#I don't talk about Klinger much and it's because almost everything I have to say involves race issues

[majorbaby]

The thing about Potter is that while he may hate the war, he still loves the army and believes it’s an upstanding institution. He doesn’t grapple with that nearly as much as Margaret does. Plus I have way less sympathy for some high-ranking white dude than I do for Margaret, who is shown being fucked over all the time by the army because she’s a woman and furthermore by the end she decides it isn’t for her. Like I think we’re meant to understand that she’s ultimately unhappy and dissatisfied with her career in the army, and she doubts her life choices.  One of the casualties of Potter’s regular-army-shtick is Klinger, who has to learn this ‘maybe the army isn’t so bad after all’ lesson repeatedly as a trade-off for the development of his and Potter’s relationship. Hawkeye gets the same lesson a few times and it’s just as grating then, but he also has way more screen-time with which to re-assert his morals to us.I don’t doubt that Hawkeye maintains his low opinion of the army for the rest of his life. But we’re meant to understand that Klinger undergoes this arc that sees him as being obsessed with getting out of the army to being kind of okay with it, and even having respect for it, because he knew a colonel once who was a pretty nice guy. Potter being a good dude means that he’s a good dude, not that the army facilitates the production of good dudes, and I didn’t like whenever the show leaned into the latter rather than the former.  And it really gets to me that they had Klinger, the one brown guy on the show (you’re gonna hear me that a lot around here) convey this messaging. I think it’s pretty annoying that Potter’s armyisms are dismissed by the gang as being the old-timey quirks of a grumpy, but charming, old man, or are otherwise framed as being on the moral high-ground opposite HawkBeej who simply don’t understand how terribly hard it is to be a high-ranking army official. Like compare that to Hawkeye and Trapper telling Henry to fuck off whenever he tried that shit lol. That’s not a slight to BJ and Hawkeye’s dynamic, it’s a slight to the overall tone of the show as it progressed.

Lastly, I’m not saying that Potter isn’t allowed to miss his family or his wife, but I don’t think his army doctor career is comparable to BJ’s being plucked fresh out of medical school. I bring up BJ in particular because he and Potter seem to bond over the army wife thing, but Potter choosing to split his life between the army and his family isn’t the same as BJ being forced to leave his wife and child. 

[thebreakfastgenie]

This is SUCH a good analysis. I don't just agree with it, I actually think mostly all the same things. Maybe I wasn't clear enough that most of GFA BJ makes sense to me, but it's okay because I got this great breakdown out of it.

I agree with everything else you said about the visit and I'll add that I always felt like maybe Sidney was taking into account that BJ was leaving when he allowed the visit. Seeing Hawkeye like that is really hard for BJ and he's trying his best but he doesn't know how to handle it. Something I think GFA gets across almost uniquely well, at least in terms of what I've seen from television, is how much pain Hawkeye's mental illness causes both for him and for the people who love him. This makes perfect sense when you consider Alan Alda's family and the fact that he's said that influenced his work.

Giving booze to someone in the psych ward is a really boneheaded move and BJ is a doctor who should really know better but that one I can understand, he's trying very hard to act like things are normal.

The sticking point for me, and the specific thing I was actually talking about not being able to figure out, is the baby booties comment. I understand that he's talking about Erin to ease into the conversation about going home. I even understand that he's not talking about toddler Erin because he's talking about how he remembers her, but he lays it on so thick with the fingernails and the tiny booties. I know he doesn't understand how triggers work but at least for me as a modern viewer, I really just cannot believe that it didn't occur to him that talking about how tiny babies are might be upsetting to someone who just watched a baby die AND felt responsible AND got institutionalized shortly afterwards. BJ was presumably in the O.R. when Hawkeye started yelling about the anesthetist trying to smother his patient.

And BJ was on the bus too. This ties into one of my questions about GFA which is that we never really see how BJ, Margaret, Mulcahy, or Klinger is affected by the incident on the bus. They don't directly watch it like Hawkeye does and they're not involved the way he is but they're still sitting on that bus with a dead baby and grieving mother. It's just inconceivable to me that BJ wouldn't have some inkling that talking about tiny baby booties might not go over well.

Some further commentary under the cut:

BJ leaving is actually something I completely sympathize with and it surprises me how negative some takes are about it. Everyone supports him going because if it were them they'd want the same thing. Maybe they're jealous, but they're not going to stop him. And the tragic thing is if Hawkeye were there, if he were well, he would be the first one encouraging BJ to go. He tried to get both Trapper and Henry sent home on medical discharges. When Radar hesitated to take his hardship discharge, Hawkeye started forcibly packing for him. Hawkeye would have a lot of complicated emotions about BJ going but that would include being happy for him and he'd absolutely tell him to go. We know that. BJ knows it too. BJ, I think, wants that blessing from Hawkeye. The tragedy is he can't get it, because Hawkeye isn't himself. He's too sick. It's the tragedy of bad timing, just like in Welcome to Korea. Hawkeye does get better and he does get back, just a little bit too late. Just barely too late.

With not leaving a note, I'm almost with you on that, but not quite. I'm still sorting out my own analysis but there are a few things I can't ignore. First, saying he has to leave a note for Hawkeye IS the first thing he says, but then he doesn't do it. The fact that it's the first thing he thinks of shows he knows how important it is to Hawkeye. I know we see how rushed he is and everything, but also, he knew about the orders for days. He could have written a note after he got back from the hospital, just in case he didn't see Hawkeye again, which he knew was a possibility, but he waited until the last minute. Emotionally I understand why but I think it's significant. Second, he could at least have told Margaret to specifically tell Hawkeye he'd write him when he could, but he doesn't. Additionally, he tells Margaret he tried to leave a note but there was too much to say, and when he gets back he tells Hawkeye there wasn't time. These are not exactly the same thing and I think the fact that he doesn't tell Hawkeye there was too much to say, which might actually go over better, is significant.

Finally, I just don't share your conviction that BJ was so sure he would see Hawkeye again that he didn't see leaving a note as quite as important as Hawkeye did. I'm not sure about this but something that is on my mind a lot is whether BJ was entirely sure Hawkeye was ever going to get better. He's really shaken by that visit and coming off of that, I can definitely see him trying to write a note and not being able to because he keeps being hit with this horrible thought of "what if he's never able to read it?" Also, the way he reacts to "tell me the next time you see me" does not feel like someone who is, at that point, confident that he will in fact see Hawkeye again. I also think at this point he could easily have said goodbye as in, the end of this visit, allowing Hawkeye to understand it is more than that later once he's able to handle it. Instead, when Hawkeye finds out BJ is gone, he assuredly figures out BJ knew he was leaving before that visit and didn't say anything, which hurts, and which is what BJ was trying to avoid in the first place (as well as wanting to say goodbye for himself).

I don't think BJ's inability to say goodbye comes from him being so sure he'd see Hawkeye again that it doesn't occur to him. I think BJ is a little in denial and doesn't want to do it. BJ's mindset is you are too important to me, we will see each other again because I will make sure of it, and Hawkeye's mindset is it will never be the same again, you don't know the future, and they're both right. They both accept a little of each other's views in the final goodbye because they've come to understand where the other is coming from. But I think BJ knows perfectly well there's a chance this is the last time he sees Hawkeye and is just actively refusing to accept it, while Hawkeye had abandonment issues and a history of losing people and wants that goodbye just in case.

Ok i regularly see the “Trap is better for Hawkeye’s mental health” argument and I’m consistently baffled how anyone has come to that conclusion on source material alone. Hawkeye’s mental health - or his grasp on it - is simply just… better in seasons 1-3. He has some obvious episodes but in truth Trapper (and Henry) went very much for a ‘plug the leak’ technique rather than any serious help? Hawkeye actually saying “you let me lean on you”, which frankly I take to mean more generally anyway, isn’t really enough for me to judge. I’d want to see this in action, which we barely do. As far as I can see people just say “Trapper would do better” based on vibes and personal preference alone.. which is fine but… i see this presented as more fact than headcanon.

So when I talk about this I pretty regularly say I have no idea how well Trapper would handle later seasons Hawkeye when he starts doing much worse. It’s one of the big questions I have that will never be answered by canon. When I say Trapper is better at handling Hawkeye’s mental health I mean he’s better at handling what he got. It’s not an equal comparison.

It is mostly based on vibes and headcanons but “you let me lean on you” actually doesn’t come into the equation! Trapper just always seems like he’s paying attention. I don’t put Henry and Trapper on the same level because I don’t think Henry paid as much attention. But Trapper seems really aware of what’s going on with Hawkeye. At the end of Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde, Henry asks “McIntyre, what makes him do these things?” which in my headcanon implies this isn’t the first incident like this. Trapper is just doing his best to manage it. Sedating him was also a very solution-oriented move. Whatever the underlying issue it was definitely medically necessary at that point. Adam’s Rib also feels a lot of the time like Trapper is sort of trying to manage Hawkeye.

It is somewhat a plug and leak approach, but I think at that point that was appropriate. Their options for serious help are severely limited. At that point the army might not even think psychiatric treatment was warranted, and if they did that’s a whole can of worms. The psychiatrists we see before Sidney are not trustworthy or people Hawkeye would be safe with. Sidney doesn’t start taking on that role until his third appearance, in season 3. He would have benefited from more help in seasons 1-3 but what he needed wasn’t available in the army in the 1950s. Trapper knew that and was just doing the best he could.

Even later on the lack of appropriate care is an issue. There’s a reason they don’t get Hawkeye any official mental healthcare until they literally have no other choice. I think there are probably times they needed to do more but I’m way more critical of Potter on this front than BJ. Potter is repeatedly shown to be aware of Hawkeye’s fragile mental health. He’s almost more of a parallel to Trapper that way than BJ is.

I think BJ handles The Late Captain Pierce as well as he could and honestly Trapper probably would have done the same thing. But I do think BJ is less aware than Trapper, which again is based on vibes. It’s also based on when we meet them. When we meet Hawkeye and Trapper they’ve known each other for a while, so naturally Trapper is already aware. When we meet BJ, he meets Hawkeye. Part of the story for BJ is him realizing just how bad his new friend’s mental health is which is fascinating and sad. I BJ has a bit of a learning curve with it. In Hawk’s Nightmare I honestly think he’s trying to help but he comes across as a little dismissive like he’s minimizing the problem because he genuinely doesn’t understand how bad it is. By Bless You, Hawkeye he’s doing pretty well, or at least as well as everyone else. I think it’s easy to go to far with “BJ isn’t good at handling Hawkeye’s mental health” because a big part of it is just that there isn’t much he can do.

But then there’s GFA and that complicates things. Everyone has a general level of awkwardness and not knowing what to do, but BJ has that visit at the hospital and I genuinely do not understand his behavior there. That probably affects my read of BJ and how he handles Hawkeye in general.

Basically I think Trapper is more aware of what’s going on with Hawkeye and this is based on vibes and some throwaway lines. I don’t think I’ve seen people treating that like it’s canon but it does feel like a bit more than a random headcanon to me, but with the caveat always that Trapper got a very different era of Hawkeye to deal with. I think Trapper would have handled Hawkeye getting worse better than BJ did just because he already had some experience with him but “handling it better” is functionally pretty marginal because again there isn’t much anyone can do, and this is all speculation.