A deluge of wounded have been pouring into the 4077th for the last three days, and as you can imagine, a man can get pretty tired operating non- stop for 72 hours. However, for reasons unknown, Hawkeye can't seem to sleep. He just wanders around, half asleep, making asinine comments and jumps at the sound of an approaching chopper. Despite being under orders from Henry to stand down and get some rest, Hawkeye still joins them all in the O.R. That night, he takes a stroll around the camp, then wakes Trapper out of a sound sleep to inform him of his findings: there's a war going on. But Hawkeye wants to know who started it, so he has Radar send a telegram to President Truman. Yes, he does that without question while Hawkeye sings Christmas carols. Still his groggy, impetuous self, he next tries to stop a chopper pilot from doing his duty, because he thinks if no more wounded are brought in, the war will stop. I should like to remind everybody that he's half conscious at this point and isn't thinking with all 10% of his brain.
Still curious as to why we're fighting this war, Hawkeye attends one of Frank's tedious lectures to the men about why we're fighting the Commies. The long and the short of it is that he mentions bathrooms being the key offensive, as we have them and they do not. Figuring sending a bathroom to North Korea will solve their war problem, Hawkeye gets right on it, while Henry gets word that General Clayton found out about the telegram to Truman and he's on his way to the 4077th to let the fur fly. It's at this time, Hawkeye has tied a rope to the officers' latrine and the other end to an ambulance, intent on going about his foolhardy plan. Trapper attempts to sedate him, but in a stupid moment of slapstick, Frank moves in front of Hawkeye and takes the shot instead. So now the fat general arrives and has to stop in the latrine and take a leak, despite Radar's warnings, for all of a sudden, the moron has started towing the latrine to the north! Eventually they get him to come down by way of slipping a mickey in his martini, and I guess everything that happened was deemed inconsequential.
No real plot to this episode, and no real effort either. It's stupid. This might have sounded good on paper, but I can't figure out why they green-lit this "script." It's poorly written and it's poorly directed, and poorly acted. Hawkeye sleepwalks around camp, comes up with a stupid reason for why we're fighting a war and tows off a latrine. Could it be the writers were experiencing insomnia when they came up with this crap? Hawkeye is beyond annoying. More so than usual. The things he says and does are not funny, not poignant, not deep, just the ramblings of a near-crazy man. No, wait, there's no near about it, he definitely is a loony. I suggest skipping Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde. It's really, really stupid and not funny in the least. Oh, and this is General Clayton's last appearance in the series. Good, I never liked him anyway.
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