Ending of M*A*S*H
RealtorGal, I'll try to keep this short, but the M*A*S*H finale went like this:
As it starts out, all the ususal suspects are in the camp, except for Hawkeye. It turns out he's in a hospital with our old friend Dr. Sydney Freedman trying to find out why his "cheese has slipped off his cracker". We find out through a series of flashbacks that the gang was on a bus, coming back from a picnic (I think). At first, the flashbacks are benign, everybody had a good time, end of story. Over time, it's revealed that it is nighttime, and there is shelling going on outside. They stop the bus, and everybody is sitting on the bus, staying quiet, hoping the North Koreans don't find them. There's a Korean woman on the bus holding a chicken. The chicken is making noise, and Hawkeye says to the woman something along the lines of "keep that chicken quiet". The woman ends up smothering the chicken. Then in the last flashback, it is revealed that the woman was actually holding a baby, which she smothered. Hawkeye was consumed with guilt, due to the way he berated the woman to keep the baby quiet, and had initially blocked out the memories. After the big reveal, Hawkeye returns to the camp, a bit nervously at first.
In other stories:
A group of Chinese musicians "surrender" to Charles one day while he's somewhere on the outskirts of the camp. They continually play their instruments while he is trying to listen to one of his phonograph records. He goes to plead with them to stop so he can listen to his Mozart. The band then starts to roughly play a Mozart piece. Charles takes them under his wing and there are several scenes of him teaching and conducting the musicians. Towards the end of the show, the musicians are taken away, I think for a prisoner exchange, but the bus is shelled and they are killed. Charles ends up shattering his Mozart record.
Klinger falls in love with a Korean girl (Soon Li?), who has been separated from her family. They are married during the finale, and Klinger, in an ironic twist of fate, ends up staying in Korea to help find his new in-laws.
The M*A*S*H camp is being shelled throughout the program, because somebody in brass decided to park a tank on the premises. During one of the shellings, Father Mulcahy is knocked unconscious. We later learn that he is suffering a hearing loss, which BJ informs him will only get worse over time. The Padre pleads with BJ not to tell anybody, and he tends to his flock as best he can. On a side note, when Hawkeye returns to the camp, during one of the shelling episodes, he gets into the tank and drives it into the dump area.
BJ is ecstatic to learn early on in the finale that his orders have come up, and he can go home! He goes through hell and high water to get transport home, before somebody changes their mind, and he is bummed because he leaves while Hawkeye is still at the hospital, but due to the increased activity with the impending end of the war, he never gets home. Instead he is returned to the unit. There is a whole substory here about BJ's inability to say goodbye. More about that later.
Margaret and Charles are involved with contacting the right people back home to set up their post war career moves. Initially Margaret is all about advancing her career in the military. I believe Charles gets his coveted job at Massachusetts General and Margaret, after a lot of wrangling, decides to leave the army and work in a hospital.
Col. Potter decides to give his horse, Sophie, to the children's orphange, so that the children can ride her. He, of course, is looking forward to going home for good to his beloved Mildred. His last scene is as he is about to leave with Sophie, on a last ride to take her to the orphanage, and BJ and Hawkeye give him a salute.
There's a lot going on at the end, with things being packed up quickly and everybody securing transport out of the camp. One by one the gang leaves. Finally, it's just Hawkeye and BJ at the helipad. BJ has secured a motorcycle and is driving somewhere to pick up another mode of transport. He has the San Franscisco sign from their mileage pole strapped to the motorcycle. He tells Hawkeye even though he's no good at goodbyes, he's left Hawkeye a message and he takes off on the bike. As Hawkeye's helicopter takes off, he sees BJ has arranged rocks to form GOODBYE in large letters.
One last note, before they pack up to leave, as the time for the final cease fire approaches, everybody is in the surgical ward, working. They have the radio on, and you can hear the shelling. Then, the official time for the cease fire arrives, and the shelling stops. The gang processes that as they continue working.
I hope I didn't forget anything.
I did like the M*A*S*H finale, but by far, my most favorite was the "Newhart" finale. I had watched both of Newhart's shows, and when they ended Newhart with him waking up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette, I was just
To this day, I can't believe that they were able to keep that under wraps!
