The following contains spoilers from the first two episodes of Magnum PI Season 5 on NBC.
Magnum PI kicked off its NBC run this Sunday night with, yes, steamy shower smooches and extra flirtatious banter between newly-coupled Thomas and Julia. We’ve also seen that while Katsumoto initially resigned himself to being marginalized at HPD (and was replaced by Michael Rady’s Det. Childs), he chose instead to fight for his job; Teuila will help out at La Mariana while Rick juggles fatherhood; and said new dad now tumbles as Magnum’s apartment until he can close a new, baby-friendly home.
But on a much darker note….
A sequence concluding the season opener involved TC searching the docks one night for Captain Buck Greene (played by James Remar) but found his boat’s slipway empty. After TC left, a shady non-harbourmaster secretly called an employee who asked to be notified if anyone looked for Greene. We then saw that the man on the other end of the line had put Greene in a black bag and tied him to a chair at an undisclosed location.
When the hood was removed, Greene asked what they wanted, why they broke into his home and kidnapped him. The man in charge recounted Greene’s tenure in the Navy and how he managed a black ops team in Afghanistan consisting of “two SEALs” (Magnum and Nuzzo) and “two Marines” (Rick and TC). The ominous man wants to know where to find these team members, but Greene looked like he wasn’t spilling anything.
Then, at the end of the second episode, the Det of the HPD. Childs was called to the morgue after a body washed ashore – and when the cover was lifted we saw it was Greene.
Speaking to TVLine, Magnum PI head Jay Hernandez said that Greene’s kidnapping, torture and death sparked a season five story arc that will span “many episodes.”
Hernandez said that serialized mystery arcs like this one are a “really fun” way to add to the show’s case-of-the-week element. “You get more time to build the story,” over several episodes, “so you don’t have to squeeze it in [one]. It’s going to be what it is and there’s some really great stuff to come out of this story.”
After all, the man who kidnapped and apparently killed Greene is not only after Magnum, but Rick and TC as well. As such, viewers can expect viewers to learn even more about the best friends’ complicated military history as this subplot progresses. “It touches on our past and how we became a unit… all that stuff,” Hernandez predicts. “There are some really good backstories that are revealed through this plot.”
What did you think of Magnum PI’s season 5 double episode premiere in their new home on NBC?