Magnum Mania!

Old thread but there is something here that has always bugged me and I cant seem to find another post about it. Did Michelle really love Magnum? I cant help but feel she really didn't at all and was more caught up in the adventure and heart pounding thrill of it then actual love. She used her first marriage as an excuse and after he died there was no reason she couldn't go to TM. Then even after she had Lily she still found another guy!!! I think Tom was head over heels for her but she never truly was ready to fully commit. It wouldn't surprise me if she never died in the explosion and just faked it to get away from Lily and allow her a normal life and she went right back to the world of espionage and spying. Just my two cents but its hard to watch any episode with her in it because of it.

Doc Ibold wrote:I don't know that anyone really KNEW about Quang Ki until Limbo/Infinity and Jelly Doughnuts.

My take was that even though Hue was dead, Michelle may still have information tat would be pertinent to the Vietnamese government, so they wanted to track her down.

Remember, she WAS an agent for Buck Green for all those years, so they would probably want to kill her as a traitor to the government, hence the government protection.

Just my 2 cents

That was always my take as well.

☨magnum.t wrote:Old thread but there is something here that has always bugged me and I cant seem to find another post about it. Did Michelle really love Magnum? I cant help but feel she really didn't at all and was more caught up in the adventure and heart pounding thrill of it then actual love. She used her first marriage as an excuse and after he died there was no reason she couldn't go to TM. Then even after she had Lily she still found another guy!!! I think Tom was head over heels for her but she never truly was ready to fully commit. It wouldn't surprise me if she never died in the explosion and just faked it to get away from Lily and allow her a normal life and she went right back to the world of espionage and spying. Just my two cents but its hard to watch any episode with her in it because of it.

For this answer look no further that the Casablanca triangle . . . did Ilsa truly love Rick or Victor? Or did she see honor in each and love both yet differently?

Full disclosure - I was never a fan of Michelle, I never understood why Thomas went all googly over her, I never felt the chemistry, but I was also never in a warzone and wasn't sure if I'd be alive the next day either. I would think that changes one's perspective on things. I think that for Thomas the Romantic maybe she represented Hope, and that Hope took on an idyllic aspect after she "died".

ConchRepublican wrote:

☨magnum.t wrote:Old thread but there is something here that has always bugged me and I cant seem to find another post about it. Did Michelle really love Magnum? I cant help but feel she really didn't at all and was more caught up in the adventure and heart pounding thrill of it then actual love. She used her first marriage as an excuse and after he died there was no reason she couldn't go to TM. Then even after she had Lily she still found another guy!!! I think Tom was head over heels for her but she never truly was ready to fully commit. It wouldn't surprise me if she never died in the explosion and just faked it to get away from Lily and allow her a normal life and she went right back to the world of espionage and spying. Just my two cents but its hard to watch any episode with her in it because of it.

For this answer look no further that the Casablanca triangle . . . did Ilsa truly love Rick or Victor? Or did she see honor in each and love both yet differently?

Full disclosure - I was never a fan of Michelle, I never understood why Thomas went all googly over her, I never felt the chemistry, but I was also never in a warzone and wasn't sure if I'd be alive the next day either. I would think that changes one's perspective on things. I think that for Thomas the Romantic maybe she represented Hope, and that Hope took on an idyllic aspect after she "died".

Great insight about the Casablanca angle, Conch!
As I recall this episode was written by Donald Bellisario's then-wife, so it's likely his influence to keep Michelle's character out of Thomas' reach was part of the equation, continuing what Bellisario began with "Memories Are Forever" seasons earlier.

Thomas and Michelle are my favorite TV romance ever. I think the best episodes are the ones about their story, so I've always been surprised that so many fans don't like her. While I agree that the show "steals" big time from Casablanca, I've always thought TM and Michelle's story was more of a "steal" from Roman Holiday. You know, the whole girl can't be with handsome American because she's got duties to her country and TM gets it like Joe Bradley/Gregory Peck got it.

MagnumsLeftShoulder wrote:Thomas and Michelle are my favorite TV romance ever. I think the best episodes are the ones about their story, so I've always been surprised that so many fans don't like her. While I agree that the show "steals" big time from Casablanca, I've always thought TM and Michelle's story was more of a "steal" from Roman Holiday. You know, the whole girl can't be with handsome American because she's got duties to her country and TM gets it like Joe Bradley/Gregory Peck got it.

It seems I need to see Roman Holiday . . .

It seems I need to see Roman Holiday . . .[/quote]

Yep, you gotta see it. Bellasario must love it because he borrowed from it in almost all of his shows. There was a JAG episode that was a straight ripoff of it titled "Washington Holiday."

MagnumsLeftShoulder wrote:It seems I need to see Roman Holiday . . .

Yep, you gotta see it. Bellasario must love it because he borrowed from it in almost all of his shows. There was a JAG episode that was a straight ripoff of it titled "Washington Holiday."[/quote]

I don't blame Bellasario, if it's a good story why not recycle it, your average viewer will never catch on.
If you watch any of the Warner Brothers and Universal western series from the 1950's and 1960's, they constantly and without shame recycled old plots from their movies.
The series Cheyenne actually did a quite good remake of Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
And I bet most Americans like me prefer the Magnificent Seven over it's source material, the Japanese classic The Seven Samurai.

While we are on the subject of stealing plots and other material from previous shows did anyone besides me think that the ending of Independence Day was stolen from the original War of the Worlds? In the War of the Worlds the bacteria on earth stopped the aliens. In Independence day a virus, albeit a computer virus, stops the aliens. Food for thought.

N1095A wrote:
It wasn't quite clear although implied that she was being relocated for her protection. Hue was dead. My take was that she was no longer in immediate danger, and she would have been perfectly safe with TM. However knowing her history of using TM, and what I consider selfishness I assume she left simply because she wanted to. That's why I dislike her so much. at times it was like she was almost toying with TM.

So you think I was toying with Thomas? How dare you. I loved him more than life itself. You have no idea of the things I was involved in. My life was much more complicated than you - or even Thomas - realized. There were wheels within wheels, dangers that the people in my circle could not even fathom.

I left to protect Thomas and protect our daughter, Lily. As I said to Thomas many years ago, "When the world is a different place..."