Recap / M*A*S*H S2 E24: A Smattering of Intelligence

Colonel Flagg is brought to the 4077 after sustaining injuries in a helicopter crash and reveals to Henry that he is on a mission from the CIA to investigate the reports of Communist sympathisers in the camp. Another intelligence agent, and an old friend of Trapper's, Vinny Pratt, arrives from G2 to investigate those same reports for G2. The two start competing with one another to solve the mystery first, something which Hawkeye has disdain for as their antics may upset the running of the hospital. He and Trapper set something up to teach them a lesson.

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Attention, all personnel! Intelligence has decreed that the following tropes can be trusted:

• Atrocious Alias: When Flagg asks for Hawkeye's name while having his arm treated and from Hawkeye's flippancy:
  Hawkeye: Dr. Wasserman. I'm looking for a cure for VD and thought this would be a good place to start.
• Big Brother Is Watching You: It is revealed to Henry that G2 has been spying on some of his trysts as far back as 1948. Justified when you remember that in the book/movie, Henry had been in the reserves and had seen action in World War Two.
• Blatant Lies: Margaret pretends not to be romantically interested in Colonel Flagg.
• Brick Joke: Flagg and Pratt each ask if particular people can be trusted.
• Code Name: When Flagg sends a Spy Speak telegram to his superiors, we learn that Pratt's CIA code name is Mary (as in "Mary had a little lamb"), while Flagg's is Queen Victoria.
• Crazy-Prepared: It was already hinted to Hawkeye that Colonel Flagg was this, but he gets to see it for himself when the man breaks his arm for the second time right in front of him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Hawkeye loads the episode with this every time he hears the over-the-top lengths Colonel Flagg will go to to complete a mission.
  Hawkeye: Is this guy available for kids' parties?
• Department of Redundancy Department: In an early scene, Flagg wants to speak to Henry Blake and only Henry Blake, heavily implying he wants Radar to leave.
  Flagg: Colonel, I want to talk to you in private without the corporal.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Played for laughs. Trapper translates Pratt's plan of breaking into Henry's office and obtaining Frank's file as just sneaking in. Pratt shrugs, calling it breaking and entering.
  Hawkeye: (sardonically) Gee, it's a good thing you're a cop, otherwise that's illegal.
• Double Take: Henry is a bit nonplussed about Colonel Flagg having a female alias.
• Eagleland: Frank brings up the bad side of this trope again, and of course Margaret agrees with him.
  Trapper: Those guys are pretty doped up most of the time, you know.
  Frank: Doped up on patriotism, fella. Something we're in pretty short supply of around here.
  Margaret: Amen.
  Hawkeye: Radar, we're running low. Get another order of Yankee Doodle.
  Trapper: (later as he and Hawkeye enter the Swamp) Can you believe that Frank?
  Hawkeye: There's talk about making him the 49th state.
• Eat the Evidence: Played for laughs. Hawkeye warns Radar that if he's caught spying on Flagg, Radar will have to eat the binoculars he's using to watch Flagg.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Radar O'Reilly
• Flat "What": Hawkeye, Trapper, Frank and Margaret all clearly react as this when Radar wrongly informs them that Colonel Flagg is from the CPA.
• Forgot About His Powers: Why does Radar need to use a stethoscope against the wall as a listening device when he can just read Henry Blake's mind?
• Friendly Enemy: Flagg and Pratt appear to be this at the end, when Pratt offers to buy him a cup of coffee and calls him by his first name. Then in The Tag we learn they were working together the whole time.
• Get Out!: Flagg wants to talk to Henry in private, so he tells Radar to do this.
  • He tells Radar this again later at the Officers' Club in a far more threatening manner.
    Flagg: Do you like the jukebox, son?
    Radar: Oh, yes sir.
    Flagg: If you don't get lost, I'm gonna put your head through the glass and pull it out through the coin return.
    Radar: Anything else sir, before I go to the latrine.
    Flagg: Disappear.
• Implied Death Threat: Colonel Flagg uses these with a serious eerie sense of menace.
  • When Flagg suspects Pratt, Frank calls him crazy for it as Stone (AKA Pratt) is an engineer. Flagg is none too pleased at being called that.
    Flagg: You call me that again, friend, I'll reach into your throat and pull your heart out.
  • He does it to Radar when Frank and Margaret catch him eavesdropping.
  Flagg: How'd you like a nose full of nickels?
• Made of Iron: Colonel Flagg, if the stories are true. He certainly can take a lot of pain anyway.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Narrowly averted by Radar when, while maintaining the façade that he's asleep, he forgets to take off his glasses after spying on Colonel Flagg rifling through the personnel files and has only a second to correct that before Flagg shines his flashlight on him to be sure he wasn't seeing things.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Henry gets like this when Pratt walks into his office and announces he is another intelligence agent.
  Pratt: Colonel Blake.
  Henry: Captain Stone.
  Pratt: That's not my real name.
  Henry: Oooh boy.
  Pratt: Major Strauss. G2.
• Omniscient Morality License: Flagg apparently is allowed to kill people without ever having to run it by his superiors. Yes, a licence to kill.
  Flagg: Colonel, I'm authorised to kill without requesting permission from my superiors.
  Henry: Oh... I imagine that cuts down on the old paperwork.
  Flagg: You'd never know what hit ya. Your toothbrush could go off in your face, you could find a tarantula in your shorts, we could booby trap a nurse.
• One Phone Call: Parodied when Frank has been accused of being a Communist:
  Hawkeye: Frank, you're entitled to one phone call to the Kremlin.
• Only in It for the Money: The reason Pratt was sent to the camp by G2? They want to score an investigation win ahead of Flagg's CIA to get a bigger cut of the defense budget.
• Red Herring: Flagg and Pratt are presented as rivals racing against one another to solve the case first. That's just their cover story. They're actually working together to observe the 4077 as part of a joint surveillance operation conceived between the CIA and G2.
• Red Scare: Colonel Flagg believes that even going to see a performance of the Russian Ballet can mark you as a Communist sympathiser. For all we know, this may be Truth in Television.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Colonel Flagg needs to vomit up a capsule that contains an important phone number for him to call. Henry takes his leave upon being told of this.
• Secret Identity: Flagg and Pratt have a whole slew of them.
  • Flagg - Major Brooks, Lieutenant Carter, Ensign Troy and Captain Louise Klein. There may be a Captain Halloran in there somewhere.
  • Pratt - Captain Perkins (priest), Captain Stone (Engineers), Major Strauss and Martinez.
• Self-Deprecation: Frank Burns, when accused of being a Communist and a Fascist, firmly states he's neither, he's nothing.
  Trapper: We'll vouch for that.
• Sequel Hook: At the very end of the episode, when Colonel Flagg narrates his delivery of the surveillance report, he strongly suggests continued observation of the unit.
• Ship Tease: Hawkeye and Margaret, right at the episode's start.
  Hawkeye: Uh, how come you're not responding to me?
  Margaret: Pardon?
  Hawkeye: I put on something I thought would drive you wild?
  Margaret: What?
  Hawkeye: Clean socks.
• Shout-Out:
  • Mary Had A Little Lamb is used as a coded phrase by Colonel Flagg.
  • Radar gives the all-clear to Pratt to enter Henry's office. Pratt isn't too sure that was the signal. Neither is Hawkeye which leads him to quip, "It's either that or Marlene Dietrich's back in town."
  • Henry is complaining about the two intelligence agents interfering with camp business:
  Captain Stone: Let me level with you, Colonel. My people wanna know what Flagg's people are up to.
  Henry: Well, why do we have to be in the middle? Can't you let my people go?
• Spy Cam: Both Flagg and Pratt use Minox-type pocket cameras to photograph documents from Frank's personnel file.
• Working the Same Case: The Tag reveals that Flagg and Pratt, rather than being rivals, were working together the whole time.