On the first episode of Apple TV’s Masters of The Air, the audience was introduced to two individuals “John” Bucky (Callum Turner) and Gale “Buck” (Austin Butler), who were in the Air Force during World War II. Gale and his crew were in preparation for their first mission as a team. Because of extreme and powerful forces, the Germans put down two of the Air Force’s planes, which made the crew much smaller. After the tragic event, John took Gale in for questioning, since he was in charge of the crew.
This next episode, “Part Two”, opens with the two best friends driving back to their plantation, after a difficult fight in the air. There’s still a lot of tension between everyone at the moment. This is just after the questioning. John seemed overwhelmed as everyone who was involved was being interrogated.
It’s not until John and Lt. Curtis (Barry Keoghan) are standing up on one of their planes that the audience notices how affected John is by what happened. He throws a bottle at one of the planes after pouring the bottle for the ones that died. John tells Curtis that he doesn’t feel anything and tells him to hit him. Curtis doesn’t want to, but John pushes him to punch him. Curtis is uncomfortable by the look on his face.
The next day comes and John has his interview. He was hungover. Afterward, he goes to the cafeteria and tells Gale the news that he got demoted to CO of the 418th squadron. John admits that he knew Gale met with the colonel first. But, Gale only went there to tell the colonel that John should still be a lead as a squadron commander.
The show introduces a new character, Lt. Ken Lemmons (Raff Law), who’s only 19-years-old. As he’s speaking to two little boys, a plane crashes not too far from where they are, on their base. It was a practice mission worked by a new crew that wasn’t prepped well enough. They started with 350 crewmen and were only down to 66, which meant that they had to be very cautious and smart for their next mission.
Even though the Americans were working with the British, the two forces had different tactics of defeating/attacking Germans. The Americans chose to go to combat during the day, while the British chose to attack when it was dark outside, so there were no traces of it being them.
It’s now a new day, a new mission. Their target is in Norway. Major Crosby (Anthony Boyle) takes his best friend Bubbles’ (Louis Greatorex) place for the mission. Bubbles became too sick to be on the mission. Bubbles is assigned to be on the plane with John as their navigator. Unfortunately, for Crosby, he still has his motion sickness.
As everyone’s having a fun time, partying and celebrating, sirens go off, which means they have to head off for safety. There’s a possibility they could be under attack at any moment.
In this episode, viewers really got a chance to see more of the happy moments between the Air Force and a chance to see more of a lighthearted view of John and Gale’s friendship, and their brotherhood. It was enjoyable to see their friendship with Curtis too. What’s very intriguing about this show is that the visuals are realistic and viewers can see things happening from inside of the plane, not just outside. There’s so much action in this series and it’s entertaining to see the Air Force working during this time period.
Rating: 10/10