Magnum, P.I. (1980) s05e16 Episode Script

The reason Tyler McKinney is here, is me.
We're sitting here in the middle of the jungle, with you all shot up and me with less than half a chance of getting us out of here and you aren't even considering the fact that Magnum and Higgins might not be coming back.
One way or the other, baby and I are gonna have the biggest wedding Honolulu's ever seen.
They're going to get wiped out.
That's just the price we're gonna have to pay for getting Long Tang out.
You know, one day I want to be like you.
Be free.
You're not free? Any ideas? Nope.
Me either.
Last week on Part One, All For One.
What are you here for, Tyler? You remember that execution I was talking about? Well, it wasn't just mine, it was J.
J.
Quincannon's, too.
I managed to skate it, but they still got J.
J.
Who's they? The Viets, and that's why I'm here.
I want you guys to come back with me and get him out.
For you, gentlemen, are asking me and my crew to risk our lives on a dangerous journey into a remote part of the country where there is no law just private armies of the opium warlords.
I'm fine.
Just fine.
What's wrong with him? He was wondering if it was preordained that we were supposed to die in Southeast Asia.
We've been set up.
They want the guns.
Have you started the flow? Got it.
Now prepare Rick's arm for the other end.
T.
C: This chopper must've been here Ten years, I'd say.
Higgins stays here with Rick.
T.
C.
Too.
He fixes this thing, if he can.
And you and me? We go after J.
J.
Out of sight.
Get down.
There's a Vietnamese outpost about another click straight ahead down the road.
Probably garrisoned by no more than, like, a squad.
That's probably where they got J.
J.
- Magnum.
Why are you here? I wasn't going to get cheated.
Yeah, looks like we're all gonna get cheated, right here and now.
Opium.
The Major buys the plants from the surrounding villagers for a pittance, then refines it here himself, converting it to opium, then converting that to Pretty good living.
That's the one other thing we're here for.
In a manner of speaking, yeah.
Forget it, Magnum.
You can't kill me till we get out of here.
You led us here under false pretenses.
Just like Cam Ly.
- What happened there? Another friend of mine is gonna die because I believed you.
Oh, forget it.
You didn't believe in me.
How could you? I wouldn't.
You believed in something, friendship maybe.
Maybe some kind of ideals.
Or maybe just the action, one more time.
That's what mattered to you guys.
And you, Mr.
McKinney? Are you trying to convince us that you don't share those values? I don't have to.
All that matters is I screwed up.
And for that, sir, I apologize to you.
What about J.
J? J.
J.
Quincannon is dead.
And your friend here should know that.
He saw me kill him.
As I will personally do to him.
And you.
But unlike you Americans, I ask questions first.
And shoot later.
Have a nice day.
They all died.
Every single one of them.
It was the worst year of my life.
It was the best year of my life.
'69.
Cubs.
Ernie Banks, first base.
Glenn Glenn Beckert, second base.
Don Kessinger, shortstop.
Ron Santo, third base.
Randy Hundley, catcher.
My Pop.
The bleachers.
But I Can't remember who played center field.
I can't remember.
Don Young.
Yeah.
Yeah, Don Young.
It was Don Young.
Pop! Pop! You said they choked.
They, they didn't They didn't.
It ain't choking when something is meant to be.
You can't change your destiny.
Rick? Rick? You remember when it was over? Baltimore played New York in the series.
I enlisted in the Marines.
Never saw a ballgame again.
You'll stay with him? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You stay with him.
Now you have oil, now you have brake fluid, now you fly.
Maybe.
Where'd you get this? I borrow.
What's your name, kid? Norodom Hanamut.
Norodom Hanamut.
Call me Joe.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
You drive.
Me? You.
I'm sorry, Higgins.
My God, man.
What for? For letting myself take another sucker punch from Tyler, and letting you guys take one, too.
That is patently the most absurd statement I've ever heard you make.
And I've heard a multitude of them throughout the years.
But this one in particular does not become you.
Why's that? Tell me.
Because each and every one of us, Rick, T.
C.
, you, me, all arrived at the same conclusion independently.
We believed McKinney.
We believed in his mission.
And perhaps we still should.
Why? What happened at Cam Ly? It was around Christmas of '69.
Rick was new, but T.
C.
And Eddie Miller and I, we were pretty good buddies.
Tyler McKinney was just a guy we saw every once in a while.
He'd come and go, never wore ID, and I guess we all had him figured for some kind of a spook.
I remember one night, I was reading a letter from my mom.
It was raining.
It was raining so hard, the whole war had stopped.
Nobody was doing anything except trying to stay dry.
T.
C.
Was playing cards with Eddie and Rick and I was reading and re-reading my mom's letter, when all of a sudden, the door came open, the rain blew in and there was Tyler McKinney asking us to sneak a slick out of the compound.
And fly with him across the border into Cambodia.
It was illegal then, off-limits.
It's off-limits now, too.
Tyler said there was a listening post about 20 minutes flying time over the border near Cam Ly.
A whole modern electronics complex they were using to monitor our troop movements.
Tyler said because of this outpost, three good friends of his had bought it, a lot of others he didn't know.
Legally, we couldn't touch it.
I see.
Cam Ly was out of bounds.
There was no electronics surveillance post? Oh, yes.
Yes, there was.
We flew in, we infiltrated the perimeter.
We blew the buildings.
Destroyed the tunnels.
Then Tyler's intelligence was correct? The only thing he was guilty of and you, was taking illegal and unauthorized action.
And getting Eddie Miller killed.
Magnum, in war, death is something that all soldiers Except it wasn't war, Higgins.
It was personal.
Tyler's intelligence was good.
He knew the Vietnamese captain in command of that post had stolen a couple hundred thousand dollars in jade from a local Buddhist temple.
He told Eddie to cover him while he went in the CP to look for it, except he told Eddie that it was intelligence papers he was looking for.
Well, we were all sitting there in the Huey when Tyler comes running out with a big burlap bag in his hand and a candy-eating grin on his face.
And Eddie, he just stayed there, and covered Tyler all the way back to the chopper.
And that's when it all hit the fan.
Tyler got shot in the head and they grabbed Eddie.
This Vietnamese captain and two others, they had been hiding behind the CP.
We couldn't shoot.
It was dark.
It was raining again.
And this captain, he just Iooked at us sitting there in the chopper.
And he knew we ripped him off.
And he knew there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
But he had Eddie.
So he took out his pistol, smiled, and blew Eddie's head off.
I'll always remember the look on his face.
Eddie Miller's? No.
The captain's.
He's a Major now.
I didn't put it all together till he smiled.
But he's the same man who's torturing Tyler McKinney, right now.
Then Tyler is here to atone.
How do you know that? Because I was not at Cam Ly.
Turn over, Tyler.
You must, or you'll swallow your own blood and suffocate on it.
I remember a very similar occurrence once.
Higgins, let me die in peace, will you? Come on, Tyler.
You're not dead yet.
Turn over! Come on, Tyler.
Come on.
Thanks.
I did lie to you guys, but not like you think.
I brought you to this hole for something else.
Save your breath, Tyler.
Something else.
You don't have much left.
I'll go next.
I don't think it's up to you, Higgins.
Who Silence.
These guys here, Magnum, they're the something else I was talking about.
McKinney.
What took you so long? Welcome to Cambodia, gentlemen.
Welcome to the resistance.
What matter? Well, first the good news.
There is hydraulic fluid here.
The bad news is most of it's in my face.
Get me a wipe.
A wipe? A rag.
A towel.
Something.
Come on, hurry up.
Get me anything.
I'm sorry.
Sorry I jumped down your throat.
That impossible.
No, I mean, I yelled.
Yelled.
Talk loudly.
Ah, no problem.
I guess I got a lot on my mind.
I mean, you're being a lot of help to me, Joe.
Thank you.
You know, one day I want to be like you.
Fly.
Then I can fly away from here.
Be free.
What do you mean? You're not free? I mean, you guys got your crops, your rice and stuff, right? Very little rice.
Poppy.
What do you mean? Poppy.
Poppy.
Right.
That what I tell you.
Very bad.
Sometime Vietnamese come, if we don't have poppy How is your progress? Oh, we're getting there.
Maybe.
It will indeed be a miracle if you can make a car fly.
Good luck.
Thanks.
T.
C: What'd he say? Um Suragit say, American crazy.
He say I waste my time.
Do you think you are, Joe? I think I waste my time if I don't help you.
Don Young.
That man should be dead.
Except he's much too mean to give anybody the satisfaction.
At least, Magnum, your suspicions about him proved groundless.
Tyler is not here for Major Tu's opium.
Perhaps we are here for the MIA.
Oh Come on, Higgins, there's no MIA.
And with J.
J.
Dead, that means he came here to kill Major Tu.
So we can all clap our hands and forgive him for Cam Ly? Well, I ain't buying it.
That is good.
Because the reason Tyler McKinney is here, and presumably you too, gentlemen, is me.
You? Tyler has not told you about me? Tyler McKinney has not told us a lot of things.
Because of him, we had to leave a good buddy across the border with a bullet in his chest and now we don't know whether he's alive or dead.
But with all due respect, Doctor, and thank you very much for saving us, we're gonna go back and get him.
Well, perhaps, I can be of some help.
You see, my name is Long Tang.
Doctor Long Tang.
I am the provisional president of a confederation of democratic resistance groups to the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge rape of our country.
In other words, he's the George freaking Washington of Cambodia.
And we're here to get him the hell out.
In order to establish a government in exile in a neutral country.
Why on earth didn't you tell us all this back in Honolulu? 'Cause you'd have still been there.
So you used J.
J.
Instead of the truth.
- Yeah.
But it doesn't make any difference.
You see, I loved J.
J.
Just as much as you did, Magnum.
And you, Higgins, you didn't even know him.
I think it's about time we stop putting conditions on the words "freedom" and "commitment.
" You live them or you don't.
And that's why we're here.
And the action.
Yeah.
Only right now the action hurts too damn much.
The fact of the matter is, I was asked a couple of months ago to get the Doc out.
Strictly freelance, strictly off the record.
J.
J.
And me went in, got set up.
The Doc's boys came blazing out of the jungle just as we were about to buy it.
The Major shot J.
J.
Just as we were gonna blow the scene.
I barely made it out.
And yeah, you don't have to say it, just like Cam Ly.
What now? We finish the job.
We get the doctor out.
What about Tu? You tell me, Tyler.
Which is more important? Quickly, back in the tunnel.
My God, man, hurry.
She was my wife.
She was my wife.
Had enough? T.
C: You know, Joe, I think we might just have ourselves a working fuel pump here.
The only question is, do we have enough fuel? Fool? Fuel.
Yes, fool.
Who know? Well, the way we're gonna find out, is by draining this fuel tank.
There.
Which right now consists of a bunch of foo fuel, a bunch of water and other gunk that has seeped in there over the past 10 years.
Hopefully find a chamois to soak up some of this water and other sediment, and leave us with a relatively pure couple of gallons that will get us the heck out of this dump.
I mean, your village.
Hey, man, I'm sorry.
No problem.
I want to get out of here, too.
I want to go to America and learn to fly and learn to be free.
Yeah, well, no one's going anywhere unless I figure out how to soak up this water.
You wouldn't happen to have a Sears around here, would you? No.
Instead, I have yak hide.
You mean rawhide? Cow? Yak.
Yak.
Buffalo.
I get yak hide.
We get water, then water free.
Then fool free.
Me free.
You free, we all free! All right.
Be right back! Oh.
Sorry.
- How you feel? - Oh, just great.
I'm not gonna die.
Good.
How's your shoulder? Hurts.
Anything from Thomas? No, not yet.
I'm sorry, man.
I'm just trying to get this thing working.
No problem.
Hey, did you see Suragit, Nata Ying's old man? No.
Wait a minute.
You're not thinking what I think you're thinking.
Why not? Because Ain't it something? Yeah, it's something.
Just think, T.
C.
, I could teach her English.
She could work in the club.
Hey, maybe even get a job as a nurse or something.
Consider the possibilities.
No, you consider the possibilities.
I already did.
No, you didn't.
Hey, don't you try and talk me out of something that I really wanna do now.
Something that's really right.
Something that's crazy? Maybe to you, T.
C.
You just don't know her.
Now, look what you're doing.
You know, I don't really care what you think, but one way or the other, baby and I are gonna have the biggest wedding Honolulu's ever seen.
Just think about the fireworks.
Long Tang! I love it! Come on, Higgins, let's go.
Quite.
Move! I do not know you very well, Magnum.
But, from what I see, I do not think you were taken in by Tyler McKinney.
He out and out lied, Doctor.
He didn't have to.
Perhaps, but the lie in itself was one based on a truth.
And I think that that truth is one that you and he and your friends ultimately share.
What truth is that? The most basic one of them all, the belief in freedom.
Sometimes I think people just have to be reminded of it.
And sometimes it doesn't particularly matter how.
Thank you.
Rick.
Rick.
No, no, no.
Everything okay? I don't know.
T.
C: Joe's still out there working.
Yeah.
I wanna ask you something.
What? I was thinking about our talk and everything, about you and the girl.
What about her? Nothing, nothing.
I was just wondering who you were thinking about to be your best man.
All you guys, I guess.
I mean You mean Magnum and Higgins, too? Sure.
How do you figure that, Rick? What are you talking about? Do you see Magnum and Higgins here? You just see me and you and We're sitting here in the middle of the damn jungle with you all shot up and me with less than half a chance of getting us out of here and you aren't even considering the fact that Magnum and Higgins might not be coming back.
Or are you? I don't know.
I don't like to think about stuff like that.
Well, you've got to.
You can't come into a situation like this without thinking about stuff like that.
I mean, if you don't, it's just, it's just dumb and you don't deserve Oh, no, no, no.
You don't have the right to do stuff like falling in love and proposing to chicks who can't understand a word of what we're saying.
I mean, it's dumb and it's wrong.
She understands.
Maybe not in English, but she understands.
No, no, no.
What she understands is that a nice guy with a nice smile got shot up pretty bad, and she was able to help out and he was nice to her.
Maybe offered her a chance at something better, something new, something different than the ordinariness of her day-to-day life.
But it's not reality and you've got to realize that, Rick.
You can't take her back to Hawaii.
I mean, it's not fair to her.
And then what? Are you going to teach her English, or is she going to teach you Thai? And when you can talk to each other, where is the guarantee that you're going to even like what each other are saying? Look, you do what you gotta do.
Maybe your friend come back today.
Maybe.
At any rate, we got to be ready for them.
We got to be ready to leave right away.
We? Yeah, we.
You want freedom, Joe, baby? I'm gonna see that you get a shot at it.
Come on.
Yeah! You guys made it.
I'm sorry.
Oh, yeah, I forgot.
No J.
J? That's the man that J.
J.
Died for.
What's he saying? He's thanking the Thai villagers for their support in his, and all the people's in the region, struggle for freedom.
His name is Long Tang.
You mean he's kind of like George freaking Washington.
George freaking Washington.
If we get him out of here in time.
What are you talking about? Nothing, other than I've been thinking about the fact that twice you sneaked into that refugee camp and both times Major Tu was waiting for you.
Now, if he knew we were coming in the first place, he's got to know where we're running to.
Personally, I'd feel a lot better in Bangkok.
Or Chicago.
Or Long Tang! T.
C.
, I can't fly in chopper.
Well, I'll make room.
That not point.
What is the point? Point is Long Tang is great man.
He say that one man cannot be truly free if all men are not.
If I go to Hawaii with you, I will not really be free.
I must stay here and fight for it.
Maybe Maybe I see you later.
Well, Magnum, I think we're gonna get out in one piece.
Mission accomplished.
The right one.
You know, I left that other crate of stuff that we brought upriver for these guys, you know, for when the Viets get here, which ought to be anytime now.
They're gonna get wiped out.
Well, I guess that's just the price we're gonna have to pay for getting Long Tang out.
The hell it is.
Out of sight.
Come on, come on.
Come on, boys, come on.
Hey, Tyler, think you'll ever be able to cope with world peace? I doubt if I'll ever have to.
Keep coming, baby.
You're mine.
Joe, no.
Nuts.
Time to go pay my respects.
Cover me.
No, you cover me! Cam Ly.
Cam Ly.
Tyler! It's all right.
It's all right.
It's not all right, not in the least.
As a matter of fact, in the time we've been away, the estate has completely gone to pot.
Unpaid bills, unread correspondence, underfed lads.
Yeah, well, the assistant manager really messed things up at the club.
We're stuck with 300 extra pounds of mahi-mahi.
Well, I missed three seven-island charter flights and one little league playoff game.
How did your kids do? They won.
What if we hadn't have gone? We did.
Maybe Long Tang was right.
We wound up going to Chong Ker and Ban Li for that most basic truth, freedom.
But did Tyler? I don't know.
Ultimately, it didn't matter.
What mattered was we were faithful to that truth, and so was Tyler Peabody McKinney.