Magnum P.I.: Jay Hernandez Talks New Season 5 Threat, 'Great' Backstory It Will Reveal — Plus, Grade the Premiere

Matt Webb Mitovich
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The following contains spoilers from the first two episodes of Magnum P.I. Season 5 on NBC.

Magnum P.I. this Sunday night kicked off its NBC run with, yes, steamy shower smooching and extra-flirty banter between the newly coupled Thomas and Juliet. We also saw that Katsumoto, though at first resigned to being sidelined at the HPD (and replaced with Michael Rady’s Det. Childs), has instead decided to fight for his job; Kumu will be helping out at La Mariana as Rick juggles fatherhood; and said new dad is now crashing as Magnum’s place, until he can close on a new, baby-friendly home.

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But on a much darker note….

A sequence closing out the season opener involved T.C. at the docks one night looking for Captain Buck Greene (played by recurring guest star James Remar), but finding his boat’s slip empty. After T.C. left, a sketchy not-a-harbor master furtively phoned an associate who had asked to be notified if anyone came looking for Greene. We then saw that man on the other end of the call had Greene black-bagged and roped to a chair at an undisclosed location.

When the hood was removed, Greene asked what they wanted, why they invaded his home and abducted him. The man in charge recounted Greene’s service record with the Navy, and how in Afghanistan he ran a black ops team comprised of “two SEALs” (Magnum and Nuzzo) and “two Marines” (Rick and T.C.). The ominous man wants to know where he can find these team members, but Greene looked like he won’t spill.

Then, at the close of the second episode, the HPD’s Det. Childs was summoned to the morgue after a dead body was found washed up on shore — and when the covering was lifted, we saw that it was Greene.

Speaking with TVLine, Magnum P.I. lead Jay Hernandez said that Greene’s abduction, torture and death has kicked off a Season 5 story arc that will span “a lot of episodes.”

Hernandez said that serialized mystery arcs like this are a “really fun” way to supplement the series’ Case of the Week element. “You get more time to build the story” over multiple episodes, “so it doesn’t have to be squeezed into [one]. It gets be what it is, and there is some really great stuff that comes out of that storyline.”

After all, the man who abducted and apparently killed Greene isn’t after just Magnum, but Rick and T.C. as well. As such, as this subplot rolls out, viewers can expect to learn even more about best friends’ complicated military history. “It touches on our past and how we became a unit… all that stuff,” Hernandez previews. “There’s some really good backstory that gets exposed through this storyline.”

What did you think of Magnum P.I.‘s double-episode Season 5 premiere in its new home, on NBC?

Launch Gallery: <I>Magnum P.I.</I> Q&A: Jay Hernandez and Perdita Weeks Share #Miggy Hook-Up Concerns and Tease One 'Ethically Questionable' Undercover Op

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