Plot: After Hawkeye gives medical preference to an enemy soldier, Col. Flagg turns up again. He presses Charles to dig up some dirt on Hawkeye, but Charles provides red herrings instead.

Just saw this one again last night, and I realized that the entire episode has a major nit. The main plot began with wounded arriving. Among them, an American soldier with serious chest injuries. Hawkeye declared that he would be first in OR--until he discovered that a North Korean soldier was close to death and required immediate attention. Therefore, the Korean went first, the American second. Charles was furious, and so was Flagg.

This makes for a nice storyline, but it completely ignores the fact that there are at least four (count them, four) doctors working in the OR. Just what were three of them doing while that number 2 patient languished in Pre-Op? B.J. clearly states that Hawkeye operated on both men, but why? Why didn't Charles, generally regarded as their thoracic specialist, operate on the American? If it were a question of either Hawkeye or Frank Burns, I could understand the wait, but Charles, B.J, and Col. Potter are all good surgeons.

For that matter, I never understood the business of, "He'll be first, he'll be next...." It should have been, "He'll be in the first four, he can wait for the next set...."

I always thought that whole business with Charles objecting to the Korean going first was rather out of character. He shows prejudice plenty of times in the series, but I think this is the only time he brings it into the OR. And pronouncing the soldier a lost cause just because he's Korean seems like something Frank, the inept surgeon, would have done, not Winchester. In fact, the whole first scene on the bus sounds like it was written with Frank in mind.
This is even stranger since the rest of the episode shows just how different Charles is from Frank, as he sets up Flagg and defends Hawkeye.

I felt Charles's original diagnosis was based on the fact he didn't the see the pupil dialate, but then Hawkeye did. And in a dark bus, it could be easy to miss.

I just finished watching the unedited version of this episode, and it makes a lot more sense that way! They take out half of the set-up with Winchester's "spying," and a rather funny Klinger/Flagg scene, but they leave in that pointless one with BJ deflating the Padre's punching bag at the end. Why in the world didn't they cut that instead?

Your interpretation makes sense, Amos. I still think Charles is a bit out of character, but taken like that he seems to be trying to save face more than be a gung-ho American. After seeing the unedited version, it seems less as if the writers were thinking of Frank and more as if they were trying to give Charles a reason to spy on Hawkeye. This doesn't come through in the FX version though.

Why is Charles' houseboy working in the hospital? Post-Op can maybe be explained, but I hardly think they'd let random people with no training help out in the O.R. Don't they have orderlies for that?

I wonder why Charles never got another houseboy. Surely he'd have been able to find someone to do odd jobs for him, even if he wasn't paying a lot. Along the same lines, why didn't Hawkeye and Trapper ever replace Ho Jon after he left?

Hmmm, you know, I just realized that those last two nits are supposed to be for "Dear Comrade". I have no idea why I put them in here. Oops.

Why doesn't Potter tell the soldier to shut up? The Colonel simply allows him to continue harassing Hawkeye in the O.R. Could it be that Sherman agrees that Hawkeye should not have given the North Korean soldier preference?

I mentioned this in the Pierce board, but it's worth mentioning here too. For some reason, Pierce seems to be cowering away from an almost crippled soldier. He seems he could easily subdue him, but all he does he back away. Now it could be said that he was trying not to further injure the patient, but after Hunnicut shows up and takes the patient away, Pierce thanks him for the rescue. It's true he always says he's a coward when it comes to being in combat, but he made many physical threats towards Burns. In a one-on-one fight, I guess he can't back up what he says.

Yeah I remember discussing that over on Hawkeye's board. But, despite what I said, Major Burns wasn't the only one Pierce threatened. He threatened Charles on one or two occasions.

Perhaps Hawkeye wanted to avoid striking a wounded man. You'll notice that B.J. was horrified with himself after threatening to break the patient's neck.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I read the scene.

This episode marks Col.Flagg's last appearence in the series.

Forgot to mention that this episode made good use of the series history. When Charles asks Hawkeye about his dislike for Flagg, Hawkeye responded that he resented officers (in this case, Flagg) who demand that they treat North Korean POW's, with the intention of executing them later on. This occurred in the episode Officer of the Day. Nice touch by the writers.

When Potter enters his office to find Flagg in there, the spy is looking through a folder. He fans the pages on the right side of the folder. In the next shot, those pages are not visible though they should be.

In another shot, Flagg puts the folder into the drawer of Potter's desk and shuts the drawer. In the following shot we see Flagg shut the drawer again.

I believe Charles' attempt to apologize to Hawkeye has been edited out for syndication.

Interesting - and convenient for Flagg - that the flaps to the Mess Tent were down. Normally the flaps are up and are rarely brought down.

In one shot, just before he tries to hit Hawkeye with what's left of his cane, Basgall holds one end of it. In the next shot, he holds both ends of the cane.

Normally, the end credits show scenes from the episode just aired. In the end credits of this ep are shots of Margaret, Radar, Klinger and Father Mulcahy that were not a part of this episode.

"All that good whiskey shot to hell."