M*A*S*H (MASH) s05e07 Episode Script

U810 - Dear Sigmund

[Hawkeye.]
All right, just to make it interesting, anybody can open with a pair of 10s but only if you're wearing civilian boxer shorts.
[Margaret.]
Oh, don't be ridiculous.
You can't set a rule like that.
- No, it's dealer's choice, Major.
- Will you accept a civilian panty girdle? - Tens and boxer shorts.
- That is the most absurd rule I've ever heard.
- Can anybody open? - I'll open for 25 cents.
I told ya! I told ya! You owe me a buck and a half.
[Hawkeye And B.
J.
Laughing.]
I'm out.
I blew everything last night on Radar's cockroach races.
He had the winner, but it come in riderless.
- Riderless? - The fly fell off.
- I'm in.
B.
J.
? - I'm in.
- Father, you wanna sit in the game? - Huh? Oh, yes.
Oh, I had the most extraordinary dream.
I was a cardinal in Rome, and the pope had a bad cold.
What do you suppose that means, Sidney? You're the skull jockey.
Well, Freud said every dream is a wish.
One time my uncle dreamt he was dancing with a whale.
When he woke up, our cow had eaten his pants.
Do you wanna bet, or do you want Sidney to tell you what that means? Oh, geez.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know it meant anything.
- [Hawkeye.]
You want a loan, Sidney? - No, I think I'll write a letter.
- I've been putting it off.
- You all right? - Yeah.
What do l How do I look? - Cheerful.
I'm worried.
- All right.
What do you want? - Two.
- [Hawkeye.]
Who took my cards? Oh.
- Here they are.
- [Hawkeye.]
You? - [Radar.]
Mm-hmm.
Two.
[Thinking.]
Dear Sigmund, I've been feeling somewhat frustrated lately and so I came to a kind of spa.
The waters are pretty good here.
And the inmates have an interesting defense against carnage.
- Too rich for me.
- [Sidney Thinking.]
Insanity in the service ofhealth.
- Let me see your openers, Margaret.
- Here.
- I'm not talking about your cards.
- Never mind.
[Barking.]
- Did you hear that? - That's great.
Can you do a dog? - Who deals? - [Sidney Thinking.]
One of them is particularly good at it.
- What am I holding the cards for? - Name of Hawkeye.
Couple of weeks ago, he made rounds in post-op with a personality that had split two for one.
Good evening, ladies and germs.
I'm sorry I'm late, but my watch stopped.
It had to.
It's been running fast all week.
Is this the first time you've been pregnant? How long have you had that throbbing in your wrist? "Noyse! Noyse!" - Did you call me, Doctor? - Why should I call you "Doctor"? I'm the surgeon.
- Give him his medication.
Somebody's 15 minutes late.
- Right.
# Doo, dee-doo, dee-doo Whoop, dee-dee # - Well, your feet seem to be coming along just fine.
- It's my head, Doc.
Oh, yes.
For a minute there you had athlete's scalp.
Come on.
Give us a little smile.
Three bucks.
I swear to you.
These earrings go for 7.
50 at the Tokyo P.
X.
Don't you think hoops are a little trashy before breakfast? If I thought it'd get me out, I'd wear hula hoops in my ears.
2.
50? - I'll take 'em for 2.
50.
- Sold.
I hope I win 'em back.
I don't want the holes in my lobes to close up again.
[Sidney Thinking.]
Klinger's an interesting case, Sigmund.
He's found more ways to go crazy than you ever dreamt of.
[Klinger Groaning.]
Sir.
Sir, there's been a terrible accident.
- What happened? - He got hit with a chopper blade, sir.
If Klinger got hit by a chopper blade, he'd look like a malted milk.
It was slowing down.
Look what it did to his helmet.
How come it's got tire tracks on it? [Speaking Arabic.]
- How's that? - Ever since he came to, he only speaks in Arabic, sir.
Gee, what a strange thing.
- Smaha! Smaha! - What'd he say? - He said, "Smaha! Smaha!" - Thank you.
[Speaking Arabic.]
Yeah! It's not gonna work, Klinger.
Yeah! [Groaning.]
- Looks like a relapse.
- His eyes have gone back in his head.
He looks like that every day right after breakfast.
- He's shaking! - Private Habib Radar found me a can of smoked herring for breakfast and right now I'm deliriously happy cleaning my horse's toenails.
- Don't spoil it! - Sir, I'm really scared.
- [Klinger Whimpering.]
- Klinger, wake up! [Screams.]
[Speaking Arabic.]
He's ranting, sir.
He wants his father's cheese from the windowsill.
You can have a piece of my herring, but you're not going home.
[Speaking Arabic.]
Well, thank you very much.
- [Grunts.]
- Sophie, how about that Klinger? Is he a pistol? [Thinking.]
I guess what draws me to these people is that, faced with aggression in its most brutal form they've regressed to a state of antic, if not lunatic, pleasure.
There's been a rash of practical jokes lately.
Whoever the perpetrator is, he or she is becoming a folk hero.
- [Screams.]
- [All Laughing.]
[Sidney Thinking.]
Rank makes no difference.
No one is safe from the madjoker.
[Laughing.]
I'm sorr As you pointed out, Sigmund, there's a link between anger and wit.
Anger turned inward is depression.
Anger turned sideways is Hawkeye.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Hiya, pal.
Hey, you got any way to get back to civilization from here? If this isn't civilization, why am I standing in a bomb crater? Thank you, buddy.
You lost from your unit, or are you trying to see the world on five dollars a day? No, actually I jumped out of my airplane.
Such a nice day you thought you'd walk? My engine was on fire.
But I managed to drop my load before I bailed out.
How lucky for you.
Come on.
I'll take a look at your leg.
- Are you a doctor? - That's what they all think here.
Actually, I just like legs.
Is there a phone here? I don't want my wife to worry when I don't show up at home tonight.
- You go home every night from the war? - Only weekends.
Got a little place in Tokyo.
I tell ya.
For me, the war's been something that lasts about 30 minutes a day.
Then it's back to the base and dinner at the officers' club.
- It's only a war.
Why kill yourself? - Yeah.
My gosh.
Will you look at those boots? What a mess.
What have you been walkin' in, red clay? - No, blood.
- That must be kind of rough on you guys, isn't it? Well, I tell ya.
If I couldn't fly, I wouldn't touch this war.
You fly much? I was shot out of a cannon once by the irate husband of a bearded lady.
It's beautiful up there.
At 20,000 feet, the sky is a brilliant blue.
You fly for a while in that stillness.
Then you take a reading, press a button, and drop your load.
You've never seen the people you've been bombing? Nah.
Never.
I'm a really lucky guy.
- Flying so high with your head in the sky.
- Yeah.
I can't understand why you call this place the Swamp.
We were thinking of calling it the Latrine, but that name was taken.
- That's a private letter.
- Then why'd you leave it under your pillow? Can I have that? I want to erase anything nice I said about you guys.
Uh, Sidney, you're a psychiatrist.
Don't you think writing a letter to Sigmund Freud is a little crazy? Who better than he would understand? - Well, now that makes sense.
- [Chuckles.]
We couldn't help but notice that you came for the poker game and stayed for two weeks.
I just wanted a little vacation.
Sidney, Biarritz is a vacation.
The Swiss Alps is a vacation.
This is a fungus convention at Atlantic City.
There's something special about this place.
You give life here.
I'm running a little low on that right now.
- Would you like to talk about it? - Well winter's the busy season for shrinks here.
The days get shorter.
The nights get colder.
I was getting 15 cases a week of total crack-ups.
Can I have some of that? Business was too good.
I was losing people.
Sidney, we all lose patients.
Actually, the straw that broke my back was this one kid who heard voices telling him to kill himself.
I spent a lot of time with him.
One day he was very calm, relaxed.
Sometimes that's a signal they've made a decision.
Only somehow I missed it.
And that night, after I went to sleep that sweet, innocent, troubled kid listened to the voices.
After that, I started sleeping late.
I wasn't doing my work.
Well, well, well.
So the doctor can't cure himself, huh? - God, I thought that lump under his blankets was dirty laundry.
- It is.
You can listen to their bleeding-heart gobbledygook all you want.
I say, if you want to keep your feet on the ground you gotta pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
Why don't you pull yourself up by your own jockstrap? It makes me no never mind.
I got all my cookies.
[All Laughing.]
[Thinking.]
If there's a way to preserve your sanity in wartime, they've found it.
They slide their patched-up patients into the evac ambulance like loaves into a bread truck and yet they never forget those packages are people.
- [Crash.]
- Hey! Hey, help! Get a Get a medic! Medic! Come on, you guys! - [All Chattering.]
- [Radar.]
Oh, no! [Radar.]
Get 'em out.
Be careful! Look out for broken bones.
[Radar.]
He hit the turn too fast and it rolled over.
Are these guys gonna be okay? - Take a couple guys up front.
We'll work from back here.
- Bob.
Dennis.
Come up front.
- Get these men back into pre-op.
- This guy's in shock.
Start a glucose I.
V.
This kid had one good arm.
Now it's broken.
Make sure those stitches aren't pulled.
Get the X-ray machine going.
[All Chattering.]
- Who the hell did this? Was O'Donnell drivin'? - Yes, sir.
That klutz.
He isn't makin' any points for gettin' them there fast.
He's gotta get 'em there in one piece! Tell O'Donnell I want to see him in my office.
And this time he can shake his can! You got that? He's dead, sir.
Nurse, I need you in pre-op.
Come on.
- Hathaway, grab the other end of this.
- I can get that.
No, I want him to do it.
- Can I give you a hand, Father? - Yeah.
Get the other end.
[Sidney Thinking.]
Father Mulcahy fascinates me, Sigmund.
He's shy and studious, and yet he's got a left hook that could stop a truck.
And with absolutely no training, he seems to be a complete natural as a therapist.
- How are you doing, John? - I didn't know what hit me.
I was on my stretcher, and then a second later, three guys are laying on top of me.
I used to wake up every morning like that when I was a boy.
I had to sleep with my brothers.
I'm not going back in that ambulance.
It's too dangerous.
And I'm not getting in any chopper.
Well, uh, all right.
We'll send you back on a nice, slow, safe ship.
You'll see your family in three or four months.
- Four months? - [Mulcahy.]
About that.
When's the next ambulance leave? - In an hour or so.
- What's holding it up? - Didn't I tell you to move that whole blood back there? - [Speaking Arabic.]
Move that blood or I'll make you drink it, you Transylvanian lunatic! [Sidney Thinking.]
Margaret's an interesting woman.
On the outside, all discipline and strength and on the inside, six kinds of passion looking for an exit.
Major, word has gotten around that you're feeling kind of low.
[Sidney.]
Hard to keep a secret here in Macy's Window East, isn't it? Well, everyone kind of keeps an eye on everybody else here.
You're not thinking of doing anything foolish? Oh, no.
I mainly have this dull ache behind my nose and a feeling of listlessness.
Sort of a severe Geritol deficiency.
You ever get like that? No, never.
I wouldn't permit it.
- How do you manage that? - I just don't let it get to me.
The wounded don't get to you? The cold? The food? The rats? Major, I have three nurses down with dysentery.
I have a shortage of sulfa, surgical gowns and rubber gloves.
And I got a call from my fiance in Tokyo this morning who celebrated his birthday last night without me.
He must miss you very much.
No.
He said they had a very good time.
I see.
Am I upset? Am I distressed? [Chuckles.]
No.
One has to be strong, Major.
In strength is serenity.
Well, I take my hat off to you, Margaret.
- Just a minute, Major.
What is that thing doing over there? - I'm sorry.
What thing? You let a woman sit down and have a drink with you with that thing there? You mean the athletic supporter? Major, you're a nurse.
It's disgusting! Will you put something over it? - Like a fig leaf? - How dare you parade that thing in front of me.
Major, it isn't even mine.
It belongs to one of those repulsive, drunken, lecherous, evil cretins.
They live like pigs.
They have the morals of baboons.
- Will you please put your hat on it? - Certainly.
- Thank you.
- My uniform is proud to serve.
I'm sorry you got upset.
- I'm not upset.
- Well, a little agitated.
Not at all.
It would be useless.
I wouldn't permit it.
- Right.
- And you can do it if I can.
I don't feel a thing.
I don't feel a thing.
[Sidney Thinking.]
Some people won't accept pain.
Theyjust refuse delivery.
That's pretty difficult here, because pain is such a basic ingredient to the MASH unit.
- What have you got there? - [Hawkeye.]
A couple of guys fell on him and pulled the stitches in his abdominal wall and peritoneum.
B.
J.
's scrubbing up.
- [Hawkeye.]
You had to go back in? - She started bleeding again.
I guess I didn't get all the holes the first time.
Hey, she's just a little kid.
Eight years old.
I got a granddaughter back home who's about eight.
- What happened to her? - Somebody dropped a bomb on her village from an airplane.
- Who did it? - He just dropped it.
He didn't autograph it.
No, I mean was it one of theirs or one of ours? - What difference does that make? - A lot.
It makes a lot of difference.
Not to her.
- You brought me in there on purpose, didn't you? - Yep.
You're a real S.
O.
B.
You know that? Look, you seem like a decent guy.
Too decent to think that this can be anything like a clean war.
From up there it is.
Was.
God, she's just a little baby.
[Sobbing.]
- I'm sorry.
- It's okay.
a long way to come down.
- It's coming nicely, Frank.
- Actually, it's one of several.
I don't intend getting caught more than six paces away from a good hole if somebody shouts "air raid.
" - Prior planning.
- Prevents poor performance.
- Hmm.
Catchy.
- Yeah, well, I'm going home in one piece, brother.
- You sound determined.
- Let's just say I've been getting some signals from my wife back home.
- She needs a man there.
A whole man.
- Signals? Yeah.
You know, hints.
- She's been going in for strange things.
- Like what? She's not behaving like herself, and let's just leave it at that, okay? - Okay.
- Oh, what the heck.
[Laughing.]
You're a psychiatrist.
I guess you've heard it all, huh? Well, I thought I'd heard it all.
She got together with some of her lady friends and they went on a trip to Indianapolis for no reason.
- For no reason? - Just to look around.
It cost $55.
And she's getting mixed up in politics stuffing envelopes for the Republican Club and maybe even, uh ringing doorbells.
It sounds as though she's stepping out on her own a little.
- That's what I think.
- People grow, Frank.
- When I go home, I want the same girl I married.
- Right.
Well, she's changing.
She's becoming sexy and provocative and I got a letter today with a picture of her in slacks walking away from the camera.
Frank, maybe she's just trying to find out who she is.
That doesn't mean she's leaving you.
You bet she isn't, bub.
I happen to believe in the sanctity of marriage no matter how ugly or disgusting it gets.
I'll kill her before I divorce her.
I'm not suggesting either.
Oh, no of course you're not.
[Chuckles.]
I should have known better than to tell something personal to a psychiatrist.
[Thinking.]
Actually, Sigmund, it's a wonder more people here don't take a vacation from reality.
Don't take a vacation from reality.
Some people even manage to grow.
- Radar, for instance.
- Come on! Come on! In many ways, he's still as innocent and naive as the local orphans he plays with.
And yet this boy keeps this unit this state of chaos running smoothly.
Uh, sir, I have some papers for you to sign before you go to bed.
Just in time, Radar.
I was just saying good night to Mrs.
Potter.
Say good night for me too, sir.
- Unless she's in her nightgown or something.
- [Chuckles.]
I'll ignore that.
Uh, sir, here's the mess requisition.
- I ordered 500 hams.
- Isn't that kind of a lot? Well, Sergeant Skinowsky from over the 309th says he'll trade me ice cream and fruit for ham.
I figured it might be a good idea to order a few extra.
Good boy, Radar.
I haven't had fruit for so long, my colon will think it's a stickup.
That's a good one, sir.
- This is the updated patients list.
- Right.
- What's in the box? - Um, it's the ambulance driver's personal effects, sir.
It's going out to Graves Registration.
- Did you write a little note for me to his folks? - Yes, sir.
It's right here.
I never know what to say.
Of all the lousy duties I've had to perform in this service that's always been the lousiest.
You can change it if you want, sir.
I'm not sure all the words are exactly right or anything.
"Dear Mr.
And Mrs.
O'Donnell "It is with real deep sadness that I must tell you of the death of your son.
"You can be very, very proud of Jerry.
"He never took a human life, and he died "while he was trying to save the lives of five other fellows.
"He was rushing them to the evac "which is short for evacuation hospital, in Seoul "when his ambulance overturned.
"He was a real good boy, Mr.
And Mrs.
O'Donnell "and I know he loved you both very much.
"He spoke of you often to my company clerk, Corporal Walter O'Reilly.
"We were proud of him at MASH and we'll miss Jerry very, very much.
" - Thank you, Radar.
Don't change a word.
- Thank you, sir.
[Thinking.]
The one person I can't figure out, even with all you've taught me, Sigmund is B.
J.
Hunnicutt.
- He's an enigma with size- 13 shoes.
- Get that guy to pre-op now.
In the midst of the most terrific enterprise ever devised to separate a person's brains from his buns B.
J.
Goes calmly on.
I envy his serenity.
- Although there must be a volcano under there somewhere.
- Oh, give me that.
- [Screams.]
- [Laughing.]
[Water Running.]
- Oh, hi.
- You! You're the practical joker? It certainly looks that way, doesn't it? - Would you like to help? - Sure.
What do I do? As loud as you can, shout, "Air raid!" Air raid! Air raid! Air raid! Air raid! Air raid! Air raid! [Gasping.]
"Colonel Potter is pleased to announce that today is the first day of spring.
"In recognition of this event "we are unveiling the cherry tree branch "that we have been trying to grow in a hothouse kind of "ever since Major Houlihan got the branch for us when she went away to get engaged to Tokyo.
" Oh, thank you.
"And now, in honor of the first day of spring" Okay, that's it.
- You leaving, Sidney? - Afraid so.
- Hate to be cured and run.
- You feel better? Yeah, I think I do a little.
It's like spring at MASH.
If you can't find it, and you can't feel it, you just go ahead and make it.
Somewhere in here, I'm coaxing a little bud to grow.
- Meanwhile, I'm goin' back to work.
- See ya at the game next week? Yes, I'll be here with $20 in my pants and three aces up my sleeve.
Show a little imagination.
Don't make them all spades.
Clamp.
[Sidney Thinking.]
They look every day into the face of death.
- I'll be closing in five minutes.
- On the surface they may seem like other doctors and nurses but underneath Ah, Sigmund, underneath.

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