M*A*S*HCast 157 – An Eye For A Tooth

Season 7, Episode 13: An Eye For A Tooth

Special Guest Star: Brian Linton

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12 responses to “M*A*S*HCast 157 – An Eye For A Tooth

  1. Rob, in your question about the title Brian is correct. But there’s also a slightly different take. The title can be seen as an intentional malaproprism of the biblical version of this code. Exodus chapter 21 verses 23-25 states “And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

    But that’s just a “well ACTUALLY” type of explanation. Stick with Brian’s answer. It’s better.

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    1. I think they both apply. Brian’s point about how the story is about escalation (when the law was about limiting the punishment to something equivalent to the crime) still works, and the writers were more likely to know Exodus than the code of Hammurabi..

  2. I’m also not a fan of practical jokes, so this episode’s never been a favorite of mine. I love it when Margaret gets to be part of the gang, so it makes me sad that Charles drives a wedge between them when she was having so much fun. It feels a bit like a plot from an earlier season, which visually is a bit odd since the actors look so much older. You’re forty! Don’t you guys have better things to do?

    Even so, there’s some great imagery in this episode, especially in the scene with BJ and Hawkeye sneaking around after Margaret steals their clothes. It’s a great reversal of the shower scene from the movie, and I love that shot of all the nurses waiting in their tent, especially Kellye with her telescope. I love imagining Margaret going to the nurses’ tent to recruit them for her scheme, an unthinkable premise a couple seasons earlier.

    You’re right that all the actors in that last scene where Margaret says she’s written to Peg really sell the menace in the situation. It’s Hawkeye’s quiet, “You didn’t really do that,” that makes it for me. I love a good BJ-is-unhinged-about-his-marriage moment, and the idea that he’d physically attack someone over it is shocking. Even if they’re pretending, I’m fascinated by the idea that Peg would believe BJ would cheat on her at this point in the show.

    Great episode, as usual!

    1. That’s something I meant to mention during the episode. This is a great episode for highlighting Margaret’s growth as a character. Back in the day, she would have tried to bring Hawkeye and Trapper up on charges, after being pranked. Now, she is much more a part of the gang, and is having fun with the everyone else, until things escalate.

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  3. I think An Eye for a Tooth is such an interesting episode. Some light-hearted shenanigans on the surface, but if you just dig a little deeper, it turns dark very soon, and it offers some nice insights to the characters.

    I really like the scene in the mess tent, happy Margaret is always a treat. She so often denies feeling anything, so her unbridled (ha!) joy is really sweet, how she allows herself to be silly. Imagine if Trapper would have come back in that moment, seeing her tickle Hawkeye, throwing food at him and laughing happily with oatmeal on her face, he would have though he had stepped into a strange parallell universe.
    Also -she obviously felt so good about herself that she treated herself to a manicure, she is sporting some very long nails in that scene 🙂

    For the pranks, they for sure stop being funny with the letters, after that it’s just mean spirited. I can’t stand practical jokes, they always cross a line and are only funny to the joker. Hawkeye of course establishes this with his line about how “this is no longer good, clean fun”. And it’s very true to character for these people to take things too far, they all have a mean streak in them, that comes out in different ways through the seasons. Charles is especially interesting, his posh background combined with this devious side, and his will to pitch people against each other. He finds way too much joy in these things, it’s a very un-charming quality in him, but really interesting too, that he is drawn to these “wilder” things in life.
    The pie-joke is really mean, and in true MASH-fashion – they have a nice thing like a lemon meringue pie, and no one gets to enjoy it.
    Stealing the clothes is mean too, but it’s also funny, I have to admit. I can remember a later episode where Hawkeye says something to Margaret about that he’s seeing a side of her he hasn’t seen since the shower tent came down, or something like that – I don’t remember the exact line or episode. But still, it tells us that the shower tent collapse from the movie (which I have only seen short snippets of) happened in the universe of the show too, so honestly – for that, Hawkeye deserved to run naked across camp.
    The whole scene with the nurses in The Swamp is fun too, and also a nice little insight as to how Margaret’s and the nurses relationship is changing, early season Margaret would never have done something like that. And shout out to magnifying glass-nurse, that is hilarious! 🙂

    But then comes the dummy in the closet-prank, and oh my god, that is cruel. If that happened to me, I would die. And then I would come back and haunt the practical joker, and then his children and then his children’s children and so on til the end of times, because that’s the kind of vengeful spirit I would be.
    These three grown men should all know better, but it’s also very true to character that they don’t, they are clever in so many ways, but are just emotionally dumb here.
    Imagine Peg writing BJ about someone pulling that joke on her back home, BJ would have been furious! And Hawkeye, he has seen Margaret be assaulted, one time he set it up himself, and another time he walked in on an attempted rape against her. He saw the fear in her eyes when she asked if he thought the enemy raped female prisoners, and then he does this? Way to cruel. But again, it’s true to character, it seems very likely that Hawkeye would not think about this at all, just go with the “funny” prank.
    I do enjoy the acting in that scene, though, Loretta Swit plays terrified and jumpy really well, while spitting out pieces of dummy, and David Ogden Stiers with his pretend friendly/brotherly concerns while being the evil mastermind is wonderful too.
    Oh, and Margaret goes to bed with more make up than I wear for a week! 🙂 But that also feels true to character, she was obviously expecting some kind of retribution from Hawkeye and BJ, and maybe she thought “well, if I have to run out in the middle of the night, at least I will look good” 🙂

    Charles really does look sweaty in that scene in The Swamp, he has those pit stains from the time he comes in. But maybe he is just so full of glee from how well his pranks are turning out, that he has been walking around giggling happily to himself, working up a sweat while kicking dummy parts around 🙂
    I honestly wish I could watch that scene for the first time, I wonder if I would think Margaret had really written that letter… I do really like that they do it so seriously, when BJ pushes her down on the bed it looks really violent. It always amuses me when the characters have to put on an act, and this is really good.

    So I think it’s an enjoyable episode, and it offers more than what first meets the eye. I really enjoyed listening to the discussion, thank you!

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  4. I like this episode of M*A*S*H but like you Rob I don’t like pranks either. However, there is an unanswered question in this episode. How did Margaret, Hawkeye and B.J. figure out that Charles was truly the one behind the pranks? How did the three of them have time to plan this prank on Charles? They never explain that in the episode. Its one of the many unanswered questions of M*A*S*H.

    Great episode as always Rob.

    1. I think there is an unseen conversation between BJ, Hawkeye and Margaret where they figure out that Charles was goading them. If you include that scene in the episode, the final prank with the letter to Peg doesn’t have the same impact.

  5. I’ve been on a big holiday for two weeks so I was really looking forward to catching up on the episodes of dearest mashcast I had piling up!! And they certainly didn’t disappoint, kept me awake while I tried to get over jetlag lol but I’m glad to be back on top of things and what a great ep for it! This is a truly packed episode, the prank war seems like it’d be enough for an episode on its own but then you factor in the Mulcahy plot and a whole new heroic pilot character and it feels like so so much happens in such a short space. The summary on disney+ doesnt even mention the pranks! Crazy that this is a great margaret, charles, beej, hawkeye AND mulcahy episode, a real ensemble piece. I love my friends in the tv. Oh I’m glad ya’ll pointed out Charles’ reaction when Mulcahy first gets the bad news, it’s so fun focusing on him specifically. His face when he sees Margaret putting the sugar in Hawk’s mug is so devious too.

    Been watching mash properly all the way through with my mum who loved it growing up and she was so surprised to hear the chauffeur running over a squirrel joke – apparently she and her friends used to quote that to each other all the time and laugh themselves silly but she’d forgotten which episode it was from! Obviously we say it at home now all the time too 🙂

  6. I’m also someone who despises pranks. I could tolerate the earlier BJ pranks in the Dear Sigmund episode because many of them were against Frank Burns. When you have such an obvious villain like Frank, you want him to pay the price and pranks are a good way. But when you have really good people like the crew in Season 7, even Charles, it becomes very mean spirited.

    We haven’t gotten yet to a lot of the “Charles does have good qualities” episodes yet, but I know that he has at least part of a decent person buried under all that pompous, classist behavior.

    My son has always liked pranks and April 1st nonsense, but I make sure to tell him that I want no part of it. My wife likes to play along so they have their own pranking fun, but I just watch. I can’t stand it.

  7. Thanks again, Rob, for having me on the show. I checked with my daughter, and can report that she prefers Joel over Mike, when it come to the classic MST3K hosts.

    I’m also happy to report that my wife and daughter recently started a re-watch of MASH. I don’t pretend that my recording this episode had anything to do with that.

    Looking forward to the next episode.

  8. I’ve always heard the full saying as…”An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. I’ve never heard “Eye for an Eye” by itself. It seems to be a shortening of the phrase with a comedic spin on it , maybe throwing in “tit for tat”? Equaling “An eye for a Tooth”.

  9. Fun discussion! Very glad to hear about Brian’s daughter and her good taste in television.

    I’m not much on practical jokes either. I have been butt of many, and it honestly sucks. I have a cousin who can’t let go the fact that he got one over on me one Christmas by convincing me he had given me a winning lottery ticket. At Christmas you don’t expect people to be underhanded and cruel.

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