Warning: major spoilers ahead for the spring finale of Magnum P.I. Season 5, called “Charlie Foxtrot.”
The first half of Magnum P.I.'s almost miraculous Season 5 has come to an end, nearly a year after its cancellation by CBS and months after its NBC premiere. The stakes were already sky-high after the penultimate episode of the spring season left a lot of questions to be answered, and “Charlie Foxtrot” delivered some much-needed resolutions. The future is brighter for some characters more than others looking ahead the second half of Season 5, and star Jay Hernandez addressed how Magnum moves forward, the importance of the brotherhood, and a character who could cause problems moving forward.
Fortunately for fans, T.C. survived the gunshot wounds that he sustained at the end of the previous week’s episode, and Rick managed to avoid being killed long enough for Magnum, Higgins, Katsumoto, and Co. to come to the rescue. Less fortunately, Childs was confirmed to have died in the explosion, and T.C. is facing a long road to recovery without any guarantees of how much he’ll be able to get back to his life before the shooting. The Island Hoppers owner may never walk again.
All in all, Magnum got a wake-up call about how he was careless about his own safety even when he knew that he was one identification away from being targeted by mercenaries. It also wasn’t lost on him that Rick and T.C. were the ones in grave danger after they had taken extra precautions. Plus, he might have been killed if Higgins hadn’t been at Robin’s Nest after experiencing her hallucinations to take his would-be killers by surprise.
Speaking with CinemaBlend, Jay Hernandez weighed in on whether this wake-up call will stick with Magnum after the first half of the season:
I think anytime he puts the people that he loves and cares about in any kind of peril, that will hang over him, and that's going to be hard to swallow. That's gonna be hard to deal with. The great thing about this character is he's so selfless. He cares about everybody almost more than himself, whether it's his friends or a stranger. I mean, the guy's got a huge heart.
Of course, it wasn’t his fault that the mercenaries went after his friends or even that Childs was killed, but as Hernandez said, Magnum has “a huge heart,” which makes what happened in “Charlie Foxtrot” after he didn’t take more precautions more “hard to swallow.” That’s not to say that having a huge heart is a bad thing, however, as Hernandez continued:
I think that's one of the reasons why people have been coming back and continue to support the show, is he's the kind of hero that everybody connects with on some level. So yeah, I think anytime he puts anybody in a situation where they could be hurt, or even worse, it's not going to be easily sort of dealt with or washed away. He's gonna have to find some way to make it better and make it right.
It remains to be seen how much Magnum P.I. will address the aftermath of “Charlie Foxtrot” in the second half of the season, and a lot may depend on if there’s a time jump between the spring finale and whenever Season 5 returns. Whether or not we see much of Magnum trying to “make it better” after what went down in this episode, I did have a related question: does this mean that he would change his password from “DetroitTigersRule’ with 1s for I’s and a 5 for the S? Jay Hernandez laughed and shared:
Yeah, I think so! You know, some of that stuff – it's funny. I have this discussion with the writers often. I'm like, 'I think sometimes there's a joke there that maybe people don't know is there.' [laughs] So maybe the password isn't literally that, but I think Magnum likes to play with Higgins and other people in a way that is very subtle. And sometimes those jokes maybe... don't land in the way that I see them land.
The show was a little light on laughs in much of the previous episode (which Jay Hernandez directed into “uncharted territory” for Higgins) and the situation was certainly dire to start “Charlie Foxtrot,” so that little bit of humor in Episode 9 is fun to look back on! As the star had previewed, the spring finale ended on a lighter note rather than a huge tone shift, so the break isn’t leaving fans on a cliffhanger of doom and gloom.
In fact, there was a nice scene toward the end that featured Magnum and Rick going to visit T.C. in the hospital to show that the brotherhood was still alive, well, and thriving, despite everything they’d gone through over the course of the hour. In light of their bond as a trio being highlighted toward the end of the spring finale, Jay Hernandez weighed in on the importance of Magnum P.I. showcasing that bond:
For me, it's really important. It's the beginning of the show. It's one of the sort of founding principles of it, from the original Magnum P.I. and carried through into this one. It's funny, it's one of the conversations that I've had with the showrunner, Eric Guggenheim. Literally, within the past month, talking about how, if we come back, we're gonna have to do more shows with the guys.
Add this to the list of reasons to hope that Magnum P.I. is renewed for Season 6! The initial renewal order after the last-minute rescue by NBC last year had actually been for two seasons of ten episodes each, which has shifted into one longer fifth season. The star shed more light on a potential episode that would showcase the guys:
There’s a pitch for a potential flashback episode that brings Nuzo back. I think the quality of the brotherhood, people really respond to that, and also their time in the military and honoring that time in the military is really important to the audience. So it's something that I absolutely think we should do and I'm pretty sure we will do it if we come back next season.
Now, with no confirmation of a Season 6 but still half a season to go in Season 5, what elements will carry over into the next batch of episodes and what lies ahead for Magnum and Co.? Jay Hernandez of course didn’t drop all the spoilers of what to expect, but he did preview a character coming in who is going to cause some trouble, saying:
Some of these serialized aspects of the show are what I enjoy the most, and there's going to be – I'm trying to phrase it in the right way, so I don't spoil too much. There will be a character that comes into Magnum's life that is going to be causing him a lot of problems for a number of episodes, and even further into the show as a whole if we get picked up for the sixth season.
At the time of writing, NBC has not yet announced exactly when Magnum P.I. will return for the second half of Season 5, but I think it’s safe to say after this spring finale that fans everywhere will be hoping for sooner rather than later in the 2023 TV premiere schedule. For now, the ohana can always revisit the earlier episodes of Season 5 streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription as well.
