Characters / Magnum, P.I. (2018)

Masters Estate, Oahu

Thomas Magnum

Played by: Jay Hernandez

• Car Fu: Magnum will use the Ferraris registered under Robin's name if it can catch the suspect/s by ramming their vehicles off the road.
• Cool Car: As mentioned, the Ferraris in the Masters Estate.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Magnum has been operating like this ever since he became a private detective in Oahu.
  • "Winner Takes All" reveals that he's driven to this nature because his mom died while serving in Afghanistan and no one was able to tell him that she passed away after he was discharged with honors. This was after he survived his ordeal as a POW.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: He's a Navy SEAL who saw action in Afghanistan before he went to do reservist duty to take up his PI work.
• Impersonating an Officer: Magnum sometimes pretends to be an active police officer when talking to suspects and persons of interest in cases where it's not a good idea to actively say that he's a private detective.
• It's All My Fault: Nuzo's murder after "I Saw the Sun Rise" weighs on him and his friends from time to time.
  • The death of a fellow SEAL and a medic he tried to take back to Bagram also shadows on him and his team in "Die He Said".
• Race Lift: Thomas Magnum is being portrayed by Jay Hernandez, who is Latino.
• Rank Up: in the original show he was a Navy lieutenant, now he's a lieutenant commander.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Higgins is surprised to find that Magnum has known for a while she's former MI-6.
  Magnum: I'm a private investigator. I know you don't think I'm a very good one but I am.
  • In "Blood in the Water," Magnum finally reveals how he knew: Robin told him.

Juliet Higgins

Played by: Perdita Weeks

• Action Girl: Higgins is a former MI6 operative, and proves her skills by holding her own in hand-to-hand combat in the first two episodes.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Higgins is shot in the arm in "I Saw the Sun Rise", but in "From the Head Down", explicitly set a week later, there is no sign of the injury, not even stitches, as she wears a slinky dress, even though she directly mentions being shot.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She was badly burned by her MI6 superiors, so Juliet was forced to retire. She decided to move to Oahu permanently and live in the Masters Estate to accept the post of majordomo.
• Fish out of Water: Higgins established a platonic friendship with a local British business tycoon in part because she missed home.
• Gender Flip: Higgins is now a female, unlike the original where Higgins was a male.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: It has become a Running Gag during the first season that we learn about a new hobby or skill she has in almost every episode, whether it's model ship-building, working with people with dementia, golf, soccer, or doing crossword puzzles.
• Noodle Incident: An (as-yet-unrevealed) circumstance resulted in her not only leaving MI6, but "disavowed" (although she clearly still has contacts within). The third episode of season 1 also strongly implied, through her expression of homesickness to Magnum, that she might not be able to return to the UK.
  • She mentions to Kumu that part of it has something to do with a MI6-backed op in Ukraine that went really bad.
  • It turns out that the assassin known as Viper killed a fellow MI6 agent, who she was suppose to marry. And Juliet was upset and frustrated to learn that the assassin was her mentor when she worked for the agency.

Zeus and Apollo

• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: The two really hate Magnum the moment he was living in the estate.

Kumu

Played by: Amy Hill

• Hidden Depths: In "Say Hello to your Past", Kumu was once married before she separated and was employed to work in the Masters Estate.
• Team Mom: Looks after the welfare of Higgins and Magnum as if they were her own kids.

Robin Masters

• Big Damn Heroes: The second season ends with him officially handing control of his estate to Juliet so that she can get a legitimate working visa.
• The Ghost: He's not seen always in the show, being made known by various characters that he's always away on business.

Magnum's friends

Sebastian Nuzo

Played by: Domenick Lombardozzi

• Posthumous Character: He's murdered in the pilot, returns only in flashback scenes.

Orville "Rick" Wright

Played by: Zachary Knighton

• Friendly Sniper: Uses his sniper training to assist Magnum and the others.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Magnum mentions in "Double Jeopardy" that he shot down a hijacked Apache in his Afghan deployment by aiming and shooting near the rotors to bring it down. He does the same thing with the hijacked chopper.
• Only Known By His Nickname: He's always called Rick.

Theodore "TC" Calvin

Played by: Stephen Hill

• A Day in the Limelight: "Someone To Watch Over Me" has TC speaking to prospective Marine recruits in Oahu and mentoring someone who also grew in North Carolina, who wanted to join to make his parents happy. TC had to convince to think if the recruit wanted to join the Marines for the right reasons.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His father was arrested for robbery that he had to live with his grandparents since his mom walked out of his life.
  • In "Farewell to Love", TC's girlfriend at the time got married to someone between the time he got rescued from Afghanistan and his US Navy discharge. He didn't reach out to her because he received word that she's married and it's painful to go see her. So he agreed to go with Magnum and company to Hawaii in order to start over.
• Rank Up: The series trailer showed TC wearing a Marine dress uniform with staff sergeant's stripes. As TC is a helicopter pilot and therefore would've been a commissioned officer rather than an enlisted man, the episode aired with a major's rank devices digitally edited onto it.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: TC prefers to use a revolver as his weapon when things get hot.
• The Big Guy: Uses his strength to physically restrain people when needed.

Luther H. Gillis

Played by: Ken Jeong

• Race Lift: Luther Gillis is Asian-American.
• The Rival: Luther sees himself as this in the private detective industry in Hawaii.

Jin

Played by: Bobby Lee

• Big Brother Instinct: Mentioned in "A Game of Cat and Mouse" that he's a burglar to provide for his sisters, suggesting that his parents weren't in the picture anymore after his first gig.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Hinted by Jin in "A Game of Cat and Mouse" that he became a burglar so that his sisters didn't have to be homeless.

Honolulu Police Department

Lieutenant Yoshi Tanaka

Played by: Sung Kang

• But Not Too Foreign: He's Japanese-American, born and raised in Hawaii.
• Kicked Upstairs: Subsequent episodes mention that he was moved to another department. But Magnum was told he's happy to not see him again.
• Put on a Bus: Tanaka's not seen anymore after the pilot episode.

Detective Gordon Katsumoto

Played by: Tim Kang

• Amicable Exes: Is this with his ex-wife, Beth. When she and her son get in a car accident, he stops at nothing until the crime is solved. During his successful reinstatement hearing, he speaks highly of her to the review board.
• But Not Too Foreign: He's Japanese-American, born and raised in Hawaii.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His sister was a drug addict, and he tried to get her off them with tough love.
• Friend on the Force: Sometimes with Magnum, most of his interaction with him is based mostly on Jurisdiction Friction.
• Hidden Depths: In the final season, Gordon's hinted to be a good cook. He agrees to help Magnum and Juliet look around in Chez Aloha while undercover as a newly recruited cook in "Appetite For Danger". At the end of said episode, Gordon uses his Supreme Chef skills at the Masters Estate to thank the PI duo for cracking the heist case.
• It's Personal:
  • Katsumoto wanted to know what happened to his old collague, Stanley Tak, in "A Kiss Before Dying".
  • In "Dead Inside", he hires Magnum to investigate a possible Dirty Cop on a drug case. This gets to him because his sister succumbed to a drug addiction.
• Papa Wolf: When his son was injured in the crash, he went after the instigating party.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Deconstructed. Beth gets kidnapped by a group targeting dirty cop he sent to prison, not Dugan from "Dead Inside", so he has to do a bunch of tasks to set her free, culminating in him breaking into Halawa Correctional Facility to get the cop of interest for an exchange. Brass finds out, so he gets indefinitely suspended, until late season 5.
• Turn in Your Badge: His actions in the season 4 finale land him in indefinite suspension from the HPD. Season 5 starts with him planning to go against his suspension, and he succeeds.

Detective Lia Kaleo

Played by: Chantal Thuy

• Action Girl: One of the few HPD officers who can fend for herself, given the nature of her work.

Detective Chris Childs

Played by: Michael Rady

• Alliterative Name: Chris Childs
• Friend on the Force: "Friend" is stretching it, but during Gordon's indefinite suspension, he would entertain Thomas and Juliet's antics. Now that Gordon has his job back, time will tell if the two detectives will exchange roles.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Turned in a Dirty Cop during his time in Oakland, which got him targeted by his fellow officers. For this, he decided to transfer to Honolulu.