67. Aid Station

February 11, 1975 (B-322)

Written by: Larry Gelbart and Simon Muntner
Directed by: William Jurgensen
Guest Stars: Someone uncredited as the chap at the aid station, possibly Tom Dever.
Semi-regulars: Jamie Farr as Corporal Klinger, William Christopher as Father Mulcahy.

Plot: It's a normal morning. Everybody is complaining about the food and Burns and Hot Lips complain to Henry about the lack of discipline. A message has come through from an Aid Station asking the 4077th to supplement them, as their surgeon has been killed. Hot Lips volunteers but no surgeons want to go so they decide it by drawing sausages out of a bed pan. Hawkeye gets the short sausage. Klinger is volunteered as the third member of the party. He sorts through his clothes, telling Radar which of the nurses is to get what dress if he's killed. Hot Lips packs her bag and has a big ol' go at Burns for not volunteering and for being a married man and too chicken to leave his wife. Hawk and Trap are being deliberately offhand about the risk that Hawkeye might get killed, but he also tells Trapper that his will is in his locker. On the way to the Aid Station the jeep gets a flat tyre, then they get shelled, and finally arrive at the aid station. Using the bare facilities that are available they try to do as much surgery as they can, scrubbing in alcohol and protecting the casualties from dirt contamination with their own bodies while shells keep falling. Hot Lips and Klinger have to operate as well as Hawkeye, even though they're not trained for it (Klinger especially). Back at the 4077th there's another operating session going on and the contrast is stark. Burns is bitching about the conditions back at camp, while we see that the conditions at the aid station are hugely worse. Yep, war is a pretty nasty place all right. The boys at the camp are missing the people at the aid station, and so Radar ends up sleeping the night in the Swamp. Henry is having guilt for sending the team to the front. Meanwhile at the front, the shelling has stopped and the surgery is over and everybody falls asleep. Next morning the replacement Aid Station staff arrive and the team make their way back. Trapper is disappointed in Hawkeye for not making a move on Hot Lips. Burns is jealous of the time she spent with him, although she's not impressed. Back in the mess tent, with Burns and Trapper bitching about the food and conditions, Hawk and Hot Lips exhange a knowing glance and grin.

Glitches: The PA mentions 'officers' call' being held in Colonel Blake's office but not all the officers turn up, only the regular cast ones. It's all the people that they want so maybe they've got a pre-arranged signal, like Batman. It does raise a question about Captain Spalding, though. If they had to draw straws to choose a surgeon, and Spalding is a surgeon (we saw that in 58. There is Nothing Like a Nurse) then by rights he really should be there! Maybe he played his guitar one too many times and got shot.
Hot Lips and Burns's passionate farewell ends with her snogging him, but instead of them maintaining their passionate embrace they've freeze-framed it!

Great Lines: Trapper, staring at Radar's two mounds of mashed potato: 'I think I used to go steady with that tray...'
Hot Lips: 'My father was a Colonel, my mother was a nurse and I was conceived on manoeuvers.'
Hot Lips protesting a sexist notion: 'Don't think of me as a woman!' Hawkeye: 'Don't stand in profile.'
Radar wants to sleep in Hawkeye's bunk, to which Burns responds, 'This is an officer's tent!' Trapper: 'Try to snore importantly, Radar.'
Burns: 'I wrote you the longest love-letter of my whole life. It took almost a whole roll of toilet paper.'
Klinger: 'You guys at the rear have no respect for the front-line troops, stealing our dresses...'

The Klinger Collection: A pink housecoat. Later, he gets into uniform for the mission, but we do get to see an awful lot of his pretty things before he leaves. He puts on a lovely blue-grey hat when he returns.

Notes: Klinger once came 'that close' to a discharge, but the shrink who attended him had a nicer full-length white fox coat. He also claims his mother was mugged bringing him home from hospital.
Hot Lips, until now, had never cut a man open.
The movie was Sherlock Holmes.

Comments: Hawkeye and Klinger have fairly inoffensive singing voices, but Hot Lips is decidedly shrill.
Klinger's righteous indignation at having no dresses to come home to is glorious.
Coming comparatively early on the series, this episode is actually kind of scary. The framing mood, though, is still reasonably light - imagine the downbeat ending this episode would have had if it had aired in Season Ten. It is a bit of a disconnect, though - the team left at the camp worry themsevles half to death about the three sent to the station, but when they return seem completely uninterested in their experiences. Go figure.

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