Trapper (Wayne Rogers) was a similar type of character to Hawkeye: a trickster Deadpan Snarker who had had his fill of the war by the time the show started. Originally beginning the show as Hawkeye’s equal, he unfortunately fell to the position of ‘sidekick’ more often than not, a natural side-effect of Alan Alda’s magnetic performance and Hawkeye’s overpowering personality. But where Hawkeye was unattached and had more potential for sincerity, Trapper was married, (but still playing a Casanova) and tended to be more lighthearted.
Trapper started out as ‘The Lancer’, a supporting role that got plenty of screentime and action, and despite only being on the show for three seasons, a fair amount of character development. While he was never as depressed a character as Hawkeye, Trapper did have his moments of darkness, such as being tempted to kill a North Korean POW(who had unintentionally cost the life of one of Trapper’s patients) or punching out Hawkeye in an attempt to rush home. Episodes like “Kim” and “Check Up” do give Trapper a spot in the limelight, but in the end, over the grand scheme of the show, Trapper’s chief influence came after he’d left.
Between seasons three and four, Trapper acquired enough points to get sent home, which he did while Hawkeye was on R&R. This event signaled the second gut punch of the show, as Trapper’s departure occurred directly after Colonel Henry Blake left the show the episode prior. But while Blake had a send-off (a heartbreaking one that we’ll come back to in a minute), Trapper…didn’t. He just left. No note, no message, nothing but a peck on the cheek for Hawkeye, his best friend.
Unlike most sitcoms on at the time, where Trapper’s departure would have been largely overlooked for the rest of the show, the hole that Trapper left in the camp, and notably in Hawkeye, was felt for the remainder of the series. He is often mentioned in episodes after he’s gone, and the impact of his exit (and the lack of goodbye) is felt even by characters who never met him, such as his replacement, B.J. (more on him later). Trapper was an early staple, who, despite his short time with the series, made a difference, just like real people do, and in the end, he was one of the lucky ones: he got to go home. Trapper returned to his wife and kids, and left Korea behind, and left the 4077th a little emptier as a result.
And he wasn’t the only one.
For the first three seasons, the 4077th was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, (McLean Stevenson) hailing from Bloomington, Illinois. Henry was a skilled, caring doctor…and a terrible colonel.
Very much ‘The Alleged Boss’, Henry freely admitted that he wasn’t an army man. He was a surgeon, with a practice at home. Extremely Mildly Military, (frequently out of uniform and sporting a fishing hat) Henry left the running of the camp to Radar O’Reilly, the company clerk, and tended to try as hard as he could to not make command decisions.
With that said, Henry was a very kind man, understandably frustrated with his situation and missing his own wife and family back in the states (though, like Trapper, he did cheat on his wife a few times during the course of the show, with little remorse. He was a Father to His Men, (especially Radar), and despite his typically goofy, down-to-earth nature, he had his moments of wisdom.
Hawkeye: “I haven’t cried once since I came to this crummy place. Why am I crying for him? Why not any of these other kids?”
Henry: “If I had the answer to that, I’d be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this look like the Mayo Clinic to you? All I know is what they taught me in command school. There are certain rules about a war. Rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is doctors can’t change rule number one.”
He was well-liked among the camp (except by Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan), and in the end, his departure was a celebrated event…at first.
We can’t discuss Henry Blake without talking about Abysinnia, Henry.
The season 3 finale, Abysinnia Henry, was television history, for one major reason (at first): Henry Blake was going home.
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By season 3, M*A*S*H mattered to people. It was doing well in the ratings, many people were watching it, so when season 3 rolled around and the news hit that Henry Blake was going to go home, many people were, just as they are in the episode, elated for him. The episode is a funny, heartfelt goodbye to the commanding officer, complete with a touching goodbye from each character. Henry gets on the chopper, takes off…and the war goes on.
Until the final scene.
Radar O’Reilly, company clerk and son-figure to Henry Blake, barges into surgery in a state of dazed distress, reading off a note:
“I have a message… Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake’s plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors.”
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That was a gut punch, and audiences, as well as the characters, felt it keenly.
To quote the video essay: “Lightning in a Bottle – a M*A*S*H* Video Essay” by Ladyknightthebrave:
“Before this, characters did not die on half-hour situational comedies. Not main characters anyway, and certainly not like this. This moment changed television.”
It’s true. In the 1970s, main characters did not die on sitcoms, and they certainly didn’t die on the way home from a war to be reunited with their families. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Henry was almost home…and in the end, it didn’t matter.
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While we often point to the episode Sometimes You Hear the Bullet as the moment M*A*S*H’s Cerberus Syndrome kicked in, there is an undeniable level of gravity that entered the scene the moment the news of Henry’s death entered the world of the 4077th. All of a sudden, M*A*S*H went from ‘zany military hospital sitcom’ to coming face-to-face with the horrible reality that not everyone gets to go home at the end.
And like with Trapper, Henry’s shadow hung over the rest of the show.
“They’ll never stop coming, you know. Trapper left, and they’re still coming. Henry got killed, and they’re still coming. Wherever they come from, they’ll never run out.”
At the end of season three, M*A*S*H lost both of these major players, and the loss was keenly felt, by the characters as much as by the audience. Again, in the early 1970s, sitcom characters didn’t just leave, much less die, especially like that. But the show had to go on, much as the war would, and instead of leaving two gaping holes in the command structure, replacements were sent in for the missing crew:
“Trapper John goes. No problem, there’s plenty more where he came from. B.J. Hunnicutt. Same size, same shape. Frank Burns out, Winchester in. Only a hair’s difference. Henry Blake… Rest in peace, Henry. Incoming, Sherman Potter.”
But we’ll get to that later. You see, while these characters would fade out and bring replacements in their wake, other characters, besides Hawkeye, remained staples of the show from beginning to end.
Characters like Margaret Houlihan.
While Hawkeye, Trapper, and Henry got by through Mildly Military antics and a blatant disregard or incompetence when it came to the army way of doing things, Major Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit) was a born soldier and head-nurse. A strict, by-the-book Battleaxe Nurse and an ex-Military Brat, Margaret Houlihan was the definitive Defrosting Ice Queen, matching Hawkeye, and even outpassing him in terms of character development.
Margaret started the show as a one-note, one-joke caricature, much like most characters did. Originally wholly unlikeable and serving as an antagonist to the rest of the main cast, Margaret was a Gung Holier Than Thou exaggeration of a character…early on, anyway. Beginning the show as an entirely unsympathetic person, partner to Frank Burns (romantically involved with him, despite the fact that he was a married man), Margaret’s early personality left few positives to be seen…at first, anyway.
“I don’t fall over, captain. Everything around here will be just fine if there’s a little less leaning a lot more leadership. We need obedience. We need discipline, not this chaos. Doctors like you constantly out of uniform. Nurses who don’t belong in uniform. Dogs running around loose in camp…they’re getting run over by jeeps.”
While there were glimmers of character development early on, as seasons went by, slowly, Margaret started to change, for the better.
Starting in season 5, with her engagement to Lt. Col. Donald Penobscott and dumping of Major Frank Burns, Margaret began to lose a number of her sharp, hard edges, becoming a warmer person, proving herself Not So Above it All, with plenty of Pet the Dog moments becoming more and more prominent as the show continued. Slowly, she began to demonstrate real humanity, and a desire to be accepted.
“Did you ever show me any kind of friendship? Ask my help with a personal problem? Include me in one of your little bull sessions? Can you imagine what it feels like to walk by this tent and hear you laughing and know I’m not welcome? Did you ever once ever offer me a lousy cup of coffee?”
Despite this growth coinciding with her marriage, things were to change yet again for Margaret in season seven.
After a tumultuous marriage to her high-ranking husband, (a type she has demonstrated an attraction to in the past) a frustrated, exhausted, and cheated-on Margaret makes the decision to divorce her husband, a decision that would stick through to the end of the show. Margaret remained single to the end, growing out of her role as stickler and love-interest, and becoming a full-fledged, strong character in her own right, as a Vitriolic Best-Bud to Hawkeye and B.J., and a compassionate, kind, strong, woman who learns to define herself, not only by the army, but by her own terms as a person.
Easily one of the most dynamic characters of the show, arguably the most dynamic, Margaret managed to become one of the most human characters on the show, without becoming perfect. Her edges were smoothed somewhat, but never taken away, and she ended the show a deeper, richer person than she had been at the start.
Which is more than we can say for Major Frank Burns.
(Join us next time for Part 3: Frank Burns, Radar O’Reilly, Maxwell Klinger, and more!)
Twentieth Century Fun With Film 