Masters of the Air‘s finale aired on Friday, March 15 on Apple TV+, and this episode did an excellent job of taking viewers through the final days of the war. The episode wrapped up key storylines while finding the right balance between action, tension, and emotion.
Let's take a closer look at the events of Episode Nine, as the war in Europe came to an end and our heroes struggle to survive until the end of hostilities while also coming face-to-face with the evil of the Nazis.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Masters of the Air ahead
Masters of the Air finale recap
The episode begins with Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal (Nate Mann) getting shot down over Berlin, but he stays in the plane as long as possible until the last second and manages to fly close to Soviet lines. He bails out and isn't quite sure where he landed. He sees approaching Russian soldiers and puts his hands up in surrender, yelling “Americana! Roosevelt! Stalin! Coca-Cola” in an attempt to keep the Soviets from shooting him on the spot.
Rosie recuperates with the Russian troops and gets up to stretch. He goes for a walk and finds himself in an abandoned Nazi concentration camp, where he quickly realizes the horrible atrocities that Hitler's forces perpetrated throughout occupied Europe.
A treacherous march for the prisoners of war
Early in the episode, the POWs at Stalag Luft III are awakened in the middle of the night and ordered to be ready to march in less than an hour. The Soviet Union's Red Army is closing in, and the Nazi captors are evacuating and will not leave the prisoners at the camp to be rescued by the Soviets.
Gale “Buck” Cleven (Austin Butler) and John “Bucky” Egan (Callum Turner) discuss making an attempt to break out of the camp and escape, but for the time being they decide to hold off on taking any action and let the situation play out.
Eventually, the prisoners arrive in a town and chaos ensues. Bucky, Buck, and two others decide to take advantage of the chaos and use this moment to make a run for it. Buck makes it over the wall and takes off running. However, as Bucky tries to quietly break for the wall, a German guard sees him and orders him to halt.
The soldier sees Buck climbing over the wall, and Egan yells at Buck to go on without him and get away. The Nazi soldier aims his rifle and fires several rounds in Buck's direction, but none of the shots find their target.
The Nazis appear ready to execute Bucky, but one of the senior Allied officers protests, arguing that Egan is essential to helping maintain order amongst the prisoners and preventing riots. The camp commander orders his men to release their weapons and let Bucky live.
At one point, we see German columns heading past the prisoners in the opposite direction to wage battle against the advancing Soviet armies. Many of the German soldiers are visibly dejected, knowing the war is lost and any fighting is hopeless and will just lead to unnecessary death and destruction.
This outlook is contrasted with one young and naive soldier, a boy who doesn't appear to be more than 15 years old who enthusiastically yells “Hail Hitler” as he marches towards his inevitable slaughter at the hands of the Red Army.
Cleven and the two others are exhausted and resting in the woods when a young German infantryman comes up and stabs one of the three escaped airmen. Another German child soldier puts a pistol to Buck’s head, but Cleven disarms him and a fight ensues. Buck gains the upper hand and points the pistol at the young soldier, who cowers in fear and Cleven lets him go. Buck looks at the pistol and realizes that the kids didn't even have any bullets when they confronted them.
The prisoners have arrived at a new camp, but they are relieved to see a P-51 Mustang flying overhead. The fighter plane strafes the guard towers, and the prisoners spot American tanks on the horizon. It is legendary General George Patton’s Third Army, which has arrived to liberate the weary prisoners. Bucky finds an American flag, climbs the guard tower, cuts down the Nazi swastika and moments later Old Glory’s Stars and Stripes are flying high over the now-liberated camp.
Buck and Bucky are reunited in England
Back at Thorpe Abbotts, Buck, and Rosie fly on a humanitarian mission to drop food for starving Dutch civilians. We see “Many Thanks, Yanks” spelled out in flowers as the Germans honor a truce that is in place and doesn't open fire on the low-flying aircraft. On the flight back home, Buck is relieved to hear Bucky’s voice over the radio.
Review: A perfect landing
Assuming that there is no spin-off or second season, Masters of the Air went out on a high note with Episode 9. Although there wasn't a ton of aerial combat, Rosie's perilous mission and the sequence of his plane getting shot down was a great call back to the gripping combat scenes of the first half of the season. For those who are disappointed by the slower nature of the second half of the series, this episode gave them something to watch.
We see why Crosby was the perfect choice to be the narrator. Although his story might not have been quite as interesting as some of the others, his voice is the perfect narration. It is strongest at the beginning of the episode, as we hear him narrate the tide of war turning in favor of the Allies and the final push to victory against Nazi Germany. It's incredibly powerful as he says “We were the Masters of the Air”, and it really brings a new level of meaning to the title of the series.
The writers did a great job of showcasing the camaraderie of the prisoners, particularly the friendship between Buck and Bucky. When Cleven is flying home from the food drop and hears Egan on the radio, both actors do a great job of selling that moment and really bringing the friendship between the two characters to life.
Personally, I would rank this episode right up there along with Episodes 2-5 as the strongest of the series. It was a great change of pace to see the pilots flying their final operation which was a humanitarian mission and not a combat raid.
The actors still portrayed the stress of not knowing whether the Germans would honor the ceasefire or blow them out of the sky, but we got to see some beautiful shots of the planes and the crews flying them. Once they realized they weren't going to be targeted, it was a great send-off for the heroes of the Bloody Hundredth.
Masters of the Air is streaming on Apple TV+.
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