#idk that Trapper doing it wouldn't have come off that way

[radarsteddybear]

“Edwina” is not an episode of M*A*S*H that has aged particularly well, but I do think it’s one that would have been better with Trapper as the one chosen to ask Edwina out.

[variousqueerthings]

I mean, you never like Frank true but damn that last scene at the end of season five really is something. Like for a singular moment I existed in a place where I just kinda felt bad for the guy. Love to hate all the rest of his crap though.

oh yeah totally -- I have a post I queued up which goes a little bit into this idea of him as someone who didn't need to stay like this, but when offered opportunities to examine himself, or to even just not do the lazy or racist or uncaring thing in a given situation, he just... doesn't.

and of course he wants to feel persecuted, he likes whining about how he's the victim in all this, and idk what that says in terms of inviting hawkeye (and trapper or bj) to continue messing with him, and the kind of dynamic this builds in which maybe they're all getting what they want out of it (and also the fantasy in his head that one day hawkeye will tell him that actually he was right all along, look I'm not saying that hawkeye's "you're so big and strong frank" is actually something frank wishes he'd say to him in full earnest, but... I mean.... I'm not NOT saying that, and a friendly reminder that in an earlier draft of george, frank was actually going to admit he'd been into a man when he was younger and there are definitely little smatterings of this concept still hanging about in the show)

anyway, his stagnancy and cowardice being the things that lose him what he really wanted is very very good. the later framing of his and margaret's relationship as two messed up people who gravitate towards each other, only for margaret to realise that she can be more than she's been forced to be by others, and especially, mainly, men who have power over her in some way (to the point that she seems to expect herself to be powerless, even though you can tell she's constantly carrying that tension of actually wishing she was in charge/had agency over her choices -- all coming to ahead in s8 of course) -- and honestly, margaret was always smarter and more emotionally aware than frank, she understood a lot better what she was trying to get out of that relationship and then she gradually realised that she would never get those things, and so when she had the chance to leave, she did

(here the obligatory addition that some of the things hawkeye and trapper pull on margaret are just sexist, and I like that -- while we do see them becoming more friendly esp starting in s3 -- there's some changing on their part that they have to do as well, and that that change goes on right through the show for hawkeye. but yeah, no wonder she's lonely)

and then frank's last shot in season 5. he is a victim, of precisely the belief-systems he's taken in to get ahead and used to hurt others (systems that easily turn around on him too, because after all, as much as he likes to pretend he doesn't know this, he is not the example of shining American Masculinity he worships, and you get the feeling he was probably the kid who picked on others so he wouldn't get picked on first), because they have made him a small, petty human being, who wasn't ever going to be good enough for a woman he genuinely loved... he is -- as dr freedman says about flagg one time -- just such a pile of fertilizer that it's hard to care 😂

and I really do want to write a reunion fic in which he gets invited by margaret and he thinks she's going to pick up where they left off, and louise discovers the invite and of course wants to come along -- and it turns out that margaret just wanted to be the bigger person and invited the whole of the 4077th (the ones who weren't rotated out after a couple of weeks/months or so), and louise puts together that margaret is the "houlihan" that frank once described as an old work horse and so couldn't possibly be having an affair with (but she always kind of knew -- not unlike margaret, louise hasn't been given many opportunities to spread her wings, but of course we hear from frank that while he's away she starts going on trips with her friends, getting into politics, wearing slacks...) and reveals that she's been cheating on frank since the war/around the time she was asking for a divorce that he talked her out of

I think public humiliation would be good for him, you know, I think hawkeye et al should definitely be there to see the whole thing going down, because louise makes it a public announcement while everyone is making toasts, I think it's free therapy for the whole rest of the 4077th gang -- life could be worse, at least none of us are this guy

(I think hawkeye might buy frank a couple of drinks even, can't kick the guy while he's down... in the morning though, wake him up with a trumpet close to his head)

and as always, all the kudos goes to larry linville for doing The Most and for having a truly unhinged giggle