Magnum P.I. – Season 5 Episode 9 “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” Recap & Review

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Episode 9 of Magnum P.I. Season 5 starts with Higgins and Magnum having a nice dinner while talking about the evolution of their relationship. Magnum makes a move to propose to her but instead of a ring, there is a bullet. Magnum starts coughing blood and Higgins starts freaking out, seeing blood on her hands.

We then cut back 36 hours earlier. Magnum and Higgins are at Robin’s nest having breakfast when Higgins gets angry at Magnum for changing the password to their business account. Magnum wants a simple password but Higgins wants the encoded one she worked hard to make.

Magnum senses the fight is not about the password but because he is not taking Higgins’ advice to start investigating what they found out about the CIA. Higgins insists that she can be mad about both things. As they fight, Magnum receives a text from Childs asking to meet him ASAP but Higgins dismisses him.

Magnum meets Childs who is angry that Peele, a witness in his investigation, miraculously showed up in the hospital. Peele confesses that he got hurt because Magnum and Rick used him as bait to lure Captain Buck’s killer. Peele demands to know everything Magnum found out in his investigation, even threatening to arrest Magnum for obstruction. As a result, Magnum caves and tells him about Oliver Cane. Magnum is worried that Childs might be in over his head with the case but agrees to send him all their files.

Meanwhile, Higgins meets their client, Josie, who wants them to look into her boyfriend, Otis’ suspicious suicide. She believes Otis was not depressed and there’s something more going on here.

Higgins promises to get to the bottom of the case but tries to prepare Josie for the worst. Otis worked as an orderly in a psychiatric hospital and Higgins believes there is a possibility he might have committed suicide. Josie shares that she has known Otis for a long time as they were friends before they started dating and he was happy. This resonates with Higgins as she and Magnum went through the same thing.

Elsewhere, T.C. and Ricks hang out at his modest boathouse where Rick shares his frustration of not being able to spend his life with Suzy. He is not the only one frustrated, as Katsumoto is sad that his son, Dennis, wants to look at colleges away from home. They are on their way to a college tour and they have an altercation with a racist man at a restaurant. In the end, Katsumoto realizes that he should allow his son to find his own path in life. He motivates him to follow his dream and his heart.

Magnum returns to the house and Higgins apologizes for their fight. Higgins begins investigating the psychiatric hospital where Otis worked at, where he learns Otis had texted a friend a few days before his death that there is something shady going on there.

Magnum and Higgins decide to dig deeper so Higgins goes undercover as a psychiatrist. She has a rough start but soon starts getting a few clues from the patients. One patient informs her that she saw Otis going into the room where they store their medicine. Unfortunately, she gets nowhere with the staff as they shut her down. Nurse Tanaka is the only one who tells her that it seemed that Otis was struggling.

On the other hand, Magnum finds nothing suspicious in Otis’ car and home. Otis’ toxicology report also comes up negative but Higgins believes he might have been on different drugs from the ones they normally test for. Magnum promises to ask the M.E. to look for psych drugs, wondering if Otis may have been selling them.

Magnum finds a ticket from the parking lot and after investigation, realizes Otis was meeting with another psychiatrist. Higgins continues to monitor the staff though, in particular the ones working in the med room.

Magnum sets a meeting with the doctor Otis met up with before his death. The doctor tells him that Otis was looking into a patient at the hospital he worked in. According to the doctor, Otis suspected that a patient was being misdiagnosed and held at the hospital illegally.

Magnum visits the hospital and secretly informs Higgins about his findings. Further investigation leads them to Steven. When Higgins spoke to him earlier, he was unresponsive. They also realize that Otis was with Steven two weeks ago and that was when he started sleuthing around in the hospital.

They check incident reports from two weeks back and learn that someone changed Otis’s report on Steven. It also turns out that Steven has been at the hospital for over two years when he was only supposed be there for two weeks.

They look into the man paying for Steven’s care and Magnum tracks him down and interviews him. Derek, Steven’s former business partner, tells Magnum that the hospital insists on keeping Steven for further treatment. He also says that he was forced to sell their business because it was failing after Steven left. Magnum finds it strange that Derek lied about the timeline when he started looking for a buyer for the business. He begins to suspect that Derek is paying someone to keep Steven.

Higgins remains back at the hospital and promises Steven that she will get him out. Unfortunately for her, Derek’s sidekick finds out about her snooping around and drugs her. It turns out that Derek had hired Nurse Tanaka to keep Steven at the hospital. Nurse Tanaka gives Higgins a large dose of psych meds and she starts hallucinating about her dead ex and also Magnum. She is scared of history repeating itself and wants to keep Magnum safe.

Luckily, Magnum arrives in time to save her from the clutches of Nurse Tanaka. Later, Higgins admits that she blamed herself when her ex was killed and wants Magnum to take precautions to stay safe. That was why she was angry with him before; she felt he was being too careless.

In the meantime, Childs goes through the files Magnum sent as he happily chats with his girlfriend on the phone. He finds out that the man who owns the black sedan that was tailing Captain Buck also owns a rental property linked to the killers. He brings the man in for questioning and the man confesses that he had no choice. He tells Childs everything he knows and the houses that the killers asked for.

Childs decides to check out the houses himself and finds clues at the seventh one. He finds photos of Magnum and himself taken earlier that day, and calls for backup. He also leaves a message for Magnum that their identity has been revealed. Sadly, he accidentally steps on a bomb and the whole house blows up.

On the other side of town, T.C. gets an intruder alert on his phone. He reaches for his gun but the assailant is quicker and fires two shots into T.C.’s chest.  The episode ends with T.C. trying to reach for his gun as the assailant stands over him, ready to fire the fatal shot.

The Episode Review

The final scenes in this episode were so intense, we will need some time to recover. Our man T.C. has been through a lot over the past five seasons, I hope he makes it. This is not supposed to be how he dies! I can’t even imagine this show without T.C., can you?

Secondly, Childs was starting to become a fan favourite, why kill him? I hope he somehow made it out of that house as he had so much to live for. A new start in Hawaii, a girlfriend he wanted to propose to and new friendships. I was hoping he would become Katsumoto’s partner so this episode was emotional damage at its finest!

We will have to wait for next week to see if Magnum and the rest were able to make it out alive.