Season 1, Episode 1&2: Don't Eat The Yellow Snow in Hawaii

 



Magnum P.I. kicks off with a two-hour series premiere. CBS must have had a lot of confidence in their new detective drama. In this introductory episode, recently Navy-retired Thomas Magnum investigates and avenges the death of fellow Vietnam veteran who unknowingly got caught up in some underworld drugs/gold/corruption sitch.
Throughout the episode, Magnum experiences PTSD in the form of flashbacks to Vietnam firefights. In present day(1980), he gets shot at(and missed) by machine guns on two separate occasions, he gets shot in the upper left chest by a bad guy/traitor wielding a pistol in an airport men's room. He manages to shoot back and kill the bad guy. After a stint in the ICU, Magnum is on the mend.



Related: Magnum's club-managing friend Rick kills an underworld hitman with an Uzi in a crowded area of downtown Honolulu with no apparent red tape to deal with after the fact.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Season 3, Episode #9 - Mr. White Death

Image
  The main point of Season 3's Mr. White Death, was to get screen legend Ernest Borgnine to act alongside the new hit show's actors. So, nevermind the plot holes and logic flaws, and just enjoy the good fun. In any case, the episode starts far away from Honolulu in both time and space. We are brought to a barber's shop in Miami circa 1955 where a well-dressed man is getting a shave and somebody comes out of the back room to break his neck. We don't see the face of the killer.  Flash forward to the present day(1982) and we find Magnum, T.C., and Rick stopping by some shady club where there is a low rent wrestling match happening that featured Mr. White Death(Borgnine), a masked marauder who is winning a slugfest with a local wrestler. At the same time as the match, Rick approaches the club owner to ask about $500 that he owes to Rick. The owner doesn't take kindly to being pressured to pay his debts on his own turf. A big fight ensues and it looks like the club owner
Read more

Season 3, Episode 3: Ki'i's Don't Lie

Image
  Magnum 3:3 "Ki'i's Don't Lie" is a crossover episode with Simon & Simon. The Simons were hired by a Beverly Hills antique dealer who sends them to Hawaii to track down a "Ki'i" which is a Hawaiian relic cursed by the poison god(you know the trope). Apparently, this dealer was conned out of this expensive artifact by a woman. After losing it, he started to get sick, an effect of the curse of the Poison God. He needed to get it back to return it to the volcano in Molokai to break the curse. The woman who stole the Ki'i, played by Morgan Fairchild, came to Hawaii with the relic and, with Higgins help, set up an auction for the religious artifact and other Hawaiian cultural items. Right before the auction, Simon and Simon were able to sneak into the estate posing as a pest control guy and a surfer dude. They manage to steal the Ki'i back and return it to their client at the hotel. As soon as the client puts the Ki'i in his hands, he d
Read more

Season 3, Episode 5: The Past Tense

Image
 Onto episode #5 of the third season, "The Past Tense", where the convoluted plots roll on for the second week in a row. This is also the TC/Higgins episode where they get to spend a lot of quality time together. Apparently, a gun runner criminal, Morgen Lydon, who Magnum helped get locked up  three years ago while Magnum was still with Naval Intelligence, decides he wants to exact vengeance on his nemesis. So, does he hire a hitman to kill Magnum using some underground network from prison? No. Does he try to escape, get to a hiding spot and then think of a plan to get revenge? No. What he does do is use his underground connections to hire two goons from Honolulu to hijack TC's helicopter and land it in the prison yard at the precise hour of the day that he will be in the yard. He also coordinates with the other prisoners to start a dumpster fire at the exact same time for enough of a distraction. He will then fly to a remote island where he will await Magnum to come and
Read more