Recap / M*A*S*H S2 E9: Dear Dad...Three

Following

Hawkeye Pierce writes a third letter to his father, updating him on the more recent comings and goings happening around the 4077. Such incidents include teaching a racist patient a lesson he will never forget, a viewing of home movies that Henry Blake's family has sent him, a staff meeting, friction between Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan, a few sessions of OR and the fun times at happy hour, all in a mixed-up order.

Dear Dad, these tropes also happened...

• Aggressive Categorism: A wounded Condon refuses to have an infusion of blood from a non-white person due to his racial tendencies. Hawkeye and Trapper decide to teach him a lesson using a combination of Color Me Black and a tragic (not-so) real-life story involving this version of the trope.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Henry has one too many drinks at Happy Hour.
• Artistic License – History: The story Hawkeye and Trapper tell about the death from car accident of Dr. Charles Drew, the black doctor who invented the separation of blood plasma and developed the modern methods of blood collection and storage. The popular story is that the hospital refused to treat him because of his race; in actuality, it was because the first hospital they tried wasn't a trauma center set up for such a thing (this predated modern systems of designated emergency trauma centers and paramedic services), and ultimately, his injuries would have been beyond treatment.
• Ass Shove: The coffee enema Henry was instructed to give a patient prior to his assignment to Korea.
• Berserk Button: Frank, Frank, Frank. If you want your relationship with Margaret to continue unhindered, stop reminding her about your wife!
  Frank: Margaret, if I wanted this kind of aggravation, all I have to do is open one of my wife's letters.
  Margaret: I am sick to death of being reminded that you're a married man!
  Frank: Well how do you think I feel? It's not my fault I'm married. She trapped me.
  Margaret: Ha! I'll bet!
  Frank: She did. She did so! She said she liked me.
  Margaret: And that trapped you?
• Bigotry Before Reason: A white sergeant insists, in the middle of a war zone, that the doctors make sure only to give him "white" blood. Hawkeye and Trapper decide to teach him a lesson by painting him with a tincture of iodine to make his skin temporarily darker. The patient is also stupid enough to insult Ginger, a black nurse, who turns out to be a lieutenant, and thus his superior officer.
• Bomb Disposal: As Hawkeye explains in his letter, sometimes the 4077 gets wounded soldiers who have had grenades shot into their bodies. And some of them don't explode on impact.
• Bookends: Early on in the episode and at the end, there is a session of Happy Hour.
• Card Games: Frank and Trapper are playing Gin Rummy at the start of the episode.
• Comically Missing the Point: Frank misunderstands what Margaret is getting at when she's talking about how much he seems to value her.
  Margaret: Frank, be honest. Do you really think of me as a bag of desirable bones?
  Frank: Of course, Margaret.
  Margaret: I have a mind, Frank. A mind and a brain.
  Frank: Oh, of course you do. Let me kiss your brain.
• Deadpan Snarker: Hawkeye shows off his snarking skills a couple of times.
  • In his letter, he describes the OR in this manner.
    Hawkeye: Even though we don't get along personally, we do have a professional animosity. The OR continues to be a funny place, if you can learn to laugh as you throw up. It's like smorgasbord in a slaughterhouse. Everything looks so bad.
  • He does a very similar thing later in the mess tent.
    Hawkeye: Coming to you from the mess tent now. Not a bad place to eat if you like cold dishes like steak, lamb chops, stew, soup, coffee.
  • Hawkeye has a low opinion of the staff meetings the officers have to hold every month.
    Hawkeye: At the London Zoo, every day at four o'clock, they have the chimps' tea party. The MASH equivalent is our monthly staff meeting. The Pentagon says it's necessary, but our meetings could prolong the war by years.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Frank's is revealed to be Marion.
• Emotional Hospital Visit: Hawkeye has a patient who had requested he be given the "right color blood". So he and Trapper darken his skin temporarily with an iodine tincture. When the patient is frantically wondering if he was given the "wrong kind" of blood, Hawkeye and Trapper tell him the story of Dr. Charles Drew, who invented the process of separating whole blood to plasma for storage, and how he died after a car accident, saying the hospital wouldn't take him as it was for Whites Only. ^note This is not the case, as Dr. Drew actually worked at the hospital he was taken to and the people there were his colleagues. However, it is possible that Hawkeye and Trapper would have believed the story themselves at the time it was presented. The wounded soldier is shaken into silence, and shows that he may have grown a bit when he leaves, giving Ginger, an African American nurse in the unit a salute before leaving to rejoin his unit.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Radar shows Henry an X-ray of a patient waiting in the scrub room to alert him to something serious. Henry assumes that it is because the soldier has a grenade in one of his pants pockets. Then Radar tells him what the X-ray isn't showing.
  Radar: He's not wearing any pants, sir.
  Henry: Holy cow! Collins, take over. Jones, you assist him.
• Happier Home Movie: McLean Stevenson shows his acting chops with Henry Blake watching a home movie his wife has sent him of one of their kids' birthday party.
• Karmic Transformation: Condon is introduced as a racist soldier who demands "the right color blood" for his transfusion. Then he wakes up to find his skin has become darker, he gets offered chicken and watermelon for dinner, and a black nurse praises him for "passing"^note in Jim Crow America, a black person with abnormally light skin could get away with calling him- or herself white; this was known as "passing for white". It's suggested to the soldier that he is becoming black because he got "the wrong color blood", but it's all a trick by Hawkeye and Trapper, designed to teach him a little open-mindedness.
• Mood Whiplash: Watching his wife's home movie is bittersweet for Henry, with the "Miss You" part making Hawkeye want to cry. Then the movie cuts to some goofy clips of Henry, which leave the others laughing uproariously and even Henry himself smirking.
• Narrating the Present
• Oh, Crap!: Hawkeye has one at the episode's conclusion when he thinks Condon has entered the Swamp with the intent of shooting him with his rifle.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: We learn that Henry Blake ended up in Korea thanks to this.
  Henry (inebriated): This guy's a one-star general. Patient's in pain. Guess what his orders were: "Give him a coffee enema."
  Mulcahy: Oh, my word.
  Henry (sloshed):Then I had to open my big mouth and say, "With cream and sugar?"...I was on a plane for Korea in 12 hours.
• Schedule Slip: In-universe. The "monthly" meetings meant to be attended by the senior staff had a six month gap between them.
• Ship Tease: Trapper and Ginger
• Shout-Out:
  • Hawkeye beats off a rendition of Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, Gunga Din while he is operating.
    Frank: Are we going to have poetry in surgery now?
  • Trapper imitates the pop-cultural stereotype servant Igor is believed to be.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Frank and Margaret, in the middle of an impending breakup, slap each other in turn. This instantly changes their minds.
• Sore Loser: Frank Burns, although Trapper did admit that he cheated.
• Stealth Insult: Following on the above story of how Henry got assigned to Korea, Father Mulcahy remarks "Well, the enema's loss was our gain, Colonel."
• Truth in Television: Condon's racist request was actually quite common during the Korean War
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Frank and Trapper are this at the best of times, and I mean best.
  Frank: Just don't talk to me for the rest of the war!
  Trapper: How about the next war?
  Frank: That'll be okey-doke with me, fella.
  Trapper: Fine. We don't talk for this war and World War Three. Moron.
• Voiceover Letter: Hawkeye narrates yet another letter home to his father.