While Hawkeye is troubleshooting the furnace in the nurses' tent, a backflash blinds him, leaving him worried it will be permanent. Meanwhile, Frank has found a foolproof way to win at betting on baseball games.
Attention all personnel! Please use caution with the following tropes:
- Anachronism Stew: Frank listens to the baseball games overnight using a transistor radio, which was not available for sale until 1954, the year after the Korean War ended.
- Batman Gambit: After overhearing Frank gloating about winning a bet on a baseball game and remembering him listening to it the night before, Hawkeye teams up with Radar, B.J., and Klinger to broadcast a fake game for Frank to listen to the next night, knowing Frank would be listening in.
- Brick Joke: During a visit to the nurses' tent while blinded, Hawkeye teases a nurse who is uncomfortable getting undressed for a shower with him there. He goes back after his recovery, claiming a temporary relapse, hoping for similar results. It doesn't work.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Frank attempts to cheat at betting with the enlisted men on baseball games. It doesn't end well for him.
- Disability Superpower: Hawkeye appears to undergo this, being able to smell more strongly that a patient's bowel is perforated in the OR and being able to hear his surroundings more clearly.
- Double Entendre: When he's comfortable enough to be a Sad Clown, Hawkeye gets right back on the innuendo train, making jokes about not being able to fit his lips around a howitzer and being passed around the camp.
- Eye Scream: Downplayed with Hawkeye, who simply had flash burns and recovered his vision. Lt. Straw, however, had a grenade go off a few feet in front of him and took most of the shrapnel in the face.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Frank.PA Announcer: Here's the results of yesterday's game. Yanks 8, Indians 1. For those who'd like to collect, Major Burns is in post-op.Frank: Oh, that score can't be right. I listened to the game and...
- Hawkeye too when he goes to the nurses' tent claiming to have had a temporary relapse, telling the nurses to go ahead and do what they usually do - get undressed for a shower, iron their undies, etc. Then he miraculously manages to catch a cup one of the nurses throws into the air.
- Jerkass: Frank enters the Swamp, where Hawkeye is recuperating, whistling "Three Blind Mice".
- The Main Characters Do Everything: Of all the people the nurses could ask to relight their stove, they pick the camp's Chief Surgeon.
- Mathematician's Answer: Potter offers one when Frank complains about Hawkeye showing up in the O.R.:Frank: Sir, isn't it against regulations to have a blind man in surgery?Potter: Ask Captain Pierce. He's chief surgeon.
- Noodle Incident: The four days Hawkeye and "Sharon Share Alike" spent together.
- Also, when Hawkeye visits the nurse's tent while he's blinded, he runs into Bigelow (one of the nurses), and immediately figures out who she is:
Kelleye: How did you know?Bigelow: Never mind. - The Plan: Frank's scheme to cheat at gambling on baseball games: listen to the real-time broadcast and then make bets on the afternoon reruns the next day, already knowing the winner. It works for a while...
- Reassigned to Antarctica: "General" O'Reilly threatens the clerk of the 121st EVAC with having to dig a latrine for every GI in Korea if the ophthalmologist isn't at the 4077th by morning.
- Really Gets Around: "Sharon Share Alike", who Hawkeye spent four days in a deserted cove with after the local lobster festival one year.
- Sad Duck Call: Pierce employs one when Frank accidentally reveals that he's been cheating.
- Shout-Out: When Hawkeye detects a perforated bowel through sense of smell, BJ says "Who was that masked man?"
- Earlier, while in post-op, Hawkeye feels around to see if there are patients he can help. When he comes across an empty bed, he smiles and says, "Hmm, Claude Rains."
- Temporary Blindness: Luckily for Hawkeye. Lieutenant Straw, unfortunately, isn't as lucky.
