M*A*S*H-Did Margaret Dump Frank?

[S. Gomez]

So I've been watching M*A*S*H for the three-thousandth time this past little while (I saw the finale today), and I continually find new insights into the characters and their relationships with each other. Scouring the various Wikipedia articles on the show, I came across a note that threw me for a loop. According to the list of Season 4 episodes, Margaret and Frank broke up--or more to the point she dumped him--in "Mail Call Again" after Frank badmouths her to his wife to avoid a divorce. This, as I say, threw me for a loop because I never saw it that way. They'd had plenty of other fights up to that point, and always came out the other side of them with things status quo. No reason to think this one was any different, especially since the next episode "The Price of Tomato Juice" shows them acting as if they're still technically together (no kissing, but Margaret's going to Seoul for a "night, dancing meeting" and she tries to allay Frank's all-too justified suspicions; she's also ready to accept a marriage proposal he didn't really send).

Now, here's where things get a little interesting. Obviously the next season opens with Margaret returning home from Tokyo with an engagement ring on her finger... and I had always seen it as a dirty rotten trick from Margaret, because she did it without breaking up with Frank. This causes us to feel some measure of sympathy for Frank and to lose any we may have had for Margaret (she wins it back, of course). I know that Wikipedia should always be taken with a few grains of salt, but my head is still reeling from the suggestion that it didn't really happen that way at all.

I had another "insight" into their relationship (it seems obvious now), but enough from me for the moment. What do other people think?

 

[auntiehill]

Well, I never thought they formally broke up, but Ferret Face made it rather clear that he was NEVER going to leave his wife. Margaret was just an Army fling for him, and more importantly, a companion. So when Margaret met Donald Penobscott, she had no reason not to accept his proposal. Frank sure as hell was never going to marry her.

And yes, I watch WAAAAAY too much TV.

 

[RandyS]

I too am watching my MASH DVD's, and today was Charles' first episode.

Esstiantally yes, Margaret dumped Frank for Penobscott, and he couldn't take it, which is why he left the series (Larry Linville's real-life reason's not withstanding) and we got Charles.

 

[ladyheather69]

I took it as Margaret realizing that Frank wasn't going to divorce his wife for her, so she "dumped" him.

I get the feeling that even though he wasn't going to divorce his wife, he really did love Margaret and was truly upset over her marrying Donald...and then he went all freaky on the show about it. Can't remember why in real life he left

 

[S. Gomez]

I think maybe I wasn't clear: obviously Margaret took Penobscott over Frank... the question is just when that happened. Had she formally broken up with him before her engagement, or was her engagement the first time he heard that they weren't going out anymore?

And I like to think that Frank did have real feelings for her; it was made pretty clear multiple times that he only stayed with his wife for her money (and probably the only reason he married her in the first place), hence his being unable to marry Margaret.

 

[May 20]

I think that her engagement was the first time Frank had to seriously consider life without Margaret. Whether she broke up with him or not doesn't matter; as long as she was single, he'd never really believe that she didn't want to see him anymore.

What he had planned for after the war (since he wasn't going to leave his wife) is anyone's guess.

 

[T'Bonz]

And Margaret's choice of a husband was just as shitty as her choice of Frank. Penobscott cheated on her.

 

[Dayton3]

Margaret's dumping Frank for Pennopscott was a total shock to Frank.

While awaiting for her to return from Tokyo, he told Pierce and Honeycutt eagerly "This cowboy isn't going to be lonesome tonight".

I never cared for Margaret much. Watching the show it is very obvious that she had a daddy obsession. Her father was regular army and all her regular lovers and husband were as well. With a tendency to being hypersensitive and fussy much like her father was.

Also given her father, Pennopscott, and Frank, it's clear she was drawn to men who didn't treat women very well. Her father was cold and indifferent to his wife and daughter. Pennopscott cheated on Margaret before and after they were married. Frank cheated on his wife before coming to Korea and with Margaret while they were there.

 

[Dayton3]

I took it as Margaret realizing that Frank wasn't going to divorce his wife for her, so she "dumped" him.

I get the feeling that even though he wasn't going to divorce his wife, he really did love Margaret and was truly upset over her marrying Donald...and then he went all freaky on the show about it. Can't remember why in real life he left

Larry Linville explained it simply that his contract was for five years and it was over. If it had been six years he would've stayed for another season.

But he wasn't happy with the last year he was on the show. He told an interviewer later that when the producers split up Margaret and Frank it gave the show structural problems.

Where in the past, the writers wrote episodes pitting Margaret/Frank against Pierce/McIntyre and later Honeycutt, with Margaret engaged, they had to write separate storylines for her and Frank.

But Lorretta Swit wanted her character to be independent from Frank Burns so there was little he could do about it.

 

[firehawk12]

^
Makes sense. Breaking up Margaret and Frank tremendously helped the Margaret character but pretty much ended the one note Frank character.

 

[Dayton3]

^
Makes sense. Breaking up Margaret and Frank tremendously helped the Margaret character but pretty much ended the one note Frank character.

I don't know.

I think that breaking up with Frank eliminated alot of Margarets funny side.

After she divorced a season later, her character seemed to become very, very, very cold and shrewish. Screaming at nurses and doctors, quoting Army regulations with even greater fervor, bitching and moaning about her life.

 

[firehawk12]

By that time, the show went into early "Scrubs" territory and became more of a drama than a comedy anyway, so it worked for her character.
Frank pretty much stayed the sad, childlike character up until his end and Winchester was a very welcome change. He was still an outsider, but at least he had more depth.

 

[S. Gomez]

And when Charles came on, almost from the beginning there was the undercurrent of sexual tension with Margaret. When I was watching the finale yesterday, and the scene where Margaret says goodbye to Hawkeye with the famous kiss; Charles is looking on with B.J. and Potter... and for a single, two-second-long shot he looks like he's about to cry. I don't know if David Ogden Stiers is losing control of his emotions, or if Charles himself is.

 

[firehawk12]

Well, there was that whole thing with the prisoners he worked with... but I can't remember how anything fits together in the finale.

 

[S. Gomez]

^No, it looks like he's reacting to the kiss. But a) it's a wide shot, so I could be misreading his expression, and b) it is only for that one shot, and in the others he doesn't look especially hurt. I'm probably just going crazy and reading too much into it.

 

[firehawk12]

I just remember him looking shocked when he learns about the POWs, to be honest.
It's been years since I've seen the finale though.

 

[Dayton3]

In David Ogden Stiers first season on MASH, Year Six IIRC, they did try to play up things between Margaret and Winchester. They featured a number of episodes where she was clearly openly flirting with him.

But he was pretty indifferent to it. Winchesters main concern was to get transferred back to Tokyo (at least) or to Maine (ideally).

A much later episode that featured a surgeon and nurse exchange with the 8063rd MASH, had the nurse being an old friend of Margaret. When she and Winchester openly flirted with each other Margaret did react with extreme jealousy.

More interesting was Margarets growing closeness to Hawkeye Pierce. She even admitted in an episode that her ideal man (when talking to Pierce) was "about 10% like you".

 

[S. Gomez]

Winchesters main concern was to get transferred back to Tokyo (at least) or to Maine (ideally).

Massachusetts, actually. But yeah, that was mostly what he was after. He did have other affairs during the course of the show, so I don't think the Margaret thing was much more than a flirtation either. But they did come to respect each other beyond that, and its possible that if they had been together for a longer period of time that something would have happened.

I love discussing these characters; that's what good television is all about.

 

[firehawk12]

The thing there was that I thought Margaret was attracted his Winchester's supposed wealth more than anything else. I'm glad that was pretty much over with quickly.

The Margaret/Hawkeye thing culminated with their very brief "hook up" in that episode where they were stranded. Basically, it didn't work out.

 

[Delta Belle]

I seem to recall reading that after discussing it with Larry Linville first, Loretta Swit asked the show's producers to end Frank and Margaret's affair. She felt that the affair had run its course, and no longer served a purpose at that point in the show.

That makes sense considering that by-the-book Frank and Margaret both thought Colonel Blake was a lousy commanding officer, thus they were always going over his head. When McLean Stevenson left the series, that conflict was no longer there.