Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen (M*A*S*H episode)
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"Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" was the 251st and final episode of M*A*S*H. The episode aired on Monday, February 28, 1983 and was 2½ hours long. It was viewed by nearly 125 million Americans (77% of viewership that night) which established it as the most watched episode in USA's television history, a record which still stands today.
Detailed story
The finale starts in the waning days of the war with Hawkeye Pierce in a mental hospital, finally driven over the edge by a bus ride gone terribly wrong.
Hawkeye is returning from a trip to a beach when a wounded soldier is brought onto the bus. This is the first memory Hawkeye represses, and it's originally played off as a drunk and jovial Hawkeye wanting a bottle of whiskey to be passed to the back of the bus for someone he says "can't wait." The memory comes back again, and the person is revealed to be a soldier, and then the real situation rears its ugly head as a frustrated Hawkeye, unable to believe that the atmosphere on the bus is so jovial in light of this soldier's injury, calls for a bottle of plasma.
The bus then picks up a group of Korean refugees, followed later by more wounded soldiers. Then, every person on the bus is in danger of being discovered and executed by a North Korean patrol. Hawkeye scolds the refugees to be quiet but a chicken begins to cluck and its owner responds by smothering it. Hawkeye breaks down crying as he remembers that the chicken was actually a baby, and he hadn't wanted to remember it.
Meanwhile, a tank is driven into the 4077th and crushes the latrine. Charles Emerson Winchester, going to use the "ravine latrine," befriends a rag-tag bunch of Chinese musicians and teaches them to play Mozart's "Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, K. 581". Colonel Potter gets orders not to move the tank.
Charles also is bemoaning the fact that a competitor for an administrative position at Mercy Hospital back in Boston has been pulling strings in an attempt to get the job. Hot Lips tries to help him get the job, and succeeds in doing so, but when Winchester finds out what she has done, he is none too pleased.
B.J. Hunnicutt gets his discharge papers, and the presence of the tank causes the North Koreans to begin bombing the unit. During the initial bombing, Father Mulcahy goes out to try to save a group of prisoners of war who have been placed in the camp. While he is doing so, he is knocked cold by a bomb that explodes very near to him, and when he wakes up, finds that his hearing has begun to deteriorate. He makes B.J. promise not to tell anyone about his hearing problem, because it could get him sent home where he wouldn't be able to continue helping the local orphans.
B.J. leaves for home before Hawkeye returns to the camp to find a fresh batch of wounded waiting for him. With the bombing of the camp continuing, Hawkeye takes the initiative and drives the tank out of the camp.
Soon after, a wildfire starts in the surrounding hills and the camp is forced to bug out (An actual wildfire destroyed the outdoor set and had to be written into the script). Almost as soon as the new camp has been set up, B.J. returns, his journey home stopped after word reaches him in Guam that his discharge has been rescinded.
Winchester eventually has to say goodbye to his Chinese music students, due to a POW trade with the Koreans. However, shortly after, one of the musicians is brought back to the camp, barely clinging to life, and Charles is stunned to learn that he is the only one of the students still alive. As a result classical music, his number one solace during the war, becomes unpalatable to him.
Klinger, known throughout the series for constantly seeking a Section 8 discharge, decides to stay in Korea to be with his new wife, Soon Lee, and assist her in her search for her missing parents — even though he, like most of the soldiers, has finally received his release papers.
All the soldiers and officers pack up to go. Hawkeye and Margaret kiss for a very long time.
The final scene involves just B.J. and Hawkeye. B.J. is unable to say goodbye and Hawkeye mocks him for this failure. Both men lament that they will be on opposite sides of the country after they go home and conclude that they will probably never see each other again. They tearfully embrace for the last time, then Hawkeye boards a helicopter and lifts off. Hunnicutt rides off on a motorcycle and as the helicopter ascends Hawkeye sees a final message from his long-time friend spelled out with stones on the sandy soil: "GOODBYE." The message, of course, serves a dual purpose: it was also a message from the creators of the series to its fans, saying "goodbye" after 11 years. As such, it is the last image shown on the screen before the final credits.
The credits run longer, with a longer version of the show theme played instead of the usual short closing theme that had been used for the previous two seasons' worth of episodes.
Trivia
- Alda reportedly had a different idea for what to do for the finale: he wanted it to be a typical half-hour episode, at the end of which the fourth wall would be broken when a director would be heard saying "cut!" during a surgery scene, and crewmen would walk on the set and do what they normally did. Alda would then say to the camera "Well, for the last 12 years we tried to show you what war was like, but it's not as much fun." Alda is the only series regular to be in all 251 installments of M*A*S*H.
- M*A*S*H finished up its 11-season run on CBS with a repeat of "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" on September 19, 1983. It was repeated again in summer 1984.
- M*A*S*H was one of the most successful shows in TV history. It therefore is not surprising that CBS wanted the franchise to continue. Hence was born AfterMASH, following the adventures of Colonel Potter, Max Klinger and Father Mulcahy in a Stateside hospital after the war. Initially popular, script problems and constant character changes led to a steep decline in viewers, and the show lasted a mere two seasons.
- Featured the longest televised kiss in history, and was shared between Alan Alda and Loretta Swit.
- Footage from the 1976-1977 season premiere episode "Bug Out" is reused in this episode in the scenes in which the 4077th is forced to bug out to another location due to the incendiary bomb fires. Such scenes were not in the original script, but written in after the Fox Ranch (the area where the series' exterior scenes were shot) was affected by a forest fire during filming.
- This episode has never been aired as part of the series' syndication run in the United States. It was first syndicated in the mid-1990s as a separate feature, but it does air on occasion with the rest of the series on the Hallmark Channel.
- This episode is the only episode of the series to feature the title of that particular episode on screen.
- This episode has the most writers credited for a single episode in the entire series run with eight writers.
- This was not the series' last filmed episode; in fact the episode that preceded it, "As Time Goes By", which aired the previous week, was the last filmed episode.
- Alan Alda and Loretta Swit are the only actors to appear in both the first episode of M*A*S*H and this, the last episode. The chaplain Father Mulcahy also appears in both, but is played by different actors in the two episodes.
| Preceded by: "As Time Goes By" | M*A*S*H episodes | Followed by: None; Series Finale |
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