YMMV / M*A*S*H S4 E3: It Happened One Night

• Genius Bonus: B.J.'s "one man's family" crack (see Big "SHUT UP!" on the main recap page) references a long-running radio program largely forgotten today but that any of the characters on the show would be familiar with.
• Heartwarming Moments: After getting shot on sentry duty and being admitted to the post-op ward, Klinger does nothing but try to take advantage of the incident by using it to get sent home. All his rants, as well as attempting to get sick, exasperate Hawkeye, Margaret and later B.J. to no end. Then when B.J. decides to operate on a patient a second time, Margaret is about to go wake up potential donors and cross-match them for B positive blood, as the camp's supply of it has been exhausted. Klinger speaks up, telling them not to wake anybody. Thinking he's about to pull off another crazy antic, B.J. warns him not to do it at that moment. Subverting the expectation, Klinger gets out of bed and volunteers.
  Klinger: I'm B positive.
  B.J.: [smiles] Klinger, how would you like a medal?
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Hawkeye makes a joke that Radar will make someone a fine mother after the war. In a later episode, Gary Burghoff (Radar's actor) would double as Radar's mother.
• Nightmare Fuel: Abbott, a patient resting in the post-op ward is morbidly tense, warning the doctors away from him, a clear sign he's on the edge of a breakdown. As shelling starts to hit the camp, the inevitable occurs and Abbott flies into a blind panic. By the time Margaret and Hawkeye get him to calm down, the man is in tears and whimpering, pleading for the explosions to be stopped.
  • Abbott continues to break down for the rest of the episode, snapping at Margaret and yelling at Klinger. Then, as another bout of shelling hits the camp, he panics, begging miserably for the doctors to let him die before the artillery can kill him. Hawkeye and Margaret's last altercation with him leads to the chief surgeon and head nurse having to struggle with him and sedate him.
• Out-of-Character Moment: BJ makes a joke about Margaret being sexually assaulted on the way to her tent, which seems more like something Trapper would do.
• Recycled Script: There are elements in this episode that distinctly recall a couple of earlier episodes.
  • B.J. has problems throughout the course of the episode with a patient he operated on, unsure of what's wrong as the patient's health worsens, leading him to operate again a second, successful time. This is the primary plot of Sticky Wicket, where it was Hawkeye who had such problems with a patient and he concluded it in the same fashion.
  • The 4077th is bombarded with friendly fire, like it was in Bombed. Radar also tries to get the shelling stopped by going up the military ladder, similar to what he did in As You Were which also dealt with friendly fire.

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