29. Dr Pierce and Mr Hyde

October 13, 1973 (K-405)

Written by: Alan Alda and Robert Klane.
Directed by: Jackie Cooper
Semi-regulars: Herb Voland as General Clayton, Buck Young as O'Brien the chopper pilot.

Plot: Hawkeye has done over 24 hours straight surgery, and is exhausted. More wounded arrive, and more and more, till he's been working for three days without rest. After all this, he doesn't go to sleep even after casualties stop arriving. He starts to act very strangely, in a rather loony fashion, trying to work out why the war started. He gets Radar to send a telegram to President Truman, asking 'who's responsible?'. He asks O'Brien the chopper pilot not to go up any more because that is what creates casualties. It doesn't work, though - even though the pilot agrees, more arrive. Hawkeye's telegram has made General Clayton very angry, and he comes to the camp. At Burns's orientation lecture on the role of the UN in Korea, Hawkeye asks him why they are there, why the war started and what the point is. Burns's response is that the war is because the Communists want American bathrooms. (No, it doesn't make any sense to me either. I think it's meant to be a metaphor.) Hawkeye decides that he'll take the officers' latrine to North Korea to give to the enemy to make the war stop. Toasting his success, Trapper slips some sleeping drugs into his martini. General Clayton arrives and dashes immediately into the officers' latrine, just as Hawkeye starts taking it to the North. He only gets a few hundred yards before the drugs hit him, and he collapses.

Glitches: At the start, is it supposed to have rained or something? The camp is covered with water and mud. If that's the case, then why is the road a few metres away still dry and dusty?
There's some similarly strange intermittent precipitation later when Hawkeye's wandering around at night. Must be that weird foreign weather.
Henry tells Hawkeye that he should have been off-shift and someone else could have operated. He seems really pent-up about it, so why didn't he get someone to take over at the time?
Trapper suggests to Henry that Hawkeye be sedated, even though he's already tried it.

Great Lines: Henry: 'Listen, Pierce, you were ordered to stand down!' Hawkeye: 'I did but I fell up again.'
Henry, on Clayton's impending arrival: 'Do we have enough sherry and ginger ale for the general?' Radar: 'No, nobody does, sir.'
Burns, at his lecture: 'Why, then, are we here? A very good question. Let me try to answer that question with... an answer.'
The toast to Hawkeye's plan: 'To peace, and the American way of plumbing.'
General Clayton: 'Out of my way, soldier, or I'll have you court-martialled for interfering with an officer's bodily functions!'

Comments: The makeup on Hawkeye really is very good - he looks completely appalling.
Radar's comic is titled 'The Last Man' which is apparently a war comic about WWII. I've looked everywhere on the internet but I can't find it.
The 'who started it' conversation between the fatigued Hawkeye and the half-asleep Trapper gives us some idea what things might have been like if Trapper had stayed around. Hawkeye (because of his fatigue madness and the fact that the show's rate of character development is still settling) is very much like his Season Nine (or later) self, someone who a man like Trapper doesn't deal with as well. Of course, 'tired Hawkeye = later-season Hawkeye' is an interesting point about where he will ultimately go over the course of the series.
This episode seemed a lot funnier before I sat down and watched it properly. Hawkeye is definitely barmy with fatigue; I think the premise they were going for was that only the person who is utterly bonkers can see the truth (or maybe that knowing the truth is unhealthy for the mind). It didn't work out too well in that respect, but the idea of sending a lavvy to North Korea more than made up for it.

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