People do not behave this way - except in the mind of a screenwriter : The Pacific

Episode 3 of "The Pacific" takes place during a brief leave for the Marine battalion as they recover in Melbourne. At least I didn't blow out the windows with this episode - no battle scenes at all. The dialogue picks up a bit, no doubt thanks to the contributions of George Pelacanos, who co-scripted the episode, but this remains a series in desperate search for a narrative. The main characters are kinda coming into focus, but it still remains maddeningly difficult to tell them apart. One, John (something), who was heroic on Guadalcanal and won a medal of honor, is being sent home to try to sell war bonds. I guess that's possible, but how can that help this series - a hero we were just getting to know and like. Meanwhile, Bob Lackey, the one who likes poetry and seems to have left a girlfriends back home (he met her at morning mass and pledged to write), meets an Australian girl and follows her home, where her stereotypical Greek mama and baba bring him into the household - almost as if they're presenting him as a gift to their daughter. Do they even care that he's very likely never to come back to Melbourne? That if he does he's likely to bring their daughter home to the States? Then to compound the improbabilities she dumps him abruptly, claiming that if he didn't return it would break her mother's heart. Huh? People do not behave this way except in the mind of a desperate screenwriter. I give the series credit for its lavish attention to period detail and for having the courage to do an entire episode without a scene of combat, but the series has not found its footing and seems less likely to do so with every episode.