This week on Going Dutch, the base puts on its quarterly war games so Leary can pretend he’s a Real Man and that any war America engages in is still about doing the right thing instead of protecting the financial interests of the ruling class. At the end of the war games, they notice a drone flying over them and decide to hassle a local to make sure he’s not a spy.
Meanwhile, on Animal Control, everyone is very passionate about trivia night, and Patel realises he’s hot as a bartender. I… do watch better TV than this, I promise. Check out Severance if you haven’t. Paradise has a good reveal at the end of its pilot. I probably like Elsbeth more than you do, but still, that’s good TV.
Dutch Notes
- To be fair, this does look flat enough to be the Netherlands.
- Leary is a big WW2-head because it’s, quote, “the greatest war fought by the greatest generation, against the greatest enemy that we have ever crushed like a bug.” Look, every country does this, but America regularly overstates its role in WW2. I don’t know how it would’ve shaken out without them, but it was very much a team effort that they waited a long time to get in on. Please read a history book.
- You may recall the previous time Going Dutch engaged with WW2: Leary referring to the Netherlands as “the country that ratted out Anne Frank.” Nuance! Not spotted in the area!
- “When I was a kid, there were Nazis everywhere, okay?” As somebody living in 2025, this is the first time I’ve found Leary relatable.
- “When I was a kid, I’d go to the Oktoberfest every year, just to see if I could see one of these drunk German bastards slip a sieg heil.” First of all, don’t have him say “when I was a kid” twice so soon after each other, find a different way to put it. Second, though I do also relate to this sense of paranoia, here it just comes out as violently xenophobic. It’s giving “Liam Neeson with a bat at night” more than anything.
- Captain Daughter: “In the Netherlands? The biggest threat to the United States is how much better their Kit Kat is.” Okay, look, we dooooooo actually have Nazis. Same as you, same as anywhere. Have you looked at the news? Your shadow president is one, remember? We have ’em like that, too. They are friendly, though, so not much of a threat to the almighty United States, no. (I’ll take the thing about the Kit Kat. She’s right.)
- Upon learning the base organises war games on a quarterly basis, Leary decides to run one, completely impromptu, the next day, because apparently American army bases run completely and exclusively on the whims of the loudest jackass in camo they can find. This seems inefficient, and thus, very American.
- Unfortunately Danny Pudi’s Major Shah playing “the unpredictability of the enemy” does not touch upon anything Dutch and so I won’t really cover it here.
- The pilot of the drone that flies over the base is a known entity to the base — he’s “a little Dutch boy” called Geert. They pronounce it badly, but that is a normal Dutch name. The base is very pleasantly friendly about his drone’s presence, and so naturally Leary declares him an enemy spy.
- We finally get something to work with re: placing Stroopsdorf — Leary says the Battle of Otterlo happened “right down the road,” which means that, even though I’d twigged them as further down south, they’re in Gelderland. Sure.
- The person who opens the door at Geert’s house is a Russian-accented adult man who claims to be his chess teacher. This is never elaborated upon any further, it’s just there to feed Leary’s paranoia — the next person to come to the door is indeed a little boy. Doesn’t sound Dutch, though, and dresses like a slightly posh English lad.
- “Hey, Geert, where are your parents?” “The dentist.” “Parents are at a joint dental appointment in a country with socialised medicine? Yeah, likely story, pal.” Truly don’t even understand this one.
- On the verge of making yet another child cry, his primary personality trait, Leary finally gets a confession out of Geert — he’s secretly been collecting fashion magazines, because “Zendaya makes me feel things in my body.” Just a baffling turn for the child spy plot to take — the boy is horny.
- “Geert, what’s going on?” “Parents are here!” Why would his parents’ first line to him be in English? I know we have a reputation for all switching to English the moment we detect a foreigner, but to your kid?
- “Who are you?” “We’re the US Navy,” Leary lies. These people live next to an army base, these strangers are in army camo with patches that say “US ARMY” on them, and previous episodes gave me the impression life in Stroopsdorf revolves around this army base. I feel like you could get a good three minutes on the news out of them hassling your boy and lying to you about it.
- “Maybe it’s time to admit that here in the Netherlands, we’re not surrounded by enemies.” “Okay, well, you’re just lucky you weren’t here in the early 1930s when an apparently harmless, failed Austrian painter…” This whole man just sucks.
- This is a bad sign for an antique store. Bad signs exist in the world, I guess. I don’t think we have combination antique stores / WW2 museums, though. Why would that be a thing? And since 1944? Did they just open a store for military things and never restock? The whole thing plays exclusively as a museum.
- Leary’s been wanting to go to the antique store all episode to see a gun a “General Patton” once owned.
- Obviously, because the episode needs a win for the show’s loudest jackass, the building full of WW2 things turns out to have a Nazi memorabilia room, because it’s owned by a fucking Nazi. Upon discovery, the location card rebrands from “Antique store / WWII museum” to “Antique store / Secret Nazi shrine.” It’s… kind of still a WW2 museum, though. Incompetent.
- Leary has a moment of growth where he embraces that his constant need for an Enemy to pursue exists mostly inside himself and not entirely within reason, which is then immediately undercut by Captain Daughter’s reveal that the museum has a Nazi shrine.
- The man who owns the museum is apparently “Helmut von Fursterburg,” “the Butcher of Baden.” Of course he’s called Helmut.
- Leary is excited he gets to “fight the final battle of World War II,” and “punch a Nazi.” Look, I’m always on board with punching Nazis, but if this geriatric is the “Butcher of Baden,” he needs to be tried in a court of law and sentenced to whatever we’ve internationally established he deserves for his sins. Also, the final battle of World War II is getting everyone to remember why the Nazis were bad after it slips out of living memory.
- “Probably the final Nazi. I’m gonna be in the history books! Wow!” There are several Nazis still alive, and though I, again, agree they should be dead, I also think this man is an absolute fucknuts American-brained idiot.
- Here’s how this ends: He changes into an aesthetically more WW2-inspired uniform, they all walk into the museum, look for him, and remember he’s a very, very old man. Captain Daughter gives him his Iron Cross keychain bathroom key back and announces she’s pissed on his Nazi stuff. Faced with six soldiers and Leary about to punch him, the man promptly collapses from a heart attack, which means he’s wounded and they need to save his life. Trying to resuscitate him, Leary shatters every rib he has, caving in the chest of an old dead man. At least prove he’s a Nazi first.
- At the end, Papadakis summarises what he perceives as Leary’s take on what it means to be a soldier: “All these things you’ve been teaching me. Stealing tanks, punching old Germans, prostitution, never datin’ ’em. That’s what it means to be a soldier, right?” Leary demands he covers this up.
- There are a lot of Nazis in the world around us. They are everywhere, and anyone can be one. But in the real world, in my 2025, the ones who have an effect on my life, the ones I’m scared of? They look and behave a lot more like Denis Leary than like geriatric seniors.
- How do you fuck up “the episode where they kill a Nazi” this bad.
