Much as I like the actress, Marta DuBois, I didn't think much of the character Michelle when she made her first appearance seasons back. I remember the ending of that episode, where she kissed Magnum and told him that she would love him forever - while her husband was standing only a few feet away! How nice. In fact, did she ever divorce Magnum or has she knowingly been a bigamist all these years?
In this episode, she leaves Magnum pretty literally holding the baby, as she puts her almost unbearably adorable little daughter in his care, while she's away doing... well, we don't actually find out. Only that she sends a message to someone.
As soon as we meet little Lily, we start asking ourselves a question, because we all know how scriptwriters' minds work. Lily doesn't have any apparent Asian physical traits, which would be unusual (though not impossible) if General Hue were her father, but she's also far too young to have been conceived during Magnum's time with Michelle in Vietnam.
Then comes the twist. We're shown that Magnum and Michelle slept together when she came to Hawaii. It wasn't shown or referred to in that episode and it's never been mentioned in the time since. Not surprising, because it's a total retcon. Anyway, Lily is just the right age to be the product of that night, and so Magnum starts asking himself the question as well.
Whenever Magnum is out looking for Michelle, it's up to Higgins to look after Lily. Since Lily doesn't speak English, but both she and Higgins speak French, you would expect to see them conversing and maybe for him to try and get any information he could out of her. But that doesn't happen.
During his search, Magnum discovers that Michelle's husband no. 2 has been executed, seemingly by Vietnamese soldiers. He eventually finds Michelle just in time to save her from being abducted by some more Vietnamese.
At the end, Michelle and Lily are set to be taken into hiding by US agents. Michelle refuses to give a straight answer as to whether Magnum is Lily's father and, totally unbelievably, Magnum doesn't press the matter, but instead lets them leave. I'll say it again, it's totally unbelievable. And we've found out nothing about why Michelle and husband no. 2 were in danger and why he was killed.
As I've been going through the series, I've been avoiding reading anything about future episodes so as not to spoil it for myself (I even skip past those stupid pre-opening credits sequences which show you what's coming up in the very episode you're now watching. What was ever the point of those?) But I'm confidently assuming that we'll return to this story at some point in the future and that Michelle and Lily will be back. Otherwise, this episode will have had no point other than to make me think even less of Michelle's morals. I guess we'll see.
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