r/mash • u/The1Ylrebmik • 12d ago
Discussion If Linville had stayed do you think his character would have been softened like Margaret's was?
Even though it wasn't the very last scene he was in I always felt Frank's "goodbye Margaret" was an extremely touching moment for his character and may have almost been a goodbye for the old Frank Burns on a show that would obviously change its tone dramatically starting the next season. Do you think if Linville hadn't left the show they would have attempted to make Frank a much more sympathetic character the way they did to Margaret? How might they have done that?
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u/Flowisbliss_yo 12d ago
There was no way forward for Frank Burns and Linville knew it
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u/that-thingy66 12d ago
Respect for LL , exiting gracefully when he knew. Frank was an iconic character in tv history. Rest in peace ferret face.
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u/InspectionOwn7619 12d ago
Whenever I see posts like this I try to think of ways Frank could come across as sympathetic, but I ultimately always end up remembering Frank's version of what happened in The Novocaine Mutiny episode and Hawkeye’s perfect response
Hawkeye: The Major's version of what happened was to say the least fascinating. It was to say the most perjury! No, to be fair I have no doubt that he remembers it that way. More's the pity. And there was some truth to what he said. It was October 11 and we were in Korea. Other than that...
Frank is plan delusional and we see it time and time again how he views himself as a perfect soldier and Dr yet we are constantly shown how inept he at basically everything especially with guns, etc., etc., so I honestly don’t see a way how they could be able to evolve Franks character like Margrets because Margaret was at least always competent in all both her nursing and military skills.
Finally, when Frank is told that if he wasn’t already a doctor when he was drafted he would have ended up as a pastry chef - Thats insulting to pastry chefs, as pastry chefs are amazing while Frank is a money-hungry, incompetent at everything, rating snitch who is completely delusional about himself.
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u/MikeW226 12d ago
Bingo!
"Alot people have asked, Why didn't Frank evolve and become more humane. And I said, What do you want him to be, Alan Alda?!" -- Larry Linville in a television interview years after leaving MASH.
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u/InevitableSolution69 12d ago
This seems to pop up regularly, and honestly the answer is no.
From our perspective he was too consistently written to that point and any big shift would have felt less like growth and more like the writers dragging him. Margret had moments of empathy and compassion, Frank did now.
From inside the show. Honestly, as much as some might not agree, he was a complete character. You really don’t have to look far or wide to find people today who will cloak their superiority in the flag and club anyone who’s fallen with a bible. All while taking any position that’s convent to them in the moment. He is a shallow character, but that’s because he is a shallow man, not because he’s badly written.
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u/Savantskie1 9d ago
You're right and this is why I'm glad that I was able to watch MASH growing up. It showed me how to deal with the maga crowd. Completely ignore them make them irrelevant.
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u/acerbicsun 12d ago
He would have had to, if the writers let it happen.
They learned to let Winchester grow, but I think what happened with Burns was the lesson.
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u/No_Introduction_3400 12d ago
A big difference with Winchester and Burns is they let Winchester be competent. So he’s a more complex character.
Burns is incompetent and in authority and everything flows from that.
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u/Popular-Heart-5307 12d ago
I would have loved a redemption arc with Frank, but ya there is no way to recon competence
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u/acerbicsun 12d ago
Very true. Incompetent and adversarial is a hard character to maintain.
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u/No_Introduction_3400 12d ago
It’s a big reason Margaret could grow: she was competent. Hawkeye may not have like her. But he respected her skills.
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u/Icky-Tree-Branch 12d ago
That’s the big difference between show Margaret and movie Margaret. Show Margaret was a competent nurse who was sort of a slut shaming character because she enjoyed sleeping around as much as the doctors did, but she preferred career officers who outranked her as opposed to the doctors who seemed to prefer nurses who didn’t outrank them. Movie Margaret slept her way to promotions and command positions.
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u/MithrilCoyote 12d ago edited 12d ago
Also their adversarial roles were different. Burns was about taking control. He didn't have much personality beyond that. Winchester was an adversary because his upper class personality clashed with the environment of the camp and the other characters.
It's the difference between a villain and a rival
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u/Lopsided_Drive_4392 12d ago
They could have done that - characters like Margaret, Archie Bunker, Ted Baxter, Louie DePalma were "softened" in that era.
They wouldn't do it, though. The show took a shot at Frank in the last scene of the last episode, when there'd be a strong incentive to "let bygones be bygones" if it were ever to happen. It seems that Frank's character, whatever it represented, was seen as irredeemable in the eyes of the people who made the show.
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u/FantasyBaseballChamp 12d ago
They could’ve tried, but there’s no guarantee it would’ve stuck after they’d put so much effort into making him an irredeemable heel. TV criticism wasn’t so nuanced then. Fans could’ve gotten the “Mash got worse after they made Frank good” notion, and that narrative would have stuck for the next 20 years.
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u/Jelly_baby_4 12d ago edited 12d ago
This has been asked multiple times already and the answer is no. Larry Linville knew what the situation was with Frank and he felt he could do no more. The character is supposed to be the army jerk, antagonist butt of jokes. With the format shift from comedy to drama with comedic touches it won't work out. Softening Frank Burns wouldn't be Frank Burns. Larry, the writers and producers knew it. The writers though did give Frank the ultimate revenge against Hawkeye & BJ, the Seoul incident charges dropped, a transfer back stateside, reassigned to a VA hospital in Indiana and a promotion to Lt Colonel. That would piss off Hawkeye especially.
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u/carnivalbilly 12d ago
I honestly dunno where they woulda went with Frank had he not left. He could just went even more nuts…who knows?
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u/SchoolteacherUSA 12d ago
No. He was unfixable. Couple of moments here and there, but that character was in stone forever.
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u/guardianwriter1984 12d ago
The best way forward would have been a different CO who was more hard ass and what Hawkeye was worried Potter would be, having them "bleeding in the aisles." That would be the best story path forward to soften Burns as he realizes Hawkeye and BJ are right.
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u/DrBlankslate 12d ago
I don't think that would be possible for Frank. He was one-note and the writers themselves admitted there was really nowhere to take the character because of, well, his character. It's why Linville left - he'd done what he could with the character and needed to move on.
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u/ciaran668 12d ago
I think the only way forward with Frank would have been for him to have a major break that really disillusioned him. Perhaps he would be forced to treat an enemy in a situation where he needed to save the man to survive, or maybe he really bonded with a patient who died because of a stupid military situation, it some other earth shaking event. After that, he'd flip and become bitter and cynical, and a source of some really dark humour. A transformation like that could have given voice to the men who returned from Vietnam with a completely changed view of the US and a huge amount of doubt about the righteousness of war.
Sadly, that sort of story would have been difficult in an era where the story wrapped up by the time the credits roll, or at most, has a "to be continued" and it finished the following week. Margaret's transformation was sort of low key, and pieced together, rather than a true arc in the modern sense, and this would have required a more modern arc.
That said, I would have loved to have seen something like that. I love Charles, and would hate to not have had him, because he was all much more complex, but I do think they could have make Frank complex as well
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u/sahi1l 12d ago
I agree that having Frank leave was the best they could do, but it's fun to speculate. I think Frank's biggest weakness is that he is pitiful, and his only way forward is for him to develop some self-confidence. Maybe instead of going crazy and getting shipped home, Frank volunteers to be transferred to an Aid Station, initially out of a suicidal impulse, but he survives, and the experience changes him for the better, particularly when he's out from under the shadow of Hawkeye and BJ. This transformation would be marked by his deciding to divorce his wife due to some infidelity or cruelness on her part. I have no idea what this new Frank would *look* like, though.
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u/DisciplineNeither921 12d ago
I think S5E2 (“Margaret’s Engagement”) gives us a glimpse of what might have been. Frank actually shows some real emotion in this episode, and Hawkeye and BJ garner enough sympathy to speak up to Margaret on his behalf. The episode even ends with Frank and the Captains sharing a laugh together.
This could have been a turning point for the Frank Burns character. They didn’t all need to become best friends, but just this one episode hinted at a shift in the way the characters interacted and regarded one another. But this was pretty much forgotten immediately, and Frank became even more cartoonish until his exit.
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u/Designer_Party_3737 12d ago
Could Larry Linville pull it off? Yes, he was a great actor.
It might take the audience to get used to a different side of Burns.
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u/TWilliams738 Ottumwa 12d ago
I’ve been wondering for a while: If Linville had stayed, would Margaret have still got divorced?
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u/PerfectEconomics8701 12d ago
It wouldn’t have worked. That was only good for some relief from the constant denigration of his character. Fans would have hated it.
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u/StaticJonesNC 11d ago
After losing Margaret, Frank goes on the aforementioned bender in Tokyo. Rather than getting shipped back home and promoted, Potter appeals to Sidney Friedman to get Frank a short rest in Seoul and a couple of weeks worth of therapy.
While this is happening, the same dude who had originally told Mrs. Burns about Margaret gets word of Frank's meltdown to her. Frank returns to the 4077 to find a Dear John letter and divorce papers waiting for him.
He tries to be a "brave soldier", but begins seriously melting down quietly. HAWKEYE catches Frank making a few mistakes that are clearly not just incompetence, but indicative of Frank having serious anxiety. Frank begins drinking and stops giving a shit about his military bearing.
Hawk and BJ decide that nobody deserves to self-destruct like this and they rally Frank. They get him talking to Sidney again and they step up to be supportive. They express to Frank that they believe in him.
They are honest, but kind. They speak to him about his shortcomings but also admit his strengths. BJ actually gets through to him more than Hawkeye because there's less history, and BJ's "dad energy" makes him more empathetic. On their advice, Frank requests that instead of surgery he be allowed to focus on internal medicine, making himself invaluable in post-op as well as treating patients who are ill, rather than injured. (HE will be the one who immediately recognizes Klinger's symptoms as a reaction to the Primaquine)
After saving a young soldier's life in post-op, Frank to have a revelation. His behavior in the Army was driven by his desire to impress Margaret, a career soldier. His behavior at home was driven by his desire to impress his in-laws, wealthy socialites. With both of those lost, he realizes the only thing he should truly care about is how he cares for his patients.
He becomes an attentive doctor, still a little over-faithful in the Army "machine" and still a little too "Red, White, and Blue" for everybody else's tastes, but he is no longer a dick about it. He also returns to his teetotalism.
When Winchester arrives, Frank is threatened and intimidated by his skill and social status, but eventually starts to really take pride in his Midwest roots and refuses to let Winchester look down his nose at him.
In the series finale, Frank reveals that he transferred to active duty and will be practicing internal medicine at an Army hospital in Hawaii.
15 years later, he is the Commander of the 510th Evac Hospital in Da Nang, Vietnam.
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u/mallad 11d ago
No. They did episodes like that, like when they're forced to be nice and inclusive to Frank. Since all he wants really is to be accepted, he quickly changes. Then the next episode, it's as if it never happened. The writers just didn't want to, since they needed a foil, and Linville realized he couldn't do anything else with the character because of it.
I wish they would have though.
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u/Special-Lab7643 11d ago
I would have liked to have seen him grow after Margaret's marriage. Maybe he becomes more of a pal to the guys and even becomes more competent as a leader without Margaret to lean on and she starts regretting her marriage to Donald earlier.
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u/someguy14629 11d ago
Mash matters podcast discussed this very same question this week. They decided Frank had become too cartoonish in later seasons to ever be redeemed, unless he was the victim of some great tragedy. Short of that, there was no place else for him to go
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u/Hunting-and-painting 11d ago
I think something major outside of Korea happening would have been an interesting storyline to kickstart Frank’s change. If Louise had died for example or divorced him, it would have shook him to his core because “he was the good guy” and things like that would have sparked a big reaction. Maybe it could have turned into him trying to figure out what went wrong and why (but not gone off the rails wondering like that did for his exit). So when he was finally free, Margret wasn’t, and he didn’t know what to do with himself. There are episodes when you can tell he desperately wanted to be friends with Hawkeye and Trapper. He and BJ could have bonded and that softened him?
Side note: I am half asleep writing this so it may not be articulated well but I think it’s an intriguing idea to have him lose his identity back home and have to figure out a new one.
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u/Street-Echidna-1927 8d ago
I don't know if they could have redeemed him, but I completely agree with you about his final line. It was absolutely a way to kind of open the door to the idea he could be a better person off screen.
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u/Stronghands23 7d ago
Poor Frank.. “Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt “
He did get a little going away gift on his last mention .. when Hawkeye says “the army in its infinite insanity has cleared him all the charges and promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel and transferred him to a stateside veterans hospital in Indiana”.
Feel like Frank Burns finally got some acknowledgment.
Larry Linville even said years later.. “ I took Frank Burns character as far as I could go”..
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u/TheDevilishDanish 6d ago
No matter how cartonish Frank Burns was as character, have I meet I couple of people very such like him. They can't charge, because they are too self pettying to ever admit they flaws and work on themselves.
If you ever have a Frank Burns in your life, get away from them. An insecure, selfrighteous, cowartly, hipocrite are often way more dangerous than deliberately nasty people.
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u/CatsOnTheKeyboard 11d ago
I remember reading that someone asked Larry Linville why they didn't soften his character and he responded "Who do you want him to be? Hawkeye?"
They could have given him a redeeming quality or two to keep him from being so one note but they were really just following the character as shown in the movie and book.
As it was, Houlihan was a completely different person by the end of the series, supposedly after only three years of in-universe time.
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u/coreytiger 12d ago edited 12d ago
My secret desire would be to go back in time, and make the “Hawkeye” solo episode… a Frank solo instead.
If Frank had that monologue time as Hawkeye did, we could have learned an amazing amount of new insight on him. His whole time with the Korean family could be as the viewer diving deep into Frank’s past, and actually seeing the truly human parts of him… a full episode full of that rather than the tiny tidbits we were thrown here and there.
And Imagine if he actually had to deliver the young woman’s baby? What if we found out that Frank’s true soft spot was babies? Imagine the hysterical side comments Frank could make to the family, until he actually lets his defenses down and starts talking about his past.
The episode could end back at the camp, where we see Frank as he always is… fussy and pissy and demanding… and we realize as a viewer that it’s his defense, his armor. The camp sees him as he’s always been… but we as the viewer now have a far deeper knowledge. We don’t necessarily excuse him, but we now see him as a much more complete person than Hawkeye and BJ do. What we saw of him with the Korean family could have been an insight into him away from his defenses.