Current Events > This post about MASH and the Weakerthans has me all sorts of fucked up *spoilers

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This is gonna be a flopic supreme because I feel like the Venn diagram between MASH fans and Weakerthans fans is like the thinnest sliver of arcane fuckin weirdo douchebag hipster dickheads like myself, but god I need to get this to some sort of wider audience.

First of all I heavily recommend listening to the Weakerthans song this post is about. It's called Sun in an Empty Room:

https://youtu.be/P6LhDUM02zM

Which is somewhat based on the famous painting of the same name by Edward Hopper, painted weeks before his death:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/7/0/AAbh80AADgpq.jpg

The Weakerthans song is more about the death of a relationship, which is a whole kettle of fish that I'm just gonna move past.

And then you have MASH, a landmark piece of television with arguably the best ending of any TV show ever. Probably the pinnacle of its craft. Maybe overshadowed since, but the original.

The crux of the show basically comes down to Hawkeye and his relationship with his significant friends over the course of the Korean war. It comes down to everyone's relationship with everyone, but Hawkeye is the main character and his close friendships drive a lot of the show.

His first best friend in the war, "Trapper" John McIntyre, left without saying goodbye. Hawkeye missed him by 12 minutes - he said he was going on leave, but he was going home from the war and when Hawkeye found out, he missed John's train by twelve minutes. A part of that is that Hawkeye has trouble saying goodbye - and while the act of leaving like that is significantly hurtful, I think that was Trapper's way of honouring Hawkeye in a messed up roundabout way.

Trapper's role as Hawkeye's best friend is soon filled by B.J. Honeycutt, a mustachioed man who complements Hawkeye instead of just filling a similar role. An early episode had Hawkeye and Trapper removing a healthy appendix from a young man so he would be sent home from Korea - when the show comes back to that idea, it creates conflict because Honeycutt sees it as mutilation and an affront to the Hippocratic oath. Hawkeye views it as saving a life, but Honeycutt sees it as a perversion of their craft.

That brings us to the final episode of MASH, where - spoilers - the war is over. They made it out alive. It's time to go home.

But remember, Hawkeye can't say goodbye.

Another part of that is that once you go home from the war, you'll probably never see your comrades again. You're going 5,000 miles back home, separated by any number of miles from your friends' town, state, street. This is the 50's, too - even writing would be a challenge, and it just wouldn't be the same. Those relationships, more often than not, just end. Remember how Trapper left - it can be intuited that Hawkeye never saw him again. And it's about to happen with B.J. Honeycutt too. Colonel Potter and Klinger and Hot Lips Houlihan too, but Honeycutt most of all.

And a big part of that final episode is getting around the problem of saying goodbye. And that's what makes it the first "best last episode of television", because they stick the fucking landing.

By now I'm assuming you've listened to the Weakerthans song. Let it sink in, chew on it for a while. Think about its relationship with what I've described about MASH.

Here's the post combining the two.

https://writtenbyalanalda.tumblr.com/post/681871299402940416/the-weakerthans-sun-in-an-empty-room

"We don't live here any more" indeed.

This post makes me go fucking feral. Like you have to understand, I love the Weakerthans. I had Sun in an Empty Room as my phone alarm for years. MASH is a masterpiece, even if I don't think about it very often.

For these two things to have gotten their wires crossed this perfectly is a miracle. This post scratches parts of my brain nowhere else can reach. Like are you kidding me? I want to eat this post. I don't want to print it out and eat a physical copy of it, I want to consume what this post is. Are you fucking kidding me.

Anyway hope you liked it too