Recap / M*A*S*H S3 E24: Abyssinia, Henry

"You behave yourself, or I'm gonna come back here and
kick your butt."

Probably the biggest Wham Episode and Tear Jerker of the entire series, "Abyssinia, Henry" is the final episode for two of the show's primary characters, and with an ending that was a shock to even the actors themselves, officially moves M*A*S*H firmly from the Sitcom category into a Dramedy show.

The episode starts out normally enough in the OR – singing, jokes, etc. – when Radar walks in... with Henry's discharge papers in hand. Everyone is thrilled with the news, although Frank and Margaret are more excited because, with Henry gone, Frank will become the acting Commanding Officer of the 4077.

It is the day after Henry's departure. Radar quietly and regretfully walks into the OR during surgery, visibly shaken and forlorn. Trapper chides him to put a mask on, while Hawkeye quips, "If that's my discharge, give it to me straight; I can take it."

But Radar doesn't respond. Instead, he grimly states, "I have a message." Radar unfurls a letter... and begins to read it with shaky breath and a quavering tone of voice, halfway in tears.

"Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake's plane... was shot down... over the Sea of Japan... It spun in... There were no survivors."

The entire operating room falls silent. Somebody is so thunderstruck that they drop a piece of surgical equipment and it clatters to the floor. This snaps a few people out of the shockwave that hit them, but Henry's closest friends remain frozen in place, permanently heartbroken. Frank stands immobile with scalpel in hand, Margaret begins to cry, Father Mulcahy clutches his chest, Klinger and Trapper are beside themselves, and Hawkeye gives them all the most bitter and soul-crushed stare in the world. And in seeing how broken up his MASH family is, we are given perhaps a glimpse of the pain doomed to befall Henry's soon-to-be bereaved family back in Bloomington, Illinois.

The episode closes with an announcement from the P.A. speaker: "MASH 4077 bids Henry Blake a reluctant and affectionate farewell." We are shown a slow musical and sombre sequence of the late Henry Blake's greatest moments... and reflect on the fate of a jolly gent who was cut down in the prime of life all too soon.

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Attention, all personnel! The following tropes regarding Lt. Colonel Henry Blake's departure are as follows:

• Actually Pretty Funny: At Henry's farewell dinner, Trapper makes a lame pun after Henry asks Hawkeye what he had just eaten. Everyone bursts out with laughter, although that might be because they're drunk.
  Hawkeye: Seas snails.
  Henry: Sea snails.
  Trapper: By the snee shore.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: The farewell party at Rosie's Bar is filled with this.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Henry wonders why everyone on Earth can't share the same time zone as one another. Radar reminds him that the Earth is round and keeps rotating all the time.
  Henry: Oh, I thought it was just an Army thing.
• Bearer of Bad News: Poor Radar is the one that has to inform the surgery staff (and the viewers) of Henry's demise. It hits especially hard since Radar had been the bearer of the good news of Henry's discharge at the beginning of the episode.
• Big Damn Kiss: Henry gives one to Margaret as part of his saying goodbye to her.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Henry gives several to Frank in the OR at the start of the episode, showing his ever-increasing frustrations with working at the 4077 and/or Frank's constant complaints.
  Frank: Shut up, will you! Shut up, shut up!
  Henry: You shut up, Frank! Everybody in this nuthouse, shut up.
• Book Ends: The episode begins and ends in the OR. At the beginning, all of the hospital staff join in on congratulating Henry for going home. When they get the bad news at the conclusion, they are all shocked and in tears.
• Brick Joke:
  • The tune Father Mulcahy hums? Is it O Shepherd, Guide Thy Flock or On, Wisconsin?
  • Lorraine Blake's "fantastic body".
  • Once dressed in his suit, Henry is also wearing the same type of black and white wingtip shoes that Radar was selling back in "The Trial of Henry Blake".
• Bus Crash: One of the most infamous in television history.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Radar's father was sixty three years old when Radar was born, and the first time the father and son played peekaboo together, his father had a stroke. It's implied that the stroke had been fatal, leading to a possible Foreshadowing.
• Downer Ending: Henry dies on the way home after being discharged.
• Dreadful Musician: Radar blowing the bugle when calling for assembly to farewell Colonel Blake.
  Frank: Are you sure that was assembly?
  Radar: It's as close as I can come, sir.
• A Father to His Men: Before he leaves the camp, everyone has a chance to show Colonel Blake how much they view him as this.
• Hangover Sensitivity: Radar seems to briefly suffer from this the morning after the farewell party, although it could be due to Frank's shrill continuous whistling.
• Historical In-Joke: Frank makes to Theodore Roosevelt being worried sick about breaking his glasses at San Juan Hill.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "Bless you, Henry Blake. Your work here will never be forgotten."
• Make a Wish: A drunken Henry says out loud that he wishes everyone else could be going home with him.
• Nobody's That Dumb: Henry's reaction to hearing that his mother-in-law went to a party dressed as Conrad Nagel.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The jar of mayonnaise that was lost on the last Fourth of July.
  • Radar had to have his appendix removed.
    Henry: You were one sick kid. You know I looked for that thing until 4 o'clock in the morning? It was behind your caecum.
  • At the farewell party, Trapper asks Henry if he can remember the time Father Mulcahy caught him with a lady war correspondent.
    Hawkeye: [laughing] You said you were giving an interview on the importance of clean underwear.
• Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying Over You: Inverted. Hawkeye and Trapper know they can't take time to mourn Henry while working on the wounded and immediately resume working, knowing they can cry later. Margaret manages to contain herself to just some mild sniffling, and even Frank looks like he's on the verge of tears.
• Passing the Torch: Henry does one last small service as a MASH doctor one more time by judging an incoming patient's condition before he leaves the work entirely to his friends.
• Put on a Bus: Henry departs from the 4077th in a chopper... and dies when his Tokyo-bound plane is shot down.
• Really Dead Montage: The closing scene of the episode, which shows the best of Henry Blake and drives home his demise.
• Retirony: Henry Blake is discharged from the Army and dies before reaching Tokyo.
• Rewatch Bonus: Some think that we don't see Klinger in his Carmen Miranda dress until Henry says goodbye to him. He can be seen in the outfit quite a few times earlier when Frank was calling assembly.
• Standard Snippet: "O Shepherd, Guide Thy Flock", "On, Wisconsin"
  • Radar conducts the serving girls at Rosie's Bar in humming "America the Beautiful".
  • The camp sings "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" as Henry walks to the helicopter pad.
• Shout-Out:
  • Trapper starts off a game of Name That Tune in the OR by trying to make Hawkeye guess what he's humming.
    Hawkeye: "Avalon"?
    Trapper: No.
    Hawkeye: "In a Little Spanish Town"?
    Trapper: [pauses] Right.
    • Father Mulcahy joins in, humming "O Shepherd, Guide Thy Flock". Hawkeye and Trapper wrongly guess it's "On, Wisconsin".
  • Henry's son Andrew has trombone lessons at five in the afternoon. He's currently learning Ravel's Bolero.
  • When Frank instructs Radar to bugle "Assembly" in the morning:
    Radar: Sir, I'm getting a cold sore.
    Frank: Well, Captain Ahab only had one leg.
    Radar: Well, he wasn't in the Army, sir. He was a whale guy.
  • As Henry is reviewing the unit for the last time:
    Trapper: Henry, that suit is really you.
    Hawkeye: If you're Adolphe Menjou.
• Stunned Silence: Probably the most epic example in the series. Once Radar leaves the O.R., all you hear for several seconds is breathing, at least until Margaret begins to sniffle.
• Too Much Information: Radar learns some extra information about Lorraine Blake while her husband is reminiscing on what his first night back home is going to be like.
  Radar: I think I will have that drink, sir.
• Wham Line: Perhaps the most remembered one to ever occur on the show, Radar's entire "I have a message..."
• Wrong Assumption: When Henry asks his wife not to do something over the phone, Hawkeye guesses that she had just started crying Tears of Joy due to the happy news. Henry tells him that she had just asked if she could re-cover the furniture.

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