MASH late season thoughts

[sholio]

I finally finished watching all of seasons 9-11 last night, and boy was that a mixed experience. I complained about this on Tumblr after I finished - I had kind of incidentally managed to cherry-pick nearly all of the relevant-to-my-interests episodes beforehand, so what was left was a run of episodes that ranged from okay/fine/funny (but generally not very teamy) to downright bad.

It was just such a wildly mixed bag in the the last three seasons, is the thing! I feel like the character arcs and relationships are generally pretty consistent from oh, about season 3 onward, and in particular I feel like from season 4-8, as the final version of the cast develops, you can see them growing into each other and becoming the found family that they are, and especially across seasons 7-8 there's a pretty consistent trend of Charles warming up to the others and slowly edging his way inside the group. (I mean, there are individual episodes that buck the trend, but on the whole you at least know where you are with the characters in any given season.)

And then season 9 comes slamming into the found family like a wrecking ball, and from there it's just completely random whether you're going to get the Softest™ episode you've ever seen, or one in which they barely even seem to tolerate each other. Some of the very best and highest highs are in the last three seasons (Sons and Bowlers, my beloved! Where There's a Will! Who Knew! The Life You Save!) ... and then there are whole runs of episodes that are just sitcom-y and mean-spirited and the characterizations are all over the place. Charles especially takes it in the teeth with the inconsistent characterization; whether he's a valued member of the group and one of Hawkeye's closest friends, an arrogant ass they barely tolerate, or an incompetent, bigoted buffoon is almost completely random from episode to episode.


One thing that I was talking to sheron about this morning is that Hawkeye and BJ in the last 2-3 seasons made me put my finger on something that bothered me about the early Trapper-Hawkeye dynamic that I never really figured out before, which is that there's a sense of exclusivity to them sometimes - where they don't really seem to care about anything except hanging out with each other and having fun, and they present a united front against everyone else in camp. It's offputting to me, and I think it's part of why I bounced off the earliest seasons a little bit, because there's a meanspiritedness to it that I also thinks comes back in the last seasons to an extent. It makes me see why people focus on them in fic to the extent that they do, but also I don't like it because Hawkeye having friends outside that dyad is a big part of what I liked about the general run of seasons 4-8 episodes, and Hawkeye only being interested in hanging out with or liking one person in the camp is just so completely counter to what I liked best about him in the middle to later seasons, which is how fond he is of *everyone* and how much he draws otherwise fairly isolated people (Margaret, Charles, Klinger, etc) into his orbit.

(I also suspect that people who do like that dyad dynamic and are really focused on it just ignore the episodes where Hawkeye spends a lot of time with non-BJ people (as he does have individual episodes where he's close with Charles, or Margaret, or Potter, etc). I think one reason why a lot of the fic feels inconsistent or off to me is because canon itself is inconsistent, so in order to write fic at all you really have to just pick a particular set of episodes as personal headcanon and jettison some of the others, and I tend to be focused on the really teamy or Hawkeye-Margaret or Hawkeye-Charles episodes, whereas if you're coming in focusing on the Hawkeye-BJ episodes, you do have plenty to work with but you also get a skewed idea of the relative importance of other people in his life.)


I have a few random thoughts on various episodes, and I've been intending to write up something more detailed on "Sons & Bowlers" for months, but I guess I'll just throw some late-in-season individual episode thoughts out there, in no particular order.


11x12 "Say No More" - This was SUCH a sweet Charles and Margaret episode! I think it might be the only really friendshippy episode they get outside of the finale, but I like how it sets up how obviously close they are in the finale. And I also feel like this episode is kind of similar for them to the way "Follies of the Living, Concerns of the Dead" is for Charles and Hawkeye, where you see the full range of the way they are with each other - from furious bickering and being dicks to each other, to supportiveness and mutual affection. (I think it reminds me of "Follies", too, in the sense that it's not a getting-closer episode like some of them are, it's a "demonstrating what their relationship is like" kind of episode, and it is a lovely one.)

I really love their interplay early in the episode ("Voice doesn't work. Fist still works" cracks me up endlessly. MARGARET), but I think what really gets to me is the nature of his sweet gesture towards her later, because one thing Charles really has trouble with throughout the series is recognizing that people liking things he doesn't like is valid and worthwhile for them. He goes around trying to impose his values and opinions on everyone else. But in this case, although he's condescending AF to her in private about Margaret idolizing this guy, he not only goes out of his way to arrange for Margaret to meet her idol after she gives up on it, but he does it by telling the guy all the nice things Margaret told him (and possibly making some up along the way), in spite of how scathing he was earlier when she told him that. And as far as I can tell from the scene where he introduces them, he actually is pretty nice to the guy in general; he doesn't leave a bad impression *or* try to take credit for it. He just quietly does a nice thing for her and then steps aside. And he's just clearly so very pleased to see her happy, in the tent scene and later in the mess. He deserved the kiss he got at the end!


10x19 "Sons & Bowlers" - I have a whole entire ESSAY on this episode lurking in my head somewhere, but the thing this episode made me realize more than anything was, first of all, how reluctant Hawkeye is in general to talk about anything deeply personal, and second, that he's a touchy-feely person who has very few close friends who are also touchy-feely people. His relationships with both Trapper and BJ are very "guy buddy" kinds of relationships - and this isn't to say that they aren't close and don't love each other! Obviously! And they are/were very important to him! But they're not really "talking your feelings out" relationships because they're simply not that kind of people; they're hanging-out-and-doing-things kinds of relationships. And Margaret is even more of a typical guy than most of the guys are.

So it's really interesting that Charles is the one who pushes for a more emotionally intimate form of interaction in this episode, because Hawkeye wouldn't push for it on his own, and most of his friends wouldn't either - I feel like, they'll definitely listen if he wants to talk (there are certainly examples of them doing this, for him or other people), but they don't seek him out like that, or try to push past his barriers and get him to talk if he doesn't want to.

But I feel like Charles has been, off and on, trying to have a relationship like this with him for a while now - most notably the way he gravitates towards Hawkeye when he's drunk and upset. And in this case, he goes ahead and pushes past the point when most of Hawkeye's friends probably would have taken no for a simple answer. ("The Life You Save" involves Charles rather than Hawkeye in that role, but it is, I think, pretty accurate to how BJ and Margaret both react when they can tell there's something wrong with a friend, ask if anything's wrong, and are told to mind their own business - they do. And Potter will listen if anyone in the camp wants to talk to him, but they have to be the one to open the conversation, he usually won't.)

So Charles is maybe the only person in Hawkeye's life right now who *would* go ahead and push him to talk about what's bothering him, and he's also the only person Hawkeye knows who also has a touchy-feely component to his personality, who's not a "guy's guy" kind of person in the way that most of his other friends are.

The only other person Hawkeye did have a relationship like this with? Henry. Which makes the end of season 3 even more tragic in retrospect. I think Hawkeye really closed down after he lost both Henry and Trapper - he's very closed off in early to mid season 4, imho, compared to how he is before and after - but specifically what he lost with Henry was someone who would seek him out when he was sad and try to talk to him about it. He just doesn't really have friends who do that. He's the friend who does that.

And I think it's also telling that, in the stinger scene with the toast, Hawkeye and Charles both could very easily close up again, go back to the bicker/banter/prickly thing they normally do with each other. In fact I think Charles is backing off a little already. But Hawkeye, with the very sincere thank you and toast, is sending clear signals that he likes how they were in this episode, he wants that more open relationship to continue, or at least to leave the door open for it in the future.

(Of course it's season 10, so there's zero emotional follow-up on this, but oh well.)


Okay, I DID write an essay, I guess. Also, I've written almost 2K to talk about just two episodes so I guess I'll knock it off and save the other thoughts for another day. Those were mainly the ones I wanted to talk about anyway. (Well, and "Who Knew," but I already did that.)

Comments

[lunabee34]

Oh Henry. I remember the first time I watched that episode where he dies as kid and just feeling punched in the gut.

[sholio]

I remember being really blindsided by that as a kid, too! You really didn't expect it in TV of the era.

[lunabee34]

Yes, so unexpected. And just so painful.

[sheron]

The only other person Hawkeye did have a relationship like this with? Henry. Which makes the end of season 3 even more tragic in retrospect. I think Hawkeye really closed down after he lost both Henry and Trapper - he's very closed off in early to mid season 4, imho, compared to how he is before and after - but specifically what he lost with Henry was someone who would seek him out when he was sad and try to talk to him about it. He just doesn't really have friends who do that. He's the friend who does that.

I love this meta and agree completely! It's just really sad and obvious in retrospect rewatching the early seasons how often it's Henry who goes and asks Hawkeye how he's doing, and then later there's not much of that for a long time.

I also really like how this episode (Bowlers) has two geeky boys sharing some of the worst memories of their childhood (Hawkeye's mom+dinner table, Charles' dad+dinner table) and how they clearly seem to recognize the level of trust that goes with sharing something like that because, as Charles puts it, [he/they] "never told you anything before".

♥

I'll have to watch the other one you mentioned. Margaret being a part of the team is so essential to my enjoying later episodes!

[sholio]

I also really like how this episode (Bowlers) has two geeky boys sharing some of the worst memories of their childhood (Hawkeye's mom+dinner table, Charles' dad+dinner table) and how they clearly seem to recognize the level of trust that goes with sharing something like that because, as Charles puts it, [he/they] "never told you anything before".

YES, that entire sequence is just so lovely, and you can tell that a) neither of them has ever really talked about it before, definitely not with anyone here, and possibly not ever, and b) they both recognize and acknowledge that this sharing is both special and unusual for them. It's just such a warm, kind episode. What if I did a whole episode recap/analysis with screencaps, what then ....

(I hope you like the Charles & Margaret episode! I really enjoyed seeing how far they've come, and how sweet he can be when he tries.)

[sovay]

Charles especially takes it in the teeth with the inconsistent characterization; whether he's a valued member of the group and one of Hawkeye's closest friends, an arrogant ass they barely tolerate, or an incompetent, bigoted buffoon is almost completely random from episode to episode.

I didn't know M*A*S*H had gone through this phase in the sitcom life cycle. You're the first person I've seen talk about it.

I like your essay about "Sons and Bowlers."

[sholio]

I didn't know M*A*S*H had gone through this phase in the sitcom life cycle. You're the first person I've seen talk about it.

Yeah, it's interesting because I've seen people talking about the later seasons being not as good, but for completely different reasons than why I think they aren't as good! (Well, except that the writers were starting to run out of ideas, which I do think is true - it's illuminating to go back to early episodes after watching a number of late-season ones and notice how much fresher they feel and how much more interesting life-in-camp side color there is.) But the main issue I've seen people talking about is that the show is less funny - less of a sitcom - and more sincere and maudlin, and I actually have the opposite problem: I think it's more of a sitcom, with characterization being sacrificed for rule-of-funny or to provide a contrived conflict in an episode. I actually like the sincere episodes; I think they're some of the show's best! And the issue I have is with the ones that feel like they were stamped out of a sitcom plot generator, or the ones that take a decent idea and throw it away on mischaracterization or gratuitous meanness.

(Really one of the worst offenders on that score is a season 9 or 10 episode with the premise that the characters mistakenly think their MASH unit is going to be broken up and they'll be reassigned elsewhere. That would've been a great concept for an episode focused on all of them recognizing how much they'd miss each other, but instead it's thrown away on stupid hijinks as they all try to make themselves - or someone else, without the other person's knowledge - look too incompetent to be worth reassigning, and Hawkeye and BJ conspire to try to get Charles sent to another MASH unit anyway because they'd rather lose him than someone they care about more. It's just bad, and it could've been so good!)

I like your essay about "Sons and Bowlers."

Thank you!

You know, one thing I didn't think to ask is whether you've seen the show, or are working mainly off osmosis? I'm just curious; I know it's a lot of show!

[sovay]

You know, one thing I didn't think to ask is whether you've seen the show, or are working mainly off osmosis? I'm just curious; I know it's a lot of show!

We started with the fourth season and watched through the eighth before I hit some kind of wall. We watched at least some of the ninth season and a couple of episodes from the tenth and backtracked a little into the first three, but absolutely did not get through the entire show. spatch, however, had seen all of it before and was showing me.

Sitcom definitely sounds more annoying to me than sincere!

[sholio]

Good to know, thank you! And that's a good run of episodes to have seen; I definitely think you got the best of the show there.

(Though I hope Sons & Bowlers was one of the later ones you saw; it is definitely a top-tier favorite of mine.)

[troyswann]

I agree about the later seasons when they were running out of steam a little. I am a firmly BJ years fan, and cannot bring myself to watch the prior seasons even though I know there are good episodes in there. I find them to be mean, especially to Margaret, who gets a lot of gender-based hazing that seems probably in line with the movieverse, but seems cheap when there's lots if other reasons to play with the tensions between the army she represents and the doctors.

S4-8 are my happy place. Margaret becomes a person rather than a whipping post, and I like where she goes and how she reluctantly but deeply finds an ally in Hawkeye.

Now that I think more on it, Charles is fascinating to me because of the doomed belief that he can somehow be there and hold himself aloof, and how that distance is bridged and that wall is punctured by kindness--both of others and his own. He's the proof (like Radar is, I think) that it is not inevitable that war will dehumanize you; it is possible, as in his case, that , by throwing your fate into the hands of caring strangers, your humanity paradoxically finds safe places for expression.

I hadn't really given much thought to Charles (I'm always more focused on Hawkeye and BJ or Margaret or,especially, Radar, my woobie), until I started following you, so thanks for opening that up for me.

[sholio]

Yeah, there are some episodes from the early seasons that I like a lot, and ones that I think are important for character development later, especially for Hawkeye, and I also feel like the characters warm up and start to pull together into a more cohesive unit by season 3-ish. But I agree that it's not a favorite period for me in the show because of the overall unpleasantness and especially the cruelty directed at Margaret. I have never really warmed up to Trapper in part because of this; I know it comes from Hawkeye too, but I feel like Trapper is simply downright nasty to her at times (and also leches on her in a way that Hawkeye usually doesn't, at least not quite in as forceful a way).

Oh well! For 11 seasons of a show, having some shakiness at the beginning and end isn't too surprising. And there's just so much that's good in between.

Now that I think more on it, Charles is fascinating to me because of the doomed belief that he can somehow be there and hold himself aloof, and how that distance is bridged and that wall is punctured by kindness--both of others and his own. He's the proof (like Radar is, I think) that it is not inevitable that war will dehumanize you; it is possible, as in his case, that , by throwing your fate into the hands of caring strangers, your humanity paradoxically finds safe places for expression.

Oh, that's a lovely way to put it. <3 And I agree - he's the one of them who is most unambiguously going home a better person than he came, because of the kindness and humanity of the people around him, who got him to acknowledge his own. (And also going home a sadder, more traumatized person. One thing I've thought about is that it's the opening up that leaves him as broken as the rest of them in the end - he tried to stay apart, and he failed, and he got hurt. If he had never opened up, he probably would've managed to remain at least somewhat less scarred than the others. In the end, he's probably the one of them most visibly shattered next to Hawkeye. But the whole experience has almost certainly left him a better, kinder, more caring person and doctor than he ever would have been otherwise.)

And I've definitely had other people's comments, fic, and meta open my eyes to characters and plot points I never would've noticed otherwise, so I'm happy to have done that here! You're welcome to comment anytime. <3

[sovay]

In the end, he's probably the one of them most visibly shattered next to Hawkeye. But the whole experience has almost certainly left him a better, kinder, more caring person and doctor than he ever would have been otherwise.

I don't think the song in any other way applies, but I flashed on Lost Under Heaven's "Bunny's Blues" (2018): "A heart's not open till it's broken . . ."

[philomytha]

I will bear this in mind when I get there! We've watched all of s4 now and it really does pick up throughout the season, some rather sitcommy episodes but increasingly with a lot of heart to them - like you I prefer it sincere to played only for laughs - and the last episode of s4 was incredible.

[sholio]

I'm glad you're finally having a good time with season 4! I think one thing I didn't realize early on is that as well as the group being completely disrupted at the beginning of season 4, Hawkeye (normally its emotional core) is also traumatized and withdrawn, so combine that with the show's general early-season tendency to lean into the sitcom aspects of its plots and it's kind of a rough ride. But things do really pick up as the characters start to click with each other and the show finds its feet and its heart. I kinda feel like it was starting to do that in season 3 and then blew up the cast and started over and took a while to get reoriented, but it's really SO good when it does. The starting 2-parter of season 5 and then the episodes immediately following that are just a really fantastic run of episodes, I loved them a lot!

[sheron]

Yeah my favourites are definitely S6-8 and I like a lot of specific episodes from other seasons (e.g. S4, S9, 10, 11). It's nice that there's so much good stuff to rewatch because I enjoy comparing S6 Charles to S8 Charles and see how much more human he is thanks to interacting with the others (and especially Hawkeye whom he clearly genuinely really likes and cares about)!

[sholio]

It's just so gooooood. <3 I love watching him get dragged kicking and screaming into caring about these people, and his patients, and basically being opened up to becoming a better person because he simply can't *not* have Hawkeye rub off on him. I love how well they work as foils for each other, and how much Charles is a sort of "through a glass darkly" version of him.