Hey, do you remember the episode of M*A*S*H where they killed off Henry Blake? I'll bet you do but in case you need a refresher, here it is…
I remember watching that episode when it first aired and being jolted by the power of that ending, even though somehow — I forget how — I'd found out in advance what was going to happen. It seemed so perfect for the series and for the character that no one accused the producers of doing it as a "stunt." It also seems to have inspired a lot of stunts on other shows.
M*A*S*H was a great show after McLean Stevenson left it but I always felt something was missing. The thing about that series that I thought made it work is that it was not about war. It was about the effect of war on human beings…in particular, these people doing this horrible job, patching together kids who'd been injured (sometimes, permanently) in a war. How did they cope with doing something that in a saner world, no one would have to do?
No one should be doing that…but in a way, the character who most did not belong there was McLean Stevenson's Henry Blake.
Hawkeye and Trapper John (and later, B.J.) were crackerjack surgeons. You need crackerjack surgeons in a setting like that. Father Mulcahy and Radar O'Reilly…well, you need priests and super-efficient clerks in a time of war as much as you need crackerjack surgeons. Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan were very military-oriented so they were in their natural habitat. Klinger? Well, Klinger didn't belong there but he was showing us the cartoony side of that dilemma.
It was Henry Blake, sitting there trying to straighten out his wife's checkbook while choppers were bringing in wounded soldiers, who was really outta place. He always came across as a doctor who should be back home in Illinois, treating measles and broken ankles and nothing more serious than that. His replacement — Sherman Potter played by Harry Morgan — was strictly G.I. and truly belonged in the commander position.
Here's what I'm talking about: The best single moment I saw on that show occurred in Season Three, which turned out to be the last season for McLean Stevenson and Henry Blake. It was an episode called "O.R." and it was written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks, directed by Gene Reynolds. The entire episode was set in and around the operating room as the personnel of the 4077th works night and day to deal with a flood of incoming wounded. Even Blake, who is usually more suited to shuffling papers and okaying duty rosters is drafted into surgical duties.
At one point, Henry asks Hawkeye for some advice. He shows him an unconscious soldier who has just been brought in on a stretcher. We don't see what Hawkeye sees when he looks under the blanket at the kid's wounds but judging from Hawkeye's face, it's pretty awful. Henry Blake is frustrated at the decision he is being forced to make…
HENRYIt's at least eight hours work.
HAWKEYEHis liver's gone.
HENRYThere's a dozen kids outside that can be saved. He'll take two surgeons and who knows how many units of blood. And what's worse, he'll never make it.
HAWKEYEAnd meanwhile, we may lose some of the others.
HENRYPierce, I have a lot of trouble with this kind of decision.
HAWKEYEHenry, he should never have been brought in here in the first place.
And then Henry/McLean takes a telling pause and tells an orderly to take the kid back outside.
If you can ever catch that episode, watch that scene. Watch the whole episode of course but really watch that scene.
You can see the agony of the situation on McLean Stevenson's face. You can see Alan Alda/Hawkeye wisely understanding that while he knows what has to be done, he can't pressure Henry into it. Henry's the guy in charge. He's the one who has to make the decision and then live with it. He supports Henry but gives him the room to make that irrevocable choice. The writing and the acting are just perfect and it's exactly what that show was all about.
It wouldn't have worked as well with any member of that cast as it did with Henry Blake. It wouldn't have been as gut-wrenching for Potter, who'd lived through a lot more wars. Henry was the one who emotionally was least-suited to be deciding that someone would have to die so others could live. M*A*S*H had a lot of great moments and episodes after "Abyssinia, Henry" and the death of Henry Blake…but that's the moment I best remember.
In the interview below, Larry Gelbart talks about the scene that would be a close second and the decision to have Henry not make it home. Larry was a brilliant man when writing and equally brilliant when you were just talking to him. I wish I'd gotten to do more of that.
He's wrong about one thing, though. In the video, he says that the scene where Radar announces Blake's death was in the tag to the episode. Maybe they originally decided to do it that way but if you watch the above video, you see it was in the last scene before the last commercial break. Then the tag was a montage of Henry Blake footage from previous shows.
But otherwise, I'm sure everything Larry said was so. It's a nice bit of insight into an important moment in TV history, described by a guy who created a lot of it…