During triage when a load of casualties shows up, a sniper begins to fire on the doctors and their patients. No one is badly hurt, but when Charles puts his cap on a hook, he realizes that a bullet entered and exited it, meaning the bullet could just as easily have entered his head. He becomes obsessed with trying to figure out what happens at the time of death. He is trying to figure out why we are what we are; more than the sum of our parts. He even has Rizzo take apart a jeep as a kind of metaphor for this. He begins to hover over a patient that was seemingly dead and then was brought back. He can get no satisfaction, so he goes to a battalion aid station where death is a daily occurrence. This is one of the gut wrenching of all the MASH episodes. There is also a secondary plot line which shows the whole camp, including doctors, taking over mundane duties: the mess tent, the garbage, morale. Hawkeye is met with the craziness that is the Army bureaucracy.
4 Reviews
Bread and Pernelli
safenoe6 February 2020
Warning: Spoilers
This is a very soulful episode with Charles at the center who seeks the meaning of life amidst the carnage of the war. At the end, he comes across a patient on the brink of death, and he smells bread. Very touching. Sgt. Pernelli (Val Bisoglio) makes his debut appearance. I think in a way there wasn't enough room in the mess tent for Pernelli and Igor, so Igor won out (Pernelli only made two more appearances).
It would have been interesting if Pernelli had a spin-off series called Pernelli.
It would have been interesting if Pernelli had a spin-off series called Pernelli.
One of the best
adambharmal14 July 2017
One of the reasons why Charles is my favourite MASH character is summed up by this episode. Superficially, he's pompous and insensitive, but occasionally you see the inner conflict eating away at him. This episode does just that, and is a humbling reminder of life, death and the realities of war.
Not sure where they were going with this one
widsith-5860217 September 2015
After bringing a young soldier back to life, Charles developed a unhealthy obsession with the near death experience. Meanwhile, Colonel Potter assigns various menial tasks - laundry, kitchen duties, trash management - to his senior officers.
This is a average quality episode, where two ideas - that the regular cast couldn't cope with menial tasks delegated to them, and Charles's preoccupation with the moment of death - were used, but neither developed convincingly. Charles's actions in particular are increasingly out of character and credibility. It's always enjoyable to watch the ensemble cast going through their paces, but this is one of the more forgettable episodes.
This is a average quality episode, where two ideas - that the regular cast couldn't cope with menial tasks delegated to them, and Charles's preoccupation with the moment of death - were used, but neither developed convincingly. Charles's actions in particular are increasingly out of character and credibility. It's always enjoyable to watch the ensemble cast going through their paces, but this is one of the more forgettable episodes.
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