Plot A: Two close friends are brought to the 4077th--one very badly injured and needing lots of blood. Telling them that he has the same blood type, Private Gary Sturgis offers to donate some. Running a test, they discover that Sturgis has leukemia.
Plot B: Panicked over the impending visit of a Cardinal, Father Mulcahy rushes all over camp, trying to suppress vice. When his efforts fail, Mulcahy is angry and grumbling--until he learns about Sturgis. He spends the night talking with the young man, who wants to stay with his friend, as his presence is doing him good. Father Mulcahy then rushes, late, to Mass, where he delivers a sermon that, as the Cardinal put it, made him "a tough act to follow."
That sermon always brings tears to my eyes. William Christopher should have gotten an Emmy for that performance.
This is yet another instance in which Father Mulcahy uses the word "jocularity".
Sturgis was played by Patrick Swayze.
The pinup picture behind Igor must be fairly new. I don't remember seeing it before. Considering that I don't we ever see it again, I guess Igor forgot to put it back up.
When Cardinal Reardon arrives in the middle of the night, Father Mulcahy goes to greet him. Notice that Mulcahy puts his collar on crookedly.
I assume that attendance for the Sunday Services was mandatory. Yet, clearly the Mess Tent is filled with maybe a third or fourth of the roughly 200 people assigned to the 4077th.
As dignified a service as this is (and given how important it is to Father Mulcahy), you'd think those in attendance would dress batter. At the very least, they should be in their Class As. As it is, the camp is causually dressed. B.J. is even wearing his pink shirt under his uniform.
I agree with D.K. about Mulcahy's sermon. It is vry touching. A very nice subtlety is that the Padre even got that "pat on the back" he was looking for from Cardinal Rearden - figuratively & literally.
Sturgis at one point says in "20 they may find a cure for leukemia." Twenty years later, in real life, and no cure has been found. Sorta puts it in perspective doesn't it?
Sturgis asks if his buddy is as bad as he looks. He then looks up. In the next shot, when B.J. responds to him, Sturgis is looking down again.
When Father Mulcahy leaves Colonel Potter's tent, his hat faces away from the Padre. In the next shot, showing Mulcahy leaving Potter's tent, the top of the hat faces towards the Father.
At one point, while Potter is talking to Rizzo and the other dice players, the Sgt. reaches for his cigar. In the next shot, his hand is no longer there.
In another reverse shot of Rizzo during that conversation, Rizzo's cigar can still be seen in his mouth. Trouble is, in another shot, he'd already taken it out of his mouth.
After Hawkeye shows B.J. the leukemia in Sturgis' blood, there's a commercial break. Hunnicutt's right hand and Pierce's head change positions during the break. Of course, given that there was a commercial break, there's no telling how much time elapsed, so...
Were the scene where Father Mulcahy and Klinger find Rizzo and company playing dice in the supply hut and the scene where the cr4p game is discovered in the VIP tent cut for syndication? They don't look too familiar to me.
Father Mulcahy enters the Mess Tent to give his sermon. As he says, "Good morning", he places his hands behind his back. However, when the camera angle changes, his hands are at his side.
I find it interesting to note that during his sermon, Father Mulcahy is not wearing his crucifix. (Actually, I'm not even sure if he wore it all in this ep.) Also intersting is that just before uttering the lines about seeing things more clearly, the Padre takes his glasses off.
During some of the reaction shots to Mulcahy's sermon, the tilt of Margaret's head changes in successive shots.
"Beaver biscuits!"