As he lies dying, a decorated World War II hero recounts his impossible journey from South Africa to Berlin to his nephew—revealing how he survived the war’s most brutal battles as one of General Patton’s elite “dirty dozen,” and how liberating a Nazi concentration camp destroyed the man who lived long enough to win.

SYNOPSIS:

ANIMAL is a character-driven World War II limited series told through an intimate bedside frame: a nephew, Walt, sits beside his dying uncle, Major William “Uncle William” Hudson, one of the last surviving members of a secretive frontline company tasked with missions no one else could complete.

Across eight episodes, William recounts his transformation from a young private in South Africa into a hardened company commander who fought through Sicily, the D-Day amphibious landing near Omaha Beach, the Battle of the Bulge, and the shadow war in occupied France alongside the Resistance—culminating in the liberation of a concentration camp so horrifying it haunted him for the rest of his life.

The series juxtaposes tender present-day conversations with brutal war flashbacks, revealing not only how the war was won—but what it cost the men who survived it. As the story unfolds, Walt comes to understand that his uncle’s true wound was not physical, and that the clean images of history hide the dirt, blood, and smells that never fade.

ANIMAL is not a story about glory. It is a story about endurance, memory, and the thin line between survival and becoming something you can never undo.