#i was watching dear uncle abdul and stopped to write this bc the 2nd hand embarrassment was getting to me lol

[marley-manson]

i wonder if hawkeye’s later season thing of like, taking something way too personally or seriously, eg the joke in Dear Uncle Abdul, or his irritation with everything in Picture This, is deliberately meant to feel like he’s starting to crack or if it’s like, the writers wanting to highlight some flaws they feel hawkeye should probably have despite us never really seeing them before

like you do have things like alan alda saying that hawkeye’s defense mechanisms get worn down through the seasons and you can point to this stuff as potential examples of that, things he would’ve been able to laugh off in season 1 getting to him in season 8

you could also argue that he gets more defensive not because of like accumulation of war trauma lol, but like bc of his shifting social position as the cast and tone changes. if it’s meant to highlight his egotism then that makes sense because it’s easier to brush perceived slights off when you’re the most popular guy on campus than when everyone already seems sick of you half the time

and then this is the kinda thing that helps fuel the bipolar headcanon, because stuff like this really comes across as reminiscent of mixed episodes to me, especially his streak of energetic irritability late season 10 (shifting into depression mid season 11). and when you have an episodic show where sometimes hawkeye gets really upset about minor things and sometimes he’s relatively chill, you gotta find an explanation for that. and this one has a lot of evidence for it

or hey, how about he no longer has a perceived enemy to aim this energy at now that he’s mostly retired the anti-military campaigns and Frank is gone, so he ends up lashing out over dumb shit instead. like you could argue he had a similar vibe in For Want of a Boot, eg, but there he was ultimately upset about the military fucking him over rather than about someone stealing his joke, so yk, it felt much more legitimate and reasonable, with a point to make beyond “hawkeye is a drama queen.”

or maybe it’s some of everything

like at the end of the day it still is an episodic show with a bunch of different writers over the course of eleven years so the most likely explanation is probably just like, natural drift and turning shit over to find more plots and new angles to explore, sometimes a little awkwardly bc continuity is haphazard at best. maybe we’re meant to assume hawkeye’s always been like this and we just never got to see one of his tantrums over someone else telling a joke or borrowing his socks or whatever before

or maybe the season 8+ writing staff just didn’t really differentiate between hawkeye yelling about boots vs hawkeye yelling about socks, because to them the resentment towards the military is no more legitimate than resentment towards a roommate. that’s uncharitable lol and I don’t really think that’s the case, but the implication is there. but also to be fair you can also argue that it all ultimately comes back to the military anyway bc it’s the reason he’s there around these people at all, so these later tantrums are maybe still ultimately about being stuck somewhere against his will, just less explicitly

anyway yeah, i actually like these later petty plotlines for hawkeye lol, i think it’s an interesting aspect of his character and i genuinely enjoy it, but i also can’t imagine these particular storylines happening during an early season so idk, gotta come up with some explanation for it.