The episode is notable for its shocking ending, in which the unit's amiable commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (played by McLean Stevenson) receives an honorable discharge and leaves for home but, in the final scene, is reported killed by enemy fire.
This ending prompted more than 1,000 letters to series producers Gene Reynolds and Larry Gelbart, and drew fire from both CBS and 20th Century Fox.
)[1] After the production of this episode, both Stevenson and Wayne Rogers, who played the character of Captain Trapper John McIntyre, left the series to pursue other interests.
These combined departures and their subsequent cast replacements also signaled the beginning of a shift in focus of the M*A*S*H series as a whole, more centered on the character Hawkeye Pierce played by Alan Alda and with stories and tone increasingly from the dramatic side of comedy drama.
Henry begins planning his return and places a telephone call to Bloomington, Illinois to inform his wife and family of the good news.
The next morning, Frank attempts to assemble the company for a formal send-off, but Hawkeye and Trapper are out of uniform and unshaven, and Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr) wears a particularly elaborate dress made specially for the occasion.
Henry's affectionate individual goodbyes to the others are cut short by the imminent arrival of his helicopter, but Hawkeye pulls him aside and persuades him to give a long parting kiss to Margaret, to her surprise and Frank's annoyance.
Trapper and Hawkeye make joking comments, but Radar delivers news that the plane carrying Henry home has been shot down over the Sea of Japan, with no survivors.
The episode ends with a light-hearted montage of clips from Henry's scenes over the past three seasons as a farewell to the character.
The final scene, in which Radar informs the 4077th of the death of Henry Blake, was unprecedented: it was the first time in American television history that a main character departing a comedy series was killed off in a tragic way.
Stevenson left the set almost immediately after the end of filming, and the party was canceled due to the dour mood of the cast.
Gary Deeb of The Chicago Tribune, for instance, revealed Blake's death nearly two months before the episode aired.
Negative reactions were not exclusive to the home viewers of the program: both CBS, the network that aired M*A*S*H, and 20th Century Fox, the company that produced M*A*S*H, expressed their unhappiness at the killing of Henry Blake.
While "Abyssinia, Henry" is well known for the departure of McLean Stevenson from the series, it was also the final episode in which Wayne Rogers appeared.
[18] As a result, when the cast returned to begin filming the series' fourth season in September 1975, there were major changes in both the makeup and the direction of the show.