Magnum PI - Season 5, Episode 4 (S05E04) - NSFW (Spilling spoilers...it’s what I do)
NSFW is true about the CEO, but dear God, man, did you have to be a serial cheater and womanizer? Well, first sentence, and I’ve spoiled some already.
After our quick prologue/recap, we have Thomas and Gordon sitting, talking about Greene’s death and of course, Magnum doesn’t even ask and Gordon knows Magnum wants to know if he can get his hands on the homicide file. That’s a HUGE ask, as Gordon points out, because Gordon is trying to get his badge back, and giving the report for a currently open HPD investigation to a civilian (I know Magnum is a Private Investigator, but that does NOT make him law enforcement and he definitely should NOT have access to the file) should lead to Gordon’s suspension if he wasn’t already standing by on his adjudication. So it just seems pretty rude of Magnum to push it, then when Gordon says no, Magnum doesn’t ask how Gordy’s doing, or how the case review is going, or if he can help his FRIEND out in some way. Thomas walks away. Rick said it (somewhat jokingly?) in episode 1 of this season, that his friendship with Magnum was somewhat transactional and a little bit toxic, and trying to maintain a little objectivity, it seems that Magnum treats his friendship with Katsumoto a little bit like that as well.
Rick...bring your baby to work day? You own a bar, dude. Sure, why not. What could possibly be bad about this idea? Although “Tammy is the worst” is a hilariously cruel line. So Rick is meeting his little sister Ruthie at La Mariana, and he had a big hand in raising her...but she has a tendency to show up when she needs something. Flash to T.C. talking to Magnum quickly, then T.C. putting up security cameras at Island Hoppers. With Mahina joining him wearing his shirt and some sandals. He really should go back to bed. Good for them! They missed out on a chance a few years ago, and now they’re making up for it. I hope this works out for T.C. and Mahina, and Cade, too.
I love Higgy’s nonchalant quip of “I hacked HPD again” like “Oh, today’s Thursday, I’m going to have a croissant and hack HPD. It’ll be a good morning.” The light touches between Thomas and Juliet are incredibly well done and subtle but definitely demonstrative of their feelings about each other. Juliet cares, a lot, and she wants Thomas to know that.
PLEASE don’t make a solar + battery startup go under or have it vanish from a hostile takeover from a fossil fuel-backed hedge fund. The hint at Koch Brothers fingerprints are all over this episode. My first clue that something was amiss was the combination of “She has no personal life, no boyfriend” and then he puts the picture (of him and her together) in FRONT of the picture of his family...
Nice, Juliet throws the ‘vastly superior people skills’ at Thomas and he catches it right away. They both know she laid it on a bit thick, but the communication here is absolutely needed. I like his little smile when she’s trying to protect him and then the “Wait, wait, wait” and she pulls him in for a KISS. The end of this scene is fantastic. The dialogue, the looks, the deep feels, dear God it’s perfect.
Magnum finds a man’s shirt at the CFO’s house. Her really nice house with a $100k Tesla SUV in the driveway. Wow, I guess everyone in Hawaii is loaded because even basic rent on a studio apartment is not cheap. But I digress, back to Higgy dumpster-diving and there’s a BODY in the TRASH CHUTE. That can’t be comfortable. It’s the CFO. And the CEO, Jordan, points Magnum and Higgy to the hedge fund manager.
Back to La Mariana and we meet Ruthie, Rick’s cool sister for a minute. Hmm, she’s implied to be looking for help, but she doesn’t need a place to stay...interesting. She might be here for something else.
The hedge fund manager is supposed to come across as a little bit slimy, but he just comes across as a straight-forward, albeit somewhat ruthless businessperson. Although calling Higgy ‘babe’ apparently just slipped through unnoticed. So he’s a little smarmy, but that’s not illegal.
And the CEO and CFO were sleeping together. Which he neglected to tell Higgins and Magnum...and the CEO has a HUGE MANSION. Did I not mention that rent in Hawaii is chart-toppingly high? How do these people afford a beachfront mansion like this?!?! Is this where the money from the startup is going? To this CEO’s small palace? Goddammit, c’mon!
So the CEO was sleeping with his CFO for about a year. When Higgins and Magnum confront him about how that looks, he fires them. As Higgy and Magnum spitball pros and cons back and forth, there really isn’t a motivation for Jordan to kill Sandra, and there’s actually big downside for him to do it. Interesting that the family’s security system camera footage has just been deleted...
Hmm, Rick and Ruthie. Huh, so she’s getting married. So apparently there’s not a ton of communication between Rick and his sisters.
Quick scene with T.C. and Mahina. Cute, working on our communication, and they both think they have a good thing going. Cool.
I’m not a huge fan of making HPD look like boneheads a lot. It kind of shakes the confidence in law enforcement when police officers are repeatedly wrong about suspects in something like a murder investigation. I understand that Magnum and Higgins will ultimately find the real killer, but they don’t have to make HPD look bad. They already kind of did that a bunch the last few years with Gordon. Yeah, he ultimately got credit for helping solve a bunch of cases with Magnum and Higgins, but that doesn’t reflect fantastically well on HPD that their investigators repeatedly get things wrong. That’s the long way of saying the janitor’s been arrested for the CFO’s murder because she owed him money.
So Rick and Ruthie. Ruthie’s gay, but in a hilariously awkward way, Rick seems to be completely fine with that. He’s more bothered that she didn’t tell him one of the biggest, most important things in her life. He viewed himself as partly a father figure to her and he didn’t know/she didn’t tell him. Until now.
The janitor that’s been arrested for Sandra’s murder overheard an argument between two women in Sandra’s office while she was there late the night she was murdered. So we head to Jordan’s wife. Who apparently knew not only about Jordan sleeping with Sandra (who she described as ‘like family’ before), but he’s had a whole slew of affairs...
And we get to a part where I had to pause the episode. Jordan’s wife thinks the because he’s a ‘powerful, driven man’ that she should be willing to compromise and be fine with affairs and him betraying her. It wasn’t that they had an open marriage, it’s just he has affairs and she accepts that. This is where I’m raising an ANGRY RED FLAG up to the top of the mast. I’m a dude. If you’ve read my screeds before, some of you might have guessed or been suspicious, but yes, I am a dude. And I’m married. And you know what I don’t do? Sleep the fuck around. Everybody’s relationship is not the same, true. But I would not have MARRIED my spouse if I wanted to sleep with other people. Maybe if the ‘powerful, driven man’ had some goddamn self-control, he wouldn’t be going to jail...but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Kumu and Rick talking. This was a really good talk. Rick is struggling to cope with Ruthie not telling him about her being gay, and feels that because of how important he thought he was in her life, that she could have told him and maybe should have. Kumu has some great parental thoughts on the matter. Since she didn’t have any kids of her own, Thomas, Rick, Juliet, and T.C. are all her children.
We have Magnum and Higgins working the security footage angle from Jordan’s house. Jordan, his wife and their daughter all have accounts, but the system doesn’t record who deleted the footage. They figure out Zoe (Jordan’s daughter) just found out about her Dad and Sandra, and it might have been Zoe that killed Sandra.
Just as Higgins and Magnum arrive at the mansion, they see Jordan handcuffed and being put in a squad car. I like Childs’ reaction, “You know you’re exhausting, right?”
Okay, Jordan does NOT get to pull the “oh I feel terrible about being unfaithful to my wife and family” card. You didn’t feel bad enough while you were being unfaithful to stop, so yeah, you’re looking up at the moral high ground from the bottom of the hill, man. Stop being skeezy, you’re embarassing the rest of us.
I do like the conversation between Magnum and Higgins on the way to the car from HPD. I don’t know if that’s an actual building used by HPD in the background, but it is a really nice-looking building. But the conversation, about it being up to the prosecutor about the way ahead and possible convictions, it shows that this really is a little more complicated moving forward legally than morally. While they don’t mention it, because of the timeline and the actions taken by Jordan and his family, there might not be enough for a jury to convict on a murder charge for either Zoe or Jordan because there’s enough reasonable doubt about the other possibly committing the murder. So with Jordan confessing and taking credit, it doesn’t mean a good defense attorney won’t try and place enough suspicion on Zoe that there’s doubt. Same if Zoe is charged as an adult. But then again, I’m not a lawyer, so that’s just speculation from me.
Magnum and Higgins take the win of the janitor being released! (We’ll ignore the check fraud charges and just believe everything’s good).
Couple of quick scenes: Gordon got Magnum the police file (I’m split about that because Gordon’s previous associations with Magnum should have been getting him suspended about every other week anyway), but he chooses to get the report, and possibly ending his career anyway. How does he even have access if he’s suspended...
Anyhow, second quick scene as Mahina helps T.C. set up the motion detectors and cameras at Island Hoppers. She’s ‘got plans’ for them. I like it. She better not be killed by whoever is after T.C., Rick and Magnum. That would just be annoying.
Every so often, a show breaks out a conversation between two characters that is so fantastic that there are few words to describe it. Rick and Ruthie talk over pool. Both of them are right, and those are some of the most difficult situations. This might be the best scene in the episode (even the Miggy moments) because the writing is just raw and open. People are human, and despite people’s best intentions, sometimes things happen that are beyond control and there are certainly ripple effects. Ruthie and Rick move through this one really well.
I like Rick’s toast. And everyone’s reaction. Suzy! Yay!
No one notices how Thomas and Juliet are not only next to each other but always so close now. Even MORE so than before.
And because we apparently haven’t gone for the feels enough, we get the moment between Thomas and Juliet about whoever/whatever is coming. The looks! Mwah! GREAT EPISODE!!!!
Hmmm, I did have a good amount of spoilers, but reviewing this before posting it, it looks like there’s a bunch of teasers, too.
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