Blind Justice (5.7)

[J.J. Walters]

This is the official MM thread for Blind Justice (5.7). All discussions and reviews for this episode should go here. If you wish to rate the episode, please do so with the poll. The avg. score will be the official 'community rating', which will be used on the episode page (updated monthly).

This thread is also linked in the episode page of the Episode Guide.

Original Air Date: 11/8/1984
A.D.A. Carol Baldwin asks Magnum to look into the murder of a young mother, but one of his suspects is not what he seems and may be guilty of a far worse crime.

[J.J. Walters]

This is one of my favorite episodes from the fifth season. It's another great Magnum/Carol episode, this one with a domestic violence subplot. The disturbing opening scene still works today. Powerful stuff!

Magnum drives around in a Jaguar E-Type Series 1 Roadster. And Ms. Jones, the "Hall of Records" clerk, makes another all too brief appearance.

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Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

[Shermy]

This has another memorable ending that sticks with you long afterwards. It's similar in tone to the finale of Did You See The Sunrise, with justice winning out over legality. This was a popular theme in action films around the time as well.

Selleck does a good job here, and doesn't really portray Magnum as being triumphant at the end. There's a hint of disillusionment, with the final shot implying that the matter was simply beyond his control.

[Magnums Little Voice]

A powerful episode this one. Magnums toiled between justice and the law, and I guess he done the right thing and karma played it's part in the end.
Not my favourite episode to be true but good all the same.

[Tuan Vu]

This was a pretty good episode, with the outcome of the trial in doubt and the verdit never revealed at the end. I wanted to see how it ended!

Anyway, I thought it was interesting what that sleazy defense lawyer told Magnum when he said that he wasn't concerned whether his client was guilty or not, but that his job was just to make sure he wasn't convicted. Being a defense lawyer must pose a lot of ethical challenges for those in that profession.

Also, I loved the scene where the defense lawyer, Aldridge, tries to bribe Magnum to stop investigating the case, and Magnum makes fun of the situation by asking him whether there are any other cases he would like Magnum "not to investigate", and how much he would pay him for "not investigating" because he could spend a lot of time "not investigating." Very funny!

Finally, it was nice to see many scenes filmed in front of Aliiolani Hale , which is the building that houses the Hawaii State Supreme Court. There is a time capsule buried somewhere beneath the building by King Kamehameha V back in 1872, and contains photos of the royal family, Hawaiian coins, the Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, newspapers and books. However, to dig it up would damage the structural integrity of the building, so it has not been disturbed.

[Jay-Firestorm]

Wow, it seems ages since my last review – it was only Friday. Anyway, here’s my first of the week.

[rating=9.0]

Carol asks Thomas to help gather evidence on an upcoming murder trial, where a man seems certain to be convicted of murdering his wife after years of physically abusing her. But as he investigates, Thomas faces a crisis of conscience. Better than I expected…

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This review contains spoilers.

The opening trailer for this episode makes it look like a courtroom drama, and from that, I didn’t think I was going to like this episode very much. However, the courtroom section actually comes late in the episode, and the bulk of the story is about Magnum gathering evidence for the murder trial. This is not a typical MPI episode, but I ended up enjoying it far more than I had initially expected.

As I say, this is not a typical episode of the series, with low action, and a different type of story to the norm. But that actually works in its favour, and – as it often the case with MPI – they dared to try something a little different, and pulled it off.
It is written by Chris Abbott-Fish, who would introduce a number of more ‘socially conscious’ dramas and less p.i.-driven plots into the show, not all of which I was keen on.

The opening scene, of the little girl witnessing her step-father attacking her mother, is well staged and rather shocking for its time.
The actress, Natalie Gregory, who plays young Elizabeth is very good; sometimes, child actors come over as over-cutesy, and don’t always deliver their lines very convincingly, but I really enjoyed the actress here. Her scene later on in the story where she describes to Magnum what happened to her mother, is excellent.

But the episode isn’t all drama – in a way that the series does so very well, it mixes in a comedy b-plot to balance things out a little. This time, it is Higgins taking away Magnum’s use of the Ferrari (for running over some flowers, no less), leading to Magnum having to buy another car to get around in. He ends up with an E-Type Jaguar, which in some circles would be a collectors vehicle – but not in the beaten up state of the one he buys! These scenes are very amusing, and act as good comic relief to the main plot.

Another amusing touch is when Magnum and Carol go to the Hall of Records, and Ms. Jones, first seen in the third season’s ‘Mr. White Death’, makes an appearance – still suffering the same relationship troubles that she was having two years previously! She will go on to appear in an episode based around her, ‘Ms. Jones’, later this season.

One area in which the story is dated, is when it is revealed how the photos of the supposedly beaten up woman before her death, were doctored. Nowadays, it would be easy to do in any graphic design package, but back then, it was more complicated and less convincing. However, this didn’t really mar my enjoyment of the episode.

And then there is the great final scene; with Magnum’s conscience split about what to do, and with the audio tape that could potentially clear the man, recorded over, the story is left open ended; we never discover the outcome of the case. In some cases, this would have the viewer yelling at the television, but once again, MPI manages to pull it off.

All-in-all, I was pleasantly surprised by this episode. I went in not expecting much from it, and ended up liking it. I think I enjoy it better now that I did when I first saw it years ago, as my tastes have matured. It is by no means a classic, and – like many fifth season episodes – doesn’t have much re-watchable value like some of the early episodes, but on its own, it is a reasonable entry from a so-so season.

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Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* The main page for this episode mentions that Kathleen Lloyd is billed as ‘Special Guest Star’. If I recall correctly, she was for her previous appearance in ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’, and is for all of her remaining episodes (I may be wrong on this, as I haven’t seen many of the late episodes for a couple of years).

* Rick and T.C. only appear in one scene each in this story.

* I’m not sure if I’m correct about this, but around this time, the guest house seemed to go under a light makeover. The lamps on the wall, previously behind an ornamental hand ‘fan’ (or whatever you’d call it), are different; the wooden floor also looks different to me. Anyone else notice this?

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JAY FIRESTORM

Facebook: Jay Gathergood / Twitter: Jay_Firestorm NEW BLOG: http://thea-teamcaptured.blogspot.com/

My A-Team site - http://thea-team.org aiming to be the most detailed A-Team site on the Net - if I ever get around to updating it!!

[lutherhgillis]

James wrote "Magnum drives around in a Jaguar E-Type Series 1 Roadster. And Ms. Jones, the "Hall of Records" clerk, makes another all too brief appearance."

I'm not sure that an appearance of Ms. Jones could be too brief...

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Who's Dot Matrix, and what has she got to do with this?

[J.J. Walters]

[Doc Ibold]

[J.J. Walters]

It's deleted footage from "Mixed Doubles"....

No, just kidding. It's from the 1981 horror movie The Howling.

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Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!