Season 8, Episode 22: Dreams
Special Guest Star: Maddie W
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As you were saying, this one is actually very mixed in its reception, to the point where it’s right up there with (or even surpassing) “Hawkeye” as one of the most divisive episodes of the series. And part of me gets it. On one hand, you have those who prefer MASH as a comedy, and while there are some humorous moments in between the dreams, this one goes pretty far into the drama side of things. And even with those who like both, and appreciate what they were trying to do, there’s an uncomfortable air about this episode, where it might be a bit too disturbing for some viewers. Basically being too successful at what it was trying to do.
That being said, I adore this episode. When I ranked the episodes after my most recent full-series rewatch, this one ended up at #5 (after “Welcome to Korea,” “Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler,” “The Late Captain Pierce,” and “A War For All Seasons). As you can probably tell by that selection, I’m a sucker for episodes that push the show’s creative storytelling, have a smart mix of comedy and drama, and really explore the characters in interesting ways, so while it doesn’t have as much humor as some others, it’s no wonder I love this one so much. The visual storytelling with this one does a great job capturing these characters’ psyche in these beautifully surreal vignettes. Great job to the writers, and especially Alan Alda for his directing here.
I hadn’t seen Dreams in years but liked it on this rewatch. I have heard how it is the most controversial episode after Hawkeye (which I’ve also grown to like). Dreams conveyed how all their minds are affected by the war and bloodshed. This seems like a recurring theme of some Alan Alda-written episodes up through the finale. I was thinking it might have been cool if Sydney Freeman was somehow incorporated into this episode or if there had been a follow-up episode where Sydney analyzes their dreams, perhaps in a casual way if not in a formal therapeutic setting. I love your idea about bringing the past actors back.
Up into my fifties I’ve had the recurring dream that I’m about to take a final exam for a college class that I forgot I signed up for and never attended. I’ve recently heard a lot of other people have this dream as well, and the more I think about it, Hawkeye’s dream sort of has the same idea in that he fell asleep and missed what the professor said. (On the plus side, I’ve also had dreams where I’m flying, although I never get too far off the ground and I’m flying more like Ralph in the Greatest American Hero than Superman.)
I don’t get the hate people have for this episode. Not my favorite, but there are others I dislike where I can see why people hold it in disdain.
But I do appreciate them introducing new formats into a standard episode. Looking into the psyche of everyone is interesting.
Margaret’s husband is certainly not the traditional men we associate her with. Not a soldier, although he joins the parade, leaving her alone and covered in blood. Sadly, I imagine her character having the same fate, never finding true love and having a lengthy marriage to the Army.
Interesting one of the guys pulling Peg back kind of looked like BJ. I don’t think they cast him by accident.
Potter was dreaming about his youth and images of his long deceased mother. Compared to Klinger, BJ, and Margaret dreaming of what they were missing now.
Father Mulcahy dreams of becoming the pope. A crazy dream then but somewhere Mulcahy is smiling we have an American pope.
Charles’ magic tricks stop when they wheel his patient away and he is reduced to dancing with sparklers.
Klinger seemed to be less traumatized than others, realizing he was still alive and was needed at work.
Hawkeye’s dream creeped me out as a kid seeing his arms come off.
Interesting this dropped on the 4th of July and it featured fireworks and sparklers.
Strangely, I had a rather macabre dream last night relating to my late wife. I woke up depressed and then I watched this. I did know it was coming up but didn’t know it was this week’s episode until I called up the next one on Hulu.
I like this episode, but if you sat down for it when it first aired it probably was quite a surprise.
Klinger puts his earrings in Winchester’s hat and Mulcahy puts in a book, I think we can safely assume is a Bible. In the script I saw of this episode it says “all the MASH regulars” are in his dream, but I like that the final version has Potter, his boss, and Klinger and the Padre, whom Charles considers beneath him. It’s as if he can’t bear the idea of Hawkeye, BJ, and Margaret seeing him fail even in a dream.
I was also curious about Rubinfier, and searching his name resulted in one of those yearbook archive websites. But that was all that I found.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve been a ‘fan’ of Maddie’s for ages on mashblr, always found her insight and commentary about this show (and everything else she posts about) to be so fascinating and thought provoking. So i KNEW this episode was gonna be a good one!!! Loved hearing yall break down each dream one by one and pour over the details, especially in terms of the actual physical ‘details’ that were lost on the audience in original low-def broadcast but were nevertheless purposely added in by the cast and crew for a reason (the bible page… wow!!). BJ’s dream always stands out to me the most (of course), Peg’s dark green dress with mesh overtaking her arms and neck like the army itself is reaching into and covering over BJ’s memories of her… the little pink bowtie… the staircase she descends just like the one in their actual house that we see her walk down next season in ‘oh how we danced’…. white suits and white scrubs…… the ginormous flower shes wearing that looks like one of those stick-on gift bows… et cetera… so on… so forth….
Rob saying his one criticism would be how similar everyone’s dreams are structurally made me think of the dream sequences on ‘the sopranos’ (apparently mostly inspired by ‘twin peaks’ and other david lynch works) which always had a lot of variety while still managing to feel like dreams. i agree everyone’s dreams in this episode have that same sort of slow pace and (while the details differ between them) the same kind of set up and punchline. the thing i’d say in defence of that is that, well, everyone’s been living the same lives as each other for years now! same few rooms, same colours, same routine over and over and over. Even the blood and misery and horror is part of their daily routine. what else is there to dream about? their brains have been tattooed by this ugliness in the same ink by the same hand.
Loved this discussion, one of my new favourites, especially the bit at the end about the crossover between war and horror as genres – how interesting!!!!
There has been such a hype build up for this episode (of the podcast), and it didn’t disappoint! Thank you Maddie and rob for doing “Dreams” justice. I can understand how some might night like this episode, because of it’s different format and dark content, but I love this episode. It’s challenging for me because it really does feel like some of my dreams put onto the screen. Many of my dreams, like Rob, are dreams about frustration, where I cannot do X, Y or Z (usually being prepared to teach one of my classes). I think there should have been a second dreams episode dealing with some of the secondary characters, like Roy Goldman, Nurse Kelleye and Igor. Almost like Star Trek: Lower Decks.
In a bit of serendipity, I was traveling home from the east coast and hit western Ohio at the right time for dinner. I was close enough to Toledo that I thought visiting Tony Packo’s was a great idea. For anyone who wants to do a M*A*S*H pilgrimage, I highly suggest Tony Packo’s. There is a lot of M*A*S*H memorabilia and pictures around the restaurant and lots of merch that you can buy. In the merch store, there is a picture of Mike Farrell and Jamie Farr that looks pretty recent (last decade or so). The Hungarian hot dogs are really good too!
I may have been one of the ones who said “I’ll even do ‘Dreams’ …”
It is a very unique episode. I think we, as viewers, have seen the toll the war has taken on the characters during the past seasons but it has always been tempered with puns and jokes. This is an episode where you get the sense that these folks we have come to love are really, truly scarred by all this.
I will never compare what I do with a combat surgeon ever but I can tell you I have had plenty of nightmares involving medical scenarios. The RNs here call them ‘nurse-mares’. I call them ‘work-mares’. I have said before, at this stage of my career, episodes like this resonate more with me than when I was a kid watching them after dinner.
Oh, man, I remember hating “Dreams!” Rewatching it recently, I have respect for the effort, but I’m still not a big fan. However, your guest Maddie did a terrific job discussing “Dreams” so I enjoyed the podcast as always. The storyline surrounding the dreams was really good and could have worked as a good episode on its own. I think the two that really took me out of it was Margaret’s dream husband’s porn ‘stache and the eye-rolling surprise of Klinger seeing the patient on the table and IT’S KLINGER! Still, even a “bad” MASH is better than 90% of whatever else is on.
Two of the most vivid memories I have from watching MASH for the first time as a kid, is Margaret in her bloody wedding dress, and Hawkeye screaming, those images just stuck with me. I have been a horror fiend my since I was very young, so Dreams was right up my alley. I also tend to like the out of the box-episodes of every show I watch, there’s just something about the step away from what we’re used to seeing, and put characters under a new light perhaps, that tends to always work for me.
They really do set the stage for the episode early on, when Hawkeye talks about how he doesn’t think they’ll ever get out of there, and that the ugliness has been tattooed into their brains. So it makes so much sense that Potter is the only one who goes homes in his dream (I mean, Klinger does too, but it’s to a dystopian, war-torn version of home). Potter is the only one who has come home from wars before, he knows it will happen. I also really like how his dream shows us his longing for simpler times, a time when his mom called the shots, and he wasn’t the one in charge, constantly having to make tough decisions.
So, the setting for everyone’s dreams make perfect sense, but had they chosen to go in another direction, I would have loved to see some different settings for them. I mean, the mind is a very tricky place, and it can take you to some weird places.
I agree that the dreams feel a bit formulaic, and also very expected. We know that BJ worries about Peg being taken away from him, that Klinger is afraid he won’t see Toledo again, that Father Mulcahy struggles with his own ambition sometimes, and that Hawkeye feels like he’s powerless.
It would have been interesting to see different aspects of the characters. Again – the mind is a tricky place, and maybe what we think the characters would have nightmares about isn’t it at all.
I honestly would have liked Margaret’s dream to not be about a spouse, for example. I mean, she has come so far at this point, but a husband is still what she dreams about. And yes – why did they choose a guy that looks like he should be the illustration of the 70’s in a dictionary? Oh well, good day on the job for him. Come in, make out a little with the female lead, and be part of one of the most iconic episodes in one of the most iconic shows. Groovy.
I was thinking, what about if Margaret had been the one who got up and tried to join the soldiers walking by, but they wouldn’t let her, or something. That would make us think about her ambitions too, and how she can never be the soldier her father would have wanted, she is constantly being pulled back by her patients, and the limitations that exists for her as a woman.
Or, when you talk about bringing back the style of the early seasons in a dream – I would have loved to see Margaret trapped in the body of her early self. Flirting with generals, or being with Frank, unable to break free. That would have been so interesting, her fear of failing to move forward and create a life for herself on her terms, and I can imagine what a tremenous job Loretta would have done.
The placement of the blood on her wedding dress makes me think of a miscarriage. I don’t think that was the intention, but it works really well – she fears she will not be able to live a life with a husband and kids, because the war has taken so much away from her.
And this is a petty comment – but why couldn’t they have given her a 50s looking wedding dress, I just don’t get it. They could put Klinger in such fabulous outfits throughout the seasons, but they couldn’t find her a wedding dress that didn’t scream the 70s? It goes well with her dream husband, anyway, so that’s something.
I got confused when you talked about the sixth commandment being about murder, I was sure it was about adultery. So I looked it up, and apparently the order of the commandments are different in different religions. I did not know that. I’ve always thought the soldier was talking about adultery, since his story starts at a bar, and he talks about going out drinking again when he continues. I mean, murder can come from that too, but that’s how I read it.
I couldn’t help but notice when BJ and Hawkeye are talking to that general in post op, Hawkeye hands BJ a piece of rope, to secure the brand new bunk beds. Hawkeye ties his rope around two planks so it actually helps secure them, but it looks like BJ just ties it around the horisontal one. So it’s more decorative than functional, I guess. I just thought it was a fun detail.
I also love the detail that Hawkeye’s dream has the most talking, it makes so much sense. And yet, he – the man of all the words – can’t find them to explain the procedure, and he can’t use his limbs to help. He is being used like a mannequin, or a puppet more like it, by the army who forces him to use his body in ways he hasn’t chosen himself, he is a pawn in a game he never wanted to be a part of.
I really loved listening to this episode, thank you so much to both of you for treating the wonderfully unique Dreams with so much dignity and intelligence!
What a great discussion – Welcome Maddie, such an insightful commentary into this most symbolic of episodes.
I wonder if there’s ever been an “official” version of why each dream was selected and what each was meant to signify to the dreamer?
Dreams are so weird and still poorly understood (my favourite book in the subject – if anyone is interested – is Matthew Walker’s “Why We Sleep”)
One of the theories to explain why we dream is that it’s one way that our brains simulate potentially threatening situations, in order to formulate possible survival strategies. That would be highly relevant for stressed-out medical staff stuck in the middle of a foreign war, but quite how that relates to a sparkler-waving Winchester or a limbless Hawkeye, I really don’t know!
PS Meeting Dr Anj in person was a true pleasure (and you’re also welcome to visit any time, Rob!) We ate dinner in the “Hot Fuzz” pub one night – I can confirm no underage drinking took place whilst we were visiting!
Maddie W is now one of my favorite guests – PLEASE bring her back for the remaining seasons. So sharp and insightful.
Being raised Catholic, Mulcahy’s dream was always my favorite. The image of Christ on the cross has always had such multilayered meanings. In this context, I always took it to be focused on the sacrifice of the innocent, which translates so well to the loss of soldiers – our sons (and now daughters) being sacrificed – for what? I’m not sure, Mulcahy never seems sure.
I’m incredibly embarrassed to say that as a kid, I didn’t understand that the confession was turning into gibberish. I thought the kid was Jewish and he was speaking Yiddish (I suppose to soften the ‘dirty ‘ parts?). I never once questioned why a Jewish kid would be confessing to a Catholic priest. Since I was Catholic, i thought everybody went to confession! Some time in my adultery, I understood my error.
If you’ve read any of my previous comments you know I thought that MASH really started going downhill about the time that Ken Levine and David Issacs left the writing staff. You also know that I have great disdain for episodes that highlight every cast member with their own 2 to 4 minute vignette as it reeks with either actors or agents complaining that they are not getting enough air time. These are two of the many reasons why I constantly bypass Dreams either when it’s shown in syndication or viewed on DVD.
Several websites and podcasts have asked participants to list their five LEAST favorite episodes of MASH. I always start with the caveat that I have to exclude seasons 9 through 11 because I can only find one or two episodes per season that I actually like. After saying that I always have Dreams as my #2 worst episode.
I’m glad you mentioned one of my other reasons. After you see the second vignette that featured blood or dismemberment you kind of sit back and say “OK we get it. Moving on . .” I’ve always said that the cartoon series Family Guy must have a minimum requirement of red paint usage as every episode has someone or something bleeding. That’s the way I feel about this episode.
BTW it’s interesting how CBS advertised this episode in TV Guide. The ad shows Charles, Potter and Margaret in costumes from the meeting but a larger picture of Hawkeye with a huge grin on his face. You can see it here.
It’s a shame too because the next episode is so excellent.
It’s been so long since I last watched Dreams, I honestly couldn’t remember exactly what happened in the episode. Now having rewatched, I can comfortably say I’ve always loved it! While I’m not a “big thinker”, this episode gets in my head and dissects it, which is a sign that it’s important to me as a viewer.
I always thought at the end of Hawkeye’s dream that the chopper sound comes first, and he’s hearing the real world choppers in the dream (like when you dream of turning off the alarm clock just to wake and note it’s actually buzzing). So the scream of anger is equally him shouting “Not now! I can’t do this! No more!” Powerful stuff.
I’m going to try a mental exercise right here. A passing thought I had this rewatch was “Is every dream about grief? Are they all going through some point of the 5 stages? What are they grieving about?”
Margaret: Losing the life she thought she wanted, the army taking it away, left with the memory of the soldiers she couldn’t save. Anger at her lot in life, and depression about her future.
BJ: His wife and whole world left behind as he’s dragged in a job he didn’t want, as she also get dragged away without him even seeing her go. Denial that his life will even be the same.
Potter: He’s seen it all, plays polo with weapons that should kill him, but he survives, and still remembers the boy he was and is. Acceptance that life will go on.
Charles: Amazing ability to perform as a surgeon, but in his heart, it’s all an illusion and some things he can’t fix. His over-confidence covering imposter syndrome. Denial of himself, and bargaining to make a difference he doesn’t feel.
Mulcahy: Standing under the carving of Jesus, the sacrificial lamb who died for humankind’s sins, transformed into a soldier who died for politics and ideology. Depression that he’s powerless to save his flock.
Klinger: Comes home, but he’s alone, the family he loves is nowhere, all gone. And his greatest fear, that he’ll die in this war and never see them again. Bargaining to just get home if he does a good job, and denial that he fears death.
Hawkeye: He can’t save every person that comes on that operating table, his skill can come up short at any time. Depression of the sheer volume of casualties, and anger that he’s in this position at all.
I think it’s safe to say they’re all grieving for the patients they’ve lost, and the lives they thought they’d have. Only wise and experienced Col Potter has found his path to living with it. I’m sure there’s gobs of issues with my take on this, but it was an itch I needed to scratch.
You’re going to have to have an After-M*A*S*Hblr show just to continue having conversations with all of the great community members that have been on.
This is the middle of a string of three episodes where I enjoy the MASH episode, and I enjoy the podcast episode, and I want to be in the discussion when I listen — but I am glad I am not on these episodes. They all hit too close to home to have a public discussion about. Rob, maybe someday you and I will cover them over a beer, or a brandy, or a martini, or a Grape Ne-Hi, or maybe just a lousy cup of coffee. Anyway, as others have stated, you both did a great job. I’m interested in seeing Maddie’s academic work now. My middle daughter, Mayhem, has done some reading on the connection between horror and politics. If I can find more material for her, I’ll get more interesting discussions out of it.
Thanks again!
Just another rube in fear,
Captain Entropy