M*A*S*HCast 156 – Out of Gas

Season 7, Episode 12: Out of Gas

Special Guest Stars: Stephanie Kice & Amanda Reyes

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10 responses to “M*A*S*HCast 156 – Out of Gas

  1. Great guests and discussion! I like all the episodes involving Father Mulcahy adventures outside the camp.

    This is like the third in a trilogy. First we had Father Mulcahy and Radar go to an aid station and Mulcahy had to do a tracheotomy on the patient on the way back. Then we had Father Mulcahy and Klinger involved in a black market adventure at a school with the big bell. And then this episode with Mulcahy and Charles dealing with black marketeers. These episodes are kind of like the Brave and the Bold format, with Father Mulcahy having an adventure with a different partner each time!

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  2. The focus on ether in this episodes reminds me of the most formative of experiences I had taking chemistry in undergrad. In my first organic chemistry lab, we had to purify one of our reagents from ether. We knew at the time how volatile and flammable ether is, so we performed the purification in the fume hood, but we were also dumb sophomores and didn’t take other precautions.

    After a short period of time, the entire fume hood was on fire, because the ether had boiled away to vapor and either the hot plate or the lighting in the hood ignited the ether vapors. My two lab partners just stared and commented how cool it was, while I got the fire extinguisher. Not long after I put the initial fire out, it reignited because there was still a large amount of ether vapor in the hood. Thankfully no damage or injury, but I use the story to tell my current chemistry students how dangerous ether can be. We try not to use it a lot. It can cause headaches and dizziness even if it doesn’t ignite. The doctors and nurses were really lucky Colonel Potter knew his chemistry and shut off the heaters. Still surprising the light fixtures didn’t set off the vapors.

    As a chemistry professor, I love seeing my discipline shown correctly in a show.

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  3. I think what I like most about this episode is that it’s the start of a veritable Mulcahy trilogy, in which he is either the ‘A’ storyline, or else as in this one, a very strong ‘B’ storyline. It’s a really enjoyable spotlight upon John Patrick Francis Mulcahy. The only thing that could have made it even better would have been teaming him up with Sidney Freeman for an episode!

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  4. I never had my tonsils out, but I had friends who did. I kept expecting to have it done, because I got tonsilitis a lot as a kid. I wasn’t too worried about it, because my friends got tons of ice cream as Amanda mentions. As for kids nowadays, my daughter had her adnoids removed when she was 9, so a very similar procedure.

    In addition to quicksand, tonsilectomies, and chloroform, what about just being hit in the head with a blunt object? And getting amnesia from it? THAT’S what I was really afraid of. If I had a bike wreck, I may forget who I am and how to get home!

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  5. Fun discussion, I really enjoyed this episode!
    And Out of gas is a fun little episode too, I really like the episodes without a A and B plot, and it has some really good character insights. Especially for Father Mulcahy, of course, it’s always nice to see him have determination and a strong will. I think he is often underused as a character, they have him come in, say something whimsical and/or profound, and then he’s off again, so the more Mulcahy-oriented episodes are a treat.
    I would have loved to see him and Margaret have more storylines together, they hardly have any scenes with just the two of them. Very different characters, but with a lot in common too. A mean right hook, for one thing! 😉 😉 😉
    In this episode, I like the fact that Mulcahy does what he does for the best of everyone, and Charles does it for the wine, nice little difference in these two characters right there.

    Love the scene in Potter’s office, with him, Margaret and Zale. I like how Margaret is super upset, but takes a step back and lets Potter talk first, nice little echo of the scene in Fallen Idol, when they are both angry at Hawkeye, but Potter reminds her that he is the Colonel, so he gets to yell first.
    And the leather hip boots with the spiked heels – I am proud to tell you that I am also a member of the “that is my favorite moment of the episode”-club! Potter’s double take there, and Margaret’s death stare at Zale – just gold!
    That whole exchange, and Margaret’s obvious love for leather and control, makes me think of the Darlene-letter in Comrades in Arms, where Donald writes that Margaret will be “an excellent hostess” when they get back to the States. I have always thought, “really Don Don? An excellent hostess, this woman who agreed to marry you after five seconds, and that you know is into leather whips?” But now I’m thinking, maybe he wasn’t talking about a hostess for a traditional dinner party, maybe the party he was thinking about involved a dungeon, a safe word, and a mistress of pleasure and pain, that kind of party… Well, it makes the character of Donald more interesting, that’s for sure. 🙂

    I like that we don’t get an explanation of what ether and nitrous oxide really is and what it does to people, that we just get to see that for ourselves and figure it out. This is one of the things I really like about MASH in general, that the writers trust that we, the audience, are clever enough to figure things out. It’s like in Out of sight, where Hawkeye is feeling his way through post op, and comes across an empty bed and goes, “Ah, Claude Rains”, not “Ah, The Invisible Man”. Often in more modern shows (and movies and books), there seem to be this need to over explain things, and as a viewer I just like to be treated like I’m clever enough to figure things out on my own.

    Very typical for Margaret not to tell anyone that she’s starting to feel woozy, she still cant’t admit to any kind of pain or something being wrong, whether it’s physical or emotional. Her arm could fall off and she would still keep going, insist it’s just a flesh wound, and try to help the patients.
    And it’s a very nice little insight into Mulcahy’s character, how he reacts to her “Keep your hands to yourself, general”, I really like that he sees and hears and notices things all around camp, and is so accepting of people for who they are. Same with Colonel Potter, he sees and notices too, and accepts people for who they are, what they need to do to get through the day. They both understand and accept the different sides of Margaret, and that’s just very sweet.

    What is also very sweet is the little smile Margaret gives Hawkeye when he tells her that he needs “something to lean against while I’m operating. Preferably you.” I love that she doesn’t get upset, that these two have reached a point in their relationship where she can take a joke, handle him being flirty without getting upset, and that they can literally lean on each other. Very sweet.

    On the subject of Margaret’s and Frank’s sex life (now there’s a sentence I didn’t think I would be using today), for Margaret – I think it was mostly about pretending. She could close her eyes and pretend he was MacArthur, pretend he was anyone really, maybe even her super devoted boyfriend who would absolutely, for sure, no question about it, leave his wife for her. I think she often just shut the door on the voice of reason inside, and decided to go with the fantasy of the night, because that was the easiest thing to do at the moment.

    Oh, and on the subject of irrational childhood fears – I did worry about quicksand a bit, but my big thing was The Bermuda Triangle. I read about it in a book, and it became a real concern. Like, what if my parents decided we would go an a family cruise around the world and the ship had to pass through there? Then what would happen, where would we end up? That whole thing took up way to much space in my head for a while. Happy to report that no family cruise ever happened, so I’m still safe! 🙂

  6. I had my tonsils taken out on 12/27/74. It was Christmas break of my 2nd grade. I used to get tonsilitis fairly regularly so they got take out. In the 50 years since I have not had a sore throat that was even close to the ones ones I got on a fairly regular basis before they were taken out.

    I hate to think what the last half century would have been like had I not had them taken out.

  7. I love the idea that Father Mulcahy has ties with the black market. I can imagine him showing genuine concern for the black marketeers, asking how they and their families are doing, while their deals are going down.

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