The episode was conceived, written and directed by cast member Alan Alda, who played Hawkeye Pierce on the show.
Psychiatrist Sidney Freedman (Allan Arbus) is having trouble working after one of his patients, whom he thought he had helped, dies by suicide.
In the letter, he describes the members of the 4077th and recalls stories about them; for instance, Klinger pretends to have been hit in the head by a helicopter blade and speaks only Arabic, Hawkeye Pierce deals with a bomber pilot who needs to learn the consequences of war, and Radar processes the accidental death of an ambulance driver, including writing a letter to the dead man's parents.
He had long been impressed by Arbus's acting skills as a psychiatrist, initially believing him to be a subject expert and turning to him for psychiatric advice.
Thorne lauded the "sheer blackness", fitting in with the series' themes of "the human condition and the horrors of war", and the "genuinely heart-breaking" letter to a deceased ambulance driver's family, as well as a "brilliantly written and beautifully delivered" joke in the opening scene.