Home From the Sea (4.1)

Rate, review & discuss the episodes from the fourth season

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How Would You Rate This Episode?

10 (Perfect!)
60
37%
9.5 (One of the Best)
65
40%
9.0 (Excellent)
12
7%
8.5 (Very Good)
11
7%
8.0 (Pretty Good)
4
2%
7.5 (Decent)
1
1%
7.0 (Average at Best)
3
2%
6.5 (Not So Good)
2
1%
6.0 (Pretty Bad)
2
1%
5.0 (Just Awful)
2
1%
 
Total votes: 162

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Seaver41
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#46 Post by Seaver41 »

wow.......amazing how you simply don't forget the good stuff. All the little nuances and details were as fresh as ever. What a great episode.

but one complaint. Since when did they import Tiger Stadium to Honolulu? the old stock footage of a MLB game was horrific.

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#47 Post by snp389 »

Brilliant writing!
Great insight into TSM's background and the influence his father had on him.
I found this episode made me actually care for the characters more than ever. Testiment to the writers, directors and the actors.

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#48 Post by Stelth »

I started watching Magnum reruns this January and I'm up to season 4...Home From the Sea is the best single episode I've seen so far.

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#49 Post by Stelth »

Happy Independence Day!

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#50 Post by ConchRepublican »

Little Garwood wrote:One of a few episodes I vote a [10.0]

Home from the Sea was just as powerful when I watched it yesterday as when I saw it first run. It's not just the heartbreaking and haunting--but never mawkish--ending, but the connection these characters have with one another. I'm not talking about the fantasy elements present from time to time, but the genuine love the guys have for another. It's a theme explored in the films of director Howard Hawks (Red River, Rio Bravo, El Dorado) films and one that keeps Magnum, P.I. well above the once-popular TV shows from the era. MPI was fun enough to avoid Hill Street Blues-type seriousness, yet substantial enough to be infinitely superior to stuff like The A-Team.

If All for One was the ultimate realization of the guys' bond, then Home from the Sea was a dress rehearsal for it.
Excellently said.

This is a classic of an episode in my mind, and brought a tear to my eye again yesterday.

I love the bond they show these guys have, especially the "feeling" they have between each other. They took it past the hokey into the realm of the real world, where we all understand and have had "bad feelings" about those we care about. The writers understood the show perfectly and were able to touch that nerve we all share.
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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#51 Post by Sisophous »

This is a powerful episode the first time I watched it but too painful to watch again unlike other episodes that I never tire of. The feeling of near drowning is so real it is not enjoyable. I was blown away the first time I saw it but the other few times I got around to it while renting discs from Netflix, well, I was glad when it ended.

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#52 Post by DIVER DOWN »

I thought this was a classic episode. one of the best. :magnum:

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#53 Post by charybdis1966 »

I watched this episode today and have given it a perfect ten despite a few flaws, mainly the intrusive/jarring aspects of Rick's sub plot and how the bikini-clad, blonde lovely distracted from the seriousness of the overall story.

Of course you need light and shade in any masterpiece but these scenes could have been tweaked(I don't know how exactly, but somehow)however nothing detracts from the overall impact of such a hard hitting howitzer of a climax.

The sixth sense of the others of this tightly knit group of friends/comrades when one of their number(TM) is in trouble was expertly hinted at.

Enough beating around the bush, I have a confession to make.

This episode is only the second piece of TV to actually make me cry, and as a middle aged Brit bloke(albeit of second generation immigrant descent) that's a rarity, stiff upper lip and all that, as Higgins might say.

As to why this episode should have got the water works going, well it's tough exactly to figure out, but I think two elements may hold the key.

Firstly my younger son had a near drowning whilst on holiday in Tenerife 5 years ago and the ominous sense of foreboding the endless shots of the waves occasionally engulfing TM must have struck a chord with me.

Secondly the way TM and his father had such a close relationship contrasted/contrasts with the disconnect I have with my father as males of his generation were expected to be aloof as a father; back to the stiff upper lip I suppose.

Anyhow, for whatever reason the majesty of the ending shot of 5 year old TM saluting while his fathers watch flopped around his thin child's wrist provoked a visceral, gutsy reaction that I doubt the rest of the series will ever reach once I've seen them all.
Last edited by charybdis1966 on Sat Oct 19, 2013 3:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#54 Post by Doc Ibold »

Well said.

I get a little misty too at the end, especially with Magnums VO leading into the scene.

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#55 Post by charybdis1966 »

Doc Ibold wrote:Well said.

I get a little misty too at the end, especially with Magnums VO leading into the scene.
Especially at "I made it dad, I made it!....Why couldn't you?"

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#56 Post by 308GUY »

Watched this one again yesterday.

My feelings, in general are pretty much summed up in the first post on this page by Sisophous:
Sisophous wrote:This is a powerful episode the first time I watched it but too painful to watch again unlike other episodes that I never tire of. The feeling of near drowning is so real it is not enjoyable. I was blown away the first time I saw it but the other few times I got around to it while renting discs from Netflix, well, I was glad when it ended.
That's really how I felt after watching it initially, but haveing been through the entire series a couple times now, it was time to revisit it, and I'm glad I did.

Maybe knowing the outcome makes it a little more "bearable", but as quoted above, seeing TM in the swells, with nothing and nobody else around...well it just leaves me with a desolute feeling...hopelessness...impending doom. Then when "Herman" shows up...oh man! DPB really knew how to spice up a story! :lol:

The main redeeming factor is the unspoken communication between the four main characters. That goes a long way to catalyse the bond/connection between the "guys", and also serves to cement the bond between the original three and Higgins, making him forever from this point forward, "one of them", even though he wasn't in Nam with them.

That's my rambling on the episode. I really like it now and gave it a 9.5 rating. The scene at the end with young TM at his fathers grave site...well...that says so much about some of what made him the way he is.

I did miss the Ferrari being in the episode though...... :magnum:
"C'mon TC...nothing can go wrong!"

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#57 Post by marlboro »

Honolulu Lulu wrote:I just read through the posts for this episode and didn't see that anyone was confused about the timing like I was. So my question is . . . how long was Magnum treading water? When TC and Higgins realize Magnum isn't home, they say, "So he's been out on his surf ski for two days?!" Then the scene cuts to Magnum and in his narration he says he has been treading water for 20 hours. It makes more sense that he would be at the end of his first day since Rick and his girlfriend are also still at sea, and only because Rick said they needed to anchor and not try to go back to land with one engine.

So what do you experts think? 2 days or 20 + hours?

I think it was a minor flub. I think 20+ hours is correct. I can try to explain it away though, as Higgins vocalizing his worst fears.

Magnum is rescued at sunrise on July 5th. We know that Magnum had his accident sometime on the morning of the 4th. Higgins tells TC (in the earliest hours of the 5th) that he hasn't seen TM in two days. He also says that the surf ski was already gone from the estate on the morning of the 4th since he nearly always trips over it. Higgins assumes that since he hasn't seen Magnum since some time on the 3rd that Magnum had his accident then. Magnum actually either left the estate before Higgins woke up, or stayed somewhere else on the night of the 3rd (taking his surf ski with him) and never went home.


Since we have some experts on Hawaii's geography here, would it be possible/likely that magnum could have paddled from the estate on the morning of the 4th to where he had his accident? That would explain why none of Robin's vehicles were missing.

If it isn't possible, then Magnum (and his surf ski)must have caught a ride with someone on the 3rd.

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#58 Post by EZiller »

Absolutely one of the best, most poignant and moving episodes of any tv show. I've seen this at least 6 times and it never fails to pack an emotional wallop at the end. A great story line that is mostly about Magnum, but also shows Higgins, Tc and Rick, all doing their own thing on July 4th, but all of the having a premonition that TSM is in danger and coming together at the end to rescue him. Nice job of foreshadowing when they had Higgins mention to Agatha that earlier in his life he had been an excellent swimmer and then having him drop from TC's chopper with a life jacket to rescue TSM. [Is there ANYTHING Higgins hasn't done?]Superbly directed by Harvey Laidman,
the aerial shots of TSM alone in the water really captures how vast the ocean is and how alone Magnum is just floating over the swells.

10. Special mention of Constance Forslund, very hot on Rick's boat in the blue bikini. Top ten MPI babe, bimbo division.

Again, the relationship between father & son is so well captured. My dad introduced me to the ocean, taught me to swim. Also a USN WW2 vet, spent many hours flying over the ocean in PBY's. The funeral scene at the end was very reminiscent, he was buried after a long life at a national cemetery with the USN honor guard.

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#59 Post by Milton Collins »

I commemorated my third straight annual 4th of July viewing of "Home from the Sea" and have to say it's better than ever, an outstanding 9.0 for me. I have made it an ongoing tradition to always watch this one on the 4th during a workout, only seems fair considering that TM is busting his rear treading water so why shouldn't I break a sweat too? I love this episode for many reasons, but most of all I think it sums up TM as a whole and shows what makes him tick. The trauma of his father's death, Nam, facing and overcoming fears, his relationships with his best friends, the whole ball of wax. Very gut wrenching and emotional episode.

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Re: Home From the Sea (4.1)

#60 Post by SignGuyHPW »

I'm afraid that I'm in the minority here and I just didn't really care for this episode too much. It wasn't that it wasn't well acted, but I think the writing was weak for the episode. I feel like they had a great concept, but didn't really know how to execute it so they took a lot of short cuts to get the ending they needed.

The weakest aspects for me were the subplots. When Higgins was short with Agatha and even when he told her it wasn't her he had wanted to marry she took it very Britishly and didn't seem overly emotional, but she got completely heated over a game of chess? It was out of character and kind of shocking. I know there were probably logistical issues, but it'd have been nice if they could've used footage of an actual Islanders game rather than put in footage of major league games (using two different games at that). The sudden psychic bond that they all had was a bit too contrived for me. I'm not saying that one of them having a premenition wouldn't have worked, but for all of them to get that feeling that Magnum's in some kind of life and death struggle out of the blue seperately was stretching it a bit for me. The fact that when it was daylight Rick still didn't turn around and see Magnum a few yards from the yacht was weird too. I also know that they wrapped it up fairly neatly, but it'd have been nice to know if they caught the guys in the boat that caused Magnum to fall from the surf ski. They just dropped it and you never found out if there was any justice for what had happened.

I liked the concept of the episode very much where Magnum was trapped and unsure if anyone would realise he was missing until it was too late. The flashbacks to his childhood were very, very well done. I thought that was some incredible stuff. I, again in the minority, liked Rick's subplot best where he was on a date and was trying to con the girl so he'd have all night with her. It was classic Rick.

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