Movies - TV
Why Loretta Swit Never Liked Margaret’s Ending In M*A*S*H
By DANIELLE RYAN
The "M*A*S*H" finale drew the largest number of viewers for a prime-time TV episode. It wrapped up each of its characters' seasons-long emotional arcs — except for one.
Played by Loretta Swit, head nurse Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan grew into a complex, fascinating character with as much depth as any of the men on the sitcom.
In an interview with Yahoo, Swit shared that she wasn't happy with the choices made for Margaret's "happy ending" in the finale, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen."
When her time in Korea ended, Margaret went back to the United States to work in a hospital, something she said she always wanted to do, but Swit disagreed.
"I didn't think that was correct for my Margaret. For me, she was off to the next war. Margaret is military, just like Potter. I think her next move was Vietnam," Swit said.
Swit thinks that it's possible that the creators were trying to do a spin-off show with Houlihan in the U.S., as they did with "AfterMASH." However, it didn't make sense for Margaret.
In the finale, her father suggests she leave nursing to take a higher-ranking military gig, but Margaret is both a nurse and all military and wants her future to contain both.