I Just Can’t Stop Watching M*A*S*H - Part Five

Today we finally reach the last installment of I Can’t Stop Watching M*A*S*H.

I’m going to be honest, when I first launched this series of posts, I thought that writing about a TV series that I have watched and enjoyed repeatedly over the last decades would inspire a greater level of passion. Instead, I seemed to have often resorted to a rote recitation of some of my favorite episodes. Sorry about that. I intended this series to be something more.   

I think trying to elucidate why I have enjoyed watching M*A*S*H repeatedly can be fraught with contradictions because M*A*S*H itself was a contradiction. Showing us that war is hell, M*A*S*H dared to make us laugh. While we were laughing, M*A*S*H would dare to remind us that war is hell.  But as much as M*A*S*H challenged us watching, repeated viewings of 11 years’ worth of episodes has also made M*A*S*H comfortable.  

Which may explain why the series finale remains so controversial.  

“Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” is one last big hurrah for the 4077^th.  The many record-breaking viewers at home when the finale first aired on February 28, 1983 were looking for a warm blanket of love to cuddle under to say goodbye as the doctors, nurses and staff escape from under the shadow of war and finally go home.  

Instead, the show offers some of the biggest challenges to date. Not everyone is going home undamaged. And the biggest of those damages happens to Hawkeye.  

If there is any consistent point to be found over the 11 years of evolving storytelling on M*A*S*H, it’s the fragile state of Hawkeye’s mental stability.  Yes, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce is a surgical prodigy. Hawkeye has a quick wit and fast quip for the absurdities for American jingoism, military rigidity and the bloody horrors of war. But Hawk’s mental state is delicately balanced between controlled chaos vs. a total descent into madness.  

“Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” takes a sledgehammer to that delicate balance.   

The episode opens at an army mental hospital where Hawkeye is the perturbed guest of Dr. Sidney Freedman. Hawk doesn’t think he belongs there; Sidney thinks otherwise. There are flashbacks to a bus trip to Inchon where some of the staff of the 4077^th are spending a day at the beach.

(In all the years the show was on, I never knew until this episode that going to Inchon to spend some time at the beach was a thing.) 

The trip back to the camp is of particular interest to Sidney as Hawkeye’s retelling of those events keeps folding in new details they left out before. It’s just the 4077^th staff on the bus. No, there’s a soldier who needs a ride. No, now the soldier is injured. Also, now there are some Korean villagers on the bus. Each pass of the story keeps adding details.  

After dark, the bus as to stop to hide from a passing enemy patrol. One of the villagers, a woman, has a chicken that is making noise which can reveal their position to the enemy. The woman strangles the chicken.  

Except it wasn’t a chicken.   

As Hawkeye breaks down in a torrent of tears and pain, he finally recalls the last detail that he’s been hiding from Sidney and from himself.  It wasn’t a chicken. It was the woman’s baby.  

Watching from the safety of home, it’s enough to give the viewer a psychotic break.  

Hawkeye’s mental breakdown is not enough to send him back to Crabapple Cove in Maine. Nope, it’s back to the 4077^th and more meatball surgery.  

We do have 2 more hours of episode to get through.

Well, there is a lot going on in this episode.

Charles encounters some captured Chinese soldiers who are also musicians and our cultured major attempts to teach them how to play Mozart correctly.  Or to put in a different perspective, as Col . Potter puts it, “The Chinese have been torturing Winchester for several days now.” 

When the Chinese prisoners are taken away, Charles implores for them to stay. They are musicians and he has so much more to teach them.  But the Chinese must go and as their truck drives away, Charles’ Chinese chamber orchestra produce their instruments and serenade the major with Mozart as they are driven away.  Charles can only sadly and wistfully watch as they and their music fade away into the distance.

But later, wounded begin pouring into the 4077^th from a fierce shelling attack and among the dead killed in the attack are the Chinese prisoners. After a brutal session in the OR, Charles returns to the Swamp to play some Mozart on his record player. Only to find music does not bring him comfort or solace. Frustrated and angry, Charles snatches the record from the turntable and smashes it,

Man, this episode is brutal. 

Also Father Mulcahy gets caught too close a bomb blast during a shell attack and loses his hearing.

Really! We're going to hurt Mulcahy too?!?!

The thing is “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” is a bit ahead of its time. Back it when it first aired, the idea of a story arc over the course of part or all of a season was not a story telling device in most prime time television. I think if “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen”, the stories presented in this one big movie event would be told over a series of episodes. I think the hurts endured by Hawkeye, Charles and Mulcahy would've made some outstanding episodes over the course of a series winding down to its end. Those stories would've been better regarded on their own instead of being in service to a larger finale determined to hurt as many people in this damn war before it ends.

The last hour of “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” is the warm blanket of love to cuddle under to say goodbye to the doctors, nurses and staff of the 4077th. Even then, we still get one big surprise. At least one of our cast is NOT leaving Korea. And its the one person who has done every damned thing he could think of for almost the entire run of the series to get out of Korea.

Klinger has fallen in love with a Korean woman named Soon Yi who accepts Klinger's proposal of marriage but can't agree to leave Korea while her parents are still missing. So Klinger invites the camp to his wedding to Soon Yi and announces he's staying in Korea.

Klinger, of all people, choosing to stay in Korea?

After the wedding, everyone says their goodbyes to one another. Hawkeye's farewell to Margaret is a very long kiss that has BJ, Potter and Winchester standing around awkwardly, checking their watches.

After the (very, very long) kiss....

Hawkeye: "Well, bye."

Margaret: "See ya."

The very last scene has its detractors. Hawkeye and BJ are the last to leave. BJ rides off on the motorcycle he's been tinkering with for several episodes while Hawkeye hitches a ride on a helicopter. As he ascends, he sees BJ's last message, spelled out in stones on the ground: "GOOD BYE". 

Is it sappy? Or maudlin? Oh absolutely. But after 11 seasons, I think its earned. I personally have no problem with the ending.

Pulling off a series finale that will please the audience is almost an impossible thing to do. Yes, there are issues and flaws in “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” but I think the good outweighs the bad and for all the bad things that happen in the final hours of the show to Hawkeye, Charles and Mulcahy, I suppose things could've been worse.

One of the characters could've been killed off. I'm glad that didn't happen.

Unless after the credits rolled, BJ broke his neck on that damn motorbike careening down a Korean hillside.

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In a recent post to his blog, Ken Levine offered up his 10 most favorite episodes from the entire run of M*A*S*H. 

How did one of the best writers on M*A*S*H rank his 10 best choices?  

The Interview
This is one is a frequently cited classic with the M*A*S*H crew interviewed in the form of a half hour documentary.  

The More I See You

Hawkeye the notorious womanizer is brought low by true love. A nurse arrives at the 4077th. Hawkeye used to have be in a relationship with her and he's never gotten over her. But she's married now. Ain't that always the way, Hawkeye. Ain't it always the way.   

The General Flipped at Dawn

A lot of fans concur with Ken that this one is a favorite episode. It is not one of mine. Harry Morgan makes a pre-Colonel Potter appearance as a general who has (as the title tells us) flipped. I'm not exactly sure why I did not care for this one as much as other M*A*S*H fans.   

Point of View

I agree with Ken on this selection. Nice of Ken to give one of his own scripts a shout out on this list. 

Hawkeye

Ken may like this one but its a divisive one among a lot of M*A*S*H fans. Alan Alda is the only cast member to appear in this episode where Hawkeye sustains a concussion in a Jeep accident. Stuck with a Korean farm family, Hawkeye has to keep up a running monologue to keep himself awake and not succumb to the concussion before help arrives.  

It is a full half hour of Hawkeye in full Hawkeye mode and it can be a bit much.

Tuttle

A first season classic that I enjoyed too. 

Out of Sight/Out of Mind

A great first script from writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs as Hawkeye has to contend with blindness after an accident. It's one of my favorites that I referenced in this post.   

Abyssinia Henry

I agree with this choice. 

Sometimes You Hear a Bullet

Often referenced by fans as the episode that pushed M*A*S*H away from its more sit-com like beginnings into something deeper and more nuanced.  This is the first episode in which the medical staff failed to save a wounded soldier,

Goodbye Radar

The swan song for both Radar O'Reilly and the M*A*S*H writing of Levine & Isaacs is a good one for this list.  

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So that is that for this series of post,  I Just Can’t Stop Watching M*A*S*H. As I write this, it's Saturday afternoon and right now, on Sundance TV, M*A*S*H is on right now. 

It's time for lunch. I'm going to grab a bit to eat, take it to the couch and flip on the ol' TV. 

After all, I just can’t stop watching M*A*S*H.