Plot A: Hawkeye becomes disgusted with the stalled Panmunjon peace talks, especially after finding out that the army has increased the number of points needed to go home. He travels to the peace talks to vent his spleen.
Plot B: After promising Margaret to try and save their marriage, Donald sneaks off to Honolulu, and Margaret finally decides on a divorce.

I saw part of this episode the other day, and I noticed that, while they were in OR waiting to hear about what happened with Hawkeye, B.J. was wearing a false mustache on the outside of his mask. I seem to recall that there had been some discussion earlier about his mustache. It might have been this episode where B.J. had said that is he couldn't have the mustache, he would wear a caterpillar under his nose.

Wonder what Peg thought of the mustache?

I also noticed that B.J. organized that party in a very short length of time. They got word in OR that Hawkeye was on the way home. I'm not sure how far it was from the 4077th to Panmunjon, but they apparently had time to finish up in OR, dye all their clothes and have them dry, dye their hair, and decorate the tent. (And time enough for Charles to get drunk, just like at Potter's retirement party. Anyone ever notice that when prim and proper Charles decides to have more than a genteel snifter of brandy, he gets smashed really fast?)

When B.J. walked out of the mess tent in his "reds", he almost seemed to glow.

What's also odd to me is that Hawkeye said he was tired of the color green. Wouldn't he also be sick of looking at the color red (as in blood)? Surely yellow, would've been a more appropriate, cheerful color.

As I recall, Hawkeye mentioned that he wanted to see the color red, specifying that he didn't want blood red, just a nice bright, cheerful red, like the tassel hanging in the Swamp.

Could be. The episode was on the other day, but I didn't the first half of it.

I think that the reason for his specifying the color red is b/c the bit with the whole camp being dyed red was a true story from a real MASH. The writers thought it to be too unbelievable, so they made it a Plot C. Anyway, good trivia there.

About the time it took to prepare everything: in the mess tent, several people wear japanese-embroidered jackets, which presuambly are red anyway, and margarets pants and sweater don't look like any army stuff dyed red, but like private clothing. So I guess that people just took their private clothes and the total effect is so stunning.

The hair dye is probably a chemical from the lab. It doesn't dye very much (compared to real hair dye) and doesn't last beyond the party - next morning at roll call, everybody is hung over, but has normal hair again. So BJ and the others just mixed together the dye, dyed their hair and a few roils of toilet paper to decorate the tent, and scrounged the rest, I think.

Maybe Charles gets drunk so quickly because he isn't used to the crude stuff from the still, sniffing only refined wine usually.

Good episode. Hawkeye running off to the peace talks was a believable reaction to the situation he and the others were in. I also liked Col. Potter's attempts to boost morale - he's becoming one of my favourite characters.

Once again, I'll mention that by this time (the Korean War), the Army was no longer using rotation points to signal the end of one's tour of duty.

Nice bit of continuity - in the Mess Tent scene, Hawkeye can be seen sniffing his breakfast before eating it. Previous eps ("Movie Tonight", for one) have mentioned this fetish of Pierce's.

I've really got to question whether the door to Company Clerk's Office would really fall down flat like it does when Margaret kicks it. It falls like it's not even connected by the hinges. No, more like it doesn't have any hinges attached to it.

Among the items Hawkeye says he'd like to see in red, he mentions a "red alligator on the pocket". He's talking about an Izod shirt, isn't he? While the Izod line of clothing essentially started in 1951, I'm not sure if the alligator logo was in use in the 50s. It certainly didn't gain popularity until the Seventies and Eighties. (The time-frame in which this ep was made.)

Up til this episode, one needed 36 rotation points to be discharged. It is in this episode that it's been upped to 45 points.

In "Change of Command", Potter tells Klinger that he's seen many Section Eight attempts in his 40 years of service. In this ep, after learning that Pierce has gotten into the Panmujom peace talks, the Colonel states that he's never seen anything like it in his 35 years in the Army. Does this ep take place five years before Potter took command of the 4077^th?

Let's be honest, Pierce is allowed to speak at the peace conference entirely too long. In reality, I think the MPs would have been dragging his carcass out of the tent almost as soon as it became clear he wasn't really there to check on General Tomlin. Moreover, I imagine that the brass in the room would have been screaming for the MPs to remove the Captain very quickly.

The "red party" takes place in the Mess Tent. For some reason, not only are all the tables and benches removed from the tent, but the bar and barstools from the Officer's Club have been brought in. (You can see them just as Hawkeye is getting his hair colored.)

For the record, Pierce's trip to Panmujom took place within one day. (Potter, while talking to Major Goss, refers to the incident happening earlier in the day.)

This is the one episode where we have evidence of Margaret using the Penobscott name. When Radar does role call at the ep's end, he calls out, "Major Houlihan-Penobscott, Margaret." So officially, for the months she'd been married, Margaret's last name has been Houlihan-Penobscott. This is the only time it's used in the series. I also should mention that it's pretty progressive of Margaret to use that as her last name. Such combinations of surnames were no way near being in vogue in the Fifties and would have been a very daring thing for a woman to do in those days.

Please note that this episode opens with a role call in which the entire camp is hungover. It ends much the same way. In both role calls Hawkeye is in a wheelchair.

The ending role call might have made this episode a good season premiere or season finale episode, actually. Instead it was the second ep this season.

"All that good whiskey shot to hell."

>In "Change of Command", Potter tells Klinger that he's seen many Section Eight attempts in his 40 years of service. In this ep, after learning that Pierce has gotten into the Panmujom peace talks, the Colonel states that he's never seen anything like it in his 35 years in the Army. Does this ep take place five years before Potter took command of the 4077th?<

Maybe he spent 5 years in the Navy? (Just kidding!)

Join the army see the navy!

Penobbscott sneaked off to San Francisco, not Honolulu.