Original Air Date: 9/26/75
Written by: Larry Gelbart & Simon Munter and Gene Reynolds
Directed by: Gene Reynolds
It's cold, cold, cold outside, as we see a change in shifts at the hospital: B.J. is just finishing, with Hawkeye just coming on around midnight.
Unfortunately, the relative quiet is shattered when bombs start falling nearby, causing some of the patients to flip out, one of them almost pulling out his stitches in the progress.
Hot Lips gives Frank a sexy note, but she is shocked to see he tears it up after he reads it. He reveals he has left no written trace of their relationship, and Frank seems worried when Hot Lips reveals she's kept everything he has written her. "Everything?" Frank asks nervously.
The shelling eventually gets so bad Radar wakes Col. Potter up so he can order the nearby artillery unit to move further down the road and give the 4077th some peace and quiet.
Meanwhile, a soldier on guard duty--a kid barely eighteen--accidentally fires his gun, nipping Klinger in the arm, which he of course tries to turn into a major injury--"Now my arm's half-blown off!"
There's a period of quiet, but then the bombs start falling again, and Col. Potter goes further up the chain of command to get the artillery stopped, but is rebuffed.
One patient of B.J.'s starts to go south, so he has to go back in an operate on him again, while Hawkeye and Hot Lips try and contain another patient who is nearly hysterical when he hears the bombs fall.
Finally, near dawn, the bombs stop. B.J. saves his patient, and the other patient in Post Op is sedated so he can rest.
Soon after, Hot Lips goes back to her tent, only to find an unconscious Frank, who tore her tent apart searching for all his incriminating love notes.
Fun Facts: I could never keep track of how the seasons fell on M*A*S*H. In the previous episode, Radar is sitting outside shirtless getting a tan and everyone is in shirts and shorts. In this, the very next episode, its clearly early Winter. Huh?
Favorite Line: Frank chastises Hawkeye for being a few minutes late to Post Op, but he's warmly accommodating to Hot Lips when she's late, as well. Hawkeye is indignant: "I had to bring a note from home."
4 comments:
I guess they just didn't even try to keep track of the seasons, or make them sequential.
Hell, if you can do one whole episode that covers a year, what do seasons matter?!
Another great episode that blends humor and pathos effortlessly.
The subplot between Margaret and Frank has always struck me as the beginnings of Margaret's genuine misgivings about the nature of their relationship. Frank's careless admitting that he tears up all her notes is more than a little cruel (let alone his tearing up her tent!)
It's a pity that Larry Linville was not able to develop Frank's character further, though.
Favorite moment: when Hawkeye comforts the hysterical soldier: "Let's have a quiet night- we could both use it."
The biggest laugh in this is in the post-op when everyone's telling everyone else to shut up in rapid succession and BJ punctuates this madness by saying something like "Welcome to one man's family!"
Franks: He's (whispers in Hawk's ear) Chinese..
Hawk: You don't have to whisper Frank, he knows he's Chinese
.Oh Frank
And this episode to me also did a great job of fledging out what would be established characterizations in Potter and Klinger. Potter having connections to higher brass and experience (artillay? it's ours" just by sound) and Klinger after being 'wounded' never neglects his duty by offering his blood and even helping with the litter.
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