That groundbreaking gay episode of ‘MASH’ was almost even gayer

Screenshot: ‘M*A*S*H,’ CBS Television

This month, M*A*S*H celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Spun off from Robert Altman’s 1970 film of the same name, the TV dramedy followed the lives of U.S. military medical personnel stationed in South Korea during the Korean War. The iconic CBS show was widely beloved, and its ’83 finale remains the most-watched scripted television episode in history.

The thought of revisiting these TV classics is usually a thorny one. Products of their time, it’s not uncommon to stumble on episodes, plot lines, and characters that look more than a little problematic in hindsight—especially in terms of their treatment of LGBTQ characters. So, it’s not entirely unfair to be wary of the fact that, in 1974, a M*A*S*H episode addressed the hot topic of gay men in the military.

Related: 5 of the worst attempts at queer(ish) sitcoms ever

But, as a new retrospective piece from SlashFilm reminds us, M*A*S*H was always a show with a “radically compassionate ethos,” and this quote-unquote “gay” episode was indicative of that, telling a rather progressive and open-minded story—even if the ending wasn’t quite the boundary-breaking one the writers had in mind.

The season two episode was called “George,” and it opens with the MASH unit treating a badly bruised George Weston (Richard Ely). After his recovery, George…

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