If you’ve seen any of the promos for episode 9 of Magnum P.I., titled “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”, you might be under the impression this is an episode about a surprise wedding. Sadly to say, that’s been somewhat misleading and not really what it’s about at all. On the plus side, it’s a really solid episode, which not only contends with important themes such as mental health and racism, but also dramatically expands the Greene storyline in a shocking fashion.
It all starts with Higgins spacing out, only to come to a romantic dinner with Magnum. It looks like he’s about to propose, and he opens up the ring box. Inside is a bullet. Suddenly Magnum keels over, blood pouring from a wound that wasn’t there moments ago. Juliette looks in horror, her hands covered in blood. Then she wakes up, and the nightmare continues. She’s strapped to a bed, with syringes nearby.
Rewind 36 hours, and we begin to discover how poor Juliette found herself in such a predicament. Things seem calm enough, with Magnum and Juliette doing their daytime breakfast routine. He made her a parfait, but she isn’t hungry. In fact, she’s quite pissed over him changing the super secure, alphanumeric password on their network to something very easily hacked. It’s their first real fight, at least since they’ve been a couple. Thomas then gets saved by the bell and gets messaged to come immediately and talk with Detective Childs.
Unfortunately for Thomas, Childs isn’t in a better mood than Higgins. If anything, he’s more pissed now that he discovered that Louis Peele was brought back to Hawaii without his knowledge. He’s ready to cuff Magnum for obstruction and tells him he has moments to catch him up. Magnum relents, and tells him a little about the mercenary from last week, Oliver Cane, and the CIA involvement. He didn’t want to tell Childs because it’s incredibly dangerous for anybody that knows anything about the men hunting Magnum’s old unit.
Meanwhile, Higgins is looking into a client’s dead boyfriend. It looks like a suicide in his car, but the girlfriend points out there was no note left behind. It’s clear that Juliette relates to the client’s story, about how she and the now-dead man, Otis, were friends for a long time before finally becoming a couple, not unlike Higgins and Magnum. So she’s going to go undercover at the psychiatric hospital where Otis was an orderly and figure out if he actually committed suicide, or if mayhem is afoot.
As for Rick and T.C., they’re busy moving Rick into his baby mama’s new houseboat. Though Rick should be happy about living on his own terms instead of being a housemate at Robin’s Nest, he’s sad that Susie isn’t ready to live with him. I’ll be honest, this side story is pretty much over at this point. Thankfully Gordon Katsumoto has a more interesting and much more important arc in “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”.
Gordon is driving Dennis to a potential college. It’s clear he wants his son to remain close to home, but he’s trying to be supportive. He tells Dennis how he once had a dream to make motorcycles for a living, but changed paths to being a cop. He just wants the same for Dennis, to find something he’s passionate about and spend his life dedicated to whatever that turns out to be.
Later on they’re at a pub near to the college, and things get a bit complicated. Dennis isn’t happy that his dad wants to keep him close at home. There’s also someone yelling at the TV nearby, and when Gordon tries to calmly ask him to be quiet, the hillbilly stirs up trouble. At first he asks where Gordon and his son are from. When Dennis tells them honestly that they’re from Hawaii looking into colleges, he makes a crack about how any school will jump at a chance to offer a free ride to someone “with his eyes”. This quickly devolves into a shouting match between Gordon and the asshole, and then the idiot makes the mistake of pushing the detective. Within moments Gordon has him pinned to the ground, and calls in the local police to deal with the rubbish. Still, the whole incident understandably puts a bad taste in Gordon and Dennis’ mouths.
Higgy makes a pretty believable psychologist, and it’s fun watching her lose her British accent to play the role. Early on things go poorly for her, as one out of control patient smacks her to the ground. No lasting harm done, but a sign of things to come. Within moments of her treatment, it becomes clear there’s some issues at the psychiatric hospital, least of which involve a lack of funding.
While Magnum looks into the dead orderly’s car, Higgy interrogates patients while pretending to be a psychiatrist. She does a solid job, and has some very quirky folks she talks with, including one that thinks the hospital is connected to the Illuminati. Another patient named Steven doesn’t say a word, and one named Becca immediately figures out that Higgins is faking her accent, thanks in large part to watching the show House. She agrees to talk with Higgins if she’s straight with her, and reveals that Otis was last seen sneaking into the room where the hospital keeps all its drugs. So now the theory is that maybe Otis was dealing drugs, and that somehow lead to his death.
Magnum’s side of the investigation leads to a parking ticket, which in turn leads to someone named Dr. Weiss that Otis spent time with. Not as a patient, as it turns out. He was asking the doctor about schizophrenia disorder, and worried that one patient at the hospital was being overmedicated. It’s none other than Steven, the man who barely reacted to Higgins’ presence earlier. Turns out, he was only supposed to spend a couple weeks at the hospital, and instead has been there a couple years.
Childs also has an interesting side arc. He uses the information Magnum provided, and is looking into Peele’s particulars. He finds a phone number, and drags in a man related to it named Leo. He looks like he rented a bunch of rooms to black book CIA agents. Leo finally admits to Childs he was forced to work with them, and that he had no choice. Childs demands a list of all the properties they rented.
Magnum talks with Steven’s cousin, a surf boy named Derek, who pays for Steven’s prolonged stay. He claims that Steven is bi-polar, and that had a bad incident before he was committed. Apparently he wishes Steven was better, since they started a surfboard company together, and Steven was the brilliant designer. Just one problem – Magnum catches Derek in a lie, and realizes that Steven may have been made to have a psychotic reaction so that Derek could profit from selling their business.
We’re nearly caught up to the intro of “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”. Juliette sneaks into the room and starts perusing documents when a nurse walks up and sticks a syringe in her neck. Then Higgins comes to strapped down. Juliette got a dose of something strong, and as the nurse interrogates her she hallucinates Thomas dying again and again in front of her. Then she hallucinates talking to herself as psychiatrist, and tries in vain to leave the room, not realizing that she’s still strapped down.
For a show that normally avoids anything too scary, this sequence definitely raised the hairs on my arm a bit, and made me sympathize with Higgy. Especially when the nurse says she’s going to use her as bait to trap Magnum and deal with them both. Thankfully, Magnum realizes something is amiss, and bolts into the hospital, using a tracking app to find Higgy’s phone. He breaks in moments before the nurse gives Juliette a fatal overdose. Later she confides in him that she fears losing him, and he shares that they both deal with survivor’s guilt. They take comfort in each other and enjoy a relaxing moment. As for Katsumoto and Dennis, the share their own moment as father and son, and Gordon urges his son to follow his dreams, no matter what anybody else thinks.
Sadly for Magnum P.I. but luckily for us, the episode doesn’t end there. Before I go into the last few moments, a warning. If you don’t want any sort of spoilers, stop reading here. Otherwise I’m going to cover the frankly shocking final moments of the episode below.
Okay, here we go! Childs is looking into the rented properties. He’s checked several already, and is onto the last one on the list. Inside, he finds empty cases of munitions. Worse, he also finds pictures of Magnum and himself from earlier that day. Which means the mercenaries have figured out the identities of his team. Childs starts walking out and dials Thomas, warning him, moments before he trips a wire, and the entire building erupts in a ball of fire. Then T.C. and Shammy are working late, and he gets an intruder alert notification. Moments later, a masked assailant walks up and shoots him, and the episode ends with T.C. struggling to grab his gun as he lies prone.
Now that is how you end an episode! A really great, albeit dramatic, episode of Magnum P.I. Tune in next week to discover how these events play out, and whether or not Childs and T.C. manage to survive.
