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variousqueerthings · 2 years

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And here’s the “Trapper????” part -- also now in my head as the “I can’t believe Trapper’s ghost just made an appearance out of nowhere like that, it was like watching a horror movie!!????”

This is way more ramble and more about… Feelings and Questions I have, because I certainly don’t have answers...

So BJ punched Hawkeye. As we all know.

In-story, I don’t thiiink he’ll ever be violent like that at Hawkeye again, but what can it mean for Hawkeye’s Belief in him as an entirely Good Person (as explored in the previous post about This Episode)? He’s seen BJ’s anger (he’s caused that anger), he’s seen BJ railing against the unfairness of the world and people, he’s seen BJ intensely disappointed in him, he’s seen BJ violent in his defence, but he’s never been the recipient of it…

And the violence was on the surface a build-up of a lot of things that didn’t have anything to do with Hawkeye, while also being catalysed by Hawkeye’s Just Not Getting Why He’s So Upset, however!!!

But!!!

Then!!!!

this brings us to the other Thing… BJ… is jealous… of Trapper…… I don’t remember when the last episode was that actually said Trapper’s name, but also invoked like this???? Off the top of my head was that when Hawkeye said that Trapper left???? Back in season four?????

And he broke the still! He broke the still that Hawkeye built with Trapper??

I think I’m more amazed at this than the actual meat of the episode, not because that’s not amazing character analysis and writing and acting! (Mike! Mike how could you cry like that!!! Why would you do that to me???) but because I didn’t see it coming at all even a little bit!

The rest of the episode was a fantastic slow build into exploring BJ’s grief about missing his daughter’s life (lifetime!) with a lot of interesting ideas about BJ’s character/role and masculinity.

And then the scene came and I was Transfixed, I was fully in it... and then he said he was jealous of Trapper!

I need to rewatch the scene when I’m brave enough, because it really was heartbreaking and beautifully acted and contained so much Depth, but the Trapper bit threw me for such a loop that I almost missed what he said next, which I believe was in relation to Trapper getting to go home and see his family, which… yes, yes okay.

But.

When did that jealousy start sir???? How long have you been thinking about Trapper??? The ghost of Trapper??? In this tent you share with Hawkeye the best friend you ever had who was Trapper’s best friend first, in which you just broke the still he made with Trapper and then punched him in the face????? What did Trapper mean in the story versus what you mean to the story????? And of course this mainly in relation to what the two of you mean to specifically Hawkeye??????

(sidenote: episode right before this BJ kissed Radar on the cheeks and said to give those kisses to Peg and to Erin... which... is what Trapper asked him to do for Hawkeye).

What does it all mean?????????

You know?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the same episode we obviously have Klinger compared to Radar, and then Potter addresses an old elephant in the room and compares himself to Blake, and then, all of a sudden, without any warning… Trapper to BJ. And in my last post about this episode I did talk about the ways in which, as an audience member, I was putting a lot onto BJ because of Trapper, and how that's a reflection of… possibly… the fact that Hawkeye does the same.

Has BJ been carrying the ghost of Trapper with him this entire time?

And now everything is spilling over, his grief over missing out on his daughter’s life, his sense of uselessness in the role of father and husband (and man), and… the fact that Trapper was there first perhaps? That Trapper escaped the narrative, which is the reason he’s in it? That some element of him is always filtered through a perception of Trapper – Hawkeye’s perception of Trapper?

These are all questions that currently have no answer, and I’ll just have to revisit them when I’ve finished the whole story.

Haven’t been this haunted by the ghost of narrative past since season 4 (although, mildly and consistently taking radioactive ghost damage throughout Margaret’s narrative these past two seasons as well!)

And as for how Hawkeye might feel about all of this? I can’t even begin to guess (well, I can, but it’d be so biased and flimsy I’d just be fully in headcanon land and again… I want to see if this thread gets picked up on again, or if Trapper was simply invoked in tandem with Radar and Henry, but even If, I cannot... fuck... this is too much).

But there’s a lot of factors in how to see the violence against Hawkeye -- in lots and lots of media there’s violence between men and it’s portrayed as fine and normal, even admirable. Heck, Hawkeye once punched Frank and it wasn’t portrayed as That Big Of A Deal. I actually had to reassess Hawkeye because of that happening, and in other episodes violence is treated in much less blasé ways, for example when Hawkeye loses his temper with the guy who does statistical analysis on how many wounded will come in, and that was “just” a shove... anyway -- I think this show is generally different in how it goes about violence, but there's a definite boundary between the guys bein guys ritual violence (and Margaret! who is always right!) and what is unacceptable violence.

We make jokes about weakling Hawkeye, and he’s not technically, but he isn’t the kind of guy who engages in The Rituals Of Masculine Violence, and he’s shown several times to react quite loudly to pain, and he’s not that strong... look, he’s a scarecrow, we know this, he knows this, he’s a lover not a fighter, etcetc.

And BJ is very much not that. There have been several deliberate comparisons made between the two in terms of physique and interest in sports and working out and the like. BJ punching Hawkeye feels... wrong. Not just because it’s not guys bein guys and we’ll laugh it off later in That Manly Way, but that Hawkeye can’t actually defend himself if BJ decides to get violent with him... fairly certain he knocked him unconscious actually.

The framing of it felt different than what you usually see between two men in a story, hence why it’s so shocking -- not just because they’re friends, but because BJ shouldn’t hit Hawkeye. It’s wrong for him to do so, in a way, say, it’s not quite as wrong for Zale and Klinger to get into a fight (although Zale is just kind of a dick and a bigot, so there’s a different wrongness happening there, but Klinger can fight back and the narrative is framed in a way that makes you want him to fight back, because that’s a traditionally allowed and acceptable way for him to react -- not to do so would be situationally more gay/effeminate than wearing dresses, which leads us back to all kinds of interesting reads about Hawkeye).

The apology later on is sincere and full of regret (the best friend he’s ever had). It’s messy, all of it. And since he broke the still and brought up Trapper it can’t help but make me read it as far beyond the rest of what’s upsetting BJ in this episode. He’s not “just” grieving the lost time of his daughter’s life, not “just” the dissolution of who he’s meant to be, he’s also angry... and like the grief, the anger feels long-simmering.

Does Hawkeye take that in? Does he let himself take it in? How do you internalise all of “waves hands” that???

What I’m also dancing around is that one very obvious interpretation is that a non-zero part of BJ’s loooong compartmentalized now spilling over “stuff” is that he has feelings for Hawkeye -- both as an audience member, but also in-story for Hawkeye, if we read Hawkeye as a bisexual man (who keeps falling in love with married people). Which also adds another layer to the messiness of punching him. Because then it’s a (potential) lover punching a (potential) lover. (This also compared to BJ’s last more obvious act of violence being in defence of a Hawkeye who -- once again -- cannot fight back and might have gotten hurt if not for his intervention).

They’re both men, but Hawkeye doesn’t do these things (except for that one time with Frank). And if BJ feels this strongly about Trapper, in a way that suggests he’s felt this way for quite some time... can Hawkeye begin to imagine why? Can he let himself potentially imagine that read? Can he talk with anyone about it? (no). Regardless of the actual why, there’s all the potential reasons why and Hawkeye’s going to just have to live with that.

And of course, lastly... how does Hawkeye feel about the still being destroyed? (again, that BJ destroys something that’s Hawkeye’s in a fit of anger has connotations. They could have had him breaking it by accident, or it no longer working, or... but no, it was BJ, it was deliberate, it was right before he was violent with Hawkeye, and it was not long before he admitted to being jealous of Trapper).

That was something he made with Trapper.

And now it’s something he’s remaking with BJ, but off the back of a series of very horrible events for the both of them. Not quite the fairytale Second Chance one might have pictured way back in s4 when BJ appeared like some kind of vision right as Hawkeye was about to fall to pieces.

Oh so very very messy, all of it.

Hawkeye’s mind is already so scrambled, I don’t think he needs all of this mess on top, but, then again, BJ never asked to be the Second Chance. He never asked to be perceived as perfect. It was going to break, eventually. And all the reasons why may just go right back to simmering...

#bj hunnicutt #hawkeye pierce #trapper mcintyre #im watching MASH #MASH #i can't believe this episode just happened I don't even think this ramble contains all of what is happening in my brain #maybe a last textpost that's just an audio recording of me screaming for an hour?#MASH meta

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