Despite their various issues with each other, Mainwaring and Wilson do have moments during the series where they reach a sort of understanding, if not actual friendship. In the episode "Boots, Boots, Boots", Mainwaring tells Wilson that he considers him a friend and that he actually admires how Wilson handles the men "quietly and subtly". In the episode "Something Nasty in the Vault", Mainwaring and Wilson bond during their time trapped in the bank's vault while holding an unexploded (and potentially unstable) German bomb that was dropped during an air raid, with Mainwaring even going so far as to scratch Wilson's nose for him when it began to itch and Wilson couldn't reach it. And at the end of the episode "War Dance", a drunken Mainwaring bonds again with Wilson, as they both have been kicked out of their homes by their respective partners that evening and are forced to sleep in Mainwaring's Home Guard office at the church.