Magnum P.I – Season 5 Episode 1 “The Passenger” Recap & Review

The Passenger

Episode 1 of Magnum P.I. Season 5 starts with Magnum having a steamy shower with Higgins. After the shower, the two talk about their newly romantic relationship. Higgins thinks they need to keep it a secret until they find out what it means for them. They know their friends are hoping they end up together and they dont want their influence.

Kumu checks in with Magnum asking if he has seen Higgins. Magnum lies he has not seen her and asks Kumu to check the winery as Higgins hides in the kitchen. Kumu leaves for the winery and informs Magnum their client is waiting for them.

Elsewhere, T.C. has a meal with Katsumoto and asks how he has been holding up after being fired from his job. Katsumoto tells him that he will not be fighting back to get his job or his badge. He is moving forward, making peace with the decisions that led him to this point. T.C. tells him that he will figure things out but asks him to reconsider fighting for his job.  This is the same thing Rick tells him.

It turns out Katsumoto feels he doesn’t deserve to wear the badge. He was about to kill the man who kidnapped his ex-wife and endangered their son’s life. He thinks that he would have killed the man even without Magnum stopping him. Rick tells him that he didn’t pull the trigger because he is not the kind of man to shoot an unarmed criminal. He points out that it would be quite a shame if Katsumoto just lets his badge go. In the end, Katsumoto decides to fight back to get reinstated.

At Robin’s Nest, Magnum and Higgins have a meeting with their client. She is hoping to learn more about her husband’s death. Her husband, Greg died in an accident and it was ruled by the police as an accident. However, his wife found a red light camera ticket photo in their mail. The photo was taken less than two minutes before the crash and in the photo, Greg is with a blonde woman. His wife wants to know who the woman is and what happened to her.

Magnum and Higgins promise to help her find the truth. Magnum calls Rick who is at the hospital bonding with his newborn baby. He asks Rick for a favour and promises to help Rick buy the baby’s car seat. Magnum asks him to reach out to his guy at the Department of Transportation to pull some traffic light footage and track down Greg’s totalled car. Rick is not happy to do Magnum another favour but he begrudgingly agrees.

After the call, Magnum and Higgins head over to Greg’s office and learn that he was looking into divorce lawyers and googling temporary houses. He had also downloaded a third-party messaging app that allows for covert communication. They begin to think that Greg was having an affair with a woman who is also seeing someone else.

They are interrupted by a man and Higgins impersonates a police officer with her fake badge. Unfortunately, the man, Chris Childs is the police. He is the one who replaced Katsumoto.  He found it suspicious that private investigators requested Greg’s accident report. He was already warned about Magnum and Higgins. He temporarily holds them but lets them off with a warning.

As they carry on with their investigation, Magnum receives a call from Commander Lee asking if he knows the whereabouts of Captain Buck Greene. Magnum is listed in his file as his emergency contact. It seems Captain Greene is MIA. Magnum finds it odd that his former boss who betrayed him listed him as his emergency contact.  He calls TC and asks him to find out what is going on with Greene.

TC heads over to Greene’s house but he is not home. He breaks in and looks around but nothing is off. He decides to check the harbour where Greene docks his boat.

Magnum and Higgins head over to Rick’s bar to drop the baby seat and get feedback from Rick. Rick managed to track down the car but couldn’t reach his guy at the Department of Transportation. Magnum decides to impersonate Chris and get the video from HPD.

They get the video and see that the blonde lady alighted the car and hid. From the footage, it looks like someone was chasing them. It is most probable that the car in pursuit might be the reason why Greg crashed. Armed with this new information, they investigate the car giving chase.  However, the car is registered to a shell company.

After checking Greg’s car they find a woman’s customized acrylic nail. Magnum calls his former girlfriend who is a nail technician and she identifies that the nail they found belongs to one of her clients, Melinda Parker. Higgins is not jealous about Magnum calling his ex but she wishes that Magnum had wooed her.

They trace Melinda’s phone and find it weird that her phone has not been used since Greg died. Melinda’s phone pings at her home but she has not used it or been outside her house for the past six days. Magnum and Higgin deduce that she might be dead and the husband is hiding the fact because he is the murderer. They drive to the house to speak to their husband.

Upon arrival, they ask to speak to Melinda and insist it is important. The husband, Nathan hesitantly lets them in and they interrogate Melinda. Although Melinda is alive, she seems scared of her husband who barely lets her talk and keeps answering questions on her behalf. Nathan admits that he knew his wife was having an affair with Greg and they are now working on their marriage.

Magnum and Higgins find it weird that Nathan is incredibly forgiving. They ask Melinda what happened the night of Greg’s death. This question throws Melinda and Nathan off but she denies being the woman in the photo. Higgins realizes that Melinda is showing signs of being physically abused. They go back to investigating Greg’s patient and discover they were wrong. Greg was not having an affair, he was helping Melinda leave her abusive husband.

They decide it is time to update HPD and Chris asks them to provide hard evidence because Nathan is a big deal on the island. They will need Melinda to give a testimony and it is highly unlikely that Nathan will allow her to testify. Magnum and Higgins hatch a plan to save Melinda. They sneak into her home but are spotted by the bodyguards. A fight ensues and just when Magnum and Higgins were about to lose, HPD shows up, sirens blaring.

Chris was hoping that Magnum and Higgins will do their best to save Melinda and waited for the right time to go in with a justifiable cause.  After the ordeal, Melinda meets Greg’s wife and apologizes for her part in Greg’s death.

Magnum and Higgins go home and Magnum surprises Higgins with a romantic dinner.

The episode ends with TC asking staff at the harbour if he has seen Greene. The harbour master tells him that Greene’s boat left the harbour that morning. TC asks him for the boat’s MMSI number but the harbour master says he doesn’t have that information. TC thanks him and leaves. The harbour master calls a man and informs him that someone is asking about Greene.

The man on the other side of the call is holding Greene hostage. He asks Greene to give him the information about the black ops team he put together in Afghanistan. The man wants to hunt down the team and kill them.

The Episode Review

After four seasons, we finally get to see Magnum and Higgins dating. It has been a long time coming but it is understandable why Higgins wants to keep it a secret. It is going to be fun to see how long they will manage to keep it on the down low. Their friends are quite observant, especially Kumu.

With someone new coming for TC, Magnum and Rick, it looks like we will be seeing a lot of action. It is clear the man holding Greene is on a revenge quest. It probably has something to do with a mission they carried out while serving.  Let us hope they all make it out of this one alive.