No good deed goes unpunished.
That lesson may haunt Thomas and Juliet following Magnum P.I. Season 5 Episode 16.
All that because these two soft touches had agreed to help a young Amish boy who found a way to fly to Hawaii to search for his missing older sister.
Of course, even though a missing-person case is always complex, this one quickly became more complicated as secrets began to be revealed.
Starting with poor innocent Jacob, who lied to his parents about where he was going and hopped a plane for Oahu to look for his sister Hannah based only on his hunch.
Since Magnum and Higgins’ agency runs on hunches (a point in case would be the skip they caught early on), Thomas felt compelled to help Jacob.
Yes, it’s another pro bono case. The cases that pay that keep them in business must happen offscreen. The low overhead that Robin’s Nest offers has got to help.
At least Juliet brought up the salient point that Hannah was there for her Rumspringa, experiencing the secular world, and they shouldn’t interfere in that or force her to go home to Pennsylvania.
Also, they both realized that Jacob would keep looking with or without their help. As would be proved later, an innocent waif wandering the streets of a tourist mecca just wasn’t a good idea.
Besides, Hannah’s former roommate quickly confirmed Jacob’s hunch that she had changed after initially loving life on Oahu.
It would have been helpful if the roomie could have come up with more than Hannah hanging out with some vague, sketchy guys at bars, but that got Thomas and Juliet heading in the right direction.
It sounds like the start of a joke. An ex-Mi-5 agent goes into a bar, only to discover that the Amish teen girl she sought was part of a robbery crew.
Shockingly, that discovery just scratched the surface as Katsumoto revealed that Hannah was the anonymous target of an HPD search for committing an escalating series of crimes, most recently armed robbery.
Gordie helped to crack the case as he and Higgins found a crime with a similar setup the previous year, with the woman involved caught and serving time.
That gave Juliet an in to who the men coercing Hannah were as she interviewed Nora Diaz, the woman who took the fall for the heist crew out of fear.
Nora’s giving up the name of the crew’s boss man quickly came to naught as Katsumoto and an HPD squad found the trio dead and their hideout ransacked.
Which logically led Magnum and Higgins back to the question of who would do that. That resulted in their visit to moneyman Sam Bedrosian.
You can never go wrong by suspecting the slimy financier. And they confronted him right to his face.
But they smartly hadn’t taken Jacob barhopping with them, sending him home to Kumu’s care. That’s where all the trouble broke out.
Kumu found out that sweet Jacob was devious Saul, a 14-year-old who had stolen his cousin’s I.D. so that he could take a flight without his parents’ permission.
That choice was ill-conceived but understandable. But his taking off to hunt for Hannah himself armed only with fliers wasn’t, and he was soon tricked into captivity by Bedrosian’s thugs.
Thanks to Jacob’s earlier Bible verse, Thomas determined Hannah would be hiding out at a church. But he still had to bluff as somebody had stolen the money from the marijuana depository (remember when they used to be called head shops?).
Still, Magnum and Higgins had something more valuable to trade: Bedrosian himself. They drove away with Saul.
But that’s likely not the last they’ll see of Bedrosian, who threatened them. Why don’t they sic Gordie on him? Also, it was never revealed who took the cash, so that’s likely to resurface.
Meanwhile, Rick decided to do a favor for T.C., who had never asked him to.
It was time for the annual Marine Corps Ball, which allowed those who served together to reunite for a good time.
However, since T.C. had broken up with Mahina on Magnum P.I. Season 5 Episode 14, he had no desire to go stag and be reminded of the boneheaded way he had handled his relationship with her.
Rick chose to treat the symptom, not the underlying condition, and find a date for T.C., thinking that was all it would take to change his mind.
Based on a suggestion from Suzy, Rick even accosted professional surfer Malia Manual, who agreed to go with T.C. despite Rick’s hamhanded approach. She must get a lot of that.
But when Rick informed T.C. about his good fortune, T.C. turned down the opportunity. He wasn’t in any mood to party, especially without Mahina.
Somehow, Rick got T.C. to attend, and T.C. was having a good time, especially after Rick had arranged for Mahina to attend.
Suzy definitely was happy to have a sitter for the night so she could have fun, especially after Rick encouraged her not to overdo it.
Now, with three couples again among the ohana, might there be a wedding in the finale? And if so, which one? Or would it be more than one?
To follow how these relationships developed, watch Magnum P.I. online.
Did you suspect that Jacob/Saul had a secret?
Have Thomas and Juliet made a new enemy?
Are you glad T.C. and Mahina are back together?
Comment below.
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Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on X.
