Stephen Hill Shares Unique Take on 'Brotherhood' of 'Magnum P.I.'
Hill says TC's storyline plays out in a unique way over the final episodes of season 5.
Life on the island of Oahu isn’t safe for Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez), Rick (Zachary Knighton) and TC (Stephen Hill) ever since they learned of the murder of Captain Buck Greene (James Remar), and discovered he was tortured before his death to reveal their identities.
But luckily, they have each other’s back, and as a result, they were eventually able to capture one of the men who was hired to kill them, only to discover that he didn’t know who the money man was. But the big shocker was the reveal that the money paying for the hit came from the CIA's budget. And this is a story that will play out over the rest of the season, rather than being resolved in a week like the majority of Magnum’s cases.
Watching the trio of friends work together like a band of brothers to solve Green’s murder is one of the attractions of Magnum, P.I., and for Hill, it is also what attracted him to the role of Theodore Calvin (TC) initially.
“I’ve always wanted to be on a show that had a brotherhood,” he says. “One of my favorite shows was Entourage. They were a serious band of brothers that were so loyal to each other that money didn’t matter, nothing mattered. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. It must be so cool to play something like that.’ And then I am blessed enough to end up on a show like Magnum P.I., where it’s about this brotherhood of guys that went to a POW camp and escaped.’”
Related: Exclusive First Look: Did Capt. Greene Put Magnum, Rick and TC's Lives in Danger on Magnum, P.I.?
This season’s story arc brings Magnum, Rick and TC even closer together than usual with their fight to survive, but it’s also a plus for the audience.
“When we’re getting hunted, it puts us in a place where the audience is like, ‘Oh, man! How are these guys going to make it out of this one literally alive?’ Hill continues. “I think it definitely does bring us closer together and gives the audience a nice amount of thrills and anticipation as to what’s going to happen.”
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The other thrills this season on Magnum, P.I are the romances: Magnum and Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks) and TC and Mahina (Emily Alabi). Of the two, Magnum and Juliet is the more potentially fraught because there was the fear that it could cause the show to jump the shark, as the saying goes.
But Hill doesn’t think so. He thinks that there’s enough other story happening for viewers not to lose interest just because the sexual tension of previous seasons has been sated by the two lovers coming together.
“There are a lot of viewers that love that type of storyline,” he says. “They want romance, and it gives romance. But it’s also a very diverse show in terms of you’ve got me, you’ve got Zach, you’ve got Kumu [Amy Hill], you’ve got Katsumoto [Tim Kang]. It may be one of the more diverse shows on television right now. There’s a little bit of something for everybody. It’s more of a buffet, so to speak. A buffet of things, but I think everything tastes good.”
TC getting a love interest has been a long time coming, and it's a happy event, but one that has logistical issues. As viewers know, TC lives in the trailer outside of his office. Is there room enough for two?
“We just filmed a scene where I was at her place, so maybe we go to her place a little more often,” Hill explains. “I read somewhere about couples that were married for 50 or 60 years and when asked, ‘How do you guys do it?’ They said, ‘We have a full-sized bed so we can’t sleep away from each other. We have to be close.’ In that trailer, there’s definitely intimacy. Even if you don’t want to be intimate, you have to be intimate. So maybe that’s a pretty good thing for TC’s relationship.”
Related: Magnum P.I. Reboot Renewed for Two More Seasons Following Abrupt Cancellation
This season also saw TC reunite with his long-lost mother Verna (Judith Scott), who abandoned him when he was just a child. Now that she’s working very hard to get her life back on track, she wants a relationship with her son, who is at first reluctant.
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“I think that we can hold a grudge maybe forever for a friend or somebody that’s not biologically connected to us. But I think when it’s a family member, you just have this inclination to want to explore what that is. I’m just glad TC got that opportunity,” Hill says.
And then we also get to see his softer side ever since he decided to foster Cade, who he identifies with because he, too, was abandoned.
“He sees so much of himself in Cade and Cade’s a good kid,” Hill says. “He’s a hard worker, he wants to do right. He just wants to make a way in the world that has been harsh to him in some way. There’s this likeness that he sees of himself in Cade, but it’s just so beautiful that Cade is the one that makes him think about why he should give his mother a chance and not necessarily forgive her right away but at least give it a shot.”
Magnum P.I. airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.