A cameraman has his head under a cloth, about to take a portrait photo of a "commander." It turns out, the photographer is Chuck and the "commander" is Gruber, supposedly wearing one of McHale's uniforms. The picture is to send to his occasionally-mentioned girlfriend Ginger, back in Brooklyn. As for the uniform, between Gruber's height and weight not being close to McHale's, the uniform fits surprisingly well.
Before Parker can take the photo, here come McHale and Binghamton. Trying to put down his flash powder and camera, sort-of wrestling with McHale to not drop things, you can guess that Parker hits the trigger on the flash powder and it covers the captain in black, singing his eyebrows and all.
Here comes a traveling USO show that, to Gruber's surprise, includes Ginger. The boys pull her aside and tell her not to mention the name "Commander Gruber," because he's out on a secret mission. Later, Gruber gets permission from McHale to let him pose as a commander for just a 5-minute visit with his girl.
Usually early plans do not work out as they'd like, leading to the rest of the episode. In this one, Gruber's 5-minutes works out fine, with McHale posing as the ensign-somehow wearing an ensign's outfit that fits him fine, while Parker wears a seaman's uniform. One wonders-since it was only for 5 minutes, why didn't McHale just stay out of sight instead of becoming an ensign? The answer really is that they needed him to be an ensign for the rest of the story.
But unbeknownst to the crew is that Binghamton has been contacted by a British commodore, who wants an American to serve as his liason. Binghamton talks up McHale and tries to get him permanently transferred. The commodore and his aide decide to slip past Binghamton and slip out to see what McHale is really like. They happen to arrive just as Ginger is leaving, before the men can switch back to their regular uniforms.
So Gruber has to pose as Commander McHale, with McHale as Mr. Parker, and Parker becomes Gruber. Commodore Norcross wants to go out on a mission with McHale to see him in action. They try this with Gruber steering the 73-poorly, as his steering skills and ability to give orders are quite limited.
Of course we could figure on a Japanese sub. Instead of torpedoing the boat, they surface and are about to open fire with their deck guns. Posing as someone troubled by an old war wound, Gruber-as McHale, heads below deck, leaving his Ensign (McHale) to lead the defense, and Parker-as Gruber somehow sends off the right torpedo and sinks the sub.
In order to comment, I have to give away much of the ending. Skip the rest if you want to see the show soon.
They return to McHale's Island, with the British officers appalled at what a coward McHale is. They then reveal what Binghamton has had planned. They say they will not be wanting his services at all. Then here comes Binghamton and Carpenter in the captain's gig.
McHale quickly tells the British they have to leave on their next mission immediately, and the men all scramble back onto the boat. Binghamton arrives and has an unpleasant discussion with the Brits, puzzled at their description of McHale's character.
He leads them over to McHale's boat-which is shockingly still docked. We had been led to believe they were taking off right away to keep the captain from seeing them all in the wrong uniforms. Binghamton orders them to come up from below and sees the trio in the wrong uniforms. They come ashore and begin a silly, Abbot and Costello-like routine where whenever the British officer addresses one by name, or rank, the real person with that name responds, not the one he is addressing. When Binghamton tries to say who is who, Norcross corrects him, not understanding what is wrong.
After a few rounds, the Brits flatly tell Binghamton they want to forget the whole thing and they board their gig to depart. Here is where it really gets silly, I mean, Mack Sennett-like. Binghamton hangs onto the rope that had tied up their boat until he is pulled into the water. McHale and men erupt with laughter while Carpenter asks for help in rescuing the captain. McHale says, "Sure, I'll help you" and he pushes him into the drink beside the captain. Then he tells his men to get the men out and the show is over.
So nothing gets discussed, much less resolved in explaining why Gruber was dressed like a well-decorated commander, McHale like an ensign, and Parker like a seaman.
Since Ginger is supposed to live in Brooklyn, near the mom Gruber is often mentioning, it seems likely they would speak, or speak to others who know both, and somehow Mom would either wonder why her son didn't tell her he had been promoted, or she'd tell Ginger that Lester lied to impress her, he is not an officer at all.
The middle scenes in the boat were the most entertaining of the episode. These were reasonably funny, although Chuck was a bit too dumb, again. But he wasn't featured too much so it was OK.
But that ending, where nothing gets resolved except that the British bow out from wanting anything to do with McHale-still believing the tall, skinny guy is actually the commander, not an enlisted man, and Binghamton seeing them in the wrong uniforms doesn't take any action-just too silly for my tastes. A below-average 5.
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