Catch-22 – Episode 3 Review

Catch-22 continues with a much more focused episode with its third entry. It is the strongest episode in the season so far.

The 256th US Army Air Squadron has been given the mission to bomb Bologna. The city is heavily defended by the Germans and Yossarian (Christopher Abbott) believes it will be a suicide mission – so looks for any way to get out of it – even if it brings repercussion to his fellow airmen.

Out of all the episodes so far the third episode works the best as an individual piece. The Bologna mission act as a singular throughline which works with the wider story regarding Yossarian’s season-long arc. During the episode, Yossarian tries many actions to avoid going on the mission including poisoning everyone and altering the commander’s maps.

Yossarian is shown to be a selfish arse. He is a man who gives everyone the shits to gets out of the mission and wants the army to advance on Bologna just to make their mission easier. He is a coward and he is called by his commanding officer and fellow airmen. It leads to the question of why did Yossarian join the military in the first place?

Yossarian’s actions have severe consequences. One of the most memorable moments in the novel was when Yossarian altered the lines on the map to make it look like the Allies captured Bologna and preventing the bombing mission. Because of this one action Major de Coverley (Hugh Laure) ends up captured by the Germans when scouting the city. Colonel Cathcart (Kyle Chandler) piles on by berating the whole squadron and leads to another rise in the mission count, and Yossarian does not own up. Yossarian’s final act of sabotage leads to his whole aircrew to be tainted with the mark of cowardice. Yossarian clearly is not in a fit state to fly but is stuck in the Catch-22 because by not wanting to fly more missions he is considered sane.

The episode also focused on the camaraderie between Yossarian’s aircrew. One of Yossarian’s first acts was to warn his comrades in arms not to eat the tomato soap and they spend their downtime together – whether it’s resting at sea or relaxing at the whorehouse. They don’t rat Yossarian out for what he did in the air. Yossarian and McWatt (Jon Rudnitsky) share their differing philosophies with McWatt stating that Yossarian is wasting his time trying to get out of missions because we all end up in the same place. And there was a tragedy at the end of the episode made more impactful due to their friendship.

As well as the main story the subplot of Milo’s (Daniel David Stewart) growing business. It had grown so much that he was operating in Axis territory and had access to German planes. He even calls his business “The Syndicate” that makes it sound like he is running a criminal enterprise. A little nugget in the episode was when Aarfy (Rafi Gavron) tells a story where he pressured two girls into sex – an act so bad that even a brothel owner looks down on him.

The third episode is the most consistent episode in the season so far. It has a standalone storyline that makes the episode work on its own as well within the wider plot of the show.