"Any Second Now" - recap and review

The player characters are Saunders and Hanley, but they only get a couple rolls of the dice. This episode is all about the guest NPC.

The show opens with Hanley telling the men that he and Saunders have been called back to division for debriefing. Saunders is so exhausted that he can't stay awake. Hanley says that he'll drive the jeep.

Cut to German planes on the ground, and pilots being briefed...in German. The officer points to an area on the map.

Cut to Hanley and Saunders rolling up on a sign...they're 10 km from Lore. Roll the opening credits. When I was a kid, I always thought that those bayonets and explosions in the opening were super cool; I still do. The zoom into the dots on Saunders' helmet reveals the guest stars: Alex Davion, and Elen Willard. The episode is written by Gene Levitt, and directed by Robert Altman.

Hanley had said that he was going to drive, but Saunders is driving when they arrive at Lore. Saunders goes to park the jeep...and to sleep. Hanley goes to find something to eat.

Hanley has entered the classic, even cliched, starting point of an adventure: bar/pub/restaurant/inn. While he goes to the bar, we see a demure woman in a uniform and beret seated at a table or booth. I would lay odds that she is one of our guest stars, one of the two NPCs du jour.

The innkeeper asks Hanley what he wants. Hanley makes some small attempt to speak French, and then asks, "Do you have anything to eat?" The innkeeper doesn't understand. Hanley's antics, pointing at his mouth and speaking English, attract the attention, and laughter, of our lady of the beret.

She translates for Hanley, ordering him bread, cheese, and wine. She's a nurse...but she's waiting for someone. That someone comes in after Hanley has seated himself with her, and proposed a toast to all the pretty girls. It must be l'autre NPC du jour. He goes to the bar. Beret goes to him.

He is miffed. His name is David. He speaks derogatorily about the "Yanks" that he has known. Hanley sets him straight, explaining that the young lady had helped him with his order. David grabs Hanley by the arm. It's about to be a barroom blitz.

"No," says the DM. "It's the blitz...sort of." The air raid sirens go off. Everyone scrambles. Everyone except David of the great disgruntlement. He sulks at the bar, refusing to go below with everyone else. He drops his drink as the first bomb falls. Later, he cowers beside the bar. (I can't help but wonder about that word, "cower." It means exactly what he does. Merriam-Webster.com says it comes from Middle English "couren;" probably from Middle Low German "kuren." It's first known use was in the 14th century, although I suspect that people were cowering long before that).

Meanwhile...

Hanley has the pleasant task of engaging in conversation with the Beret, interrupted by occasional blasts from above. It's a short raid; it lasts just long enough for Beret to tell Hanley that her resentful friend has been in the war since the beginning, and that when he lost his friend, Tony, six months ago, he walked out on her. So far, it seems, apart from his dedication as a soldier, our disgruntled NPC has no other redeeming qualities.

Hanley leaves, but the camera stays with our British NPCs. David has an obvious dislike for Americans. I'm wondering what Beret sees in the guy, and why we're stuck watching the NPCs instead of our favorite band of soldiers. He's the last one of his group of 105 men. He knows it's only a matter of time before he is dead too. He's on leave, on his way back to London...and the air raid sirens sing once more.

Disgruntled Dick won't go below. Beret refuses to leave as well. They order a romantic meal of bombs for two with a side of window glass, well-sharded. Only the side makes it to their table as he presses both of their faces to that surface.

He thinks one of the bombs didn't explode. He's a bomb disposal officer.

The unexploded bomb is in a church. David explains to the American soldiers, and the church father, that he doesn't think he has much of a chance to defuse the bomb, which could go off at any moment. He proposes blowing it up in place. The father says that's fine, the church can be rebuilt.

David is left alone with the bomb while the Americans clear the area, reroute traffic, and get him some TNT and other supplies. But wait, the rubble stirs.

You know who it's going to be beneath the debris...about time we got a player back in this game. Hanley was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the DM rolled the dice on the wandering bomb table. He's in the rubble. It looks like his legs are pinned beneath a heavy beam.

Problem: The bomb will eventually explode, either on its time fuse, or because of the anti-disturbance fuse. Getting a crane to lift the beam from Hanley would set off the bomb. Getting 10 men in to move the beam could set off the bomb. Detonating the bomb, as previously planned, would kill Hanley. I'm thinking the DM will be rolling 2D10 every turn with an increasing percentage possibility of detonation each turn on the time fuse, with an additional roll for any disturbance...like say, moving the beam, or another air raid. Perhaps disgruntled David will have to defuse after all.

There are lots of candles in this episode (it is night). I like their placement in most of the shots. 

David tries to get Hanley to take morphine, but Hanley refuses the defuser's invitation. They have a bit of a heated argument, but the words are harmlessly blunt in the shadow of the bomb...except Hanley tells David that he can't do it; he should send for somebody else to take care of the bomb.

But there's no time for that. The bomb won't wait. David begins to disarm it. While he explains the finer points of German ordnance to Hanley, we see Saunders searching for Hanley.

David continues working on the bomb. He gets to a particularly tricky spot in the process--the removal of the time fuse--and his hands begin to shake. He stops. Before he can begin again...air raid sirens.

Cut to the wine cellar where we see Saunders and others, and this:

(A perfect time for Debbie Boone singing the song for which she is famous--but no). 

Cut back to the church. David confirms to Hanley that a blast going off nearby could set off this bomb, unless the anti-disturbance fuse is out. He gets to work on it.

Cut back to the cellar where a coffee can noisily catches rapid drips from a cask; the sound is like the incessant and insane ticking of a cursed clock, reminding us that that the time fuse continues to eat inexorably into the fragile pillar upon which Hanley's life rests.

Back to the church. David is working. He is removing the anti-disturbance fuse. He has it out. We can hear the sound of bombs falling. Still inside the church, he panics and throws the fuse; it explodes.

Back to the wine cellar. Bombs are exploding. Saunders is wondering where Hanley is.

Back to the church. Hanley reminds David that the time fuse still needs to be removed. David removes that fuse and takes it outside. I'm expecting it to explode while he's outside with it. It doesn't explode...until he has come back inside with Hanley.

We find that the father never left the building. Beret also comes into the church. Saunders finally locates Hanley as well. Some final conversation, Saunders falls asleep, and the pull away shot--another episode ends with the final scene in the remains of a church.

I was disappointed. It was another episode with all the time spent on the NPCs. The classic adventure lead-in at the saloon didn't even result in a single roll of the dice on the grappling table, let alone an interesting side quest. Saunders only had about three or four lines in the whole show. Beret was only there to give us the background information on David (and to order the bread and cheese that Hanley never got to eat). Hanley spent most of the show immobile, bolstering David's courage to get him to defuse the bomb. This will not be in my top ten favorite episodes. I did like the cinematography, especially the abundance of candle shots. Two of the four episodes I've looked at so far have prominently featured candles, clergy, and churches.

I suppose the episode gives us a look at the bomb disposal expert, presenting the picture of how that task can erode a man's nerves, overwhelming him with that foreboding sense of the eventual and inevitable misstep or misfortune that will suddenly render his remains not only unidentifiable, but irretrievable. 

Why were the guests British? To pay due respect to the allied nature of the war effort? To recognize the British stiff upper lip and that nation's endurance of the blitz? There may be more to it than that, but those are the things that come to mind. Consider the candles: Perhaps the episode is a tribute to Britain as the flickering light in the darkness brought by the Nazi conquest of Europe. I like that idea. I like the episode much better with that interpretation.