This Island Isn't Big Enough (6.16)

[K Hale]

As I recall, that living room set is only seen in this episode and Photo Play. I think of it as the “media room.”

[nha trang]

K Hale, yeah that makes sense. The "media room" messed with my mental map of the estate!

Nha Trang

[Pahonu]

As I recall, that living room set is only seen in this episode and Photo Play. I think of it as the “media room.”

I think it’s also used in The Kona Winds.

[ENSHealy]

Possible flubs:

- When TM first visits Reed's office and the girl tells him to go he says "If you change your mind I'm on the book". But unless I missed it he never told her his name in the first place.

- We learn that Higgins brough Lily to Oahu 40 years ago, but what was he doing on the island? Wasn't he in the Army then?

He definitely introduced himself: https://vimeo.com/637613379

I had the same thought about Lily coming to Oahu. Perhaps it is a Higgins backstory continuity flub, as Higgins seems to imply he was in Hawaii 40 years ago, but we know he arrived in 1972. He states “In the light just now, I saw in you the little girl who arrived here some 40 years ago” which makes it sound like he saw her arriving in Hawaii. Of course, he could just be referencing having seen her in her original locale, but it does sound more like he's saying he was there at the time. (Or as he would put it, “I was there, you know.") Also, Lily says "I mean, how many children were you responsible for bringing to a new land?" which again, makes it sound like he was in Hawaii, "bringing" people there, when this happened. Otherwise, it would have been more correct to say "sending to a new land" if he was doing this from somewhere else. The Higgins timeline mentions he was in Shanghai briefly in 1946 (40 years ago) so perhaps it was there, but in the opening scene they seem to be speaking Japanese, implying that Lily is a Japanese emigre, and of course she is connected with "probably the most powerful man in the infrastructure of the Japanese Yakusa". I don't know enough about WWII to know if there would have been Japanese to re-settle from Shanghai in 46, but if so, why not just back to Japan? She looks more South Asian/Polynesian than Japanese*, however, so perhaps she just picked up her Japanese from your Yakuza boyfriend. (Or maybe it's not Japanese...unlike James Bond, I did not take a 1st at Cambridge in Oriental Languages -I just watched You Only Live Twice last night....)
https://vimeo.com/637073900
*Not that the casting directors of Magnum ever worried about casting Asian actors with lineage tracing to the country of the character they were supposed to be portraying...Clyde Kusatsu and Sook-Tek Oh of Japanese and Korean ancestry playing Vietnamese characters being case exhibits number 1 and 2.

[ENSHealy]

You can see here the original wall: http://macpro.buzznet.com/photos/archive/?id=884280
It was repainted at 3049 Ualena St.

The image links are broken in this post, but I thought it was worthwhile posting a new image of the repainted version on Ualena Street:

[ENSHealy]

For some reason, I seem to have developed an unhealthy obsession with the particulars of this episode. So, first, some responses to previous posts, then, a far too detailed analysis of all the problems with the plot in this one. Chris Abbott probably should have some of her writing royalties clawed back for all the problems with this story.

Icepick told Carol that Manzano was staying at the Puna Kohola hotel on the West Shore (maybe the first time they mention the West Coast in the show?). We know they used only one filming location on the west coast ('The secret beach' in the episode 'Rapture'), so the fictional 'Puna Kohola Hotel' is indeed the 'Ilikai Hotel', nearby the Ala Wai Harbor.
As said in the main page for this episode they filmed the rooftop fight scene at the Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel, but the scene where they are exiting the hotel going down the escalator was filmed at 'The Modern Honolulu Hotel' on Hobron Lane, nearby the Ala Wai Harbor.

And when TC lands his chopper on the roof of said hotel, Diamond Head is right there in the background, clearly placing them in Waikiki. Why not just have the script reference a Waikiki hotel? Or at least shoot it so Diamond Head isn’t in the background?

The scene where they are looking at slides really bothered me. They were trying to get as much information as they could so they could find Rick alive, but they were playing it for laughs. They didn't seem to care that it was the only leads they had regardless how bad the pictures were. It's like Thomas and TC were treating Rick being missing like a game of hide and seek where there wasn't any danger. The part where Higgins brought the young lady, Lily, to the estate to ask her for that favor went no where in this or any other episode and really made no sense whatsoever. It was like they were short on time and did this scene to make it work time wise without it affecting the rest of the show. I also found it odd that Gordon had been able to get on the island to set up his sound system and wasn't caught yet Magnum and TC were caught in seconds.

I was also initially bothered by the out of context laughter, but perhaps it was just a reaction to the stress they were under, worrying about Rick. Regarding the scene with Lily, however, it does pay off later, when Higgins reveals his knowledge of why Yamashiro was on the boat and is cagy about his course, which was clearly Lily: https://vimeo.com/638175810

And now...without further ado…

A Far Too Detailed Examination of the Byzantine, Indecipherable Plot of This Island Isn’t Big Enough…For All The Holes in This Plot.

There are 5 guys on the speedboat that pulls up to the King Kam III…by the time we reach the hideout island, two of them have disappeared without a trace (the guy who says “you do” and the guy in the white and mustache way in the back of the boat). Reed Hart booked the charter but he’s not on the boat. The rubber raft is missing from the boat, we are later led to believe Rick used it to get to the island. However, we are also told that the bad guys thoroughly cleaned the King Kam and put everything that could be evidence into that big steel box that they dropped in the ocean with the bodies. With 5 guys sanitizing a crime scene, how the heck does Rick get the rubber raft off the King Kam without being seen? And how does he get to the island undetected?

Katsumoto finds cash in Manzano’s hotel room. Manzano came to the islands to sell the counterfeit cash. Kapalama is the middleman, and the deal is taking place on the boat. Why does Manzano leave a bunch of the cash in the hotel room? When Manzano’s goons find Katsumoto in the hotel room, they take the cash with them. Why? Why not just take Katsumoto? What were they going to do with the money?

Katsumoto says he wants to catch Manzano selling the counterfeit cash to the middleman. Carol says Kapalama is the middleman. If Yamashiro is on the boat, why is a middleman needed? If the middleman is to provide separation between the seller, Manzano, and the buyer, Yamashiro, all of them getting on the boat together seems to defeat the purpose. I suppose Kapalama is just the connection between Manzano and Yamashiro, so the connection, not the separation, is the point, possibly. And Kapalama is there to make sure he gets his cut? (Because Manzano wouldn’t want to pay him advance in case Yamashiro doesn’t show or the deal falls through?)

If Reed Hall’s only involvement (as far as the others know) is to set up the meet on the boat, why is Freddy there? Especially if Reed knows his guys are going to knock over the boat, why put Freddy in the middle of it? And if the bad guys who hijack the boat are connected with Reed, why do they kill Freddy? Is Freddy not in on it?

Katsumoto tails Manzano and Hall to Kahana Investments and loses them there. First, why does Manzano need to meet with Hall at all? I suppose he has to pay Hall for setting up the meet?

Gordon says he has some serial numbers and if “we can get any of the rest of the money to match the serial numbers, we got him.” But the serial numbers Katsumoto has are from a separate batch of money than is being sold to Yamashiro on the boat. By “match” does he mean, “are somewhere in the same vicinity of”? Because the numbers are not going to “match”.

Star says she went to Reed’s house, the car was in the garage, but he wasn’t there. Was Reed already in the trunk? If so, how (and why?) does the car get back to Reed’s office? Magnum intimates that he doesn’t believe Star’s story about going to Reed’s house and him not being there, implying that he thinks Star killed Reed. But when they get to Star’s place, he seems to accept her story that she didn’t kill Reed. Then who did? And when? Manzano, just to save cash on setting up the meet? And it was presumably Reed that Star was talking to on the phone about Freddy’s disappearance, when Magnum first shows up at Reed’s office. Where was Reed then? At his house where Star later goes? And Manzano’s already on the boat (actually, already dead, by then) so he couldn’t have killed Reed. Was Reed killed by unhappy clients, completely unrelated to the rest of the plot?

If Rick is so delirious, how did he manage not to reveal himself to the bad guys on the island? But then, when Thomas, T.C. and Higgins shows up, he actually introduces the bad guys to them, saying “These are the guys that are in trouble” like he’s been hanging out with them on the island all along. In that case, who were the booby-traps for? And more to the point, why haven’t the bad guys just killed Rick on the island? After all, he shot one of them, and we haven’t seen that guy since. Why wasn’t he in the chest with the other bodies if Rick’s shot was fatal?

So many questions…so few answers.

[ENSHealy]

EPISODE: 6.16 This Island Isn’t Big Enough

Famous guest stars:
Hawaiian shirts: 1

Tigers Cap: 1

Island Hopper shirts: 1

Shirtless Magnum:
OMG:
Higgins Organizations:
Higgins musings:
Negotiations:
Gun Play:
Bullet wounds:
Little Voice: 2
I know what you’re thinking:
When I write HTBAWCPI: .5 Half-point for mentioning the Private Investigator’s Handbook (Don't overlook the obvious) but not Thomas’ book on How To Be A World Class Private Investigator
Investigator corrections:
4th wall breaks:
Magnumometer: 5.5
Magnumometer Moments: https://vimeo.com/637067617

Despite what should have been a career ending appearance in this episode, Clyde Kusatsu is still working! I recently spotted him in the brand new Netflix Season 2 episode of “Never Have I Ever” playing the grandfather of the half-Japanese love interest of the main character.

When Thomas looks at the map of the island the bad guys had headed to, you can make out the several names among them Washington Island, Christmas Island and Jarvis Island. The northernmost name on that section of map is Kingman Reef, which according to google is 1075 miles from Honolulu! That is a hell of a long way to go for a clandestine business meeting, or even to hide out after one (presumably, since Rick made it to the island as well, the meeting had to be close to the hideout island.)

Flub-worthy? At around the 40:00 mark, as the chopper approaches the hideout island, the passenger seen through the front windscreen is wearing a brown shirt, but when they cut to the interior of the chopper, Thomas is wearing blue denim.

Peter Kailua will always be “Hawaiian King Kong” to me (as Rick referred to him in the pilot):


Nothing like a Burt Reynolds reference to spice up an episode: https://vimeo.com/637070713

The soil on that island must be Incredible Hulk green:

[charybdis1966]

This is another episode new to me and while it’s a somewhat average episode it did reveal one of those “it was acceptable in the ‘80’s” moments.
The scene where TM forces his way into Starr Reed’s office made me feel uncomfortable - it was a man (ostensibly the hero of the story) using his strength to overpower a woman trying to keep her door closed.
When he barges in and she defends herself by chucking vases and other stuff at him they try and play it for laughs with TM doing the sideways flop onto the couch but you can’t make forced entry humorous.
Definitely a sign a scene “of it’s time” but quite jarring for me viewing it some 35 plus years later.