Devil On The Doorstep

"Devil On the Doorstep"

Season 4, Episode 6

Air date

November 12, 2021

Written by

Tera Tolentino

Directed by

Claudia Yarmy

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Devil On The Doorstep is the 6th of the fourth season for the 2018 remake of Magnum P.I., and the sixty-second episode overall, which was aired on November 12, 2021.

Summary[]

A journalist hires Magnum to track down his anonymous source after they mysteriously go dark, and Higgins receives a new assignment from MI-6. Also, Rick's old friend comes to the island, but TC is suspicious of his motives.

Recap[]

He was contacted by an anonymous source several weeks ago about an article he wrote on Jane Doe and this source identified the woman. She said her name was Hinani Tapsna. Leota wrote another article about Tapsna. This one included her real name once he verified the information and he proved that the victim was in fact Tapsna. But Leota’s article didn’t get any traction.

Tapsna’s family or friends didn’t come out to identify her. they also didn’t try to contact Leota and so Leota thought there could be more in this case and that turned out to be the case once the anonymous source contacted him again. This time she asked to meet. Leota showed but the source never did and he came to believe something must have happened to her to keep her away from the meeting. And so he hired a couple of private investigators.

Leota wanted Magnum and Higgins to find his source. He doesn’t need her name or her contact info. He just wanted them to find her and make sure that she’s alright. Magnum and Higgins got to working on the case, but Higgins was contacted by the MI6. Juliette was on the island and she wanted Higgins to meet her. Higgins was off doing that while Magnum was following leads.

Magnum found out that the anonymous source used a payphone. The payphone was right in front of a strip mall and so he went into the only business that was open. It was a nail salon. The owner more or less pressured Magnum into accepting several expensive treatments before she offered up any information.

The nail salon owner mentioned that the woman was Asian with a purple purse. She also said that she worked for an airline and so Magnum was following that up when he spotted a car following him. He called Shammy. He offered Shammy his new gift card to the nail salon in exchange for Shamy following the car that was following him, but Shammy later lost the guy and so it’s a good thing Magnum spoke to the source.

Magnum spoke to the source. She’s a flight attendant and she said that Tapsna flew to the island with a man. This same man flies every couple of weeks back and forth from Hawaii to California and he always has a new girl with him. The flight attendant thought this man could be connected to drugs. And she didn’t say anything because she’s a mother of one child.

The woman didn’t want to risk being hurt or her son being hurt. She also didn’t say anything because these women always fly back after a few weeks and they didn’t seem hurt. But then she recognized the picture in the paper. She looked up the flight manifests and she got her name. Tapsna was murdered.

She was brutally stabbed. The flight attendant thinks the man flying with her was responsible and so she got his name. His name is Nathan Stallard. The flight attendant would have given his name to the journalist but then she saw Stallard following Leota and that’s why she never met with him. She didn’t want to risk Stallard recognizing her. Stallard must have also been the guy following Magnum.

Leota must have drawn the wrong sort of attention once he printed Tapsna’s name on the paper. Magnum got everyone he could from the source and that included flight manifests on every flight that Tallard traveled on. Both Leota and Magnum contacted these women. They said that Stallard works for a charity that helps pregnant women from developing countries and that he helped them. He flew them to Hawaii where they got the best care.

They didn’t even have to pay rent on their luxury houses and so the only downside was that these women were all told their babies died. Stallard wasn’t trafficking in drugs. He was stealing children and neither Magnum nor Leota had any idea where he was taking these babies or if he wasn’t just selling them. They brought in Detective Gordon Katsumoto.

The three of them worked together to find the missing children. Leota found out that there were no death certificates for any of these supposed babies and so the guys believed that Stallard was a part of a team. He needed an organized team of doctors to deliver and hide all these children. There was no Family Health Fund and so the charity was bogus. They probably told parents willing to pay that they were adopting orphans.

The guys later found the house that Stallard was using. It was clear that he was housing another pregnant woman there and Magnum found this woman’s scans. She was thirty-nine weeks. Stallard could induce labor in order to get one last payday and so it became imperative that they find him before he disappeared with another child.

The guys later found Stallard using a nearby hospital to do just that. Only three members of staff were in on it and so the three people along with Stallard were arrested. Stallard’s crimes meant created a legal issue regarding the babies he stole. He apparently tricked mothers into signing over custody but that wasn’t legal and so the mothers were going to fight for their children and either them or the adoptive parents were going to know heartbreak. But Katsumoto told Magnum and Leota not to think about that and he instead showed them the mother who got to hold her child. And so they did save the day for at least one family.

Higgins also tried to walk away from the MI6 and they instead told her that her file was stolen. She could either keep working for them or risk her file getting out there in the public sphere. And if that happens, Higgins’s life will be in danger.

Rick’s childhood friend Robbie came to visit him and unfortunately, trouble follows Robbie. The FBI showed up demanding Rick’s help in taking down Robbie for murder.

Notes[]

Ray Sloane has been introduce for the first time.
Higgins tries to chase Barlowe, but he's dead by hitting a truck.

Goofs[]

When Higgins sneaks into the morgue to steal the flash drive, the body is fully dressed. Morgues never put a body in the morgue dressed and inventory all belongings to specifically prevent what she did.

Deaths

Barlowe (hit by a truck)

Trivia[]

Yancey Arias made his first appearance in this episode.
The calla lily purple aloha shirt that Jay Hernandez is wearing in this episode was also worn by Tom Selleck.