Recap / M*A*S*H S6 E1: Fade Out, Fade In

"But know this: You can cut me off from the civilized world, you can incarcerate me with two moronic cellmates, you can torture me with your thrice-daily swill, but you cannot break the spirit of a Winchester. My voice shall be heard from this wilderness, and I shall be delivered from this fetid and festering sewer."

— Major Charles Emerson Winchester

While Margaret is off on her honeymoon, Frank Burns goes AWOL (and crazy) in Seoul, leading to his return stateside. His replacement, Major Charles Emerson Winchester the Third, arrives at the 4077th on what is supposed to be a temporary basis, only to be made permanent thanks to his CO owing him six hundred dollars at cribbage. Meanwhile, one of B.J.'s patients is desperate to leave the war – as is Klinger, who recruits a lawyer from one of the wounded.

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Attention all personnel! Colonel Baldwin owes Major Winchester the following tropes:

• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Part of the reason why Frank went crazy in Seoul was because he got himself drunk.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Hawkeye, B.J., Radar, and Colonel Potter are positively elated at the news that Frank Burns is departing from the unit.
  B.J.: You realize this reduces the enemy to just North Korea.
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Hawkeye and B.J. offer to lend their ears so she can get her problems with Donald off her chest, Margaret asks them why she should trust them. After she gets their answer, she is moved to silence.
  Hawkeye: [kindly] Because we're all you've got.
  B.J. Because we care.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Twice, both times with Radar asking the question:
  Radar: Major Houlihan, is that you?
  Margaret: No, it's Amelia Earhart. Who do you think it is?
  • And later:
    Winchester: Get me Tokyo General Hospital.
    Radar: On the phone?
    Winchester: No, open the window and yell.
• Badass Boast: Winchester's statement quoted up top, delivered after Potter informs him that he has to remain at the 4077 permanently, kind of qualifies. He even caps it off with a self-satisfied smirk.
• Bilingual Bonus: In the second scene of Part 1, Hawkeye spits game at a nurse in very good French.
• Break the Haughty: Winchester's first OR session (aside from an operation on Captain Berman) is overwhelming, leaving him feeling like an intern. In an unusual example, it is quantity, not quality, that is the problem: Charles is an exceptionally skilled surgeon, but is unable to immediately adjust to the heavy flow of the patients on the front line.
• Brick Joke: "No offense intended." "Offense accepted."
• Chewing the Scenery: Hawkeye, B.J. and Colonel Potter's short celebration that Frank will finally be leaving the 4077, where they proceed to make a mess of the colonel's office. Radar, on the other hand, is far more restrained but no less jubilant.
• Curse of The Ancients: Colonel Potter is at it again when Klinger's lawyer infers he expected more officers for a review meeting about Klinger's sanity.
  Potter: Road apples, Private.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • The scene in the OR where Radar announces they will be getting a new surgeon to cover for Frank.
    Radar: Major Charles Emerson Winchester.
    Potter: I know a Winchester.
    B.J.: I know an Emerson.
    Radar: I got an Uncle Charles.
    Hawkeye: Well, at least we won't be working with a stranger.
  • Colonel Potter's greeting to Margaret once he learns of her early return.
    Potter: Major, I heard you were back.
    Margaret: [shouting] Baker, get back in here and help the colonel!
    Potter: Now I know you're back.
• Dehumanizing Insult: Winchester's first-hand opinion of Klinger.
  Winchester: Who is that... creature?
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Major Winchester gets affronted when, upon meeting each other, Hawkeye addresses him as Charlie.
  Hawkeye: Where are you from, Charlie?
  Winchester: Charles.
• Due to the Dead: Implied when Hawkeye is furious about Frank's Karma Houdini. He explains to B.J. that the charges against Frank have been dropped, the major is being sent home to Indiana and — after a long —pause, adds that he's also being promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, meaning that Frank Burns is now equal in rank to the late, beloved Henry Blake.
• Establishing Character Moment: Two of which demonstrate early on that Charles Winchester is no Frank Burns.
  • In his very first scene, playing cribbage with Colonel Baldwin at Tokyo General, we're shown a glimpse of his smug self-importance as he gloats over winning another game (and more of the colonel's money), dismisses the MASH as "one of those traveling medicine shows", and refers to himself matter-of-factly as Baldwin's "best doctor".
  • Winchester's first experience in surgery shows that he's much more competent than Frank. This is borne out when a patient comes through needing an operation that no one else at the 4077th knows how to do, but which Charles has performed a number of times and is able to carry off flawlessly. However, during their first OR session with a massive amount of wounded, Charles cannot perform as quickly (and by necessity, as sloppily) as a MASH unit requires.
  • The Tag of Part 2 establishes that Winchester won't be the pushover that Frank was. B.J. and Hawkeye tried to prank him with the old snake-in-the-bed trick, and return to the Swamp to find Charles calmly listening to music, to which Hawkeye snarks "Please, Mozart." Hawk lays down on his bunk... and gets spooked by a snake, which he throws out of the tent in a panic. Realizing Charles has turned their prank around on them, Hawk begrudgingly allows him his victory, while the still-placid major only responds:
    Winchester: Please... Mozart.
• Everyone Has Standards: When Colonel Potter reveals to Klinger that his so-called lawyer is actually a known and infamous impersonator, the corporal is practically stunned until he hears that Schaeffer once impersonated a chaplain.
  Klinger: A chaplain!
  Schaeffer: Right now, somewhere in America, twenty-five couples are living in sin.
• Foreshadowing: While in the OR with no idea where Frank is, B.J. makes the suggestion that Frank went crazy and travelled to Tokyo to find Margaret. He wasn't entirely wrong.
• Forgot About His Powers: When Hawkeye tosses the telephone out the door in anger after hearing from Frank about the major getting a promotion, Radar's incredulous reaction over it means that either Radar wasn't able to sense what Hawkeye was about to do or Hawkeye has learned how to outsmart his telepathy.
• Fur and Loathing: Radar, the Animal Lover, admires Winchester's High-Class Gloves... until he's informed they're calfskin.
• The Ghost: The entire story about Frank Burns going crazy in Seoul and getting locked up and then promoted is portrayed without him ever actually appearing onscreen, as Larry Linville had already left the show.
• Hate at First Sight: Within seconds of meeting Winchester, Hawkeye and B.J. size him up as the self-important jerkass he is, especially after the major coldly rebuffs their attempts at small talk. It's lampshaded in a subsequent scene.
  Hawkeye: Oh, I'm not playing second-scalpel to this garbanzo for the rest of the war.
  B.J.: Let's skip the Christmas rush and start hating him now.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Winchester makes the mistake of discussing his commanding officer's gambling debts while said commanding officer is on the phone with a MASH unit requesting a surgeon.
  • Also Baldwin, who taught Winchester to play cribbage in the first place.
• Humiliation Conga: Winchester's temporary Korean assignment starts with his jeep being blown up, leading to him being carried the rest of the way by oxcart. It ends with his assignment being made permanent.
• Hypocritical Humor: After Hawkeye and B.J. explain to Margaret why they believe Donald was unresponsive to her on her honeymoon (see The Loins Sleep Tonight below), Hawkeye adds Frank never had that problem because he had every other problem, which Margaret responds to:
  Margaret: I know, Frank Burns was a little too by the book for you guys, but I personally have some very fond memories of our friendship. (looks through Frank's things) That DIRTY RAT! My alarm clock! He told me the bellboy took it.
• I'm Standing Right Here: Major Winchester is informed that MASH units usually only meatball surgery rather than the fine surgical techniques he's used to, and he criticizes how primitive that form of surgery is right in front of Colonel Potter, Hawkeye, and B.J.
  Potter: We have a ninety-eight percent survival rate, cowboy.
  Hawkeye: Charles.
  Winchester: No offense intended, Colonel.
  B.J.: Offense accepted, Major.
  • Then, when it's announced that Berman is going into heart failure due to a ventricular aneurysm:
    Winchester: Why the panic?
    Hawkeye: Can you do anything about it?
    Winchester: I've done at least a dozen.
    Hawkeye: Successfully?
    B.J.: No offense intended, Major.
    Winchester: Offense accepted.
• Informed Self-Diagnosis: Doctor Berman, a wounded physician, keeps diagnosing himself pessimistically (and not inaccurately, given that until Winchester arrived nobody knew how to operate on him adequately).
• Internal Reveal: Subverted in that he had his suspicions about them, but Father Mulcahy never really knew Frank and Margaret were an item until he broached the subject with Hawkeye and B.J. in this episode (It's implied that Mulcahy was the only one in camp that didn't know about the two of them).
  Hawkeye: They knew each other in the biblical sense.
  B.J.: Both testaments.
  Father Mulcahy: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. And he's a married man. My worst fears are confirmed.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Winchester is an alum of Harvard.
• Karma Houdini: While in Seoul, Frank has a nervous breakdown, accosts several women, and gets in a public bath with a one-star general and his wife... both of whom are naked. After passing his psychiatric evaluation, he's cleared of all charges, transferred to a veterans' hospital in Indiana, and promoted. Naturally, Hawkeye's response is to toss the phone to the ground in disgust.
• Kicked Upstairs: Also Frank. He may still be an army doctor and have a promotion, but he'll likely perform far fewer surgeries back home. And moving back home means having to face his wife and family.
• Literary Allusion Title: After a 1964 Broadway musical of the same name written by Comden and Green with Jule Styne (and starring Carol Burnett).
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: The reason Margaret's honeymoon is cut short, after being confronted with Margaret's past at a party with some brass dulls Donald's passions.
• Mess on a Plate: The scrambled eggs served at breakfast, according to Hawkeye.
  Hawkeye: Does it come with a straw?
  Klinger: Sorry, sir. Just ran out.
  Hawkeye: Pass.
• Newhart Phonecall: Hawkeye has one of these with Frank, where he learns about his now-former nemesis's good fortune.
• Obfuscating Insanity: Klinger's "lawyer", who's actually a private with a history of impersonating officers.
• Out-of-Character Alert:
  • After learning from Radar that Major Burns has not yet returned from his temporary leave, Colonel Potter remarks that kind of behavior is not like Frank.
    Potter: He's a lousy surgeon and a pain in the butt. However, he's always on time.
  • After a whole season of Margaret lauding her now-husband Donald and belittling Frank at every opportunity, Hawkeye and B.J. realise something went wrong between Margaret and Donald on their honeymoon in Tokyo when she remarks that "in some ways, Donald is no Frank Burns".
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat:
  Potter: We're pretty informal up here. We get very close.
  Winchester: [coldly] I don't intend to be here long enough to get chummy.
  Hawkeye: Well, I'll drink to that.
  B.J.: I'll join you.
• Pet the Dog: Hawkeye and B.J. are the ones who arranged for Frank to get R&R after he started to have a breakdown following Margaret's marriage.
• Put on a Bus: Frank Burns, albeit offscreen.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: How Winchester arrives at the 4077th:
  Potter: Orders are cut. It's final.
  Winchester: No! No. Colonel Baldwin assured me this is just temporary.
  Potter: Is this the same Colonel Baldwin who owes you $600?
  Winchester: [laughs] Yes.
  Potter: Need I say more?
  • Inverted for Frank, who is promoted to lieutenant colonel and transferred to a cushy stateside job at a VA hospital near his home.
• Sanity Slippage: The reason why Hawkeye and B.J. requested for Frank to be sent on temporary leave was that they were both worried and annoyed with his behavior, such as whimpering in his sleep at midnight and crying into his pillow every night since Margaret's wedding. It doesn't work as well as it should have, as Frank jumps off the slope while in Seoul.
• Sarcasm Mode: Winchester's disgusted opinion of the 4077th.
  Charles: Charming place. An enflamed boil on the buttocks of the world.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Winchester tries this when he protests to Col. Potter about being permanently assigned to the 4077:
  Charles: Sir, my father knows Harry S. Truman. He doesn't like him, but he knows him.
  Potter: [sarcastically] Fine. You have Dad call Harry, then have Harry call me, and then we'll work something out.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: B.J.'s patient, who wants to get out of the war... not for fear of death, but out of a desire to stop killing people.
• This Means War!: After enduring Winchester's slights for the entirety of the two-part episode, Hawkeye and B.J. decide It's Personal when he makes one more to their surgical ability.
  Hawkeye: I'm not gonna play second scalpel to this garbanzo for the rest of the war.
  B.J.: Why don't we avoid the Christmas rush and start hating him now?
• Tranquil Fury: Hawkeye's reaction to finding out about Frank's promotion (while on the phone with Frank) is to pick up the phone, walk to the exit doors, and throw the phone out onto the ground, then come back inside and calmly explain to B.J. why he's, as B.J. put it, a "trifle irked". B.J. attempts to do the same thing later, after Radar brings the phone back in, but Radar's too fast for him.
• The Unrepentant: Private Schaeffer has a long history of impersonating officers and is very unapologetic about it, except to Klinger.
• You Are Already Dead: Captain Berman is firmly convinced he's this trope; with his medical knowledge, he's well aware that his injuries are almost impossible to survive. But he hadn't reckoned on Charles.

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