very long post so this will be under a read more but i'd like to analyze gay beej through the episodes hanky panky and war co-respondent.
they're actually incredibly interesting episodes to me and arguably important for understanding where bj is coming from. to some extent, i don't take those episodes so literally - especially war co-respondent - because if anything, they feel like out-loud explorations of things that they cannot say about hawkeye and bj's relationship. in addition, hanky panky especially gives a view into how bj sees his relationship with peg.
hanky panky really digs at the fact that bj has a complex about winning at being a Good Husband. his fixation with nurse donovan is about the fact that she reminds him of peg (as evidenced by him comparing them), and feeling obligated to fill this gap that donovan's husband is now putting in her life. he does this because he is a Good Husband and can in fact prove to donovan that he is better than her soon to be ex-husband. it feels less like an organic attraction, more like an attempt at replication of an environment that he carefully curated back in mill valley.
of course, what you can extract from that episode is that bj just misses peg that much. but i'm very interested in how all that gives an inside look into his relationship with peg. if his attraction to nurse donovan is born out of obligation to fulfill a role rather than being about donovan herself... then what does that say about how he is with peg?
not to mention that in hanky panky, we get to see hawkeye act all at ease about bj getting with a nurse until bj is about to write home confessing to peg about it. then he is terrified at the prospect of bj's marriage being ruined, almost as if he's a guilty party himself. knowing hawkeye, he likes to joke to cope. i think as it was happening, he was trying to comfort not only bj but himself. as if taking it less seriously would make it less serious. his response at the end shows that he was thinking way too hard about the consequences of bj cheating and the knowledge that bj would wallow in his guilt about it.
if hanky panky gives a view into bj's relationship with peg, then war co-respondent is about hawkeye.
something that struck me about aggie o'shea as i was watching the episode was that if i asked myself the question of what hawkeye would be like if he were a woman, aggie o'shea would be pretty damn close. what seems to get bj about aggie is that he likes her drive, that she's competent, is snarky and can keep up with him. i think all these traits call back to what he likes about hawkeye. a small detail in her wardrobe that also calls back to hawkeye is her wearing a hawaiian shirt in her off-time.
and - if i may - her tomboyishness probably puts a nice fuzz in his mind that he can't exactly put his finger on.
the way that bj and aggie go about it is also interesting. in contrast to donovan in hanky panky, aggie is untouchable. the tension between bj and aggie is sexy, it's palpable, and there's a wall between them. they both desperately want to breach it, but they don't. aggie won't unless bj makes the first move, and bj wants to. but he won't. he can't. as he says, he has a lifeline in mill valley. this lifeline that he's so carefully built, this mold he has to be able to slip back into as soon as he gets back home. aggie doesn't fit into that.
hawkeye himself is interestingly written this episode. i feel like they had to up the ante in regards to him being a goof in order to compensate for the fact that they were building tension between aggie and bj. consider if they had not done so and written their relationship as they usually do. i think that their closeness would have undermined what they were attempting to build between aggie and bj.
so...hypothetically...what if we cut aggie out entirely. just had hawkeye in aggie's shoes. isn't that exactly how it would play out if they said it out loud to each other? the wall between them that they won't breach, the fact that hawkeye wouldn't make a move unless bj makes a move. and even if bj wanted to, he wouldn't. again... he has a mold he has to slip back into. hawkeye doesn't fit into that.
with all that in mind, it really isn't far-fetched to say that aggie o'shea is a placement for hawkeye in a similar manner to how bj sees so much of peg in nurse donovan. obligatory disclaimer this all can support a bisexual reading too, of course, but i do find the ultra repression of a gay beej in these contexts so very interesting. these episodes can support it rather than negate it, if you look at it the right way.
