Binghamton comes up with the notion that if he plants Lt. Carpenter to be McHale's new executive officer, Elroy can find out specifics of what McHale & Co. are doing-illegally-and report back to the captain so he can catch them in the act and court martial them. The captain thus makes Mr. Parker the base maintenance officer.
Of course, McHale's crew is lying low so Carpy won't find out anything. Back at the main base, we see Chuck on a ladder in Binghamton's outer office changing a light bulb. Binghamton comes in, immediately starts complaining about what Chuck is doing, even though at this point, he appears to be properly handling one of his new duties. It all disintegrates when Binghamton orders him to get out of there, and Chuck gets wrapped up with the captain and the ladder, so that Binghamton switches him to being in charge of the huge base laundry.
Realistically, of course, if they really have one laundry for all the people on the base-as portrayed-there would be several sailors handling the goods, while someone such as Mr. Parker might be in charge of ordering supplies and deciding who goes where to pick up and deliver the laundry. Here, Chuck is a one-man operation, and he apparently messed up the boiler and caused an explosion.
So McHale and Chuck are taking all of the laundry to the 73 so they can do it the way we saw Gruber doing laundry back in season 1-hanging it inside a barrel with holes and hanging it out the back of the boat.
Carpy later catches them with some laundry and immediately wants to phone Binghamton. McHale has Fuji-in his regular uniform--slash the phone line and then Fuji takes Carpenter off into the jungle as his prisoner to keep him away for a while.
Of course Binghamton now shows up with the admiral of the week, Rafferty, eager to show evidence to get McHale and his crew court martialed. Binghamton claims they have either killed, or kidnapped Carpenter. What the gang has really done is set up their base AND the 73 as two huge stations to dry all of the laundry they just washed. They are returning on the boat when they spot the captain and admiral on their island.
So McHale comes up with a plan to get them out of the whole mess, pretending there are numerous Japanese raiding parties on the island, with the men all following the brave leadership of Ensign Parker to chase away the Nips. With the captain and admiral waiting near the dock, they hear the sounds of the nearby battle, complete with grenades going off and rifle shots and yelling.
So the admiral, believing Parker is quite good as a fighting man, orders Binghamton to return him to his old assignment and there is no more talk about a court martial.
Reviewer kfo complained about Chuck being too inept. I have made that complaint in other episodes, but did not think that was really the case here. The bit with the light bulb and the ladder was well executed. The whole fake battle scene was pretty good too. Parker did handle his role there well, with one minor exception concerning watches-also funny. The only thing inept with the laundry was making the boiler blow up-off camera.
To me the one thing that made no sense was Binghamton's notion that the men would let Carpenter see any illegal activity they were up to. They certainly knew they couldn't trust him; that whatever he spotted would be reported to the captain-even if they didn't know that was his true assignment. So the only accomplishment he could really achieve would be keeping the men honest by just being there.
To me, an above average episode, getting an 8 out of 10 score.
Of course, McHale's crew is lying low so Carpy won't find out anything. Back at the main base, we see Chuck on a ladder in Binghamton's outer office changing a light bulb. Binghamton comes in, immediately starts complaining about what Chuck is doing, even though at this point, he appears to be properly handling one of his new duties. It all disintegrates when Binghamton orders him to get out of there, and Chuck gets wrapped up with the captain and the ladder, so that Binghamton switches him to being in charge of the huge base laundry.
Realistically, of course, if they really have one laundry for all the people on the base-as portrayed-there would be several sailors handling the goods, while someone such as Mr. Parker might be in charge of ordering supplies and deciding who goes where to pick up and deliver the laundry. Here, Chuck is a one-man operation, and he apparently messed up the boiler and caused an explosion.
So McHale and Chuck are taking all of the laundry to the 73 so they can do it the way we saw Gruber doing laundry back in season 1-hanging it inside a barrel with holes and hanging it out the back of the boat.
Carpy later catches them with some laundry and immediately wants to phone Binghamton. McHale has Fuji-in his regular uniform--slash the phone line and then Fuji takes Carpenter off into the jungle as his prisoner to keep him away for a while.
Of course Binghamton now shows up with the admiral of the week, Rafferty, eager to show evidence to get McHale and his crew court martialed. Binghamton claims they have either killed, or kidnapped Carpenter. What the gang has really done is set up their base AND the 73 as two huge stations to dry all of the laundry they just washed. They are returning on the boat when they spot the captain and admiral on their island.
So McHale comes up with a plan to get them out of the whole mess, pretending there are numerous Japanese raiding parties on the island, with the men all following the brave leadership of Ensign Parker to chase away the Nips. With the captain and admiral waiting near the dock, they hear the sounds of the nearby battle, complete with grenades going off and rifle shots and yelling.
So the admiral, believing Parker is quite good as a fighting man, orders Binghamton to return him to his old assignment and there is no more talk about a court martial.
Reviewer kfo complained about Chuck being too inept. I have made that complaint in other episodes, but did not think that was really the case here. The bit with the light bulb and the ladder was well executed. The whole fake battle scene was pretty good too. Parker did handle his role there well, with one minor exception concerning watches-also funny. The only thing inept with the laundry was making the boiler blow up-off camera.
To me the one thing that made no sense was Binghamton's notion that the men would let Carpenter see any illegal activity they were up to. They certainly knew they couldn't trust him; that whatever he spotted would be reported to the captain-even if they didn't know that was his true assignment. So the only accomplishment he could really achieve would be keeping the men honest by just being there.
To me, an above average episode, getting an 8 out of 10 score.
