction. It was good to see Lance Henrikson in an episode again in a strong bit part after his earlier turn in the shortest episode, "Cutting Cards", and this one is the longest. The only stuff I don't like is how often Lance snarls out yellow, it felt a bit silly, and also the stupid smoking boots after the execution, I get that it's like the saying "blow you out of your shoes", but it just seemed like a very inappropriate comedic image to place in that moment. Whatever, overall it's another great ep by Rob Zemekis and an excellent and different kind of tale on which to close the third season. Have a good one folks!
Review of Yellow
