M*A*S*HCast #129 – Images

11 responses to “M*A*S*HCast #129 – Images”

1. This is one of my surprise favorites from Season 6! Hawkeye is right about Margaret bottling up her emotions about the dog. It’s sort of a metaphor for how the earlier seasons didn’t give Margaret a lot of development as a character, but now, six seasons in, and with future seasons on the horizon, she’s becoming even more of a 3 dimensional character.

   Oh and Radar’s subplot about getting a tattoo is fun!

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2. Tremendous episode discussion over one that I haven’t thought about in a while. And definitely one that resonates more in these later years of mine with more medicine under my belt. Fascinating breakdown of ‘images’ in the show.

   First off, regarding Margaret’s dressing down of Nurse Cooper. In some ways I do think that she is being too harsh. But I wish there was some backstory to bulk things up. For all we know, Cooper was a nurse in some army clinic and never saw stuff like this before. If she was sent there, she might have to acclimate more. Now there is no excuse running out of the OR, leaving the table. But she still might become an excellent OR nurse. Even within my hospital, if you put a floor nurse in the ED or the OR they might not be able to handle it. That said, if Cooper has a track record of not being able to handle this stuff, she might need to learn that she isn’t cut out for this. Many a resident have thought they wanted to go into acute care medicine (ER, ICU) only to realize once working in that environment that they weren’t meant for it. Honestly, I wish there had been one line where someone said ‘she just transferred from the podiatry clinic’ as a way to level set.

   Second, regarding Margaret breaking down about the dog, that has never struck more true to me than it does now. Once again, I won’t equate my working in an ER to working in a MASH unit. But the truth is you often have to keep your emotions in check during the shift. A patient could die in the first hour of your 10 hour shift. You have to be able to move on and work those other 9 hours. You have to take care of those new patients. After the shift, you are often so tired that you don’t have the mental energy to process the stuff you saw. If you keep cramming down those feelings, eventually the dam will break. Last year, I basically broke down watching the end of an anime series called ‘Your Lie in April’. It somehow tapped into the stuff I had suppressed and allowed me time to have a good cry. Over a Japanese animation show about high school musicians! You can’t ignore that stuff. The hospital is way better these days than in prior decades about this topic.

   Third, I don’t have a tattoo and I don’t think I’ll ever get one. I tell people ‘I don’t think I believe in anything strongly enough to indelibly put it on my skin’. Interestingly enough, many folks say ‘what about Supergirl? Or the S-shield’? The answer, I think, is still no.

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3. This was one of my favorite episodes of the podcast, thank you so much for a very interesting discussion!

   I really like “Images”, it’s one of those episodes that just grows every time I watch it. It’s so interesting when you think of the images we are projecting, what we want others to see and what we want to hide, even from ourselves.

   I’m on Margaret’s side here, I don’t think Cooper is a good fit for a MASH-unit. That doesn’t mean she’s a bad nurse or a bad person, but with the tempo and the constant stress, anyone not doing their job is going to be a liability.
   Margaret could for sure have been nicer about it, “Cooper, let’s have a lousy cup of coffee in my tent and we can talk about things”, but that’s not the type of leader the daughter of “Howitzer” Al is. In Margaret’s world, showing vulnerability is a weakness, I can just imagine what her father taught her over the years. Not the kind of father you would go to when you were having any kind of problem, I’m sure his greatest advice would have been to toughen up.

   And Margaret is a woman in a man’s world, I can only imagine how much harder she would have to work to get the same respect as a man in her position, in this period of time. It’s still so hard! Which makes showing emotions even harder for her, she can’t allow herself to be soft, it might actually damage her career. “Oh, look, that blonde little woman thought she could do it, but she is just too weak and emotional.”

   In Cooper, Margaret sees sides of herself that she has spent her whole life trying to hide, to push down. But she feels so much, we see that from early on. Her major (ha ha) concern is her patients, and when a nurse runs out of the OR, well, that puts the patients at risk.

   Also, Margaret sees what the other characters don’t. No one else sees Cooper having problems in Post-Op too, Margaret is the only one there. And obviously there has been other occasions too, since she mentions to BJ that it isn’t the first time Cooper’s is having problems.

   I really love the exchange with Potter and Margaret that you also talk about, these two characters are simply amazing together, how they come to love and respect each other is a thing of beauty. Here, I love how Margaret accepts what he says but is so mad about it, and shows it. It’s just another wonderful dimension to the dynamics between them.
   Also, I think that it’s interesting that Potter takes Cooper’s side here. In the nose touching-scene in an earlier episode, he tells Charles that Margaret is very observant, so maybe he should have thought about that, how she sees sides of the nurses that he doesn’t. But it is of course a bigger deal to transfer someone out than for someone to go scrub again. 🙂

   The puppy becomes a symbol for innocence, as you talk about. He is this little creature, dependent on others, and he is another thing Margaret – who wants nothing more than to help and heal – can’t protect. For a short time, he is this little thing that is just for her, a secret little friend, and his fate becomes a symbol for all the things out of her control.
   Love, love, love the scene with her and Hawkeye, the way he truly can read her by now, and knows what she needs. Like you talk about, the way he holds her is beautiful, how she can accept that he is there and witnesses how upset she is, but she can’t look at him. Reminds me of a scene in an upcoming episode with the two of them, Margaret is heartbroken in front of Hawkeye again, and just turns her head away from him and sobs. Just beautiful.

   I hope there is a dog in Margaret’s future. I’m a fanfic writer, and in two of my stories set after the war, I have given her a dog. In one story it’s a terrier named Major (of course) and in another story it’s a Golden retriever named Bonnie. 🙂

   I also want to comment on why women love MASH. For me, it’s the shows heart, the humanity and how it makes us think and question. That doesn’t happen right away, though, I honestly don’t like the first two seasons, I think they feel cold, and have this “boys will be boys”-kind of humor I don’t care for. But as the seasons go by, this changes, and we see the warmth and humanity so much more.
   But the one thing I love most is Margaret. I think she is a tremendous character, and also very important. She isn’t just a strong female character, she is a strong character. She is allowed to be complex, have layers, both capable of wonderful thing, and also show some very unflattering sides. I have always been able to relate to her so much, I suck at handling my emotions too. I do the whole anger turned inwards, while Margaret takes it out on others, but it still comes from the same place of not having the tools to do anything else. She just gives me hope that change is possible, and you can do better, accept all of you sides and just grow.

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4. Great discussion and guest this week. She had a lot of insights and observations about the meaning of the title of the episode that had never occurred to me.

   As great as Loretta Swit is in the season five episode The Nurses, I think she’s at least as good if not better here. The way she breaks down at the end struck a chord with me because I first saw this episode in high school soon after my childhood dog had died. Even watching it again for this podcast, I literally had tears from Loretta Swit’s performance. Just like in The Nurses, she conveys her emotions breaking through her tough exterior better than any actor I can think of.

   I also agree her scene with Harry Morgan was excellent. There’s an amazing tempo or cadence to the way both actors deliver their lines in that scene.

   I thought the same thing that Charles praising MacArthur seemed like a Frank line. Also the way Charles snapped at Radar when he first came into the Swamp seemed more like something Frank would do.

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5. Margret is TOTALLY RIGHT they’re both nurses they both see blood one does her damn job!

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6. This episode makes me angry on behalf of Margaret. She is clearly exemplary in her role as the head of the nursing staff, and has doubtless proven her expertise multiple times. So why is her judgement and authority so quickly questioned and dismissed here?

   I doubt that she is so willing to transfer Cooper out after only a single incident in the OR, so we have to assume this was just the latest mishap. Now, surely virtually everyone has to learn to get their ‘sea legs’ in the maelstrom of surgery, so everyone gets a break at first. But if you can’t learn to focus and stay on the job, then you’re a danger to the patients. For Margaret to determine that Cooper had to go, then Cooper must have failed several times to keep head together in the operating room.

   But Margaret is undercut at every level here: her nurses go behind her back, Hawkeye and B.J. try to tell her how to do her job, and Potter reverses her decision without really taking into consideration the very logical reasons which Margaret cited for the transfer. I have to ask myself, if Hawkeye as the chief of surgeons had made such a decision about a subordinate, would there even have been any thought from BJ or Potter about opposing it? I don’t think so.

   Given that I don’t believe we ever see Cooper again, I presume she screwed up yet again in OR. I really hope that Margaret rubbed that in the faces of the guys.

   And an aside: Was it Bigelow who referred to Margaret as “Hotlips” here? When was the last time that nickname had been used on the show? Maybe Season 4?

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   1. Gene, I know you didn’t ask, but I think that if Hawkeye had made a similar decision, people absolutely would have questioned it and stuck their nose in. Minding one’s business does not a sitcom make.

      Oh, and I don’t know the last time someone used “Hotlips,” but I think it shows up again in Season 8.

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7. First, welcome to Kristin! You’re batting a thousand with these new guests, Rob. We previously appearing guest stars had better learn some deeper insights or snappier patter if we want to stay on the team. Great work by both of you.

   You two and the other commenters hit all the important stuff, so I will jump in with the picayune things that occurred to me. I agree with Dr. Anj’s assessment on Lieutenant Cooper, and I would even if he wasn’t coming from such a position of knowledge and experience. The fact that the other nurses think Cooper can still adapt is a strong indicator for me. (I’m only slightly biased by my growing appreciation for Nurse Bigelow in Season 6.) Margaret is a great nurse and a great officer, anger management issues notwithstanding. But asking her to relate to Cooper — a nurse that’s new to combat, probably new to surgery, and not a hard-nosed military brat — is like asking Hank Aaron to remember what it was like to learn to hit. And it’s Colonel Potter’s job to trust Margaret almost all of the time, but overrule her when she’s wrong. It’s easy to say they can get another nurse when they transfer Cooper out, but who knows when they’ll get her, or if she’ll learn more quickly? You solve your own problems if you can and pass on to others only the ones you can’t.

   Dogs in camp are potential disease vectors, so the military is generally against them. That is, unless you have access to a veterinarian and people to take responsibility for them, as we do with military working dogs. Where you have those things, you see exceptions, even for dogs that start out as strays. When you have a vet on camp, cats very often get waivered in. They’re territorial, so they keep strange cats out, and they kill other disease vectors like rats and mice to earn their keep. The cats in Kabul at Camp ISAF had notched ears, so you knew they were part of the team.

   MacArthur was upper crust like Charles, so I think Charles was just defending a fellow member of the brahmin class.

   You mentioned rip tides, or more properly rip currents. They are terrible. I almost drowned in one at the age of 17. A high school buddy saved my life. If I had known what NOAA said about them, he wouldn’t have needed to get in the water:
   “Because rip currents move perpendicular to shore and can be very strong, beach swimmers need to be careful. A person caught in a rip can be swept away from shore very quickly. The best way to escape a rip current is by swimming parallel to the shore instead of towards it, since most rip currents are less than 80 feet wide. A swimmer can also let the current carry him or her out to sea until the force weakens, because rip currents stay close to shore and usually dissipate just beyond the line of breaking waves. Occasionally, however, a rip current can push someone hundreds of yards offshore. The most important thing to remember if you are ever caught in a rip current is not to panic. Continue to breathe, try to keep your head above water, and don’t exhaust yourself fighting against the force of the current.” There’s more information here (https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_currents/03coastal3.html#:~:text=A%20rip%20current%2C%20sometimes%20incorrectly,meters%20(80%20feet)%20wide.) and here (https://www.weather.gov/safety/ripcurrent-media).

   Also, not to insult anyone’s intelligence, but if the lifeguard has a red flag up, stay out of the water. Looking forward to next time, Iron Guts!

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8. I’ve just come across your podcast and am so enjoying getting caught up! I’ve been a fan of M*A*S*H since I was about 12 and I’m now 28. There’s even a picture of my friends and I in our 7th grade yearbook dressed up as Margaret, Hawkeye, and BJ. Margaret has always resonated with me and this is one of Loretta Swit’s very best performances in my opinion. I love the insight regarding what Margaret has been going through in this season so far. I remember watching this and feeling that the dog was just a catalyst for her to release a lot of what she’d been feeling since her marriage.

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9. Wow, what a great episode! I think Kristin was my favorite guest so far (utmost respect to your other guests, of course). Her analysis of the episode was delightful and made me think about the episode in a different way. And I’ve watched this episode plenty of times; this is actually one of the first M*A*S*H episodes I ever watched!

   I like to think that Cooper got her sea legs under her and became a career military nurse. Whether she stayed in MASH or went to less emergency medicine, I can’t decide, but Margaret can be an excellent boss (when she wants to be). I think that the example Margaret showed in this episode, letting the image of hard, tough Major Houlihan go (but not too far). I can also picture Cooper quitting as soon as possible though.

   Looking forward to more great episodes!

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10. If Margaret ever got a dog I think she names him Donald and gets him neutered.

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