M*A*S*H S11 E2: Trick or Treatment - TV Tropes
- ️Thu Oct 01 2020
It's Halloween, but the camp's party is interrupted by the arrival of casualties. To pass the time during surgery, the doctors and Margaret swap ghost stories...aside from a skeptical Winchester. Father Mulcahy arrives back from the orphanage in time to perform the Last Rites on a soldier who may have been given his toe tag a little prematurely.
Attention, all personnel! The camp's scary story competition must utilize the following tropes:
- Accidental Hero: Mulcahy's insistence on performing Last Rites like he always does leads to the reveal a Mistaken Death Confirmation has occurred.
- Big "OMG!": Mulcahy, upon seeing the supposedly dead soldier is still alive.
- Foreshadowing: Alan Alda confirmed that all the episodes were written after the finale to lead into it, and this episode has a soldier told that he won't forget the trauma, he just has to live with it.
- Ghost Story: While at work, the surgeons tell such stories. Charles is the only one not intrigued by them. In the end, Hawkeye muses that Mulcahy saving the soldier from a Mistaken Death Confirmation will be a ghost story no one can top.
- Halloween Episode: The only one of the series.
- Humble Hero: In the end, Potter congratulates Mulcahy for saving the soldier's life. Mulcahy says he was simply in contact with the higher power that did do so.
- Hypocritical Humor: Charles chastises the pool ball guy and his buddy for their childish antics got in the way of serious medical work, saying they need to act like mature adults. He's not even finished lecturing before B.J. (still dressed as a clown) wanders on by and honks his horn.
- Mistaken Death Confirmation: One of the soldiers on the bus was already declared dead at the aid station, but they put the body on the bus because the aid station was evacuating. It turns out to be a good thing they did, because when Mulcahy goes to administer Last Rites, he notices the soldier is moving.
- Single Tear: As wounded are brought to the 4077th, one had already been declared dead. At the end of the episode, Father Mulcahy receives word that the dead soldier was Catholic, and stops the truck taking him to the morgue so he can perform last rites. As he's doing so, he notices a tear rolling down the soldier's face. Realizing that he isn't dead, they rush him to get medical attention.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Charles over both his co-workers' costumed antics and a patient with a pool ball stuck in the mouth.
- Troll: As the pool ball guy can't speak clearly because of the, you know, pool ball in his mouth, Charles decides to have some fun, using Obfuscating Stupidity to pretend he doesn't understand what the problem is because the soldier can't communicate it to him clearly.