Plot: Bombs are falling on the 4077th, Trapper and Hot Lips are trapped in the supply shed, and Frank becomes so jealous that he proposes to Hot Lips.

The proposal usually gets cut in syndication, leaving new viewers wondering what the heck is going on at the end.

Trapper and Margaret leave the OR to pick up supplies. Later, at night, the camp is in the Mess Tent, watching a war movie. Burns enters, asking if anyone has seen Major Hoolihan. Klinger tells Frank that he saw them an hour earlier. It wasn't until the next morning that Hot Lips and Trapper were found. Surely, someone would have wondered where they were within a half hour. (Those supplies were running low.) But that it took the camp all night to find them is what's really unbelievable. More than one person in OR knew where they were going.

Given how continuous the bombing was, the 4077th was still in fairly decent shape by the end of the episode. I'd've thought it would have been wiped out.

At the end of ep, Margaret goes to the Swamp to confront Major Burns. She does something unusual. She knocks on the door. Most of the times, she walks right in like everyone does. She must also be half-blind. In the interior shots (the ones from in the Swamp), you can see a jeep outside. Margaret should have easily been able to look into the tent and see that Frank was in there.

Henry and Mulcahy get trapped in the latrine and Hawkeye goes to help (abandoning the patient was about to start operating on). After fixing Henry's arm, the two doctors return to OR. Henry does not wear a mask. Why doesn't anyone say anything about this? Henry doesn't have any germs to spread?

Also, in the foreground we see an unnamed fifth doctor at work.

Yeah, the Trapper-Margaret scenes are totally unbelievable - except to us female fans! That grin of Wayne Rogers' when Trapper tells Margaret 'C'mere'...well, let's just say I'd've COMPLETELY forgotten about supplies right then and there.

(Seriously...Rogers and Swit had a nice chemistry going - more than she had with Alan Alda, IMHO. If Trapper had stuck around a few more seasons their attraction could have become a truly great plot thread.)
Actually, yeah, the whole ep is more or less unbelievable. But I think, given it's position in the series' run, it was from the first designed as more slapstick than realistic. It wasn't until later seasons that they tried playing the 4077th's vulnerability for drama (C*A*V*E, for instance) instead of comedy.

I never had the impression that they were in the supply tent all night. I had the notion that they decided to run that movie during the afternoon to take peoples' minds off things. Note that Margaret and Trapper were discovered just moments after she decided to settle down for a nap. Do you really think that they spent the entire night talking and arguing before getting some sleep?

Kerrie, I've never had any trouble with a relationship between Hot Lips and Trapper. In "Hot Lips and Empty Arms", a drunk Margaret confesses that she was attracted to Trapper. It's the circumstances in this ep that bothers me.

D.K., I agree that judging by the events inside the supply hut, no more than, say, three or four hours have passed. Even most of the events that took place outside of the supply hut would support that. But the movie. That throws the whole timeline off for me.

Sure, it could be an afternoon matinee the camp is watching, but if it is, it is the only time in the series that a movie is shown during the day. Throughout the series, we consistently see that movies were run at night. Now, logically there must be some sort of daytime viewing. After all, there are people in camp who are working while the movies are being shown. But we never see this. Moreover, showing films during the day would disrupt the Mess Tent rituals. Igor and Klinger and whoever else is on KP have to keep the Mess Tent clean between meals, get ready to serve the next meal, etc. Those watching a movie during the daytime would get in the way. (Of course, the same could said of Father Mulcahy's Sunday morning services. Aside from holidays, was Sunday morning the only time the Padre held services?) The answer, to me, is that the films are probably kept until shifts rotate and the movies are screened on another night.

The other argument against the film being shown in the afternoon is how dark the interior of the Mess Tent is. Even with the flaps down, I don't think the tent would be that dark. The darkness is what leads me to believe that it's night time. And that's what screws up the whole timeline.

I was rewatching this episode and I noticed a nit in the uncut version. Margaret comes in saying that the supply tent door is jammed and Trapper volunteers to help her. At this moment Klinger is sitting on the desk trying to fix the phone and he clearly hears where they are both going and why. But later during the movie seen he tells Burns that he saw Margaret and Trapper crossing the compound and he didn't have any idea where they went.

I believe that the movie was shown during the day, specifically to take people's minds off the shooting. Potter comments to Mulcahy that showing a war movie wasn't exactly the best way to take people's minds off the war. Mulcahy replied that he had tried to get "The Yearling."

Oops! Blake, not Potter.

BTW, since when is the chaplain in charge of requesitioning movies?

Mulcahy may have been the moral officer in this ep.

Abyssinia!

Mulcahy may have been the moral officer in this ep.

He's always the Moral officer -- He's the chaplain!

He may, however, been the morale officer as well

Ouch. You got me there, Scott. Morale was, indeed, the word I meant. Thanks for the correction!

Abyssinia!

Whats a Bajoran (from ds9)doing in Korea?

one of my favorites MASH episodes....

Alan Alda to play the (Immoral) Moral officer ...

Why does Hawkeye ask Radar where Henry usually sits in the Officers' Latrine? You would think that for as long as Pierce had served with Blake, he'd know where Henry usually sat in the latrine. Besides, how would Radar, an enlisted man, know where Henry would sit in an Officers' latrine?

After Margaret and Sanchez exchange slaps, and Hawkeye throws the grenade out of the O.R. window, there's a scene cut. Hawkeye takes Sanchez out to Pre-Op, where she learns Hawkeye is also afraid.

In "Mad Dogs and Servicemen", Trapper mentions that he interned in Boston. In this episode, Frank comments that Trapper didn't even study medicine in his home state. I guess that means that Trapper is not from Massachusetts.

During Frank and Margaret's post "Locked-In-the-Supply-Hut" conversation, the P.A. announces a call for the second shift to report to the O.R. Hawkeye, Trapper, Henry and Frank seem to comprise the first shift. Who are the surgeons for the second shift? (Is Spaulding one?)

While pleading with Margaret, Frank says something about the two of them holding hands while saying the Pledge of Allegiance. If they're holding their right hands over their hearts while saying the Pledge, I'd love to know how they held hands.

Lol! I've never caught this little in-joke before! At the end of the Bob Hope Show on the radio, the announcer of the show identifies himself as "Hy Averback". That's the director of this and many other episodes of M*A*S*H.

Abyssinia!

The second shift doctors are the invisible ones.