Season 7, Episode 5: The Billfold Syndrome
Special Guest Star: Scott X
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Ah, two returning guest stars I love to see: Sidney Freedman and Scott X. Great to have them both for this episode.
I have a couple of thoughts about the appeal of women’s basketball pictures. First, the players are in shorts and have athletic legs. Second, the women are on the taller side, which for Radar, might be attractive. Yeah, that does tap into “short gags” for Radar, but honestly, I’m 6 feet 1 myself, and tall women appeal to me too, like my wife. If Radar’s into that, good on him.
Scott’s story about parents answering for kids sure takes me back. When my kids were little, the doctors talked more to my wife and I than the kids, plus our kids were pretty shy with other adults. But as the kids got into middle school and up, I naturally started giving them more chances to answer and would only jump in if they got stuck. Not my wife. She continued to take point even into high school age, and would be shocked when I didn’t. We honestly try not to be helicopter parents, but we aren’t immune to that trend it seems.
I really enjoy this episode, and I couldn’t tell if I’d seen it before until the bit at the end with Winchester collapsing the tent. Then it all came back! I guess Sgt Nielson wasn’t the only one with memory problems. Thanks, Iron Guts!
This episode is perhaps one of the darkest of the whole series. I feel bad for Sgt Nielson, and there’s a good chance he’s going to suffer from PTSD because of his experience for the rest of his life.
Perhaps one way they could have tied the two plots together would have been for Charles to break his silent treatment by helping Hawkeye and BJ create the background noises for Sidney’s hypnotism. After all, even at his prickly worst, I think his natural instinct as a physician would have superseded his anger, and he’d have realized that helping Nielson was more important this is fit of pique.
Oh, and add groundskeeper to the long list of duties that Klinger (and, it seems, only Klinger) has to do in the camp. 😉
It definitely feels like a huge and slightly unbalanced tonal shift to go from the Charles plot to the Jerry plot, but maybe we can reverse manufacture some meaning out of it – like the way the dramatic serious tone seemingly comes very suddenly out of nowhere parallels the way the billfold syndrome itself and the great loss of Jerry’s brother came out of nowhere too…. or something?? Great discussion as usual, loving the Sidney love. Alan Alda is a great director (I love his long tracking shots into the bus full of wounded and the shots in the mess tent where BJ and Hawk are literally talking behind Charles’ back) but now I feel robbed that we never got to see him do Hamlet as well :'(
A definite improvement of the Charles era over the Frank era is that Charles is a more even match for Hawkeye and BJ and can get the last laugh sometimes. Hawkeye and BJ were pretty cruel to Charles in faking that telegram, so I’m glad he got back at them in the end (twice really, first with the beer and then in pulling down the tent).
I know many people have said this, including Alan Alda himself, but it really is difficult to believe that Allan Arbus wasn’t really a psychiatrist. He projected such a calming demeanor and a fresh way of looking at problems that he really seemed like he could help people. I agree a Sidney Freedman one-hour spinoff would have been awesome.
Great discussion as always! I’m really enjoying season seven.
Great episode, both podcast and TV. I always enjoy Levine/Issacs episodes (except one which we’ll discuss in season 8) and this one did not disappoint.
The line where the good Father couldn’t remember the finish of a song is a direct homage to the Marx Brothers’ movie “Animal Crackers”. Chico Marx plays a song he cowrote called “I’m Daffy Over You” but couldn’t think of the finish. Funny scene.
Great episode, still halfway through, and more to say later. The sign is the logo for 5th Air Force, which has provided American air power to the Pacific for eighty years. A numbered Air Force is one step below a major command, which is one step below Headquarters Air Force (the Air Staff). A numbered Air Force can stand up an air operations center that runs all the centrally managed air operations for an entire theater of war. I n World War II, Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and China-Burma-India (the CBI) were all theaters of war.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about Fifth Air Force in the Korean War:
In the early morning hours of 25 June, North Korea launched a sudden, all-out attack against the south. Reacting quickly to the invasion, Fifth Air Force units provided air cover over the skies of Seoul. The command transferred to Seoul [from Japan] on 1 December 1950, remaining in South Korea until 1 September 1954.
And its current commander:
Lieutenant General Ricky N. Rupp is the current commander of the 5th Air Force and United States Forces, Japan. He is also the senior U.S. military representative in Japan.
When I think of “The Billfold Syndrome”, I only think “STEVIE!”, I didn’t even remember this is the episode where Charles decides to stop talking.
I am not always a great fan of the episodes with a serious A-plot and a more lighthearted B-plot. I like when everyone is involved in the same story line, and I often feel like the characters stuck with the B-plot aren’t really used to their full potential.
But here, I do think it works, and I can see a common theme with Jerry losing his memory, losing himself, and Charles sort of losing himself too. I mean, he has already lost his old way of living, with access to the finer things in life. He has lost a lot of his dignity in having to share sleeping quarters, showers and a latrine with other people, and now – he loses his career, his future. So everything that he was, and everything he could become, is slipping out of his hands, and he feels like he can’t recognize himself anymore. And BJ and Hawkeye are being so cruel to him, such jerks. That telegram-prank is horrible, not quite up there with Hawkeye and Trapper setting Margaret up to be assaulted, but still – just cruel.
I love the little detail with Margaret trying to help Jerry out by feeding him lines. It’s a great insight to her character, she truly wants to help her patients, in any way she can. Here, she isn’t helping at all of course, but Sidney knows where she’s coming from. He knows what a dedicated nurse she is, and he knows how incapable she is when it comes to dealing with emotions – she will deny feeling anything. She knows how to stop a bleeding, but when it’s the mind that’s wounded, she feels helpless, but is gonna try to help anyway. It’s a great scene.
Lovely discussion, I really enjoyed listening to this episode.
That was a great discussion lads. Thoroughly enjoyed it…
I agree, this is a great pair of stories. Obviously the most iconic being the story with the medic that lost his brother. Sidney’s one of my favorite characters, and he’s always a plus whenever he comes on. And here they make good use of his character to tell a compelling story. Love the hypnotism scene, as we slowly come to realize what happened, and get to see the characters’ reactions to it.
And while I don’t always agree with Rob’s dislike of the “one serious story, and one comedic one” format, I do agree there are times when the comedic one can detract a bit from the dramatic one, depending on how it’s done. But luckily this wasn’t one of those times. It definitely helps that it’s a genuinely funny story. It’s great seeing Charles so fed up that he takes such drastic measure. I do agree that the fake letter Hawkeye and BJ played went a bit too far, even for them, but the reaction from Charles was just too good.
After binge-listening through the podcast in eight weeks, this was where I came to a shocking halt of having somehow caught up??? I’ve genuinely been a bit lost for what to listen to since- even having been dragged into Mash fandom by one sister and having dragged another and a cousin in with me over the past few months, I do find I need more mash conversation than can be sustained by just the people around me!
Thanks very much for the many enjoyable hours of listening Rob, and all the work you put into this podcast. The enthusiasm you bring to the podcast is joyous and even when you’re critiquing parts of the show it so clearly comes from a place of love. I also really appreciate the respect and delight you show for fans coming to the show from all demographics, particularly the good folk of mashblr.
I look forward to many more hours of insightful and entertaining podcasts!
As one who has had a lot of surgeries, getting put under has never bothered me. I actually find it intriguing. But I don’t think I could ever be hypnotized. I don’t have the concentration.
I liked the Charles story. It gave a great insight into his psyche and his backstory.
Unlike Rob’s great memory of how the syndicated versions were cut, I seldom remember how they were cut by my Chicago station, but I remember this one because they cut Jerry SO much from the beginning that you hardly know who he’s supposed to be when he shows up the second time with no memory. In spite of that, It’s always been one of my very favorites because of Kevin Geer’s performance as Jerry. When he comes out of the hypnosis, you can see him hit specific stages of the change in awareness – re-living the tragedy of what happened, slipping out of the memory into a more serene place, then awakening and having all those terrible memories come crashing into him. I’ve seen it a million time and it makes me cry every time. What a performance! Also, as B plots go, I love Charles – especially how he delivers his first, drunken, spoken acknowledgement, “Is that what you think… Beej?” So perfect!
Great discussion on a great episode (It’s a Sidney Friedman episode – how can it NOT be great!)
Scott discusses how parents can want to talk for their children, and – as a clinician – I agree. It’s easy to get drawn into that power structure, so I try to make sure that the young person knows they’re the one in control.
Children are often used to adults talking for them, so I try to gently push against that a little bit, so that the young person knows that they can contribute or take over the discussion… if they *want* to speak for themselves. Sometimes coming to the doctor can be a bit scary, or the child can be shy, and they just want the adult to take the lead. For older kids & teenagers, I make it clear that I can (& will) ask the parent to leave the room if they want some confidentiality.
I often try to crack a bit of a joke to break any tension – although we talk about serious things, we’re all human and it’s OK to relax and that the doctor’s office is a safe place to let your guard down a little bit. Keeping a poker face and asking a ridiculous question – like asking 7 year old if they’re married often gets a bit of a smile in even the most stony-faced kid!
If the child wants their parent to speak for them, that’s fine for the main part of the story, but I will often try to ask a question that only the child will know the answer to – something that happened at school, perhaps. That way, they can know that they have some agency & have contributed to the discussion about their health in some small part. I hope it also acts as permission to join in any future consultations we might have.
Anj works almost exclusively with children, so he may have some other techniques he uses to involve kids in their consultations, but ultimately, doctors just want to get the best possible history out of the patient and build trust and rapport. You have to read the situation with each individual young patient in the moment, but there are ways to build engagement without being dismissive towards the parent.