At mail call, the crew sees how sad Fuji is because he is totally cut off from communication with anyone he knows from home, particularly his girlfriend (whom we never heard about before). McHale gets the idea that they can sneak onto a Japanese island and mail a letter on behalf of Fuji.
Next, Fuji has written his letter and is showing it to the gang when Binghamton suddenly is approaching. Fuji hides but nobody scoops up the letter on the table. The captain has an idea to return leaflets dropped from a plane, just like the Japanese did recently, dropping hundreds of papers telling the Americans how they ought to surrender to the invincible Japanese forces. Binghamton came over to get McHale to translate what he wrote into Japanese.
I notice how the captain almost always sends for McHale to come to him, except when the only way trouble begins for McHale & Co. is when Binghamton visits them unexpectedly. In this case, Binghamton sees the letter Fuji wrote on the table and asks McHale what is going on. McHale, unable to come up with a better lie, pretends he had the same idea as Binghamton and he pretends to read a really dopey note full of American slogans-like "red, white and blue" so the captain will dismiss his silly letter and go through with his original plan.
Somehow, Binghamton loses all logic and decides McHale's letter is better than his, so he takes it back to the base to make copies to be distributed. McHale's next interest is in not letting anyone on our side who reads Japanese read that love letter or everything will be over for McHale and friends. He quickly comes up with the idea of telling Binghamton they can drop the leaflets off themselves and leave the Air Force out of it. (Should have been Army Air Corps, but that's trivial.) Binghamton goes for it, somehow.
When they are ready to sail to deliver the letter, and dump the leaflets Binghamton sent, our guys are surprised that Binghamton wants to go along-so he'll get credit. We see the men all in camouflage tacking up leaflets to trees, scattering some when Binghamton isn't looking.
Then we suddenly see McHale and men with Binghamton not around. They see the mailbox the Japanese have in their compound. Tinker is sent to slip Fuji's letter into the box. He nervously drops it to the ground when he hears other soldiers coming, but they pick up the letter and deposit it. All is good for that part of the mission.
So they all return home, not too concerned that they weren't able to discard the leaflets with Fuji's love letter, figuring nobody will make anything of it. Next up, going back when they expect a return letter from Fuji's girlfriend.
So far, I was reasonably happy with this script. But it turned to ludicrous for most of the remainder. Arguing over who will disguise himself as Japanese to accept the letter at mail call, they decide to draw straws. Parker nervously chews his long straw to almost nothing, and doesn't even realize it. He "wins" by having the short straw, and even though McHale is the only one who speaks Japanese in the crew, Parker will attempt to memorize the phrase Fuji has taught him.
They return to the island, and somehow, their incredible luck has it that mail call is about to begin. Despite Parker's total inability to say the phrase correctly, he is going through with his plan to answer the call. Luckily for him, someone else receives some fruit cake and shares it with Parker and another Japanese soldier, so when they call Fuji's name, Parker's mouth is stuffed with cake, so he goes forward and just bows, saying nothing. He gets the letter, but in moving away, backs into a soldier and because he cannot answer any question asked, draws his suspicion, leading to him being discovered.
The Japanese soldier lifts the glasses Parker is wearing, and starts shouting, "Yankee!" Despite over a dozen Japanese soldiers right there, Parker gets off into the woods and he and McHale and the others get away without incident.
There are two twists at the end back at McHale's base that I will not reveal, including one about what happens when Binghamton discovers what "his" flier really said.
I liked a story that featured Fuji, but this one just had too much that was unbelievable to be all that enjoyable.
All of the problems with Binghamton would have been avoided if when they first saw him coming, Fuji took the letter with him, or if any of the others standing near the table had scooped it up before Binghamton saw it. They normally scoop up everything they don't want Binghamton to see when they see him coming. Here, it was one piece of paper.
How on earth they would have known exactly when mail call came for those Japanese was incomprehensible. Mail service to a remote base far, far from Japan during the war could not possibly have been that regular, and even if they somehow knew the day, happening to have it come moments after the crew arrives is too much of a stretch. But if that was all that was wrong, I could have overlooked that.
Having a spy going into a group of enemy soldiers, expecting he will get by because he memorized one specific phrase, defies logic. It seemed obvious someone else would speak to Parker at some point and not knowing the language at all, he would almost surely be revealed. McHale should have put his foot down and insisted that he was the only one with a chance to get by, due to his knowledge of the language.
I also was annoyed at the gross klutziness of Parker, as he entered the area to receive the letter. He kept going backwards, like he has to look back at where his friends are. He backed into objects and people repeatedly, including after he got the letter. Had he simply walked normally, he might have slipped by without talking to anyone. It was backing into the soldier after he got the letter that forced the conversation that led to his discovery.
How on earth all those Japanese couldn't catch the bumbling Parker once he was discovered also made no sense.
Parker bumbling was often hilarious on this series, but in a good many episodes he was too klutzy, too stupid to be funny. This is, I think, just the second time he went past the line from funny into too-stupid. I remember several other episodes where he had this weakness.
When you add in that Binghamton was an idiot to somehow like the letter that McHale read to him better than his own, I just cannot give this overall episode more than 5 stars.
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