What I’m Watching: Valley of Tears (Penultimate Episode)

Valley of Tears: Season 1, Episode 9 “The Abyss” (B+)

This episode felt like it jumped around a lot less, focusing in on its various storylines without breaking too much from them. The first few minutes were all about the tank with plenty of pressure and an intensity on the battlefield. The humorous banter between Meni and Melakhi helped produce a useful conclusion, that the Syrians were all about closing their hatches while keeping theirs open could actually provide the unit with an advantage since they would be able to see more clearly. Melakhi’s motivational speech about how the Syrians were on their way to his mother’s home in Jerusalem seemed to rally the assembled troops, and Meni fittingly relinquished command to the man who knew what he wanted and how to convince others that it was right to fight for it. Marco’s confession about trying to save his mother was an important moment that Melakhi seemed to take as best he could, and Meni and Yoni had their own version of a lukewarm father-son exchange that ended more positively than I might have expected. Avinoam and Dafna’s expedition to find Yoav ended in Avinoam’s almost immediate surrender and capture, and I thought that we were going to see him being interrogated at the end of the episode after he tried to talk too much to the other prisoners around him. Instead, we heard an argument made that it was indeed the Israelis and their Zionist imperialist ideals that started this war that began with a surprise attack, and the interrogator didn’t seem all that sincere about their shared culture when he didn’t get the answer he wanted. The finale will surely feature some closure, and I don’t imagine that all of these characters will survive what’s coming.