Magnum P.I.'s Zachary Knighton Drops Huge Hints About the Series' Final Episodes

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Magnum P.I. Season 5, Episode 17, "Consciousness of Guilt." Read at your own risk!]

In five seasons of Magnum P.I., Zachary Knighton has reached a few professional milestones: He has acted on a show that has lasted longer than three seasons (R.I.P. the gone-too-soon Happy Endings!); he came up with a story idea and got his first writing credit; and now, with Wednesday's episode of the NBC procedural drama, which is set to take its final bow in 2024, he has finally made his directorial debut.

"I've shadowed a lot of people that have been coming to direct the show," Knighton revealed about how he prepared to helm this week's episode, which finds Magnum (Jay Hernandez) helping Katsumoto (Tim Kang) stop a killer from walking free and Higgins (Perdita Weeks) helping Jin (Bobby Lee) save an old woman. "One in particular is a guy named David Straiton. He's been around a long time. He's an old friend of mine, and he has a big hand in me actually playing Rick on the show, and he's always giving me the best advice. He just said, 'Fight for what you want, and choose your fights wisely,' which is really good advice. I'm directing for the home team, so everybody was supporting me. It was so much fun, and what a great way to end another show."

On a recent call from his home in Hawaii, where he was braving a tropical storm with his family, Knighton sat down with TV Guide to discuss his directorial debut, the experience of working with his wife Betsy Phillips, and the bittersweet experience of saying goodbye to the longest-running role of his career.

Given that the visual language of Magnum P.I. is so well established and that there is a certain need to uphold that aesthetic to maintain some cohesion from week-to-week, how much visual freedom did you have as a director?
Knighton: There's a process and a formula, so I wanted to do what I could to do things differently. For instance, in the opening scene, there's a body that's by the pool, because there's been a murder. I thought it would be interesting to get a guy in a suit with an underwater camera to start under the pool and then come up and see the body, and [the creative team said], "Sure, you can do whatever you want, if you can make it on the day!" So scheduling is such an important part of directing and prep.

And then, there's a big helicopter sequence in the [episode]. It was really important for me to actually see [Weeks] in the helicopter. Perdi so graciously accepted my invitation to ride in the helicopter [laughs] and be a part of the scene, but then you get into all kinds of stunt rigging and "How are we going to shoot this?!" Ruben Carrillo was our cameraman in the scene, and he was literally hanging out of the helicopter with a kinetic camera on his shoulder, standing on the skid of the helicopter. It was amazing. You get to really see people doing extraordinary things, and you might not see them if you're just acting, when you're called to set to do your scene and then you walk away. Mainly, it's preparation and "Where can you add little colors that you in particular — and no one else — can bring to the episode?," so that's what I tried to do.

Did you get to select the episode you were going to direct, or was it assigned to you?
Knighton: I did not get to select the episode, but I think they picked this one in particular because it's funny. Bobby Lee is essentially my leading man. I come from a big comedy history, and Bobby and I are old friends from the early 2000s, when he was on MADtv and I was on a show called Life on a Stick on Fox. I don't know if they wrote me light in that episode [in the sense that I wasn't acting as much] so that I could direct it, or if it was always going to be light. But when I read it, I was so happy because most episodes of the show are kind of a whodunit, and this one is a "How catch 'em?" You know who did it, but how do you catch them? That's really fun, and I got to tell a story from a different perspective.

Do you have a favorite scene or sequence from this episode, or one that you're most proud of as a director?
Knighton: There's a cat-and-mouse kind of scene with Bobby Lee, where he's hiding in a house and there's a woman in the house who doesn't know he's there, and she keeps walking through the house and he starts going in and out of doors. It was so complicated to shoot. There were something like 120 setups on the day, and it was a sprint to try and get every shot off before the end of the day. I had to drag poor Bobby Lee through that house all day long. But I'm really proud of that because we got it.

I'm really proud of the helicopter sequence because we're shooting things we've never seen on the show. Perdi's in the chopper, we're over her shoulder [looking] down on the ground, we're swooping in and out with the chopper. We storyboarded it, so I get to work with the storyboard artists, which I've never done before. So I'm particularly proud of that one, but I'm really proud of the episode as a whole.

Earlier in Season 5B, we finally see Rick and his baby's mother, Suzy (Phillips), coming back together again when Rick has second thoughts about moving on and dating someone else. How did you feel about Rick and Suzy's reunion, and why do you feel like now was the right time for them to come back together?
Knighton: Well, first of all, she's my real-life wife, so anytime I get to work with my wife, it's fantastic. They wrote the part for her because we're friends with some of the writers, and Gene Hong in particular pitched her for this role. She was coming to dinners and hanging out with everybody, and it was just one of those natural, organic things. I never even did the thing where I was like, "Hey, can you guys put my wife on the show?" Because she's amazing and they loved her, they put her on the show, which was great.

So, personally, to be able to do that with my wife was a dream come true. We're in this magical place and having babies of our own in real life, and it was such a wonderful, lovely factor in our family's story. For the show, I think everybody wants Rick and Suzy to get together. They have a baby. He's in love with her. She's probably out of his league, much like my real life [laughs], but who cares? I was just thrilled, and I love working with my wife. I hope we can do it again someday.

Back in June, NBC decided against ordering new episodes of Magnum P.I., after rescuing the show from CBS. How did you react to the news of this cancellation, and how are you feeling about this bittersweet final run of episodes?
Knighton: Of course, anytime you find out you're not going to have a job anymore, it's a bit of a bummer. But it's also the career that I chose, and I've been doing it for 25 years. I've had a lot of shows come and go, and a lot of pilots that didn't get picked up, and things that I thought were gonna be massive and they weren't. I've certainly learned in my old age not to take it personally. It is what it is. And I couldn't be more thankful to NBC for giving us a chance to do the last 20 episodes. We relocated our family to Hawaii, we've invested a lot of time and money here, and it's been a joy, and it's sad to see it go.

But I do think that you always feel in the back of your head that this might be it. So I tried to be present and really live in the moment this year. I think I did. I got to accomplish all the things I wanted, so I'm forever thankful. I'm sad it's over, but I'm also happy. I'm ready to move on and play a different character and see what else is out there. I'm so glad the strike is over, so I can talk to you about all this stuff. The world is a crazy place, but I hope I get to keep entertaining people in whatever capacity I can.

And yet you still have fans who are trying to fight to save the show for a second time.
Knighton: First of all, I've never seen a fan campaign ever like this. It's absolutely mind blowing. They're just the best fans that I've ever had. When I was on a show called Happy Endings, there was a pretty big campaign to save that show, but it was nothing compared to this. I mean, there was a billboard in Times Square a week ago!

I wish we could bring them more, I really do. If they called and they said, "Can you strap on the Aloha shirt one last time?," I'm sure I could muster a way to do it. But it would primarily be for them because they deserve it. They're just the greatest fans, and I hope they're reading this now and know that we love them and we appreciate them. They're just always going to be a part of my heart forever.

If this is indeed the end of the road for your iteration of Magnum P.I., what are some of your biggest takeaways from the last five years of working on this show?
Knighton: Being on this island in and of itself is the most special thing. The people of this place are some of the most beautiful people that I've ever encountered. The culture here is incredible. The spirit of aloha is very real. You've got to give it to get it; you can't just come here and take it. There's a lot about respect here in this culture, and it's a place that I encourage people to visit but to visit respectfully and learn about the history of this place. The people I've met have really taken in me and my family, and I've got guys showing me the top secret surf spots and all the fun things. [Laughs.] The experience as a whole has been more about what Magnum means to these people, to this crew. My two sons were born here. We've been a huge part of this community for the last few years, and it was the best five, six years of my life, I'm not gonna lie. But I am looking forward to seeing what's next.

Do you have a favorite storyline or memory that sticks out from your time on the show?
Knighton: I really loved working with Corbin Bernsen when he played Icepick. That was some work I'm really proud of. I pitched La Mariana. Originally, in the beginning of the show, Rick was running the King Kamehameha Club, which is the super bougie kind of nightclub. I said to the guys, particularly [original developer] Peter Lenkov, "We need something vintage Hawaii on this show. We need to get a little bit of that feeling of the old Magnum in here." I pitched the idea of doing a tiki bar, and Peter Lenkov completely embraced it and listened to me and put in Rick buying La Mariana.

It's been such a collaborative experience. I never felt like an idea was shot down. I never felt like people were like, "Hey, shut up and say your lines." It was a big family here. And, of course, everybody's pretty devastated. A lot of the crew is devastated it's not coming back. There's more shows coming to Hawaii, so I'm thankful that all those people have jobs and are getting to move on. I would just say that the love of this place is the best memory for me.

Who would you say was the class clown on set who made you guys break the most over the years?
Knighton: Me for sure! I'm not the funniest guy in the world, but I'm certainly the one that would mess with everybody — not so much when I was directing, but definitely when I was acting. I would never stop talking. On Happy Endings, I was dealing with a bunch of comedians, and we could never finish a scene because everybody wanted to be the last person to say something funny. We would just keep going and going and going. This is sort of that, but with just me. [Laughs.] To [showrunner] Eric Guggenheim and all the writers' credit, they really let me riff, and it always seemed like the funny stuff would make it in the episode, so I'm really thankful for that. I would say I was kind of the prankster on the set.

Finally, what can you tease about the last few episodes of the series?
Knighton: I'm just gonna say this: There might be a ring or rings. And I'm not talking [J.R.R.] Tolkien here! I'm not talking about Lord of the Rings. I'm talking, like, put a ring on it, you know what I'm saying?

Magnum P.I. airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC. Episodes stream the next day on Peacock. The series finale will air in 2024.