Magnum PI Season 5 Episode 15 Review and Recap: 'The Retrieval'

Magnum PI The Retrieval recap: a missing gamer and a dryer

Magnum PI The Retrieval, the 15th episode of the fifth and final season, aired on NBC on Wednesday, November 1, 2023. It was directed by Benny Boom and written by Gene Hong and Katie Varney, according to Wikipedia's episode list, and drew 3.07 million U.S. viewers. It is the 91st episode of the series. Its title points at two kinds of retrieval at once: a case about recovering something stolen from a medical clinic, and a comic subplot about retrieving a map hidden inside a clothes dryer.

Magnum P.I. is an update of the 1980 to 1988 series starring Tom Selleck, and in this version Jay Hernandez plays the Navy SEAL turned private investigator Thomas Magnum, with Perdita Weeks as Juliet Higgins. Zachary Knighton plays Rick Wright, Stephen Hill plays T.C. Calvin, Amy Hill plays Kumu and Tim Kang plays Detective Gordon Katsumoto. Bobby Lee plays the recurring Jin Jeong, a former convict and the focus of the lighter plot. The series premiered on CBS in 2018 and, after CBS canceled it in May 2022, NBC picked it up for a fifth season that premiered on February 19, 2023.

The relationship at the center of the show frames the episode. Wikipedia notes that the sexual tension between Magnum and Higgins, present for four seasons, is finally addressed in the fourth-season finale, and the fifth season begins with the two as a couple, as covered in the review of the premiere, The Passenger. By episode 15 the writers use that relationship to ask a harder question: whether two people with different ideas of how to raise a child can build a family together.

What follows is a beat-by-beat recap, with the main case and Jin's story kept apart, followed by the verdict.

The case: Artemis2673 goes missing

A group of gamers who play raids together in a game called BattleCraft, and who have never met in person, contact Magnum and Higgins on Zoom. Their friend Artemis2673 missed a raid he organized and has not been heard from since. One of them, Minka, is especially worried, so the pair take the case, expecting an easy one.

At first they are bored out of their minds watching replays of the raids. Then Higgins finds the moment Artemis went missing and traces his last food order, which gives them his real name, Kilo Mona. Kilo has also stopped showing up for work at the Oahu Family Clinic. His home shows signs of a struggle and a lot of blood. Magnum takes a sample with a plastic bag, and Higgins finds serious threats on Kilo's computer from someone called Chewy, along with a photograph of Kilo's house.

Chewy turns out to be a 15-year-old named Sam, who was angry because Kilo suggested he was cheating, which cost him a chance at sponsorship. He is not the criminal. He does know where Kilo was last seen, and that was the clinic.

The clinic and the stolen embryos

The clinic's systems are air-gapped, so Magnum and Higgins pose as a couple seeking a family and argue about parenting styles, an argument that does not feel entirely made up. While Dr. Lim leaves them alone to talk, Higgins hacks her computer and finds an email reporting that the clinic was robbed. The thieves took frozen embryos, not cash, and Kilo was a lab technician there.

Dr. Lim admits that Kilo's keycard was used to enter the lab. She was warned not to involve the police, or the embryos would be exposed to warm air and ruined. The container has a tracking chip, and she followed it until the signal cut out. Magnum and Higgins trace the last location and find that the transmitter has been ripped out, and Kilo's body lies nearby. Gordon is angry at being kept out of the loop, and Kilo's gaming friends are devastated.

The twist: Lana Turk

Dr. Lim then reveals that the criminals are now extorting patients one by one, many of them vulnerable, including cancer survivors. One patient, Lana Turk, has not responded, so Magnum and Higgins visit her and find her pulling out of her driveway with a bag of cash. They persuade her not to pay and agree to set up a sting with Gordon.

It turns out Lana has lied. She claimed to be married and said she had put her embryos aside because of a cancer scare, but she is divorced, so she has no access to any. She and a partner named Nico are behind the theft. Higgins and Magnum track them to a mall and split up: Higgins fights Lana in a kitchen, and Magnum chases Nico across the building until Nico throws away the lid of the container as a distraction. Magnum has to catch the container before the embryos are ruined, and Gordon clotheslines Nico before he escapes.

Jin, Beau and the map

The comic plot belongs to Jin. His former partner, Beau, is out of prison, considers Jin his lackey, and wants the cut that Jin has been hiding. Beau promised it to a man called Heavy Mike for protection inside, and he needs it quickly. Jin needs a dryer where he stashed a map. His landlord sold it on Craigslist, but Higgins tracks the new location in moments.

Jin, T.C. and Beau pose as employees of an energy company to talk their way into an older woman's house, and Jin finds the map. Folding it a certain way, in the manner of a Mad magazine fold-in, reveals a hidden message. T.C. and Beau then dig up piles of dirt while Jin lounges, until it comes out that the map was a decoy and Jin gave the money to his mentor, a man named Squirrel. The episode ends with Jin refilling the holes. Beau still gets his cut to Heavy Mike.

Magnum PI The Retrieval review: the verdict

Rough Cut Review's verdict on the hour was that it is a step back. The headline word was "irritating," and the main complaint is that Jin is built to be funny but never gets enough to work with. The extra rib at breakfast is a pleasant opening, and after it the dryer, the disguises and the map all feel like set pieces in search of a joke. The review had hoped that the return of its favorite former convict would lift the hour after a strong previous week.

The procedural half works better. The gamers are a believable group, Higgins getting into Kilo's identity through a delivery order is a nice use of her skills, and the clinic scene gives Hernandez and Weeks a chance to play out a conversation about kids that clearly means something for the couple. The review also noted a mild disappointment as a gamer: this is the one time the show does not save the victim, and the victim is a gamer. The closing scene returns to the couple, with Higgins worried that love may not be enough given their different parenting styles and Magnum convinced they can make it work.

The series ended with season 5. Wikipedia reports that NBC ordered two parts of ten episodes, that the show was announced in June 2023 as ending after the fifth season, and that a two-hour finale aired on January 3, 2024. The small detail that lasts from this episode is the dryer, an ordinary appliance that carried more of the comedy than the clinic did.

As for where to watch, rights have moved between services since the finale, so check a current listing. A good enough episode, the review concluded, but one that hoped for better the following week.

Sources

• Magnum P.I. (2018 TV series), Wikipedia — Cast, network history, season 5 order and the series end date.