MASH 4077 celebrates the birthday of one of their nurses, Edwina Ferguson, but the party goes awry when it turns out Edwina is sad because she had signed up to be a military nurse to find the right guy to spend the rest of her life with and has not had a man in her life at all since being dumped. And it seems like she never will, as her round of service in Korea is near completion, and she will be going home in a couple of weeks.
When it appears that no man at the camp will date Eddie, the nurses launch into action by enacting a blanket "No Date" strike at the 4077 until it happens. The men panic and try to find a way around it, but it soon becomes clear the nurses are standing firm and resolute, and they surrender. What they need now is for one of them to volunteer...
Attention, attention! This whole affair involved the following tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny:
- Nurse Margie Cutler, Hawkeye's current Love Interest, thinks this about Hawkeye "winning" the date with Edwina. Frank thinks it's funny too.
- After everyone suffers Amusing Injuries, Hawkeye can't help but laugh his ass off at how the night has gone.
- Amusing Injuries: Let's count the many Hawkeye received during his date with Edwina.
- 1. Hit on the forehead with the edge of a door.
- 2. Martini accidentally thrown in his face.
- 3. Headbutted in the left eyeHawkeye: Okay, okay, it's over. We're just two people waiting for a bus. Or, in my case, an ambulance.
- 4. Rear end burned on the tent furnace stove.
- 5. Feet cut to ribbons on broken glass.
- 6. Falls back into shelving.
- 7. Shelving topples onto his head.
- 8. Injures his shoulder.Edwina: I killed you.Hawkeye: I don't have that kind of luck.
- 9. Even when things do get romantic, it still happens. Furnace stove pipe falls on Hawkeye's head. Hawk laughs this one off.
- Radar comes to the doctors after taking another finger to the eye. Seems like he'll never learn about looking in the nurse's shower...
- Apologetic Attacker: Edwina always says sorry every time she inadvertently hurts someone or get somebody humiliated.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Flipped around. Trapper attempts to get Henry to use his authority as the commanding officer to stop the strike.Trapper: Henry, you're the commanding officer. Command the girls to cut this out! It's driving us nuts!
- Blatant Lies: Henry tells Hawkeye and Trapper that he's been hit by the strike just as badly as the are. That part's true. What isn't is his claim that he's not falling apart.Radar: Shower's ready, sir.
Henry: Is it cold?
Radar: Icy, sir. - But Now I Must Go: Edwina departs the 4077 in the final scene.
- Can't Believe I Said That: Henry really blows it when trying to ask Leslie out.
- Cooperation Gambit: Hawkeye threatens Frank when he doesn't agree to help end the protest.Hawkeye: Frank, I think I speak for everyone when I say that if you don't lend your full co-operation in our little enterprise, you will be stripped naked, painted purple, and dropped by helicopter behind enemy lines.
- Covered in Gunge: It's Hawkeye's turn to have his face covered with soot.
- Covert Pervert: Unfortunately, Radar wasn't as covert as he would have liked to be.
- Deadpan Snarker: Hawkeye's hilarious summing up of the nurses' "no-date" strike.Hawkeye: The whole thing is inhuman, unfair and un-American. [pauses, as tries to get a random nurse's attention, and fails] Besides, it's bad for the health.
- Hawkeye gets really irritated at Frank at one point.Hawkeye: What do army regulations say about strangling a man with his own tongue? [looks at Trapper] Get out of my way.
- Margie Cutler gets one of her own. Apparently, she's getting tired of his ladies' man tendencies.Nurse Cutler: Now we'll see how the great lover operates.
- Edwina loves the way the Swamp has been fixed up for the date. Hawkeye responds:Hawkeye: Trapper took a correspondence course in interior decorating. He failed it, of course.
- Hawkeye gets really irritated at Frank at one point.
- Drawing Straws: This is how the men choose to decide who will take Edwina on a date.
- The Dreaded: All the guys in camp are afraid to date Eddie, even Hawkeye.
- The Eeyore: As Edwina will tell you, she's not jolly. And she's not a fella either.
- Fake-Out Opening: The episode opens with tense music playing while the camera pans across the characters' anticipatory faces, as Radar listens intently for someone's approach and then whispers a ten-second countdown. Incoming wounded? An enemy patrol? Nope, they're all just waiting in the mess tent for Edwina to show up for her surprise birthday party.
- Hilarity Ensues: The nurses stick to their protesting in the utmost of fashions. Of course this means a lot of laughs when the men are continually turned down.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Hawkeye says the line almost word for word when he loses at straws.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: As part of the boycott, Leslie repeatedly stonewalls Henry's advances by claiming that she needs to wash her hair... even as she's just finished washing it. Though Henry doesn't do himself any favors when he retorts that, if she keeps washing her hair that much, she's going to end up with a head like a cueball.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Frank behaves unusually nicely at Edwina's birthday party.
- The Klutz: Edwina's reputation for being a magnet for calamity is the reason the she doesn't get any attention from the guys at camp; they're all too afraid to get close to her and risk accidental injury.
- Lysistrata Gambit: The basic plot of the episode.
- One of the Girls: Given that Frank is among the men spurned by the nurses at Hawkeye's meeting, it is implied that Margaret supports the nurses' protest. The implication has added strength when the two are not seen together until after the men have surrendered.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Edwina Ferguson is a smart woman, so she knows when Hawkeye is seeking her romantic attention, she can tell something is up right away.
- It is heavily implied that Margaret sided with the nurses against Frank, something we don't see again until her marriage to Donald.
- Quest for Sex: It's more implied than stated outright (this being early-'70s network TV and all), but Edwina is shipping back home soon and is hoping to lose her virginity before leaving Korea.Edwina: [to Nurse Cutler] Margie, I am twenty-eight years old and I have never... [beat] ...had someone to care for me.
- Really Gets Around: Hawkeye does his usual hitting on Henry when they get no love from the nurses, and the first episode where his reputation works against him.
- Sad Clown: More jokes from Hawkeye about being scared his family will abandon him.
- Shrinking Violet: Edwina.
- Stealth Pun: The episode about unlucky Edwina is episode 13.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Henry tries to make a speech at the party and is eventually drowned out by the camp doing a hearty rendition of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". He stops speechmaking and joins in.
- Surprise Party: The episode opens up with the members of the 4077 throwing a birthday party for Edwina.
- Tempting Fate:
- Trapper thinks the nurses wouldn't dare to carry out their protest. Guess what, Trap? They. Would.
- Hawkeye puts on a bravado speech to the man who will draw the short straw and take it upon himself to date Edwina.Hawkeye: There comes a time in every soldier's life, from the lowliest private to the lowliest officer, when he must put his own wellbeing second to the greater good of his fellow fellows, his comrades in arms, his war buddies. Let us each, in his very own quiet heart, say to that courageous man whoever he may turn out to be: "And there, but for the fickle pick of fate, go I. And què serà serà?" No hard feelings. May the best man, uh, well, whatever.
- Unfortunate Names: Edwina's ex, Seymour Chomkey. At least, that's how Nurse Cutler sees it.
- Weird Trade Union: The nurses build up an interesting strike. If no man dates Eddie before she leaves for home, then all of the men in the camp won't ever have a date again.
