Magnum PI – A Novel Connection

As I said last week I’ve never seen Magnum PI before, so I didn’t really know anything about the show. After I watched this episode the first time I rang my Mum to ask her what the hell I just watched, but unfortunately she wasn’t much help either (“Magnum? I saw an ad for that once. He’s a private investigator. Tom Selleck has a moustache. And very tight shorts. Hold on your Dad is yelling at the football again.”)

She also compared Magnum to former AFL player Warwick Capper, which was probably a bit harsh but very funny.

Warwick Capper. Sweet dreams ladies.

So I had to resort to Wikipedia. For those playing along at home, Magnum is indeed a private investigator living rent free in a mansion in Hawaii belonging to a reclusive smutty book writer named Robin Masters (apparently voiced by Orson Welles. Just think about that for a minute). His nemesis appears to be the butler, Higgins, and his sidekicks are TC, who flies helicopters, and Rick who owns a bar. Got all that? Excellent. Now to business,

Higgins has gone to pick up Pamela Bates, Amy Sayler and Joan Fulton, some guests of the mysterious Orson Welles Robin Masters who are coming to meet him at his house, but it all goes a bit awry when the Beige Truck Of Death tries to run them off the road. Meanwhile, Magnum has bigger problems. His pals Rick and TC are begging him to invest in a resort development on Maui. Or something. I don’t know, I was distracted.

First moustache sighting of the episode. Clearly relevant to the plot.

Rick’s sales pitch is interrupted by the return of Higgins and his carload of women who are a bit rattled after their run in with the Beige Truck of Death. Well, one is a bit more concerned with what Magnum’s got going on in his shorts if you catch my drift.

Why yes that is Mallory Archer/Lucille Bluth.

While Rick shows the ladies to their rooms, Magnum asks Higgins what exactly happened on the road, but Higgins doesn’t want a bar of it. He cheerfully informs Magnum that his services are not required.

I’ll be honest, Magnum seems a bit overeager if you ask me. Although not as overeager as Joan Fulton, who seems to think she was the target of the Beige Truck of Death.

All this overt sexual tension is making me feel redundant.

Joan informs Magnum that all he has to do is keep her safe until Pamela’s private investigator arrives to take charge. Magnum is incredibly put out that his manly services are being overshadowed by some ringin from the mainland, and struts accordingly.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH, THOSE SHORTS…

Higgins refuses to divulge the name of the investigator coming to cramp Magnum’s style and tells him to go to Maui. While Amy burns off in the Ferrari, Pamela assures Magnum that she thinks he makes a perfectly adequate security guard but what she needs is professional competent help.

Sulky Magnum is sulky.

In the air on the way to Maui Magnum spots Amy in the Ferrari and decides to follow her. Seriously dude? He watches her pull into an office building and orders TC to set the chopper down so he can do a bit more detecting.

And by detecting…

WHAT IS THIS I CAN’T EVEN…

Magnum’s enjoyment of his (*cough*) sausage is ruined when a man in a blue car approaches Amy and she freaks, getting back into the Ferrari and hightailing it out of there, the mystery man hot in pursuit.  Magnum goes back to the mansion to see if the mystery man is Pamela’s investigator (you idiot Magnum), and if Amy has returned but he’s wrong on both counts. While he is being berated by Pamela, a call comes in from the police – the Ferrari has been found abandoned, with no sign of Amy anywhere.

(Side note, I once found an abandoned Ferrari. Or it might have been a Porsche. Someone of a presumably nefarious character left it in the middle of the street while I was standing outside my old office waiting for a friend. It is one of the more exciting things to happen to me. Wish I’d instagrammed that. Wish Instagram had been invented).

ANYWAY.

Magnum goes to the police station to see just what’s going on, but Pamela has put the word out that she doesn’t want Magnum’s incompetence anywhere near the case. She’s a lunatic, but she ain’t wrong. While Sergeant Browning is on the phone Magnum goes through the case file. Browning busts him pretending to be on the phone, and informs him that Joan, didn’t come home last night.

I bet she didn’t.

Magnum suspects that Joan’s disappearance is more to do with a book promotion than anything else, until Pamela icily points out that Amy is Joan’s secretary because Joan inherited her late husband’s business. Magnum then decides that Amy must be promoting a book, at which point Pamela storms off. Magnum is equally annoyed: no one will tell him who the hotshot investigator encroaching on his turf is, and he has swapped his shorts for actual pants.

Magnum shakes off his pout and goes to see what Amy was doing at the office building in the first place. While the receptionist transcribes the interview (because apparently PacLisle Industries has nothing better to do than record every conversation ever), the president of the company informs him that Amy never actually set foot inside the building, but that some idiot saw Amy there and assumed she was looking for someone inside the building.

MO MONEY MO PROBLEMS
*gives self a high-five*

Magnum has better luck from his friend Doc Ibold, who informs him that someone has filled a prescription in Amy’s name to be delivered to Seaview  hotel.  To celebrate, he eats an icecream.

Number of foods consumed by Magnum this episode = 2. (You’re welcome)

After a clever diversionary tactic with the wrong hotel room Magnum forces the mysterious stranger following Amy to show himself, however his success is short-lived when the actual guest of the hotel room wanders in and wacks a bag of groceries over Magnum’s head. The Mysterious Man escapes but not before shooting his gun all over the place. Magnum then goes and knocks on the correct door and finds Amy holed up. As he takes her back to the mansion she tells him that she panicked when she saw she was being followed, as she assumed the man was hired by a jilted ex-boyfriend back in New York.

Naturally, the Magster is pretty pleased with himself when he reports in to Pamela – not that he’s on the case, he’s sure that Pamela would rather wait for her investigator.

“She’s already here,” says Pamela.

LIKE A BOSS.

Magnum is quick to show off his detective skills (code for penis) but Our Heroine isn’t having a bar of it. She assures him that she has no intention of investigating anything, she’s simply here to support her friend Pamela.

Higgins, meanwhile, has completely lost his shit.

(It’s okay, that’s dirt)

JB correctly deducts what Higgins has been doing in the garden, so Magnum goes off to sulk a bit more. Again. Jess demands an explanation from Pamela, who informs her that Magnum is a bum (*ahem*) and that she needs Jess’s help. JB corrrectly points out that what Pamela needs is professional help, but is interrupted by Higgins informing them that lunch is served.

No TV and no beer make Higgins…something something.

Higgins, JB, Pamela and Amy sit down to a delicious lunch. Magnum is on the kids table.

I should start a Tumblr devoted to pictures of Tom Selleck eating things. Probably won’t though, to be honest,

They are soon joined by Joan who has mysteriously reappeared with a souvenir named herpes Jason. Magnum asks Joan why she bothered to reappear at that moment and she says “I’ve been in these clothes since yesterday!”

“I doubt it.” Says Pamela. O SNAP. She might be completely insane but she’s nailed throwing the sass around.

Jason invites them all to a party as a thankyou for letting him impose, but Higgins points out that the mysterious Orson Welles Robin Masters is expected that night and Jess thinks its not safe for anyone to leave the house until Magnum solves the case. Magnum decides to through another tantrum, saying that he’s not even sure that there’s a case, noone tells him anything and he’s the only one being shot at.

In response, a shadow outside the room shoots at him again,

Magnum jogs off in pursuit but presumably finds that pants are too restrictive when it comes to chasing gun toting shadows and gives up. He tells Higgins that he reluctantly accepts the case, despite Higgins protesting that the level of tantrum throwing suggests Magnum probably should stay out of it. Of course, Magnum does no such thing, and despite Our Heroine giving him some tasty clues to follow up (why wasn’t Joan sunburnt if she’d been on the beach all day, why did Amy say her ring was fake when it was real), Magnum pays no attention. Like a dumbarse. Meanwhile, JB digs the bullet out of the wall and establishes the trajectory, Higgins informs her that he suspects that the bullet was meant for him, as he has a “colourful past”. My money’s on drag queen. Magnum reappears with the belief that the man following Amy is a hitman out to get Joan (that makes zero sense), and is alarmed with Higgins tells him that Joan and Amy have gone to Jason’s party.

Magnum, Higgins, Pamela and JB go to the party. Pamela is still convinced she is the target, and finally tells JB why – her editor is embezzling royalties. Meanwhile, Higgins is still convinced that he is the target but agrees to wait half an hour to see who the hitman tries to kill. GENIUS PLAN MAGNUM. JB decides to take Pamela back to New York to deal with the crooked editor and tells Magnum that she suspects Amy is the target. Magnum scoffs at this and explains that the hitman was following Amy to get to Joan, and these sorts of things are what makes him a private detective and JB a novelist. And a good one! He adds.

“Thank you,” says JB. “I’m sure normally you’re very good at your job.”

BITCH, YOU JUST GOT FLETCHERED.

Magnum spots the hitman making his move, and after running around the house for a bit it all comes to an end when Magnum shoots and kills him.

And…WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT’S IT? NO! I WILL NOT HAVE THIS TALKING MOUSTACHE PROVEN RIGHT AND OUR HEROINE PROVEN WRONG! WHAT IS THIS? I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE MAUI DEVELOPMENT WAS A HOAX! I REJECT THIS REALITY! I CALL SHENANIGANS! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

Ahem. I’ll just go and calm down now.

Yeah, you just read and learn a thing or two from the Boss you moustachioed douche.