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Eighth Episode: Summer 1950 SO1E11 Germ Warfare
Oh hey I'm back! Did you miss me? I lost access to this archive of allthemashepisodes and now I have it back so I'm going to keep going on MASH timeloop!
Lieutenant Dish shows up for the first time since the pilot episode, and the last. Hawkeye is still pursuing her. Ho Jon and Spearchucker are seen, though the main characters here are Hawkeye and Frank Burns - Hawkeye is exercising his Chief Surgeon muscles and declares that a North Korean patient is staying for further treatment until he's stable.
Frank Burns wants the North Korean moved on to where wounded POWs go: Hawkeye wants him to stay for another 24 hours to ensure he's in the best possible shape for transfer. Hawkeye and Trapper go and argue this with Henry Blake, and Blake, initially wanting to follow military protocol (while Radar shows up and is telepathic) crumbles when Hawkeye accuses him of turning into a regular army clown.
The North Korean POW is moved into Hawkeye's cot, Ho Jon translating ("These weird American types are filthy in their habits byt they're good doctors and they don't mean you any harm.") And Hawkeye and Trapper study the personnel list of the 4077th by blood type to figure out where they can get a pint of AB-.
Much is made in the episode of AB-'s rarity, but the point of being AB- bloodtype is that you are a universal recipient: you can safely receive blood of type O, type A, and type B. However, let us skip lightly over this and it turns out Frank Burns is AB- and this leads to a hilarious and medically-unethical scene where a sleeping Frank Burns is siphoned of a pint of blood, which is then transfused into the North Korean, who then starts showing indications of serum hepatitis, which is known these days as Hepatitis B.
The rest of the episode follows Hawkeye and Trapper (and, briefly, Spearchucker) with the assistance of Radar, getting Frank's piss and, with the remainder of the blood they didn't use for the North Korean, sending it off to be tested (at this time, the 4077th doesn't have its own incubator) and also ensuring Frank and Margaret don't get intimate in case Frank gives HepB to Margaret.
Lieutenant Dish shows up for the very last time, in post-op, explaining to Margaret - sent there to distract her from Frank - that she did not send for the Chief Nurse. Hawkeye, who has whispered sweet nothings in Frank's ear while sucking his blood, does a perfect fairy couple act with Trapper while distracting Frank and Margaret.
Frank tests negative for HepB! Hawkeye talks him out of making trouble by implying that Frank volunteered to give blood because he's so self-sacrificing. The North Korean got to the 4077th with HepB and presumably is sent on to the POW hospital where he is treated for his wounds and the viral infection. All is well.
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Seventh Episode: Summer 1950 SO1EO8 Cowboy
No sign of Klinger, but Father Mulcahy appears in OR for the first time, and recites Mi Shebeirach, the prayer for healing. (Apparently the Hebrew is almost grammatically right: Mulcahy says "sick people", instead of "sick person".)
Trapper is operating on Goldstein, and Hawkeye on the helicopter pilot who brought him in, who's referred to as the Cowboy throughout because it would spoil the closing joke if we knew his given name is John.
Henry Blake refuses to sign medical discharge papers for the Cowboy and refuses to let Trapper use a jeep for unmilitary purposes, so Hawkeye and Trapper conclude he needs to relax by playing golf. This works until snipers. Ho Jon, still not sent to Maine to go to college, is their caddy and gets no lines.
"Let's not quit, Henry. We're out here for your nerves. "
"We can leave. I got 'em."
Someone is trying to kill Henry Blake. He assumes it's Trapper, because he wouldn't let Trapper take a jeep. ("Disenjeep.")
Of course it's the Cowboy. No consequences are mentioned when the Cowboy decides not to kill Henry after discovering his wife has, in fact, been faithful to him, a leap of logic which it would take Sidney Freedman to explain, but with good luck he got a psychiatric discharge home. With bad luck he ended up in Tokyo for several months being analysed by Philip Sherman about why he wanted to kill Henry Blake.
This is the first episode where the Hawkeye and Trapper unlawful activities aren't central to the plot, unless we count Hawkeye's rashly promising the Cowboy he could get him a medical discharge and then running into the problem of not being able to order Henry Blake to discharge him.
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Sixth Episode: Summer 1950 SO1EO7 Bananas, Crackers and Nuts
This episode has the only visit of a psychiatrist to the 4077th who isn't Sidney Freedman. Margaret Houlihan knows a psychiatrist, Captain Philip Sherman, who has a thing for her which she doesn't reciprocate. (He's a captain, she's a major: it was not until April 1951 that Margaret realised she could enjoy a man whom she outranked.)
Hawkeye and Trapper have, for apparently the first time, a stint in OR so long that neither of them are around to make sure the still is loaded with "the fixings" and so there is no raw alcohol for what they refer to as "martinis". Later episodes would deal with three-day stints in OR more matter-of-factly: this early in the war, both Hawkeye and Trapper decide they deserve leave, but Henry has already awarded himself leave and isn't about to let Hawkeye and Trapper go on leave instead.
Hawkeye decides he'll play insane in order to be referred to Tokyo for psychiatric evaluation. He pretends to eat human liver and to fall in love with Frank Burns. Your guess which is supposed to be crazier.
(Alan Alda, a natural brunette, is claiming to have dyed his hair black as Margaret Houlihan has dyed hers blonde. Loretta Swit, a natural blonde, playing Margaret Houlihan, who peroxides her hair, was a joke that didn't last more than, ooh, about five seasons.)
Henry Blake thinks this is hilarious and runs through a couple of really horrible practical "jokes" Hawkeye has played on Frank Burns, until it dawns on him that Hawkeye has figured out a way of going on indefinite leave to Tokyo.
"So, Frank, why don't you tell us about the time that, when you were asleep, Pierce tied your big toes to the bed frame and then yelled, "Fire"? …. About the time he sedated you and then set both your arms and legs in plaster and hung you from the ceiling in traction ropes. And- And how when you came to, you thought- you thought you had four broken limbs.Then Pierce came in, you see, and cut him down. Frank, I tell you, I will never forget the terror in your eyes, that look just before you hit the bed!"
Hawkeye decides he doesn't actually want to spend weeks in Tokyo being analysed by Philip Sherman to find out why he's in love with Frank Burns. He and Trapper and Radar set Margaret Houlihan up to be nearly fucking raped by Sherman, because this is hilarious, of course: Sherman's led to believe that Margaret has finally decided to give herself, major to captain, and Margaret just thinks she has a dud lightbulb til she gets jumped in the dark.
Hawkeye and Trapper ger awarded a week's leave in Tokyo. They do not get it, because as they are about to leave, incoming wounded arrive.
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Fifth Episode: Summer 1950 SO1EO6 Yankee Doodle Doctor
General Clayton appears in this episode instead of General Barker. General Clayton is played by Herb Voland, who in 1980 was to hit stardom as Air Controller Macias in Airplane! Voland is taller, thinner, and has not previously met Hawkeye Pierce.
Frank Burns is now sharing the Swamp with Hawkeye and Trapper. Spearchucker has disappeared. Hawkeye and Trapper are apparently startled that a movie being filmed by a lieutenant, endorsed by a general, will be turgid pro-war propaganda. Hawkeye and Trapper destroy the film, Hawkeye dons his Groucho Marx glasses to play the Yankee Doodle Doctor, and he, Trapper, Radar, and Margie Cutler, make an anti-war movie instead, which General Clayton, unsurprisingly, also orders destroyed. All but the last scene, in which Hawkeye delivers a monologue, dead serious, no Groucho Marx specs and no joking:
"Three hours ago this man was in a battle. Two hours ago we operated on him. He's got a 50-50 chance. We win some, we lose some. That's what it's all about. No promises. No guaranteed survival. No saints in surgical garb. Our willingness, our experience, our technique are not enough. Guns and bombs and antipersonnel mines have more power to take life than we have to preserve it. Not a very happy ending for a movie. But then no war is a movie."
Neither Father Mulcahy nor Klinger appear. Klinger in later episodes would have loved to be a film star. Henry Blake's role here is mainly to apologise.
Neither Hawkeye nor Trapper face any consequences whatsoever for destroying the film already made or misusing the camera, the camera's sergeant operator, or using the film, to make their own home movie.
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Fourth Episode: Summer 1950 SO1EO5 The Moose
A sergeant in transit shows up at the 4077th. He owns a Korean girl, his "moose", purchased from her family for $500.
Spearchucker appears with a few lines about the evils of slavery. Ho Jon - evidently not yet sent to Maine - appears to explain how Korean families sell girls to US soldiers, with Radar as backup. Frank is absent, on leave in Tokyo.
Hawkeye attempts to order the sergeant to relinquish his slave girl, putting on his Class As and an officerly manner. It doesn't work. He offers to buy her: the sergeant refuses to sell. He and Trapper, and Spearchucker then combine forces to cheat the sergeant at poker with Radar's assistance.
The three Swamp Rats - Frank still absent, Houlihan and chaplain nowhere to be seen - conspire to de-moosify her while Ho Jon is sent to Seoul to find her family. Little brother shows up to reclaim her, but the girl runs away, and they send her to a convent school in Seoul. She writes them a letter of appreciation, noting that despite the convent school, she's a Buddhist.
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Third Episode: Summer 1950 SO1EO4 Chief Surgeon Who?
Frank Burns complains about Hawkeye taking over in OR - answering questions, giving advice, giving instructions. Frank occupies his time writing form letters to his patients in his civilian practice and brags that he has a 35,000 dollar house and two cars and Hawkeye was still working in a hospital when he was drafted.
Henry Blake resolves the issue of rank by appointing Hawkeye Pierce Chief Surgeon. Frank is appalled. Margaret and he compose a letter to General Barker, who shows up again played by the same actor. First sighting of Corporal Klinger, in a dress, then naked, greeted by General Barker with "Still bucking for a Section 8, Klinger?" Radar is found in Colonel Blake's office drinking Blake's whisky and smoking one of his cigars.
Barker is convinced that Hawkeye knows what he's doing by the sneaky trick of Hawkeye actually knowing what he's doing, and heads off happily telling Blake that Frank should be given a high colonic and go for a ten mile march.
Trapper's function is to play poker, provide backup, and conduct Hawkeye's coronation ceremony in the mess tent. Frank concludes the episode by voluntarily asking Hawkeye for help in OR.
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Second Episode: Summer 1950 SO1EO3: Requiem for a Lightweight
A nurse, clad only in a towel, runs from the showers on hearing the summons for all shifts to report to operating room. This is Marcia Strassman/Margie Cutler. She runs into Hawkeye and Trapper, who attempt to stop her by holding on to her towel. She gets away by leaving her towel in Trapper's hands. Hawkeye flirts with her over the wounded patient: Hawkeye and Trapper walk with her to the mess tent for coffee and more sexual harassment, Hot Lips summons her to her office. "Yes sir!" says Margie Cutler, "At least she didn't have trouble figuring out your sex", says Hawkeye.
Both Hawkeye and Trapper declare they're now going to bed to sleep for a few weeks, show up simultaneously at Margie Cutler's tent. She is being transferred to another unit because Major Houlihan - we finally have a name for Hot Lips, thank you scriptwriters - says she is "a bit of a distraction". Hawkeye and Trapper, who have been engaging in competitive one-two flirtation (bonus: "do you two want to be alone?" from Margie Cutler, the line that launched a thousand threesomes) run off to find Henry Blake and get her untransferred.
"You're the best thing to hit this place since dry socks," says Hawkeye, who has forgotten all about Karen Philipp/Maria "Dish" Schneider, whom he was pursuing resolutely and relentlessly in the previous episode.
Radar is getting Henry Blake to sign blank papers so that Radar can type whatever he wants on them later. Blake answers the phone to General Barker, who proposes a boxing tournament, because fighting is just what you want in war. Blake offers to override Major Houlihan and bring Cutler back if either Hawkeye or Trapper will go three rounds with Barker's boxing champion. Hawkeye hustles Trapper into agreeing to do it with compliments about Trapper's physique that, er, sound quite like his flirting with Cutler. Next thing we see, Trapper and Radar are training in an actual boxing ring, and the unit chaplain shows up, greeted by Hawkeye as "Father". The unit chaplain has transmogrified from George Morgan to William Christopher. He hands Hawkeye a booklet and tells Hawkeye he doesn't think Trapper has a prayer. Radar takes Trapper out with one punch.
Scenes of Trapper training, Houlihan flirting, Radar frightening Trapper, and Hawkeye with Ugly John soaking Trapper's glove in ether so that Trapper doesn't actually have to fight, and the first of many scenes at the mess tent table: Hawkeye, Trapper, Henry Blake, and gorilla.
The unit is gathered round the boxing ring. Father Mulcahy is the ref, Frank and Houlihan are plotting to replace the ether with distilled water, General Barker and Henry Blake are laying bets, and Radar is ringing the bell. The gorilla and Trapper fight: since Trapper's entire strategy consists of holding his glove out for the gorilla to sniff, he gets knocked down twice - between first and second knock-outs, Hawkeye figures out what's happened from Frank and Houlihan's big gleeful smiles, and gets more ether. The glove-sniffing finally works to knock out the gorilla, and the next scene is the Swamp, with Trapper's eye being poulticed by a raw steak. Henry produces Margie Cutler, and tells her quietly "Keep moving, or you're dead." She is very impressed by Trapper having fought for her: less impressed by Hawkeye's planning the fight.
The only surgery we see is Hawkeye flirting with Margie over a patient: the only reference to long shifts is Hawkeye and Trapper mentioning they've been in surgery for twelve hours (and are not too beat to pursue Margie) and aside from sexually harassing a nurse, systematically cheating General Barker out of his hundred-dollar bet with Henry Blake and getting a champion boxer to lose a fight by dosing him with ether, they don't do anything they could actually get court-martialled for.
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First Episode: Summer 1950 SO1EO1
Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers (first two in the opening credits) are surgeons in the Korean War who play golf into the minefield and wear Hawaiian shirts when not in surgical scrubs. Hawkeye writes letters home to his dad describing "par" as a live patient. Hawkeye's dad says he sounds cynical about his work. The commanding officer is played by McLean Stevenson, Henry Blake. Also in the opening credits: Loretta Swit, Larry Linville, Gary Burghoff. Loretta Swit plays a nurse who insists on being called "Major". Larry Linville plays Frank, a Bible-reading surgeon who Hawkeye and Trapper don't think much of.
Hawkeye and Trapper have a Korean houseboy called Ho-Jon who is about to go to Hawkeye's old college, stay with Hawkeye's parents, but Hawkeye and Trapper need to raise $2000 dollars for his fare and his clothes. They joke that they could do so by selling Spearchucker , a black surgeon, while he's asleep. Hawkeye gets the idea of throwing a party with raffle tickets for two weekend passes to Tokyo with a nurse. The nurse, Lieutenant Dish, has only agreed because Hawkeye promises her she won't actually have to go away with the raffle winner. At ten dollars a ticket they have to sell 200 tickets to raise the money, and apparently they do. Henry Blake bans the party because he'll be in Tokyo and refuses the weekend passes. Gary Burghoff, the company clerk Radar, gets him to sign the passes anyway. At the party, the prize is won by the company chaplain, Father John P. Mulcahy, who looks startled and dismayed at the news.
To avoid his interfering with the party, Hawkeye and Trapper sedate Frank and bandage his face with gauze and put him in a post-op bed Loretta Swit, whose nickname is "Hot Lips", spends part of the episode looking for him. She summons General Hammond, who threatens to have Hawkeye and Trapper court-martialled, but since incoming wounded arrive, Hawkeyer, Trapper, and Hammond spend the night operating on them and Hammond leaves, having changed his mind about the courts-martial.
The pre-opening images of the pilot episode show: Trapper, Hawkeye, and Ho-Jon playing golf as the words KOREA, 1950 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO come up on the screen. Then Henry Blake and a nurse, in surgical whites, apparently operating. Then John P. Mulcahy napping in front of the chaplain's tent, waving his hand to brush away a fly in a gesture that turns into a sign of the cross. Then Hot Lips and Frank reading the Bible together - but the camera pans down and they're playing naked footsy under the table. Spearchucker with a football signalling to someone that he's about to throw it. Radar catches the ball and pratfalls onto his ass. Camera pans back from Henry Blake and the nurse: they were trying to open a bottle of champagne. Trapper hitting a golf ball; the sign says DANGER MINEFIELD and a mine explodes. Radar runs to catch the football again, catches it, looks up, and yells "Here it comes!" and the MASH theme tune starts to play as a single helicopter comes into view between the mountains.
The presentation is of a world where nothing will be as you expect.
The plot's simple and very close to book and movie: Hawkeye and Trapper are arseholes who get away with criminal offences because the army needs them as surgeons.
The closing credits begin with a run of "the following personnel have been permanently assigned; Hawkeye/Alan Alda, Trapper/Wayne Rogers, Blake/McLean Stevenson, Hot Lips/Loretta Swit, General Hammond/G. Wood, Frank/Larry Linville, Radar/Gary Burghoff, Dish/Karen Philipp, John P. Mulcahy/George Morgan, Ho Jon/Patrick Adiarte, Spearchucker/Timothy Brown, Ginger/Odessa Cleveland: and a few more people in the closing text who don't show up in "permanently assigned": Ugly John/John Orchard, Leslie Scorch/Linda Meiklejohn, Boone/B. Kirby Jr.
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I give to you… Alan Alda swearing in Italian
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MASH is a timeloop: 11 years of episodes in three years of war.
In this blog, we watch all of the episodes of MASH in chronological order.
Not aired order.
Chronological order.
1950
S01E01, SO1E03, SO1E04, SO1E05, SO1E06, SO1E07, SO1E08, S01E11, S02E11, S08E23, S01E13, S01E14, S01E15, S01E16, S01E17...
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