Memories Are Forever (1) (2.5)

[Gorilla Mask]

For me, a clear D. P. Bellisario masterpiece !

Intricate story (in the stories...) about a lost love, 'Nam memories, fugitive "ghost in the lens', double agents and double plot to double cross the vietnamese political police ! A subtile link with TM past, marriage, spies vs spies and 'Nam experience. Good balance between action, story telling and atmosphere. The scenes are fading and blending the ones after the others without fail; You never get bored at any moment. I really enjoyed the 'déja vu' effect between the nightmare/flashback which tends to be premonitory to the finale scene !

The first dialogue and interview between TM and Higgins is just perfect. Il loved the failed reissue of TM inflitrating the Navy Headquarters': a good counterpoint to the Pilot. Jeff McKay is stuning with his "I got a message from the President of the United States !".

A thrilling episode with some (quite credible) romance moments. The scenario is quite strong with, nevertheless, two little flaws:

- Michelle became a secret agent for the CIA and deceived TM (her grat love !!) only for religious matters ? Strange.

- The vietnamese goons assaulted the Church 'all guns drawn' ?? (they are supposed to be somewhat concealed on 'enemy territory', no ?).

However, you have the finest and deepest part of magnum PI serie (and TM psychology too) in that episode.

[Lindsay Writer]

The biggest flub is at the end Rick & TC totally vanish during the climax. They disappear you never see them again after they walk backwards up the stairs at the tattoo parlor. They don't run out onto the street after TM is shot. I'm guessing Larry & Roger were at lunch when this part was filmed and the director stupidly failed to bring them back into the scene. Bellisario should have been there for this scene and he should have yelled "Cut! Where the hell are Larry & Roger? Get them back out here!"

[terryfromkerry]

The biggest flub is at the end Rick & TC totally vanish during the climax. They disappear you never see them again after they walk backwards up the stairs at the tattoo parlor. They don't run out onto the street after TM is shot. I'm guessing Larry & Roger were at lunch when this part was filmed and the director stupidly failed to bring them back into the scene. Bellisario should have been there for this scene and he should have yelled "Cut! Where the hell are Larry & Roger? Get them back out here!"

Hi Lindsay Writer,
Maybe Larry & Roger were at lunch If my memory is accurate though Rick & T.C. were forced up the stairs at gunpoint. This would account for their absense during the climax.

[Pahonu]

The biggest flub is at the end Rick & TC totally vanish during the climax. They disappear you never see them again after they walk backwards up the stairs at the tattoo parlor. They don't run out onto the street after TM is shot. I'm guessing Larry & Roger were at lunch when this part was filmed and the director stupidly failed to bring them back into the scene. Bellisario should have been there for this scene and he should have yelled "Cut! Where the hell are Larry & Roger? Get them back out here!"

Hi Lindsay Writer,
Maybe Larry & Roger were at lunch If my memory is accurate though Rick & T.C. were forced up the stairs at gunpoint. This would account for their absense during the climax.

I recall the same, Terry.

[terryfromkerry]

The biggest flub is at the end Rick & TC totally vanish during the climax. They disappear you never see them again after they walk backwards up the stairs at the tattoo parlor. They don't run out onto the street after TM is shot. I'm guessing Larry & Roger were at lunch when this part was filmed and the director stupidly failed to bring them back into the scene. Bellisario should have been there for this scene and he should have yelled "Cut! Where the hell are Larry & Roger? Get them back out here!"

Hi Lindsay Writer,
Maybe Larry & Roger were at lunch If my memory is accurate though Rick & T.C. were forced up the stairs at gunpoint. This would account for their absense during the climax.

I recall the same, Terry.

[waverly2211]

The biggest flub is at the end Rick & TC totally vanish during the climax. They disappear you never see them again after they walk backwards up the stairs at the tattoo parlor. They don't run out onto the street after TM is shot. I'm guessing Larry & Roger were at lunch when this part was filmed and the director stupidly failed to bring them back into the scene. Bellisario should have been there for this scene and he should have yelled "Cut! Where the hell are Larry & Roger? Get them back out here!"

Purposely left out of the shot for dramatic effect. Magnum didn't need 2 cheerleaders telling him to shoot, or not to shoot General Hue. Or to try and persuade Michelle to stay in Hawaii.

No, this scene needed Magnum, without outside influence, to make the decision on his own, no 2nd thoughts because Rick or TC talked him into something.

It's what give the episode closure.

[Mark de Croix]

This show blew me away it is so excellent. The story, dialog, and acting superb. Tom Selleck shows he's a skilled actor not simply a pretty boy. How about the high drama of Michelle's wearing the croix!

[308GUY]

This show blew me away it is so excellent. The story, dialog, and acting superb. Tom Selleck shows he's a skilled actor not simply a pretty boy. How about the high drama of Michelle's wearing the croix!

Agreed.....another one that in my opinion, could have been a bonified "movie".

[Mark de Croix]

Absolutely! Never expected this extraordinary quality as I sat down to watch the show. MPI probably is my favorite TV show ever but the visuals, the wholesomeness, and the fantasy of TM's dream job is so satisfying enough. As I watched, it suddenly grabbed me the moment the team ring insignia leapt off the photographic paper in the lab. "Wow, how could the writers be so creative." (I also noted Tom's deep talent.) Wartime romance is a well-worn trope but all the threads they spun together says it all. I would have liked to see them do it. I imagine a lot of brain storming together on it.(Maybe even Tom put some loose ends together.) If a movie, a sure block buster!

[Blackmamba]

I find the lack of Michelle’s appeal interesting but totally understand it for TM. He does like the exotic women!
I thought Marta was perfect as Michelle, although I hate her hair- mainly because it is much like mine in Hawaii. I had a fro that drove me nuts and got bigger by the hour, and wrecked my wedding pictures!

[Blackmamba]

It turns out "lavender chinese dress" in google will do the trick!

For the record, the actual name is cheongsam...and one is on the way!

If I was Ivanka instead of Ivan I would wear one myself! It's quite lovely!!

I loved this style of dress so much I decided to get married in one when my (then)husband and I got married in Hawaii. I was very surprised to find that they are made off the rack for the less well endowed! It took days to find one that would fit, lol!

[Chris109]

I watched a bit of this episode through a flashback from season 7's "Little Girl Who" where Magnum does the nasty with Michelle. What caught me was that, if it was real life, in this day and age, he would have been brought up on rape charges because Michelle said, "Thomas, please, no" and "Thomas, no, please" before he went all in.

[Vxc961]

Wow! What a great episode! I just started a rewatch of all the seasons, and I'm amazed at how well this episode holds up and how I can jump on this forum and make comments a decade or so after the thread was opened. First, I wanted to share my "head cannon" on Magnum's service and warfare devices.

Earlier in the season Magnum mentioned that he's the USNA class of 1967. He completed multiple tours in Vietnam, and seems to have been there at the US withdrawl in 1973 (he mentions that Michelle could have been "lost" in the chaos of the withdrawl). I think magnum graduated the Naval Academy and was assigned to a ship, where he qualified on all the watch stations (basically driving the ship, and fighting it), but we know that he tends to chafe under authority. As soon as he could, he requested assignment as a Naval Gunfire Liaison Officer (NGLO). These are Navy guys who are embedded with Marines or Army units, and it's their job to coordinate naval gunfire, and they're also trained in calling in airstrikes and artillery fire. Due to the nature of the job (hiding, spotting the enemy, and reporting it in), these skills are often used for reconnaissance as well.

While there was a real VMO-2 in Vietnam, and that unit falls in line with Magnum's NGLO job, in the show's universe VMO2 seems to be a bit more like MACV's "Studies and Observations Group" (SOG), mixed with the Marine's Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO). SOG consisted of a number or small teams (2-3) of Americans with essentially mercenary Southeast Asians, and they had they our own helicopters (piloted by Vietnamese), so they were fairly autonomous. They conducted missions across the Vietnamese border, which is why so much care was taken to minimize the American footprint. It seems to me that the Magnumverse VMO2 was a unit like this, composed of some Americans, some French (like "Le Bull" in Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii), and I'd imagine Southeast Asians as well. ANGLICO typically has four to five man teams that embed with other units to provide them with US air support, artillery, and naval gunfire support. In addition to a Surface Warfare Officer, they'll usually have a navy corpsman (medic) as well.

Unit's like the Magnumverse VMO2 often _supply_ intelligence to strategic leaders, and are exposed to a lot of the tradecraft we think of with "spies", like lock picking and long range photography. After the war, he probably had no desire to go back to the "big Navy" and serve on a ship, so he applied for BUD/S (SEAL training). The fighting element a SEAL Team is the SEAL platoon, and with at least six years in the Navy (grad 1967, there at the end in 1973), it's unlikely they'd put him in a SEAL platoon. By rank and seniority he'd be in charge of the platoon, but having just graduated BUD/S he'd be "the new guy". So, as a SEAL officer with Magnum's combat experience in VMO2, Magnum was assigned special projects within Naval Intelligence, until he got sick of the peacetime military and resigned in 78 or so. This is all to say that I think Magnum had the designators (like the Army MOS) of Surface Warfare (1110) and then SEAL (1130), but never Naval Intelligence (1610, I think). Because of his varied career, a bit of modesty, and his work as a SEAL within Naval Intelligence sort of allows him to say "I can't really talk about it", he simplifies things and just says he worked in Naval Intelligence.

This is coming off more like fan-fiction than I had meant, but I'll continue....

The Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) insignia that magnum wears wasn't authorized until late 1974, but we see Magnum wearing it in the flashback/bar-scene in this episode, in what we can assume was 1973. The Navy Parachutist Badge was created in WW2 from the standard airborne insignia to make it gold, and with navy aviator wings instead of the lead, short wings of the Army. This was worn unofficially for years, and eventually authorized as an official badge. I can stretch my brain to think that the Navy SWO badge was worn unofficially before it was officially adopted as well, which is why magnum sports it on his dress whites at the end of Vietnam.

The SEAL insignia was authorized in 1970 or so, so if Magnum was a seal back then, I think he'd be wearing that official badge. In the 80's, Magnum is seen wearing the Surface Warfare Officer insignia on his belt buckle, which probably has to do with the fact that he was a Surface Warfare Officer when he saw combat in Vietnam, and that's what he's most nostalgic about. When the Navy re-activates him (and promotes him two ranks!), they supplied him with a uniform with his current designator (SEAL), and at that point on Magnum wore the SEAL insignia only. NOTE: Magnum would have been authorized to wear his Surface Warfare device under his ribbons, but here are two reasons he might not have: (1) A SEAL platoon commander has about five years in the Navy, and after that a SEAL officer is much more a staff guy than an operational guy; wearing a SWO pin sort of tells the world that you spent 2-3 of your operational time as a SWO, which implies you were only an "operational" guy for two years or so. (2) It's fairly common to sneak in another warfare device/insignia by having it on your belt buckle in the Navy. I'm not sure if this is authorized, but it's pretty common. We've seen Magnum has an affinity for his SWO belt buckle, so it's possible he keeps his uniform set up to wear his SWO belt buckle with his SEAL trident on his chest; in the Navy, it would look dumb and you would get ridiculed if you wore a belt buckle with same device that you had on your chest.

Magnum's award include the Navy Cross, Purple Heart, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Vietnamese Croix de Guerre, and Vietnamese Service Medal. What's interesting is that he doesn't wear the Combat Action Ribbon; he would certainly be entitled to this, and it's really sort of a badge of honor, so he'd almost certainly wear this ribbon too!
Interestingly enough, I think Col Buck Green also changed devices; in this episode I'm pretty sure he wears Naval Aviator wings, but I think later on we see him with naval jumpwings and NOT the Naval Aviator badge. He would be authorized to wear both of them (although Marines wear both devices above their ribbons, while Navy does one on top and one below).

Geez, I haven't even talked about the episode itself yet! I'll save that for a later post!

[308GUY]

Vxc961: Luvin' it.....keep it comin'!

[ENSHealy]

A couple quick notes: in this context it's "canon" instead of "cannon", and while combat operations may have ended by 73, we had a presence in South Vietnam until Saigon fell in 1975. The evacuation footage shown/reproduced in the episode is from April 1975, which actually helps with a couple of the insignia timelines you describe above.

The evac footage comes mainly from the US embassy, as Vietnamese who had helped the US during the war tried to get out of the country ahead of the NVA arrival. Much like recently happened in Afghanistan.