[rating=10]
Magnum thinks he’s got an easy case when a seemingly meek and mild insurance salesman hires him to find his long lost-father, but the client is actually a hitman, using Magnum to find his latest victim. Possibly the best episode of the season…
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This review contains spoilers.
You might have gathered from my previous review, the terrible ‘This Island Isn’t Big Enough…’, that I consider that episode to be one of the worst of the entire series. Well, from one of the weakest, to one of the best – ‘Way of the Stalking Horse’ is firing all cylinders, and stands not only the arguably best episode of season six, but one of the best of the entire show’s run.
First things first, I like the opening trailer – it hardly gives anything away about the episode, and – other than one shot of hitman Driscoll firing a gun – does not spoil any of the plot twists for the first-time viewer. The opening trailers on some other series of the era often spoilt major plot twists, but thankfully MPI seldom did this, leaving the story as a surprise.
Anyway, things start of light-heartedly enough, with Magnum, T.C. and Rick playing baseball on the Estate and breaking a window (or so we assume from the smashing sound). The first act seems pretty average and routine, as Magnum searches for the insurance salesman’s long-lost father; it is not until the end of the first act, when the salesman turns out to be a hitman, that the story takes a much grittier turn.
Magnum coming close to death is a forerunner to the closing episode of season seven, ‘Limbo’, where he seemingly meets his maker.
A good scene is when Magnum returns to the guest house, only to find T.C. waiting for him; for me, this sort of scene shows how Magnum was closer to T.C. than Rick; I think if the same scene had been done with Rick in place of T.C., it wouldn’t have worked so well.
The rest of the episode is quite dark and moody, as Magnum becomes hell-bent on tracking down Driscoll. Magnum – both the character and the series – was maturing, and is reflected in much darker stories like this.
I also like how Magnum and Driscoll’s tales intertwine and parallel for the rest of the episode, with Magnum healing himself on the same dingy hotel bed as Driscoll had done, and using the same street contact, ‘Mary Elizabeth’.
One thing I did feel though, was that if Driscoll was such an elusive hitman, why did he wait around to bump off Magnum to stop him from identifying him – he could easily have just made his escape and never be seen again. But that’s only a minor plot quibble.
All-in-all, this is an excellent story, and quite possibly the best of the sixth season. It also gives the series a darker, edgier feel, which would continue on into many seventh and eighth season episodes.
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Other notes, bloopers and misc.:
* I’m getting bored of mentioning that the act breaks on the DVD are abridged, so I’ll skip that!
* It’s already been mentioned, but I too was curious about the white cap that T.C. wears in the baseball scene. As far as I can remember, this is the only time that he wore it.
* When the baseball is heard to be breaking glass, part of the sound effect that is heard was also used for the sound of ‘Airwolf’s turbos igniting. This sound effect was used several times in MPI, but this is the most notable.
* Kathleen Lloyd (Carol) is not credited for the ‘vision’ that she makes to Magnum when he is nearly dead.
* Did anyone notice the photo by Magnum’s bed, in the scene where he returns to the guest house and finds T.C. waiting for him? I did several freeze-frames, but couldn’t make out who it was of. His parents, maybe, or his marriage to Michelle?
* When Magnum is chasing Driscoll out of the hotel, in the shot where Magnum jumps from the bottom of the fire escape, it is quite clearly a stunt double.
* Like ‘I Never Wanted to Go to France, Anyway…’ previously in the season, and elements of season two’s ‘The Woman on the Beach’ and season five’s ‘Fragments’, this episode features some light horror-ish elements at the climax, with the sneaking around the old deserted building in the dark, and the many eerie dummies laying around.
