Recap / M*A*S*H S5 E3: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Following

M*A*S*H (1972) Recap Index
Season 1: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24
Season 2: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24
Season 3: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24
Season 4: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24
Season 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24
Season 6: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24
Season 7: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25
Season 8: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25
Season 9: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
Season 10: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21
Season 11: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

While Hawkeye is troubleshooting the furnace in the nurses' tent, a backflash blinds him, leaving him worried it will be permanent. Meanwhile, Frank has found a foolproof way to win at betting on baseball games.

---

Attention all personnel! Please use caution with the following tropes:

• Anachronism Stew: Frank listens to the baseball games overnight using a transistor radio, which was not available for sale until 1954, the year after the Korean War ended.
• Batman Gambit: After overhearing Frank gloating about winning a bet on a baseball game and remembering him listening to it the night before, Hawkeye teams up with Radar, B.J., and Klinger to broadcast a fake game for Frank to listen to the next night, knowing Frank would be listening in.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: While blinded, Hawkeye gains the ability to hear far better than he did before. Thus, much like Radar, he's able to detect incoming choppers before the rest of the camp.
• Brick Joke: During a visit to the nurses' tent while blinded, Hawkeye teases a nurse who is uncomfortable getting undressed for a shower with him there. He goes back after his recovery, claiming a temporary relapse, hoping for similar results. It doesn't work.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Frank attempts to cheat at betting with the enlisted men on baseball games. It doesn't end well for him.
• Commonality Connection: Hawkeye and Tom Straw bond over the fact that they've both been rendered blind.
• Disability Superpower: Hawkeye appears to undergo this, being able to smell more strongly that a patient's bowel is perforated in the OR and being able to hear his surroundings more clearly.
• Double Entendre: When he's comfortable enough to be a Sad Clown, Hawkeye gets right back on the innuendo train, making jokes about not being able to fit his lips around a howitzer and being passed around the camp.
• Eye Scream: Downplayed with Hawkeye, who simply had flash burns and recovered his vision. Lt. Straw, however, had a grenade go off a few feet in front of him and took most of the shrapnel in the face.
• Hey, Catch!: At the end, after Hawkeye's regained his vision, he strolls into the nurses' tent with a cane, claiming to have had a relapse, so they can go ahead and change since he can't see them. One of the nurses throws him a coffee cup, which he catches... Oops.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Frank.
    PA Announcer: Here's the results of yesterday's game. Yanks 8, Indians 1. For those who'd like to collect, Major Burns is in post-op.
    Frank: Oh, that score can't be right. I listened to the game and...
  • Hawkeye too when he goes to the nurses' tent claiming to have had a temporary relapse, telling the nurses to go ahead and do what they usually do - get undressed for a shower, iron their undies, etc. Then he miraculously manages to catch a cup one of the nurses throws into the air.
• Hypocrite: For all his earlier rants about gambling, Frank is shown to be someone totally willing to not only gamble but cheat at gambling to take advantage of other unit members.
• If I Do Not Return: Played for Laughs when the nurses first ask Hawkeye to fix the stove in their tent:
  Hawkeye: Beej, if I'm not back in five minutes, don't come get me.
• Jerkass: Frank enters the Swamp, where Hawkeye is recuperating, whistling "Three Blind Mice".
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Of all the people the nurses could ask to relight their stove, they pick the camp's Chief Surgeon. At least with this example, it seems to be more that Hawkeye is good at getting that particular finicky stove to work.
• Mathematician's Answer: Potter offers one when Frank complains about Hawkeye showing up in the O.R.:
  Frank: Sir, isn't it against regulations to have a blind man in surgery?
  Potter: Ask Captain Pierce. He's chief surgeon.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The four days Hawkeye and "Sharon Share Alike" spent together.
  • Also, when Hawkeye visits the nurse's tent while he's blinded, he runs into Bigelow (one of the nurses), and immediately figures out who she is:
    Abel: How did you know?
    Bigelow: Never mind.
• The Plan: Frank's scheme to cheat at gambling on baseball games: listen to the real-time broadcast and then make bets on the afternoon reruns the next day, already knowing the winner. It works for a while...
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Major Burns not only believes that Hawkeye is useless now that he's blind, but he makes a comment about how "handicapped people usually know how to act." Hawkeye responds by short-sheeting his bed.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: "General" O'Reilly threatens the clerk of the 121st EVAC with having to dig a latrine for every GI in Korea if the ophthalmologist isn't at the 4077th by morning.
• Really Gets Around: "Sharon Share Alike", who Hawkeye spent four days in a deserted cove with after the local lobster festival one year.
• Sad Duck Call: Pierce employs one when Frank accidentally reveals that he's been cheating.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Hawkeye detects a perforated bowel through sense of smell, B.J. says "Who was that masked man?"
  • Earlier, while in post-op, Hawkeye feels around to see if there are patients he can help. When he comes across an empty bed, he smiles and says, "Hmm, Claude Rains."
• Temporary Blindness: Luckily for Hawkeye. Lieutenant Straw, unfortunately, isn't as lucky.

---