Season 6, Episode 22: Potter's Retirement
Special Guest Star: Brad Dade
Air Date: February 20, 1978
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Could MASH had survived if Potter had left for real?
The Kentucky Derby race lasts just a hair over two minutes.
Let me give a different perspective on the last full scene. Potter is on the phone asking for the inspection to be called off. When asked by the person on the phone whether he’s staying he says “Let me get back to you on that”. If Potter was going to leave he wouldn’t have needed to “get back to you”. Also after Hawkeye, BJ and Radar ask him to stay it takes him less than five seconds to make his decision. Hawkeye was not brow beating him. Potter knew he was staying.
Remember in the interview episode Potter talked about these “young men” as more than colleagues but as friends. Potter has been overseas since WWI. What’s another 13 months?
Also I know the mantra on the MASH set was “If it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage”. But I am convinced that when Alan calls Harry “Sherman” it was an ad-lib. Notice that Hawkeye hangs his head and Potter looks up with a slight smile on his face as if he’s about to crack up. Calling a higher up by their name and not their title is powerful in humanizing the two. A scene that always chocks me up is in “Death Takes a Holiday” when Klinger delivers dinner to Winchester and tells him the gift must remain anonymous. “Thank you Max” “Merry Christmas, (beat) Charles”. Tossing out their silly titles make a heartwarming scene.
Great discussion. Very interesting take on the final scene. While definitely not a brow beat, I completely get where it would have been nice to see him come to it on his own. It is a little selfish of the boys even if they want to keep a friend around.
That said, Potter still is the commander and I think that’s why there are so many “Potter gets angry” episodes. Even though these people are his friends, I think there is still part of him that is military enough and doesn’t want to bring his problems to those people under him. You go up with your problems not down. Should he have been able to go to them, definitely, but his experience over the decades sometimes gets in the way I think.
“He wrote episodes like ‘Henry, Please Come Home.'”
It’s funny. when Brad was talking about not liking the scene where Hawkeye asks Potter to stay, my mind couldn’t help going to that episode, since he as Trapper go to even greater lengths to get Henry to come back.
Overall, I think this is a pretty good one. I agree it’s not great seeing Potter snap at everyone (especially Radar), although Harry Morgan does a great job selling it.
Radar looked like he was going to cry when Potter yelled at him. Mulcahy was like WTH(eck).
Interesting the same person who wrote this wrote the episode where Henry was transferred.
I know I’d be happier spending my last year in the Army at a base close to home rather than in a combat zone. Yes, it’s letting the bad guy win but whatever. Yes, the new CO could be another Frank Burns but Hawkeye should have let it go. BJ saying he hasn’t seen Peg in a long time? Potter has been in the Army since before BJ was born. Let him coast into retirement.
I agree a colonel having the pull to send someone undercover to spy on Potter seems strange. And having an officer with a fake transcript do it? Could he not just find a real non-com to go do it? As for the Benson, I agree he should have been trying to stay under the radar while there. Getting on Potter’s good side would make his job easier. I guess having Zale as your boss doesn’t motivate you to go above and beyond the line of duty.
The open heart surgery scene was just poor research. And even if it had been just done, Charles wouldn’t have done it. He’d have been playing cribbage with Colonel Baldwin.
Fun fact,,,first open heart surgery was done by a black man. Quite impressive he was able to overcome the obstacles in 1893.
Great podcast discussion as always. I know I’m in the distinct minority but I kind of liked Potter yelling a little bit at Hawkeye and BJ (but not at Radar or Margaret, neither of whom deserved it). Hawkeye and BJ are great at their jobs and overall positive influences on everyone at the 4077th, but there’s a grain of truth in Potter’s statement that when he gives them an inch they take a mile, especially in Hawkeye’s case. They’re always pushing the limits of what they can get away with. Potter is a great commander who gives them a lot of breathing room, but he is ultimately the CO of a military unit and understandably does need to have some limits. But yeah on the other hand it is true that Potter was sort of acting out for reasons no one understood and it’s funny that something like this happens once a season from this point forward.
I agree that I don’t like Potter staying because Hawkeye guilts him into it, and it should have had more agency for Sherman. “Another commander might not burn these doctors out.” “I’m doing good work here.” “Some of these people might not make it home without me.” But he never says that.
However! It’s powerful that he stays with the unspoken fatherly “I love the people in this unit and I won’t leave them since they need me”, AND the spoken “I hate this place.” They’re both true, and Harry delivers that line perfectly! It chokes me thinking about it.
Fantastic discussion!
Great episode and discussion as always. Two points: I would bet the undercover lieutenant was from CID, the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division. They go undercover all the time, and using a different rank would be commonplace for them. That said, sending a CID investigator in based on the impressions of one O-6 who was quite literally butt-hurt is both a waste of resources and a misuse of power. If they didn’t have more to go on than was described here, the colonel and the CID decision-makers could themselves be in danger of disciplinary action.
Regarding Hawkeye’s request and Colonel Potter’s decision to stay — as discussed above, Hawkeye has plenty of material he can use to rationalize what he said. Potter’s a great surgeon and a great leader. Any successor would likely be a downgrade. That would inevitably degrade effectiveness, not just morale. The question for Potter is not who needs him, but who needs him more.
And there’s guilt no mattter what you do. I volunteered for several deployments in the first dozen or so years of my career. I was Air Force. The deployments were relatively short and few in number compared to what my Army brothers were dealing with. I wanted a chance to use (and test) my skills. I believed I could make a difference. They made me better, even at my home station job. And every time somebody else left to go and I stayed, I felt guilt. But my family paid a price, and a friend advised me to let somebody else have a turn, so I stopped volunteering.
The military took my decision in stride. A few years later, they non-vol’ed me to two much longer deployments. Both of them came with many weeks of mandatory pre-deployment training to add to the family separation. (To be fair, I could have retired to avoid the second one, and really should have.). The family paid a price for those, too. Without those deployments, though, I wouldn’t have the job I have today, and they wouldn’t have an informally adopted Afghan brother, and his family might not have made it out. So, we all just make the best decisions we can and trust in The Plan.
One of my favourite episodes! But I agree with the guest, Hawkeye asking Potter to stay upsets me. Mostly because it’s so out of character. Hawkeye would never ever ever ask someone he loves as much as Potter to stay in a war zone. It’s not long after this that he gets angry at Radar for trying to stay in Korea when he has a chance to get out. Hawkeye would never understand someone staying if they didn’t have to, and he certainly wouldn’t ask someone to stay if they had the opportunity to leave.
Still, minus that blip, absolutely a top 10 episode for me. Maybe top 15. Haha!