A supply shortage has everyone feeling the blues. The only relief is a mystery novel mailed to B.J. that has everyone in camp hanging onto the next page... until they find the last page is missing.
Attention all personnel! "The Rooster Crowed at Midnight" is missing the following tropes:
- Armed Farces: The camp gets a delivery of supplies early on: ice cream churns, salt tablets, and mosquito netting, all of which would have been perfect had it been summer and not winter.
- The Atoner: Winchester tries this, but Hawkeye rightly points out that it's for his own conscience and not to make things right.
- Better than Sex: Reading B.J.'s mystery novel after a long period without new books is evidently this, according to Hawkeye:Charles: It certainly takes longer around here.
B.J.: How would you know? - Death of the Author: The camp resorts to calling the aged and evidently senile Abigail Porterfield, the author of the mystery novel, to get the ending from her after the last page is found to be missing. Minutes before the episode ends, Colonel Potter gets on the loudspeaker and announces to the whole camp that the person that the author named as the culprit couldn't be responsible, because he had an alibi, leaving the whole camp no better off than they were before.
- Instant Sedation: Charles gives a patient a shot of curare, thinking it's morphine, and the man immediately passes out. Justified, since curare is a powerful paralytic and the man needs breathing and circulatory support as a result.
- It's All About Me:
- After accidentally injecting a patient with curare instead of morphine, Charles' biggest worry is about how it will affect him.
- When Hawkeye calls out his attitude, Charles accuses him of being jealous. He at one point ignores all of Hawkeye's criticisms and latches onto Hawkeye describing him as being skilled as proof that he is right.
- Karma Houdini: Giving a patient a wrong injection is medical malpractice, and could've resulted in Winchester being sued, court-martialed, or losing his license as a surgeon, yet he faced no actual penalties aside from a telling off from Hawkeye and B.J., though this could possibly be justified in-universe as being due to the lack of a replacement surgeon.
- Literary Allusion Title: After the novel/film of the same name.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The fictional mystery author Abigail Porterfield is clearly patterned after Agatha Christie.
- No Ending: The Rooster Crowed at Midnight, thanks to its missing page. After the author's ending is revealed to be wrong because the guilty party had an alibi, Hawkeye declares himself the murderer.
- Purple Prose: Abigail Porterfield seems to thrive on this, if the samples of her writing we hear are any indication.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Hawkeye lays into Winchester for his ego and his attitude towards his patients.
- Riddle for the Ages: Who was the murderer in The Rooster Crowed at Midnight?
- Serial Killer: The unknown murderer in the novel kills eleven people, two pigs, and a canary.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In an attempt to shut Hawkeye up, B.J. tears out the first chapter to let him read it. Further sections are torn out and passed around the camp, leading to sections of the book being damaged and lost, resulting in The Unreveal of the killer's identity because no one can find the page where it is written.
- Think Unsexy Thoughts: Margaret and Charles find a sex scene in the novel makes them a bit too uncomfortable.Charles: It's just amazing how much heat one of those thingsnote can give off.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out how the book actually ended.
