Overall season review:
Hawkeye learns by the end that his life wouldn't end if he were unable to conduct surgery, and in fact would find more joy in the other areas of his life. It would have been better, or I would have liked it better, if they went at this episode from a character standpoint - knowing the lesson they wanted Hawkeye to learn. I think if they'd gone that way, they would have maybe done something to his hands instead? Which might have made more sense? That he burnt his hands in the stove and had them heavily bandaged while they healed?
It's not better in terms of giving a character a disability in order to get them to learn life is beautiful or whatever, but at least this way it (A) makes more sense and (B) the injury isn't necessarily attached to a community of disabled people as written by someone who has no idea about what living with that disability is like. It's wrapped up completely in character, and doesn't imply that anyone who becomes visually impaired will gain a new, optimistic persepective, or that being blind isn't so bad. There would also be more of a knowledge (in both the real world and the world of the show) that the injury is likely temporary, making Hawkeye dreaming about a world where he can go home and not be responsible for saving people's lives seem more impactful. He also wouldn't instantaneously be making peace with becoming suddenly disabled because not being able to see lets him "really see the world" or whatever. Instead, he would be seen for immediately diving into a dream of having what he imagines to be a better life, because it would solve this one huge problem in his life: That he was drafted because he dedicated himself to the pursuit of saving lives, and if he hadn't dedicated himself to that, he wouldn't be in this situation where he is actively contributing to the war effort.
Brace for essay.
This episode, like three others (ONLY THREE OTHERS) before it is astounding for its take on the kind of person Margaret is: someone who puts on an incredibly tough and bristled exterior, particularly when she is doing her job, who puts everyone around her up to the same impossible standards she puts up for herself, and struggles with the nature of her identity within the necessity of her attitude as a nurse in the military. She does not understand why the nurses can't see things from her perspective: that nurses regularly rotate through disallowing permanent friendships, that it didn't matter that she had every privilege she could have had going into the army because she was still a woman and therefore had to be more than perfect to be considered better than average, that even with her abilities she was constantly expected to perform as someone who is highly feminine and sensual at any given moment, and that her nurses - by virtue of also being women and subordinate nurses besides - were ubiquitously seen as an extension of herself, and that if any nurse were judged poorly that nurse would move on but Margaret would have to live with the consequences. Margaret understands all of this on a deeply personal level. She doesn't understand why none of the other nurses do, or at the very least, why they don't understand that about her. Margaret has a clear line between professional work and personal life, and does not understand why the two should ever intersect, despite the fact that her personal life subsists in the world of her working world.
This show has at this point examined Margaret's relationship to men to bits. Overtly beginning with Hot Lips and Empty Arms (the first episode written by a woman on the show), we learn that Margaret is fully cognizant of the kind of person Frank is. She in fact despises Frank, and merely tolerates him in the way one would tolerate a thin pillow or lumpy mattress. She would rather have him than not, despite how terrible he is, but she'll get rid of him the minute a more comfortable option comes along. As of Hot Lips and Empty Arms, the audience comes to know this too. When season 5 comes along and Margaret is able to move on from Frank, we understand that Margaret doesn't even require having a man physically around her, so long as she is (nominally) in a dedicated and loving relationship with one. By the time Margaret realizes she can survive as a single person, we understand her journey getting there and understand that she still has a lot to reckon with. To restate things, by the end of the show, we understand Margaret's relationship to men to a infintesimal level, and through a variety of trying situations.
This is the first example of an episode here Margaret's loneliness of other women is explored. She is a major, as she is reticent to remind everyone at all times. She is good at her job. She upholds military standards to a T. She spends every waking moment trying to carve out a role for herself that allows her to be a major without precluding the fact that she's a woman. And she is terribly lonely because of it. Margaret doesn't have friends. At this point in the show, she doesn't have anyone. Occassionally, when Margaret is either feeling exceptionally well or exceptionally terrible, she will take comfort in Hawkeye and/or BJ. She sees a paternal figure in Potter, but is not willing to be anything other than a major to him, and certainly not a friend. But for the day to day? Margaret is alone.
Enter this episode's nurses. It's worth mentioning here that one of the four nurses we get to know this episode, Mary Jo Catlett, is phenomenal. She shows up in one other (incredible) episode as Carol Bythe's friend in The More I See You. Anyhow, she and three other nurses are shown to be enjoying some off time, making "fudge" and chatting. I love that this scene all but establishes that literally everyone in this camp is up to hijinks against the army at all times. And Margaret enters, and immediately we see the nurses perspective of her. It's notable that we start this episode on their side, not Margaret's. Furthermore, this isn't a special episode for Margaret in regards to there being a visiting general or surprise inspections, or even particularly heavy casualties. This, we are made to understand, is how the nurses interact with Margaret on a daily basis when they are not at work. She has a stick up her ass and she can't relax. They don't see her as a person, but a hand of the army pushing them around, which Margaret is indeed doing her best to embody. And the consequences are clear: They despise her.
When they start looking for special circumstances, they go to Hawkeye and BJ, two people who have in the past been able to work around Margaret, if not stand up to her completely. Again, as shit goes zany, we do not see anything from Margaret's side. It is in many ways a typical episode's treatment of her. She is baffled, indignant, confused, and upset. She's sure something is going on, but can't gather enough evidence to do something about it. The difference is that now she is forced to spend at least a portion of her personal time with those she feels so isolated from, and it's this difference alone that forces Margaret, and truly forces her as she would never have willingly "lost control" over her emotions as she does here, to open up.
Loretta Swit. Stupendously, she begins it with typical Margaret-isms. She's indignant. She's passionate without being emotional, simultaneously no-nonsense and incredulous, and she is ultimately aloof from what the nurses are saying. I'd also like to point out the staging here. As the conversation escalates, the four nurses stand at the doorway, with Margaret at the center of the room. She is unable to leave without going through them. She has nowhere to hide. Thus, the situation is familiar to us, the audience, but the situation is notably unique. We have never seen nurses talk back before. Not to anyone, and certainly not to Margaret. In fact, we have never seen anyone, besides Hawkeye (and even then he only gripes about her actions and attitude, not her personality), give her a verbal lashing before. And Margaret is furious. And indignant. And to justify her indignance, she has to explain herself. And it is heartbreaking. God, what an episode.
The best part about it all is that the lasting implication of the episode is that Margaret is going to be making more of an effort behind the curtain. We hardly ever see the nurses again in this light. Truly not until season 11's opener, Hey Look Me Over, do we get to see things again from a nurse's point of view. And so we are not subject to the same standard of the sitcom, that things reset immediately. We can instead evidentially argue that Margaret has learned and changed from this, and the nurses, at least these ones, understand her better now. What an episode.
Worth noting as well that this was the episode that made Alan Alda, and also other show writers, realize that Margaret Houlihan was a nuanced character and that they could even write her with that in mind. I don't know what this show would have been without The Nurses.
Also, Soon-Tek is the voice of Mulan's father in the og Mulan.
This is the episode where HAwkeye gets his portrait painted. Also, we get another Hawkeye speech about how he doesn't want to shoot a gun so bad. And then he and Potter have a great time shooting guns actaully! It's a really fun and cool scene! It's almost enough for me to make this required literature for newbies. If you are able to fast forward through the Klinger scenes? Maybe then? Hawkeye does have a great time. Then again, Hawkeye has plenty of great times over the course of the show. It's no big deal to miss one. I dunno. Viewer's choice.
All of that said, the episode does end with Hawkeye performing a mocking version of the exorcism in order to prank Frank. There's this element to it that feels like a kid mimicking an adult they look up to? But he is a full adult man in a show written by full adult men, and all in all, I wish the scene didn't exist at all. But ultimately, good episode! Incredibly!