shout-out to all the things that episode 1 introduces that don’t last:
the longer intro
this sexy emo look alongside the oddly deeper hawkeye drawl and less frenetic speech-patterns of later hawkeye (who is she 😍😜👀 she talks like hawkeye’s porn double!)
narrative centering Lieutenant Dish
“Sorry Major Baby” (actually how many times do they use “baby” subsequently?)
this version of the distillery
this version of father mulcahy
this guy on the right? (why is he there? where does he go?)
“the MUMMY sTrRiiykes!!!!” otherwise known as the “hawkeye sounds like he’s at a 70s party and he’s high as fuck” line (to me)
“attention, attention, the following personnel are assigned to the 4077th mobile army surgical hospital: [list of names of which only a handful are actually going to be main characters]”
I want to talk about M*A*S*H. The 50-year-old show that, completely unexpectedly, has captured my heart and mind. I finished the series just over one week ago and had to force myself not to immediately begin a rewatch. Now that I’ve had a bit of time to process, though, I’m eager to dive and dig back in, to pick apart what makes this show tick and what made it resonate with me. I want to take my time this go-around (though I expect that will be difficult) and document my thoughts on episodes and characters as the show morphs and grows. I don’t know if I’ll make posts for every episode (that’s a lot) or how long I can keep this up tbh, and I make no promises as to the eloquence or deepness of all my reactions (sometimes you just wanna stare at Mike Farrell’s fuzzy chest amirite). But this show left my brain buzzing with how much there is to talk about and, well, it’s my blog, so here goes.
Korea, 1950: a hundred years ago
What a line to open on. When the show first aired in 1972, it was only 22 years ago. But maybe for audiences jaded by 7 years of direct American entanglement in Vietnam, the first war with moving images broadcast directly into living rooms across the nation, swiftly drawing to an embarrassing and disastrous conclusion, this other war did seem like a hundred years ago. That other, “lesser” war sandwiched between the heroically fought Second World War and the unprecedentedly divisive living nightmare of Vietnam. The supertitle is a simultaneous reminder to the audience of a conflict not often discussed around dinner tables, despite its relative recency (almost as recent to them then as the Iraq War is to us now), and an acknowledgment of how very, very distant it feels. What fascinates me most is how it positions the story we’re about to see as a fable of sorts from a distant time and place, presaging--somewhat paradoxically--the show’s perpetual relevance. This is Korea. It is also every war.
Then, the rest of the cold open. Visual storytelling at its finest! In a brief series of images we glean not only a sense of who our major players are at their cores, but also the notion that at the 4077, not all is as it seems. Two men in Hawaiian shirts playing golf: a familiar sight, until--kaboom, the ball lands in a minefield. A surgeon and nurse work over an unseen patient--oh, no, it’s a bottle of champagne. A man and woman in uniform studiously read a Bible and medical manual--while playing footsie under the table. So, Hawkeye and Trapper are the happy-go-lucky types who don’t see being in a war zone as any reason not to get their kicks where they can; Henry may appear official on the outside (though as we’ll soon see, rarely even that) but really he’s concerned with having a good time with a nurse (it strikes me this could also be an appropriate establishing situation for our two leads, but it’s even more fitting for Henry who is consistently negligent in his duties as Commanding Officer for the sake of sensual indulgence); and Margaret and Frank put on a hypocritical show of military and Christian officiousness while succumbing to their baser desires like anyone else.
Perhaps the implied injunction to look beneath the surface is nothing more than a promise to audiences of what kind of comedy the show will deliver. Perhaps it’s a commentary on the absurdity of life in wartime and under military jurisdiction (people will be people, no matter how many rule books you throw at them). I doubt the show intended this at the time, but I also see an early indication of the ethos that will come to permeate the series: that the truth--and often, our shared humanity--is found in looking closer, not making snap judgments based on superficial features. In any case, this much is clear: your expectations will be subverted. What is familiar becomes foreign, what’s foreign is familiar. It’s a topsy-turvy world. That’s the oldest root of comedy; it’s also war.
“Par is a live patient”
We get Hawkeye’s first “Dear Dad” over our first O.R. scene, conveniently filling us in on the what and why of the 4077 and meatball surgery. It’s also a thesis statement of sorts. They’re there to save lives, not for glory or to be pretty or precious about their work. Life: the number one concern of a doctor, and the number one thing that war takes away. In some ways, a doctor in a war zone is a paradox. This will be Hawkeye’s struggle straight through to the end of the series. He’s more needed here than he could be at any General Practice or stateside hospital, but what the hell is he doing here? He keeps fixing bodies--just enough to keep them clinging to life--only for the war and the army he works for to keep breaking them.
Back at the Swamp, Hawkeye voices a sentiment we’ll often hear repeated over the 11 seasons to come: invite the North and South to a cocktail party. Last one standing wins the war. Here, it’s a throwaway joke, but as we’ll come to see, the tragedy of Hawkeye Pierce is that he simply cannot grasp, cannot accept, how human beings, given the chance to just talk to one another, cannot come to an understanding, or at least an agreement, and settle their differences without resorting to killing.
All right, on to Lieutenant Dish. The scheme to auction off a nurse, even for the good cause of sending Ho-Jon to college in the States, is cringe-inducing today, as is the awkward montage of Hawkeye’s dogged pursuit of the lieutenant. The show’s misogyny, especially in its early seasons, is by far the hardest aspect for me to stomach. If, however, you take what is shown at face-value, as intended, there’s no harm, no foul here. The Dish-Hawkeye dynamic walks a thin line. Yes, she rejects him over and over and he ignores her over and over. Yet, even as she claims to be saving herself for her fiance, Dish seems indulgent towards Hawkeye, and later at the party even flirtatious. So, she enjoys the attention. Convenient and typical of an attractive woman written by and for men. At the same time, it doesn’t take any stretch of imagination to see that flirtation and sex are some of the only outlets available to the women of the camp, and that they could enjoy it just as much as the men.
I do want to know what the hell the plan was with the raffle of the weekend passes. Father Mulcahy winning is simply too convenient. (Incidentally, I feel robbed of seeing William Christopher react to his name being drawn. I’m looking forward to more familiar faces rounding out the supporting cast.)
The party scene also provides the stark juxtaposition of revelry and Hawkeye dancing cheek-to-cheek with his conquest with the sobering reality of their purpose, the raison d’être of the whole camp. To his credit, Hawkeye looks appropriately grave as he informs Margaret that they’ll be operating on a fresh batch of wounded within hours. While the 4077 dances and drinks, Canadian troops are fighting and dying not far off. Not only is this the linchpin of the episode, the get-out-of-jail-free card for Hawkeye and Trapper after all their shenanigans behind Henry’s back, but also a stamp of credibility for so much of the show. How on earth can these clowns get away these schemes, in the army, of all places? Because they are indispensable. Not only are they surgeons, they are the best at what they do. And once again the hypocrisy of army rules and regulations reveals itself; if everything were done by the book, to the letter, the army would cease to function. It would regulate and court martial itself into obsolescence. (Though, as is pointed out more than once in later episodes, would that really be a bad thing?)
Okay, some more thoughts, now as bullet points so I can wrap this up:
I’m watching without the laugh track, and boy is its absence obvious here in a way it never is later on. The pacing is off, much of the comedy wooden. Still, I prefer this subdued, awkward version of the show to the one with the incongruous canned audience. I think watching it this way allowed me to see so much more.
We get a “Come on, Mary” from Hawkeye to Trapper in the first six minutes! And they facetiously, effeminately point their noses in the air in unison as they walk away from Frank. They’re so in sync straight from the start and I love to see it.
I’m so glad the show left these awkward montages and flashbacks (Hawkeye with Dish, Margaret with General Hammond) behind.
Margaret’s limp hair and awful bangs make me sad.
I forgot The Still (tm) is not with us from the start! I assume they build it after Frank breaks their rudimentary barrel gin mill.
Oh, the bucket hat. Odd that it stays with us in the opening credits for the entire series run, when it feels so odd to see Hawkeye wearing it.
Radar is a surprisingly smooth operator here, even devious. He’s no dummy but it’s odd seeing him like this before he became more the wide-eyed innocent kid.
What is the true origin of “Hot Lips”?? Hawkeye calls her that seemingly off the cuff, and her reaction makes it seem like it’s a new nickname. Then Hammond shows up and calls her the same thing. Is this simply a case of Impossible Coincidence Played for Comedy?
I don’t think I got it the first time around that Margaret recognizes the gauze-covered Frank by his butt when she goes to give him the injection. One of the better jokes of the episode imo.
I listened to the Mashcast podcast for the episode and they were puzzled by the use of Japanese covers of popular songs. I assume that this was because Japan was so firmly established as a base of US military operations, a place every G.I. would pass through on their way to Korea, and where they would hope to go for R&R. I assume (but have not done research to confirm) that radio stations they might get would play Japanese tunes like this. The Japanese cover of “Happy Days,” for instance, seems like a nostalgic choice for US servicemen of the era.
Biggest laugh for me: Such a simple moment, but when Hawkeye and Trapper come into Henry’s office and shake hands with a “How are you, Henry?” and he responds, a little wary and knowing, a little sad-sack, “That’s not what you guys came to ask. I mean, the last thing you wanna know when you ask ‘how are you’ is how am I.” God, I really love Henry.
Parting thoughts: In retrospect, the pilot does a better job than I would’ve suspected in setting up not only the characters but also the lasting themes of the show, even while striking a tone a world away from what the show would become. Not a particularly good or funny episode, but it’s rewarding to rewatch and see the pebble drop into the pool, sending out the rings that will reverberate far into the future.
I’ve started an episode-by-episode rewatch and analysis of M*A*S*H, which you can find here.
Reviews and Analysis
Hope you guys like reaction posts, cause I’m doing a deep dive on particular moments of symbolism that strike me in each episode. So far I’ve talked about the pilot scene in which Hawkeye and Trapper handcuff themselves together, and To Market, to Market’s anti-bureaucratic image of the desk in flight. Check it out!!!!
