"M*A*S*H" Period of Adjustment (1979)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Charles S. Dubin

Writers:

Jim Mulligan (writer)
John Rappaport (writer)

TV Series:

"M*A*S*H" (1972)

Original Air Date:

22 October 1979 (Season 8, Episode 6)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | War

Plot:

B.J. and Klinger get drunk in despair at being envious to the now departed Radar. |

Plot Keywords:

Nurse | Colonel | Doctor | Korean War | Captain

Cast

Alan Alda	...	Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce
Mike Farrell	...	Captain B.J. Hunnicut
Harry Morgan	...	Colonel Sherman T. Potter
Loretta Swit	...	Major Margaret Houlihan
David Ogden Stiers	...	Major Charles Winchester
Jamie Farr	...	Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger
William Christopher	...	Father Francis Mulcahy
Eileen Saki	...	Rosie
Jan Jorden	...	Nurse Baker
Jeff Maxwell	...	Igor Straminsky
Gwen Farrell	...	Nurse Able

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Goofs:

Continuity: Potter says to Father Mulcahy "You wouldn't lie to a Presbyterian, would you?" In the episode "Welcome To Korea," Potter had said he was Methodist.

Quotes:

B.J.: [cantankerously drunk] Well, if it isn't Benjamin Franklin Pierce Hawkeye, named for a president, an Indian, and a stove.

Waking Up To Reality!!

The opening clip of "Period Of Adjustment" had colonel Potter speaking to I-Corps about Corporal Klinger's job as company clerk. Colonel Potter threw up his papers and files in frustration. He had surly word about Klinger's incompetency in his new role. Colonel Potter would threatened Corporal Klinger with a potato peeler for the duration of the war. Major Houlihan would later tell Corporal Klinger about the missing requisition forms concerning two new nurses at the 4077th. From there, all the mail was delivered to everyone in "The Swamp" about "Radar" O'Reilly's visit with Peg and Erin Hunnicutt at the San Francisco International Airport -- for which he would subsequently head to Ottumwa, Iowa for his Uncle Ed's funeral. The surgeons acted coldly about the greeting in the letter.

Major Houlihan told Corporal Klinger that his appetite was the only thing he did not lose as company clerk. Captain Hunnicutt told everyone -- in the mess tent -- that Radar was better off dead; better off with his family; better off than everyone at the 4077th. Captain Hunnicutt started acting angry about missing his wife and his little girl -- while in conversation with Captain Pierce -- in "The Swamp." He started getting drunk to the point where he would eventually destroy his martini glass, the concoction, and slug Captain Pierce in his left eye. Eventually, Klinger and Hunnicutt would become drunk at Rosie's Bar; then in Colonel Potter's Office. Colonel Potter and Major Houlihan would tell them they were a pathetic pair for their display of inebriate behavior.

Colonel Potter would eventually help Corporal Klinger assume new responsibilities as company clerk with some assistance and direction. Captain Pierce would see Captain Hunnicutt in a drunken stupor. He would tell Captain Pierce that he was sorry for his amoral conduct with his buddies. He would later tell Hawkeye -- in a weeping motion towards the end of the episode -- that Erin's lifetime would not come again in his conversation ... within his own family. A Definite "A!!"