This one begins with Captain Binghamton in his office, setting off small firecrackers as he "attacks" a small model of the PT 73. He almost sounds like a little kid pretending he is attacking McHale. What really makes this scene unbelievable is that when a medical officer comes into the office, knowing he is a psychological doctor, Binghamton continues to show his "crazy" side by setting off more firecrackers and gleefully calling out as they go off when dropped on his model ship.
He then tells the doctor that he has overlooked the crew of the 73, that they have serious battle fatigue. He gets the officer to sneak up on McHale's men to show them how much they need psychological help. But Nurse Molly Turner has phoned McHale to warn him about the captain coming over, so McHale has his boys ready. When the captains suddenly enter the main hut, they find one man playing a violin, McHale himself painting a still life, one man with a stamp collection, one collecting butterflies, one sewing, and so on.
Instead of just admitting he is foiled, the captain gives the medical man reason to doubt the captain's sanity, as he excitedly claims the men are all suffering battle fatigue because of all these abnormal things they are doing.
The doctor doesn't act on the odd behavior of Binghamton, he just takes him back to the main base and leaves-forgetting his medical bag, which is brought to Binghamton, who is most excited when he learns from Molly what the vials containing sodium pentothal can be used for.
He orders McHale's men to the base hospital-with McHale and Parker absent of course-and the men foolishly believe the nonsense they are told about being given a shot to ward off the dreaded tsu-tsu fly. A nurse does Binghamton's bidding, and the men are now all on beds side by side in a ward. Binghamton and Carpenter have a tape recorder and they go from bed to bed asking about illegal activities of the crew. The men not only reveal their activities, including mentioning Fuji, but they volunteer all sorts of info the captain didn't even ask about, as if they are in a bar wanting to brag about their exploits.
Soon the captain has seized all of their gambling materials, and has buried the evidence, along with his tape recording, and phoned Admiral Rogers who says he will come down in the morning to settle this matter of McHale once and for all.
Molly winds up telling McHale how the captain must have gotten the boys to squeal on themselves. So McHale tries to get Mr. Parker to inject Binghamton with sodium pentothal so they can find out where the evidence is buried.
They try and try but can't get the captain-not in his hut nor in the officer's club where he is dancing with Molly-to stand still long enough to be injected. Admiral Rogers surprises everyone by coming up that night.
He orders the partying Binghamton to sit down and tell him what he has found. Binghamton sits on the needle Parker left in a chair and somehow has not gotten the serum injected into himself. (Of course, just sticking a needle into his rear wouldn't do the trick. The plunger needs to force the serum into him while the needle is inserted.) So, when the admiral questions him, McHale gets the Binghamton to first tell the admiral what he really thinks of him. Of course, Binghamton tells Admiral Rogers that he thinks the admiral is totally stupid, the worst admiral in the navy-including World War I, and more. The admiral is furious at Binghamton and the captain is led away, and that seems to be the end of any court martial for our heroes.
Now there were a couple of funny scenes, particularly with Binghamton and Carpenter dashing about the ward trying to get the microphone on the recorder next to whoever was speaking, as the crew all were eager to tell the captain about their exploits. And Chuck trying and trying to stick Binghamton with the needle was funny.
But overall, the plot was pretty stupid, and not really resolved. Normally, Binghamton would not be wasting his time in his office with firecrackers, playing at attacking McHale. He certainly wouldn't continue when another officer enters. He was totally irrational in his reactions to the peaceful ways the men were passing their free time.
And since nobody actually injected any sodium pentothal into him, he should never have been insulting the admiral. Given that he did so, you'd think he'd have really been in trouble, but we don't even hear about the admiral ordering him to a hospital for psychiatric care for a few weeks, let alone any real discipline. Kind of makes me think if Binghamton ever got the court martial for McHale and Co. that he could get his conviction, and the episode would end, and the next episode would see everything back to the way it was.
So the plot holes keep me from giving this a score higher than 6.
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