Season 2, Episode 21: The Elmo Ziller Story

 

Episode #21 of Magnum's 2nd season, "The Elmo Ziller Story", must have been fun to film, but it sure was difficult to watch...

The Set-Up: The first scene shows us a pick up truck driving through the Texas desert and a couple of cowboys shoot at it with a rifle causing the truck to crash. The cowboys then go down to the wreckage where the driver is slumped in the seat. They stuff a rag in the gas tank, light it up and ride away on their horses. A short while later the truck explodes.

Now, we jump back to Hawaii. Magnum is returning to the guest house to find a short man with a long mustache playing a song on the acoustic guitar. It doesn't take long for Magnum to realize that he looks just like Higgins. The man, though, claims to be Higgins' illegitimate half brother from Texas, (you guessed it) Elmo Ziller. John Hillerman, who plays Higgins, was actually from Texas and must have loved this silly double role. Elmo is here to hire Magnum to protect him because someone tried to kill him in Texas a few months ago and will likely try again.

Magnum is suspicious that this is all a ruse and that Higgins is up to some practical joke. Despite his misgivings, Magnum decides to "take the case". We soon meet Elmo's daughter(played by Robin Dearden who appeared last season as an IRA killer in "No Need to Know") who explains that Elmo's estranged wife has shown up recently to try and get half of their traveling rodeo because she thought Elmo was already dead. The daughter also suspects that the estranged wife might have something to do with the attempt on her father's life.

Sure enough, over the next few days while the rodeo is in town, Elmo is bucked from a bronco and almost gets gassed to death with a propane leak. While nearly unconscious, Elmo starts speaking in a British accent. Turns out that it was Higgins all along. Apparently, his brother was actually presumed dead back in Texas(although his body was never found), and Higgins' niece put him up to pretending to be Elmo so that the estranged wife could not sell the rodeo. (Don't ask why Higgins spent a lot of time and effort hiding this ruse from Magnum, instead of just enlisting his help from the start)

In the end, it turns out that the estranged wife did hire those cowboys to kill her husband. They knock out Elmo(Higgins) one last time and drive him away from the rodeo to finish him off. Magnum can't get to his car and hops on a horse and catches up with their speeding pick up truck and stops the bad guys in their tracks. Mission accomplished!