Magnum P.I. – Season 5 Episode 8 “Dark Skies” Recap & Review

Dark Skies

Episode 8 of Magnum P.I. Season 5 starts with Magnum tracking Peele (the harbour master who fled after Captain Buck’s death) to California. Magnum confronts him and gives the guy no option other than risking his life to find the men who killed Captain Buck.

Elsewhere in Hawaii, Rick holds a quiz night at his bar and the competition is stiff. In the end, Shammy, Katsumoto and Suzy each win a 50-dollar gift card from the bar. Higgins receives a call from Magnum who informs her that he’s found Peele but is at a dead-end. He promises to return the next morning and Higgins tells him that she won’t be home when he returns. She is flying with T.C. to meet a rich client, Nolan Pierce, who runs a data mining company.

The next morning, Kumu and Shammy realise Rick’s bar was robbed overnight. The robber stole the masks. Shammy is shocked to learn that the mask could sell for $900. They start investigating and learn the thief hid in the toilet and waited for the bar to close. He then took the masks and escaped through the window.

Shammy uses the internet to find out the shoes that make the footprints left on the toilet seat. They decide to check the bar’s social media and see who was wearing the identified shoes. In doing so, they find a picture of a young man and hand it over to the police.

Katsumoto takes over the case and they find the suspect trying to sell the mask. Kumu is relieved until she accidentally learns why the young boy stole the items. His family was struggling and he wanted to help his mom fix her car. She decides that the family has enough struggles and drops the charges against the young man.

On the other hand, Rick helps Magnum to narrow down the men hunting them. He reached out to an old marine buddy who currently works at the NSA. His friend came through with valuable information on Hadid’s network. It turns out anyone who worked on Hadid’s case died under suspicious circumstances. The killers are working their way up the chain of command to anyone who worked the Hadid case and they are the only ones left alive for now.

Rick is shocked that Magnum brought Peele to Hawaii to bait the killers. Magnum wants Peele to reach out to them and pretend he has information. Rick is against the plan but they only have an hour to prepare for the meeting. Peele can barely identify the killers and he is not cut out to be in the field. Magnum insists that his plan is the only chance they have.

Meanwhile, T.C. and Higgins meet Nolan on his private island. Nolan lives an introverted life enjoying his wealth and rarely appears in public. Recently, someone has been flying a drone on his property and he wants Higgins and T.C. to find out who has been spying on him. Higgins tells him that technically he won’t be able to file charges against the person using the drone but Nolan insists. They take the case and start interrogating the workers.

They learn that Nolan has many enemies and people also profit from selling information about Nolan’s life to the press. The locals don’t like Nolan because he broke multiple laws to get the land. Higgins and T.C. find it hard to narrow down the suspect list. They are also surprised by Nolan’s posh lifestyle. The man has his pilot, Valentina, fly into the mainland every day for coffee.

As they continue to investigate, the drone does another round as Higgins and T.C. are forced to chase after it on horses and shoot it down. Higgins and T.C. find the chip on the drone that contains the plane’s flight path and figure out where it was launched from. They learn that the drone was actually launched three miles off Nolan’s property.

They head to the location to investigate further and discover that Valentina was the target. Unfortunately, the men have already left to attack Nolan’s property and kill Valentina. Higgins quickly calls Nolan and warns him to get to a panic room with his employees.

Nolan and his employees hide in the panic room as Higgins and T.C. arrive in time to save them. It turns out that Valentina used to work for a man named Arturo Morales, who is a drug lord. After learning that Arturo is a dealer, Valentina quit and anonymously tipped off the DEA. Arturo found out her identity and sent his men after her.

The DEA soon arrive to clear the scene and Valentina agrees to give her testimony and put Arturo away for good. Nolan is impressed with Higgins and T.C., and invites them to occasionally hang out with him on the island. He also makes them a job offer but they decline.

As Higgins and T.C. deal with their case, Magnum and Rick use Peele as bait to lure the killers out. The plan fails when the killer shoots Peele and tries to flee the scene. Luckily, Peele was wearing a vest and gets away with only three cracked ribs. Magnum chases him and takes the guy out.

They take the sniper to the Robin Nest and hold him there. They check his ID but it turns out it’s actually an alias. Magnum sends Katsumoto the man’s fingerprints and asks him to run them. In the meantime, they interrogate the man but he refuses to cooperate. He was hired to carry out a black ops mission and never asked any questions; everything was on a “need to know” basis.  The man figures out that Magnum and Rick are the men he was hired to find.

Katsumoto calls Magnum back and tells him that the man is Oliver Cane, a former army ranger currently serving time in prison. Magnum says that is impossible and wonders who got Oliver out of prison. Rick’s friend at the NSA starts a deep dive into Oliver and they learn that he was dishonorably discharged from the army and convicted of war crime in Syria.

They threaten to put a target on Oliver’s back if he doesn’t tell them the people he worked with, and eventually figure one of them must know who is pulling the trigger since it seems highly unlikely that it is Hadid’s associates.

Oliver gives them the name of the man who was hired to put together a team, but insists he doesn’t know anything else as he was a mere foot soldier. He also wants to know what Magnum and Rick will do now that he has identified them. He believes their only option is to kill him.

In the end, Magnum and Ricks hand over Oliver to the US. Marshall Service. The officers promise to hold Oliver at an isolated, secure black site until the situation is resolved. Magnum is not sure they made the right choice but hopes Higgins will trace the payment made to Oliver and find out the boss.

Later that evening, Higgins traces the payment to a black budget account originally established by the CIA. She questions why the CIA would want to kill the covert operation team for following their orders. She also worries that they made a wrong decision to hand over Oliver to the US Marshall. She points out that once Oliver’s boss looks into his disappearance, it will lead straight back to Magnum.

The Episode Review

So much happened in this episode; Magnum and Rick got close to the truth. T.C. and Higgins went on a Wild West adventure and even Kumu and Shammy solved a case.

It is interesting to learn that the CIA is involved in the hit against Magnum and the rest of the covert team that took out Hadid. It is always the CIA, I can’t wait to learn who is pulling the strings. What if one of Hadid’s men rose in the CIA ranks and is using his position to exact revenge?

Honestly, this episode left us with more questions than answers. Let us hope the next episode will satisfy our curiosity about who is the real boss and his/ her motives. What are your theories so far?