#mash review
There’s a subtle dirty joke in this one too: in his tent having martinis with Nancy, Hawkeye complains about the black market Chinese olives: “You can’t conquer the world with a shoddy olive. Hitler found that out.” That this remarkable episode, which moves so effortlessly between comedy and tragedy, found time to include a jab on Hitler’s testicle is just one more reason it’s a masterpiece.
Let’s be real here: “Bullet” is the best episode of M*A*S*H season 1; the best episode of M*A*S*H, period; and almost certainly in the top 20 TV episodes of all time, of any series. I have my own favorites, but even I must admit this. Larry Gelbart et al set out to take a compelling story about horny war doctors and give it something extra, push the existential element to a bigger, universal place. With “Bullet,” they achieved what they were going for. It’s the yardstick against which all other MASH shows can be measured, and should be.
Hawkeye’s heart breaks when he’s unable to save the life of his childhood friend Tommy Gillis. Tommy has enlisted in a regiment so he can write a book, with the working title You Never Hear the Bullet, and pops by the Swamp for a rowdy, joyful visit. He returns mortally wounded—telling Hawk, with his last breath on the operating table, that he heard the bullet after all. His death, and Hawk’s grief, give rise to Henry Blake’s famous speech of comfort, repeated by fans frequently. “Rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is, doctors can’t change rule number one.”
Subject matter with this kind of weight might seem out of place in a comedy, and it was indeed an extremely daring thing to try. MASH swung for the fences, with miraculous success. Part of why it succeeded, though, is that amid its wrenching drama the show is funny. Frank throws his back out while trying to sail into Margaret, and decides he deserves a Purple Heart for it. Incredibly, he gets one—which Hawkeye steals to give to Walter Peters, a boy who lied about his age to become a Marine (in order to impress a girl, who will flip when she sees the medal). Ron Howard is impeccable and the interplay between Peters and Hawkeye, while still serious, is lighter, providing a balance with the bleaker half of the story.
Finally, we will never forget the way Tommy planted one on Henry at their first meeting, shown again as a freeze-frame in the closing credits.
Love, without inferior olives, really does conquer all.
“Hawkeye, I think I’m in love!” sighs Trapper after he, Hawk and Radar have finished writing Tuttle’s fictional file. (Interesting that with his tall frame and hazel eyes, he and Trapper actually look alike.) The nonexistent Tuttle has already caused some problems, which will only escalate. Once Margaret sees the file, she too is smitten and Frank vows to keep an eye on him. Once Frank complains, even Henry gets irritated: “If there’s one thing I’m not gonna have in this outfit, it’s politics!”
Tuttle was the name of Hawkeye’s imaginary friend as a kid, he explained. When Hawk donates supplies to a nun to give to orphans, he puts the donation in Tuttle’s name, setting the confusion in motion. Thanks to the Swampmen’s trickery, Tuttle gets paid (and donates more pay to the orphanage), drives a wedge between Frank and Margaret, receives a medal of honor, and dies in action all in the space of one day. As General Clayton speeds over to decorate the heroic captain, Frank whines, “It’s easy for Tuttle- he had all the breaks!”
This episode features a double-entendre that fans love, possibly the dirtiest joke in the whole series. After she talks him down about his insecurities, Frank says, “Oh Margaret, you’re my snug harbor. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to sail into.” Legend has it that it was over the heads of the censors and they just failed to catch it.
I enjoy this show because it’s so psychological and talky. There’s the normal amount of stumbling about the camp, but all in the service of chasing a guy who isn’t there, an impossible ideal. The moral is that only this figment of the MASH’s imagination could inspire such strong emotions in all of them. To quote Major Burns yet again, our country can use all the Tuttles we can get.
So, Houlihan and Burns (but Houlihan especially) are extremely upset that Radar seems to be getting romantic with an officer, Louise Anderson. Even though they only saw them talking together at lunch? With Hawk and Trapper also present? It strains credibility a bit. If pressed, I’d say that what this show is missing is any real heat between Radar and Lt. Anderson, beyond his smitten first encounter with her when he carries her bag. By now (14 episodes into season 1) the show’s creators should know that we’re in this mainly for the sex. Louise has a flirty moment with Hawkeye in her tent which surpasses anything that ever goes on between her and Corporal O’Reilly—this is just unfair.
That said, Kelly Jean Peters is great as the intellectual object of Radar’s affection. She looks like someone from now, maybe an adjunct professor at a Midwestern grad school, as much as like a 1950s military nurse. (She doesn’t look like a ‘70s lady at all, strangely enough.) Though her tastes in music and literature force Radar to jump through cognitive hoops and ultimately bore him to sleep, she succeeds in taking his mind off his broken engagement. Pity she didn’t come back a few years later to give Winchester a try.
My favorite parts of the episode are at the front end, however, before Anderson has even appeared. We see what made Gary Burghoff such a sublime Charlie Brown, as he sulks in the mess hall and lies in fetal position listening to his sweetheart’s “Dear John” record. (I wish I knew who did the voice of Linda Sue.) The doctors put him through a battery of tests to find the cause of his sadness, and he’s funny throughout, sweetly patient with a subtle air of irritation.
The episode title is a reference to the film of the same name, which was huge at that moment and a hundred times sappier than MASH. We’ll take Radar’s love life over Ryan O’Neal’s. We’ll also take Hawk and Trapper having “pillow talk” in Margaret’s bed.
