Its too hot to go outside and do anything productive, so I’m watching TV in the daytime. I watch an episode of Magnum and at the end, Rick goes to jail for having an AK-47. A Federal No-No. Door slams shut, credits roll.
Huh? I never remembered that? So I look it up on wiki, and find out that was the next to last episode of the 7th, and was supposed to be last, season. In the last episode, I read that Magnum gets shot and walks off into the clouds. Fan outcry prompted a 8th season, and Magnum wakes up from a coma in the first episode of the 8th season.
Rick is all over that 8th season. What lame excuse did they come up with for him beating a fed rap and getting out of jail? Can’t find any mention anywhere about it.
Maybe they just figured no one would notice? What gives? Anybody got the box set and can clear this up?
Doing this from memory, but I seem to recall part of the arc of the Magnum walking into heavens was he did things like find evidence that cleared Rick.
Just from knowing how TV of this era works, it was either ignored in the chaos of the unintended 8th season, or there’s a line in there somewhere to the effect that Robin Masters got him off.
For some reason, I am associating what happened to Rick with the character of the mobster Ice Pick. I remember something in Magnum’s heaven story about him meeting with Ice Pick (whom I remember having a special fondness for Rick) and that leading to Rick being cleared.
Icepick cleared Rick for the murder of the hitman sent to get Icepick. But while investigating that murder, the cops seized 3 guns from Rick’s house, one of them being the AK-47.
So, Rick was cleared of the murder and released, only to be re-arrested on the way out of the station by a Fed for the firearm. He’s getting locked up at the end when the credits roll.
I’m vaguely remembering the warrant was for Rick Wright but his real name was Orville Wilbur Wright so he got off on the technicality and Magnum pointed that out somehow.
That’s the answer. Carol tells Rick that the morning before Magnum was shot, someone (Magnum) dropped off affidavits from people in Rick’s hometown swearing his given name is Orville.
This reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in the series. Rick had referred to Ice Pick numerous times but he had always been an off-camera character. But they eventually decided to have him occasionally appear on the show and cast Elisha Cook in the role. This led to the scene where Magnum is meeting with Ice Pick for the first time. Rick is doing the talking but Magnum interrupts:
“Listen, Ice Pick-”
Everyone in the room gasps and freezes. Magnum turns to Rick. “I thought everyone calls him Ice Pick.”
“Not to his face.”
In Ice Pick’s first appearance, he wasn’t played by Elisha Cook but by Walter Chotzen. The first IP was very menacing, but also older and wrinklier than Cook. Cook’s Ice Pick was much more “cuddly”. I thought he was less believable as a mob boss. Elisha Cook first appeared in Magnum as rich eccentric Harold Farber.
Either way, after three seasons of hearing about the infamous Ice Pick, I never expected him to be an old, frail man. It was kind of a shock - THIS is Ice Pick??
What lame excuse did they come up with for him beating a fed rap and getting out of jail? Can’t find any mention anywhere about it.