Allan Arbus: Just What the DR Ordered!

Allan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce in final Episode

M*A*S*H Still Tells Our Story! 

MASH ran episode 251, Goodbye, Farewell, Amen in February 2010 and surpassed all other TV Series--including Who Shot JR and the Super Bowl for that year.  The reason was simple: MASH told our story.

Now the death of Allan Arbus, age 95, AKA "Dr. Sidney Freedman," the psychiatrist returns us to the war in Korea and exactly why the series meant so much to us.  MASH tells the story of us, human beings on the front line of life, forever struggling to maintain our humanity against all odds.  The comic element is the key:  when you laugh, you let go, and exhale the C02 and breathe in the air to live.  We are in a society in which we are holding our breath all the time for what the world will do to us next.  It is the comic element that saves us.

Actually--the comic is not just a laughing matter.  It releases us to be ourselves.  In this final episode, Hawkeye represses the tragic memory of trying to escape on a bus.  He sits with villagers trying to remain quiet--but a woman has a chicken on board who is raising a ruckus.  Hawkeye snaps--"Shut that damn bird up!"  So the woman suffocates it--only the chicken is a cover for the real baby which the woman smothers.  Dr. Freedman goes to work to unearth this memory and bring peace to Hawkeye.  He is at his best!  He sends him back to the 4077 just as Hawkeye wants to give up.  He assures him that he will go with him and visit periodically.  He has confidence in Hawkeye which infuses him to re-enter the operating room.   In the OR, a child comes in -- Pierce hesitates and Potter offers to take it--but Hawkeye says "No."  The camera switches to Freedman who is seen backing out of the OR, "You're back!" 

Who is there for us?  Who goes into the fray with us each day to remind us of our humanity?  Or, does it take our doing what Hawkeye?  He recognized the profound difference between the past holding him hostage and the present which could free him because somebody trusted him. Sometimes all it takes is for somebody to be in that corner rooting us on. 

 

Dr. Sidney Freedman Keeps his Promise to Visit

“Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. 

Pull down your pants and slide on the ice.” 

Dr. Sidney Freedman