Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 25 Review (S05E25) -- A Make Kaua (Until We Die)

(S05E25) A Make Kaua (Until We Die)
RATING: 1-1/2 stars

Original air date: 05/08/15

This episode, final one of the season, starts on US Route 83 near Garrison, North Dakota (though we know it is really not). Route 83, according to Wikipedia, is one of the longest north-south highways in the USA. An "Unmarked Military Transport" is travelling down this highway. There are two trucks followed by a larger truck which looks sort of like a UPS van, which in turn is followed by another two trucks. In the middle truck (I guess) are six W80 nuclear warheads. Good old Wikipedia describes the W80s as "a small thermonuclear warhead (fusion or, more descriptively, two-stage weapon) in the enduring stockpile with a variable yield of between 5 and 150 kt of TNT." The part about "5 and 150 kt of TNT" is mentioned specifically in the show along with a bunch of other shit. (Hey, do you think the writers are cribbing from Wikipedia?)

Two other military-like trucks pass this transport. Now you would think that because the transport is "unmarked" and "secret" and stuff like that, it might consider these other trucks to be suspicious, but no one bats an eyelash. These other two trucks drive real fast ahead of the transport and position themselves on opposite sides of the road and between these two trucks is strung some REALLY strong wire, which looks like a garrote. ("Garrote" is found on Wikipedia, in case you do not know what it is.)

The mechanics of all this escapes me, but what happens is, the transport, at least the first truck, drives into this wire, which slices right through the truck like a knife through butter. From what we learn later in the show, it sounds like it sliced through all five trucks of the transport, though this is hard to believe. Surely the people in the third or fourth or fifth truck would have figured out what was going on and stopped before this happened. And wasn't there a risk that the wire might have sliced through the nuclear weapons along with the trucks and the people inside? And wouldn't the trucks the wire is strung between have to be REALLY strong (and heavy) in order to pull off this manoeuvre? Questions, questions...

A bunch of guys connected with the garotting trucks, right-wing patriot crackpots led by Josh Bennett (Jeffrey Nordling), a guy who Chin Ho later describes as a "nut job," because he was not allowed to be in the US military thanks to his borderline personality disorder, grab just one of the six nukes and high tail it to Fischer Pvt (which means "private," I guess) Airport in Garrison (this is a real place, according to you-know-what).

Bennett and his pals are supposed to board a plane there, but, according to one of their members, a guy with a real short haircut (Matthew Webb), "We have a situation," military talk for "something is fucked up." The plane they were expecting to use isn't coming because of "mechanical problems." But nearby they see this other plane, a G-5 plane (meaning Gulfstream V, a business jet aircraft, blah blah blah, according to WKP), and commandeer it, telling its pilot "We're going to Hawaii."

In due course, this plane arrives in Hawaii at John Rodgers Field in Kalaeloa (this is really the name of Kalaeloa Airport, that's what WKP tells us). The pilot is dead, and within a few minutes, Grover is freaking out because the Department of Defense tells him about how nukes were stolen near Garrison, though there is no direct connection made with this plane until some guys from the HPD bomb squad with geiger counters go through the plane and determine that yes, there is residual radiation, likely from the nukes, on the plane. McGarrett looks towards the plane, and stunned, says "They're here," a line reminiscent of the classic 1950's film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Now Kono is getting married REAL soon to Adam. Earlier, Chin Ho had a big confrontation with Adam over the pictures of Adam taken with Japanese yakuza boss Goro Shioma (see review of the last show), but Adam told Chin that "it's not what you think," and that he had travelled to Japan to try and break ties with Shioma, who had put up the original money for his (Adam's) late father's businesses in Hawaii. Shioma said no dice, he wants Adam to return to the same state his father was when he started, i.e., with no material possessions. Adam says that is cool with him, because Kono is not a material girl. Chin accepts this.

Kono shows up at the airfield with Chin, ready to put in a day's work, though McGarrett says she ought to be getting ready for her wedding. In an example of the utterly brainless dialogue the writers have given her throughout the show, when told that the bad guys only brought one of six nukes along, she says "Oh, well, there's some good news. Only one to worry about." Seriously, Kono, you should have stayed home reading Modern Bride!

I forgot to mention that Catherine, McGarrett's girl friend, has returned. We last saw her in S04E21, when she rode off into the sunset in Afghanistan to help some old friends find their son who was kidnapped by the Taliban. The return of both the character and the actress playing her, Michelle Borth, who was thought gone from the show forever, set off the usual shitstorm of people who don't like either the actress or her character in the usual fan forums. Not much happens between her and McGarrett, because he is always getting called away to work, though there are suggestions that she will be sticking around. I hope so, because Borth is a goddess and these haters can go you-know-what themselves (a word discussed in Wikipedia).

Catherine, though she has left the Navy completely, still has "intel" connections, who tell her that it is likely that Bennett is on Oahu to barter a deal with Sameer Hadad, an Al-Qaeda lieutenant who has shown a propensity for buying nuclear weapons, and there may be some connection with "a local shipping company." Five-0 quickly arrives at the docks and manages to find a container among thousands there where Hadad has set up his headquarters. After a firefight, some guy who is Hadad's pal spills the beans as to where Bennett can be located, and upon arriving at this location (an auto wrecker's), another firefight erupts. McGarrett pursues Bennett over a bunch of cars to be scrapped, during which Bennett turns and fires directly at McGarrett but, of course, does not hit him. But when McGarrett shoots back, Bennett is hit in the leg and falls through a car window and is captured.

Taken to the blue-lit room, which we learn from McGarrett during his interrogation is 60 feet underground and a four-foot-thick cinder block box ("so no one can hear you scream," I suppose), Bennett, described as a nine-to-five hardware store manager from Coshocton, Ohio (a real town!), does not break down, even after McGarrett shoots him in the leg (the same leg as was hit before, see below for further discussion about this). As to why Bennett was motivated to do this terrible deed (we're talking nuclear annihilation), he tells McGarrett that after 9/11, he was disgusted by how the government mollycoddled terrorists, and by appearing to sell the nuke to Hadad, he will make him into a scapegoat so that a war will erupt and they will soon be dropping bombs all over the Middle East, reducing it to a parking lot.

But all this is not true, because Hadad is found washed up on the beach soon after, and Max determines that he was killed BEFORE Bennett was taken into custody. In other words, Bennett is still the big boss of the plan which will transform Waikiki into what looks like the bottom of a Shake and Bake bag.

Kono, still not thinking too hard about her nuptials, tells the others that she has been reading Bennett's computer files forwarded by the DOD, and there is a reference in there to the Waikiki Trolley. A nuclear-sized light bulb comes on in her head, and -- YES! -- she has the solution to WHERE IS THE STOLEN NUKE. Five-0 rushes to find a trolley whose driver was found dead that very morning, including Catherine, who is still driving the blue Corvette she was seen using when she was last on the show. She also is carrying a gun and her car has a flashing blue light.

Pulling the trolley over near the beach, McGarrett shoots the driver -- who just happens to be Mr. Short Haircut from the Fischer Private Airport -- dead. BUT ... there is still a big problem with the nuke, which is going to go off in about two hours and THERE IS NO WAY TO DISARM IT because its Permissive Action Link has been disabled. According to Los Alamos National Lab, this is very bad, because the maximum damage this bomb can cause will encompass a radius of 2.9 miles, with utter destruction within 1 mile, and possibly 100,000 people dead.

There is no time to deliver this bomb to a military base for disposal (so to speak), so McGarrett and Danno, dressed in their wedding duds, commandeer Kamekona's helicopter to fly the bomb out to sea where Los Alamos says that if it's dropped fifty miles off the coast to a depth of 2,000 feet, everything will be peachy. Considering they are using a Eurocopter AS-350BA Ecureuils which has a top speed of 150 miles an hour (info supplied by you-know-what and Google), and there are 22 minutes left on the LED clock on the nuke, this means they can take it out 50 miles and still have a recommended 2 minutes left to get the hell out of the way of the blast (though this does not take into consideration turning around). This procedure will "neutralize the radiation."

Despite having a very agitated "helicopter-gument" as they approach the drop point, Danno throws the nuke out of the copter with 1:58 remaining and it's in the water at 1:51. The massive explosion which results as the boys are on their way back to Oahu strikes me that it could potentially knock the helicopter out of the sky with a shock wave, but what do I know ... I can't find anything about this on Wikipedia, so I'm sure the writers did all the proper research.

Kono is still not at her wedding at the Royal Hawaiian Golf Club in Kailua, though a lot of other people are, and have seemingly been there for a REALLY LONG TIME. She is standing at the beach watching the nuclear cloud, anxiously holding hands with Catherine as she thinks of her boss (McGarrett) and Catherine thinks of her boyfriend (McGarrett). Kono is wearing a cami top with her bra straps showing and jeans.

After McGarrett and Danno implausibly return OK, Kono manages to get to the golf club and changed into her wedding gown (something that would normally take HOURS) in a very short space of time with her hair already dolled up, despite having run around with it that way at work. Even Kamekona, who was bitching to McGarrett that the explosion would wipe out stocks of shrimp for three months (I dunno where this figure comes from, but I can guess...), manages to arrive at the wedding before the others.

But there is a big complication ... Chin Ho has forgotten the wedding rings in his car. When he goes to get them, who should appear but Gabriel, his brother-in-law (suspected earlier on in the show of murdering some "business rival" the day before). Gabe points a gun at Chin's head and offers to play Monty Hall, i.e., "Let's Make a Deal," with Chin taking half of his profits from his various criminal enterprises in exchange for staying off Gabe's back. Chin tells him to take a hike, and it looks like Chin is going to get a bullet in the back , when Gabriel disappears in an instant, just like he arrived in the parking lot.

And at the end of the show ... KONO IS STILL NOT MARRIED!

MORE TRIVIA:

• In the auto scrap yard, McGarrett shoots Bennett, and blood is seen on his pant leg. But when Bennett falls off the car, you don't see anything: picture one; picture 2. Later, in the blue-lit room, it looks like there is a pool of blood beside Bennett's left leg (this is the leg that McGarrett later shoots), but there is no damage to his pants.
• The way the trolley comes to a park by the beach and everyone runs away in a panic brought to mind the old show's episode Anybody Can Build a Bomb, about the pursuit of a nuclear device which also takes place in a beachfront park where they detonate the bomb in a public washroom!
• Danno calls McGarrett "Dr. Strangelove" twice, suggesting he is a nuclear war expert like the character in the classic Stanley Kubrick film.
• In the scrapyard, when he is shot by McGarrett, you can see blood on one of Bennett's legs. But when he is in the blue-lit room, there is no sign that this happened.
• During the pursuit of the trolley, Grover refers to the intersection of Kalia Road and Saratoga Road, an actual location.
• Kono and Catherine -- as well as a lot of people on the beach -- can see the nuclear cloud in the distance, but after McGarrett and Danno return in the helicopter, this cloud has disappeared.
• The grey makeup for Kono's mother's hair at the wedding is even worse than it was in the Kono-lost-at-sea show two episodes ago.
• Bennett's Class D Ohio driver's license #D3304281B shows he lives at 528 Magnolia Street, Coshocton 43812. His date of birth is 08-26-85, he is 5'11" and weighs 190 pounds. The DL was issued 08-26-2001, and expires on 08-26-85, which is the same as Bennett's birthdate.

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Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 24 Review (S05E24) -- Luapo’i (Prey)

(S05E24) Luapo’i (Prey)
RATING: 2 stars

Original air date: 05/08/15

This show, first of a double-header for the season finale, began with another two-part "previously on Five-0."

The first of these flashed back to seasons one and two with scenes between Danno and his ex-wife Rachel (Claire van der Boom) who reappeared in this episode. We find out later that Charlie, the baby boy that Rachel had delivered in or around S02E14 is not Stan's child at all, but Danno's. Rachel didn't want Danno to know this because she didn't want two kids to potentially grow up without a father in the event something happened to Danno.

This all pisses Danno off immensely, who describes what Rachel has done as "unforgiveable" because he has been deprived of the kid's presence for three years. This results in some high-powered emoting between Danno and Rachel, as well Danno and McGarrett, who gives his partner some advice about putting his anger aside, telling Danno that "parents shouldn't fight."

It turns out that Charlie is suffering from HLH (full name: hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis), a life-threatening condition where cells of the immune system don’t work properly to destroy infected or damaged cells as they should. One of the treatments for this condition involves a bone-marrow transplant, which is where Danno comes in.

The second flashback was to Chin Ho receiving the pictures of Adam and some mysterious Asian guy left for him by Gabriel in S05E21. This segued into the present, with Chin Ho being dropped off on Sand Island by a couple of Japanese-speaking dudes, who tell him to keep a hood on his head until he has counted to twenty (does Chin speak Japanese?).

Although Chin already showed the photos to McGarrett in a previous episode, Chin then goes to McGarrett's house and reveals some "intel" that he got about the pictures, presumably from these Japanese guys: namely, that the older man in the photos with Adam is Goro Shioma, a Tokyo financier who helped bankroll Adam's deceased (really now-deceased, I think) father Hiro. Shioma is also an oyabun (big shot) of a major yakuza organization.

How this was all explained to Chin Ho is not made clear. I don't know why Chin didn't just run the pictures of Shioma through Five-0's Supercomputer facial recognition program, since it seems to be able to figure who just about anyone in the world is.

Then we jump to the crime of the week.

An HPD cop stops some guy (actually a bounty hunter named Greg Farmer (Matt Lasky)) in the middle of nowhere because his car's tail light is malfunctioning. The cop wants to look in the trunk to see if there's a loose wire (is he just using this as an excuse?), which freaks out Farmer. Later we see what happened thanks to the cop's dashboard cam which has the same date as that of the show -- May 8, 2015: the cop opened the trunk and extracted another guy from there, who is Andrew Pelham (Robert Curtis Brown), alias David Sutter, an ex-cop wanted on the mainland for brutal homicides involving torture a couple of years before.

Five-0 tracks Sutter down to an apartment at 2026 Anakole Place in Pearl City (ZIP 96782) thanks to some asphalt residue from both Pelham's and Farmer's shoes (turns out that a city works crew was repairing the street in front of Pelham's house the light before -- sheesh). Of course, when they arrive, Pelham is not there, but another bounty hunter, the bearded Richie Malloy is, also searching for Pelham, who has a $40,000 reward on his head.

After some initial misunderstandings which result in Malloy being handcuffed, Malloy is let go, though I suspected that this was not the last we would see of him. And it turns out that later, after Five-0 tracks Pelham down to an apartment when he tries to use another one of his aliases to buy an airline ticket out of the country, Malloy shows up, thanks to a cel phone he taped to the underside of McGarrett's car (which he could follow with the GPS). Malloy shoots Pelham in what looks like a pretty serious manner with his shotgun and tucks the fugitive into his car. Malloy is after more than the $40,000 bounty, though. His financial records reveal that $300,000 has been put into his bank account from Malcolm Leddy (Robert Curtis Brown), father of Jennifer, one of Pelham's victims.

Malloy has turned Pelham over to Leddy, who, using knowledge from his studies years before at medical school, prepares to give Pelham the same sadistic treatment given to Jennifer in the basement of a rented Oahu house.

The scenes that followed were, to be blunt, kind of a mess (no pun intended in advance).

Letty has Pelham shackled in the basement of the house hanging from the ceiling; Pelham's feet (which have no socks or shoes) are not tied up.

Letty removes one of Pelham's hands from the shackles and uses pliers to squeeze his finger, perhaps breaking it. Then Letty tries to cut off Pelham's scalp, but freaks out and, in frustration, pushes the table with all the knives and other torture implements so everything falls on the floor.

At this point, from one angle, it looks like there is nothing close to Pelham, though from another angle there might be something. I don't think it is the knife later shown in closeup, and, in any case, I think it is highly unlikely that Pelham can reach the knife.

In order to do this, he would have to s-t-r-e-t-c-h, grab the knife with his feet and then somehow get this knife into his free hand (which has a severely damaged finger), while hanging from the ceiling by one hand! He certainly could not reach the knife on the floor with just his hand while hanging from the ceiling.

Assuming he does all this, Pelham gets the knife and cuts off his own thumb to escape from the shackles, then attacks and seriously injures Letty, and then somehow manages to stick his hand (without a thumb) back through the shackles to look like he was hanging from the ceiling!

At one point, Letty starts to go upstairs, either to -- as Pelham mockingly says -- call the cops, or just to cool off. At this point, you cannot see a knife on the floor in front of Pelham at all.

After McGarrett comes downstairs, he finds the father on the floor, with Pelham's cut-off thumb under him.

Whether the attack on Letty happened upstairs or downstairs is a good question, because when Five-0 shows up at the house, a lot of stuff on the main floor is broken. But then why would Pelham cut off his thumb, come upstairs and attack Letty, and not just leave the house right then, instead dragging the father's body downstairs and stringing himself up in the shackles again? The upstairs scenario also makes you wonder why the thumb was under Letty downstairs (so does the downstairs scenario, actually).

Once again, there is some critical scene in a show where everything after depends on it, and it goes off the rails at that point (up to then, the show was quasi-passable). Just a bit of care with the continuity, like showing how Pelham got the knife to cut off his thumb, etc., and it would have made much more sense ... well, maybe.

MORE TRIVIA:

• There is a big goof in the sequence near the beginning of the show where the cop encounters the bounty hunter Farmer.
  
  These are the times from the dashboard cam in the cop's car:
  
  2:08:32 - The bounty hunter's car is stopped
  2:08:36 - Cop approaches car from the rear
  2:08:41 - Cop opens the trunk
  2:08:51 - Bad guy comes out of trunk, punches cop
  2:08:53 - Bad guy grabs cop's gun, shoots him
  2:09:04 - Bad guy shoots bounty hunter, who is handcuffed to steering wheel
  2:09:06 - Bad guy pulls bounty hunter out of car, seemingly without removing handcuff
  2:09:21 - Bad guy leaves in the car
  
  If you watch the sequence where the cop approaches the car and talks to the bounty hunter about the tail light, there is around ONE MINUTE of conversation. In the dashboard cam footage, there are only 5 SECONDS from the time the cop approaches the car until he opens the trunk.
  
  There is no explanation as to how the handcuffs are removed.
• At the beginning of the show, Chin tells McGarrett that Kono is getting married to Adam in three days. When later asked by Danno if he is bringing a date to the wedding like his prosecutor friend Ellie, McGarrett starts waffling, saying he is "not ready to jump into something with somebody else."
• Charlie is supposedly three years old, but looks older. A friend of mine has a four-year-old daughter who looks younger than Charlie!
• At the beginning, as Farmer is driving, he is listening to Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty." The license number of Farmer's car is TY8 814, which cannot be traced by Five-0 at the scene of the pullover, which is weird, because it looks like a real plate.
• Malloy's New York driver's license #548 968 14L shows his address as 264 Sandra Drive, Buffalo, NY 14229. His date of birth is 04-10-71, and the license was issued on 4-10-14.
• When tracking down Pelham, Grover uses computer data bases to find out that Pelham paid cash for six months rent in advance on his Pearl City apartment. Why would this very nosy information be available in a computer at all, or is this information that Grover entered into the computer after he found this out from Pelham's landlord?
• In a scene full of boring expository dialogue, Kono and Chin Ho track down the car that Pelham stole from Farmer, which has been torched and abandoned at the Ke'ehi Lagoon. This location has no camera surveillance of any kind. They surmise that Pelham sucked gas out of the car into a plastic container using a rubber hose and then set the car on fire. One wonders why he would bother to commit such an elaborate cover-up, risking his own health like this.
• Danno hears from Rachel when he and McGarrett are at Pelham's home, and McGarrett tells Danno to drop everything to go and see her. But they only have the one car!
• Chin Ho watches a crimestoppers-type video made around the time of Jennifer's murder from TV station WNKW, which has a tip line of 555-0144.
• Dog the Bounty Hunter makes a short appearance when McGarrett and Danno need some "professional advice" on how a bounty hunter would get someone off the island under the radar. Dog uses some peculiar expression, saying "So this is on the DL, right?" presumably meaning this is "off the record." Dog tells them that a local cargo airline, Trans Air, will do this kind of transaction for cash with no questions asked.
• The $300,000 that Molloy receives from Leddy goes to his bank account #363516847-326, transaction ID D-36705.
• Bad word alert -- McGarrett on the phone to Leddy: "We've got enough evidence to put this bastard [Pelham] away."
• As they are in bed at the beginning of the show, Danno's girl friend Melissa, formerly Amber, asks if they can have macadamia nut pancakes at the Wailana Coffee House, an actual Honolulu restaurant.
• A search of Pelham's house finds seven bogus drivers' licenses, including Arizona: Jacob Heyman, 3013 E. Sheena Dr., Phoenix, AZ 85022; Wisconsin: Daniel Lack, 4160 County Road M, Madison, WI 53719; Wyoming: Brad Voight; Missouri: Tommy Lukas; and Nevada: Paul Vickars, 2704 Swenson St., Las Vegas, NV 89109. He uses the alias of Jeremy Gehring to book a flight on Paxana Airlines, ticket number 28389303091, flight no. PWA 22, seat 248, Y/Conf class, departing 7:15 PM from Honolulu on May 8, 2015 and arriving at 2:22 PM at Wattay International Airport, Vientiane, Laos.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 23 Review (S05E23) -- Mo‘o ‘ōlelo pū (Sharing Traditions)

(S05E23) Mo‘o ‘ōlelo pū (Sharing Traditions)
RATING: 3 stars

Original air date: 05/01/15

In this show, Kono goes on a symbolic outrigger voyage to complete something her mother wanted to do before she was stricken by an aneurysm. This part of the show was very good, and featured Grace Park's most dramatic performance of the entire series so far, despite the fact it had little to do with Five-0, other than the heavy "ohana" angle.

All the major characters for the show assembled on the beach at the beginning to wish Kono well, including her mother (Catherine Haena Kim), pushed across the sand in a wheelchair by her father (Ken Narasaki). Kono's mother was seen with her in numerous flashbacks to her childhood, where she was played by Miya Cech and her mother seemingly taught Kono everything she knew about surfing.

Of course, on Kono's journey, things go horribly wrong. The weather takes a change for the worse, and Kono ends up in more peril than any human being can possibly endure. First she loses her outrigger, then she has to stay on her surfboard despite a deluge straight out of The Perfect Storm. Chin Ho is constantly freaking out about Kono, despite having to work on the crime of the week.

That part of the show, unfortunately, was not particularly interesting.

The most recent of several drugstore robberies has resulted in the death of a pharmacist. What was stolen were decongestants containing pseudoephedrine to be used in the manufacture of meth.

Reviewing security footage, Chin Ho recognizes the tattoo of Makai Akana (Philip Moon), a meth cook who Chin sent to prison some time before. Five-0 goes to Akana's house, but his son Carter (Jordan Rodrigues) doesn't know where his father is and doesn't want to know.

With no explanation as to how they track Akana down, Five-0 locates him in the middle of nowhere, specifically the Kawaiunui Marsh, described by Wikipedia as "the largest wetlands in the Hawaiian Islands." There Akana is producing meth, but when arrested, he says that he is being forced to do this by a guy named Willie Moon who is threatening to kill his son. But when they return to this location to pick up Moon, after busting him, it turns out that the big brains behind the robberies was none other than Carter, who said that his father "owed him" for ruining his life.

Seriously, this show would have been a lot better if the Kono story had taken up the whole hour.

MORE TRIVIA:

• Kono's parents' grey hair was not particularly convincing at the beginning of the show. No doubt much of the budget was spent on the very impressive special effects and/or CGI for the storm scenes. But where did they do the "tank" sequences? Is there such a facility in Hawaii, sort of like those huge tanks they used to have to film pirate movies in Hollywood in the 1940s? (SurfBelle2 via Twitter reports there is filming of this scene on Facebook (Facebook login not required to view).
• Willie Moon's driver's license was #423Y872, he is 5'10", 170 pounds, and was born 03/04/1991. His address is 762 Pumua Street, Honolulu 96816.
• When Kono's satellite phone gets waterlogged, she uses the same technique as Chin Ho in an earlier episode (S01E12, actually), putting it in a bag of rice to dry it out.
• Each section of the show was prefaced by some Hawaiian saying or proverb, including a quote from legendary surfer Duke Kahanamoku.
• Hopefully the fish that Kono kills and eats was already dead, otherwise the SPCA will be bitchin'.
• When Five-0 visits Akana's house, finding his son Carter, McGarrett and some other cops go inside behind Carter, who turns and yells "Thank you for violating my civil rights." Chin Ho, apologizes, saying "We're sorry about that," a first for the show, if I am not mistaken.
• The drugstore where the pharmacist is killed at the beginning of the show, Waipahu Drug, is a real location at 94-748 Hikimoe St # A, Waipahu 96797.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 22 Review (S05E22) -- Ho’amoano (Chasing Yesterday)

(S05E22) Ho’amoano (Chasing Yesterday)
RATING: 2 stars

Original air date: 04/24/15

The premise of this show is three around-40-year-old accountants from Cleveland -- Jake Lockhard (Pauly Shore), Mickey Dickson (Kevin Farley) and Nolan Fremont (Jaleel White) -- travel to Hawaii during spring break to try and make out with partying women, many of whom are young enough to be their daughters. The results are predictable, similar to a recent Facebook/YouTube video where some guy, as part of a "social experiment," asks women on the street if they would have sex with him. In the video most of the women are either horrified or just laugh at the guy asking (though he is younger than the three on the show). Same thing for this episode.

The three men are pretending to go to Hawaii to hunt wild boars. In order to do this, they have to transport rifles, and presumably ammuntion, on the planes. This is not particularly easy according to various TSA regulations, and whether this would even be encouraged by the wild game outfits, who would typically supply the hunters with firearms or even crossbows, is a good question. This hunting ruse does not convince one of the men's wives, who leaves him voice mail, calling him a "hairless, ball-less loser."

Speaking of questions, there are plenty of them about this show:

• When the men wake up on the morning after a day and night of wild partying with a huge hangover (comparisons with the hit movie of the same name are inevitable), they find a woman, later identified as Rebecca Oleana, dead in their bathtub. Strangely, none of them noticed this if they went to the bathroom, though presumably the ketamine (date rape drug) later determined by Max to be in their systems scrambled their brains enough to make them avoid seeing her, because not only is Oleana very dead with a bullet in her head, but the tub is full of bloody water and beer bottles.
• Why is ketamine in their systems? Someone obviously slipped this into their drinks, maybe because they were making total fools of themselves at the bars they went to, so someone wanted to get them out of the way or in trouble. Is the bullet in Rebecca's head from one of the men's rifles? Is this ever determined? (I don't think so, see below.)
• One of the accountants gave Rebecca his hotel room key card. In a huge Perry Mason-like plot twist, it is revealed (big spoiler) she was being sought by her terminally ill father who had her during an affair years ago. Rebecca was in line to get half of his $20 million fortune, but her step-brother Raymond Garvey (Todd Robert Anderson), upset that this money, all originally intended for him, would be split with her, was the one who killed her, after chasing her from the Glitter Ball Pit where she worked to the hotel where the accountants' room was located. But was this hotel located right next to the nightclub? The men are staying in room 1710 and Rebecca is shown running down the 17th floor hall with her step-brother right behind her. How could he get there so quickly? By taking another elevator to this floor? If so, how would he know which floor she was going to? Surely he was not in the same elevator as her! After the two of them go into the hotel room, there is the sound of a gunshot almost immediately, suggesting that one of the boar-hunting rifles used by the three accountants was used as the murder weapon. But then you have to ask -- how would he know that there was a weapon there, where it was located, and how could he get it loaded so quickly (presumably it was not)?
• In an unusual move, Garvey asks to be read his rights big time when in the blue-lit room, but, as usual, crumbles almost immediately when confronted with the fact that his step-sister fought back and there are likely traces of his DNA under her fingernails, saying "That money was mine." But has it been proved that he actually killed her? A smart lawyer could make mincemeat of this case if the guy had just kept his trap shut!
• How do the three men from Cleveland get Rebecca's dead body from the hotel bathtub to what they think is some out-of-the-way location where they intend to bury her (actually Diamond Head crater), later resulting in a charge of "hindering prosecution"?

Considering comedian Shore is synonymous with "lame" in certain circles, there was apprehension in some Internet forums about how he would fare on the show, but his performance wasn't bad. On the other hand, Farley overacted, channelling his late brother Chris, especially the scene where he leapt into the ball pit. White's character, the least "comedic" of the trio, was the most rational and sober.

The episode's obligatory sub-plot was dumb. Using a motorcycle, Jerry is delivering food for Kamekona when he notices a woman, later identified via a computerized Identikit as Natalie Morris, being abducted on the street. It turns out that she was grabbed by her criminal business partner named William Malo who she later shoots dead. Morris and Malo are involved in some slave-trafficking operation, where people are lured to Hawaii from other countries and then forced to pick coffee on some plantation (seriously).

Kono and Chin Ho go to the Big Island to investigate this, and deal with it without any help whatsoever from the local cops or anyone else from Five-0. They manage to take out the armed people who are guarding the operation without any problems (there are only two of them) and then drive quickly to the island's Kawaihae Harbor docks where they engage in a firefight with Morris who jumps on to a pallet of coffee being loaded on to a ship. She is shot dead, just like one of the guards at the plantation, and falls into the water. So once again, Five-0 eliminates suspects in a major crime, and this slave-trade crime was a big deal, because the woman and her partner were both wanted by the FBI and featured on "Fugitive Profiles," an "America's Most Wanted"-type TV show.

MORE TRIVIA:

• The police chief giving Jerry an award at the end of the show for his help which led to the capture of the two bad guys is the real current Honolulu police chief, Louis M. Kealoha.
• What is Kakemona referring to by "grinds," meaning the food that Jerry is delivering? Jerry is using the Siri-like Micrsoft Cortana on his cel phone to help him locate the address he has to take the food to.
• During McGarrett and Danno's investigation at one of the spring break party venues, a young woman frolicking in the pool with dozens of other people has her bikini top removed (this is only seen from the back, naturally).
• The three are thrown out of The Fix, a real Honolulu nightclub.
• The letter for Rebecca from estate attorneys Longworth and Motto concerning her parentage, dated April 10, 2015, has her address as 3340 Hukui Ave., #102, Honolulu 96826.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 21 Review (S05E21) -- Ua helele'i ka hoku (Fallen Star)

(S05E21) Ua helele'i ka hoku (Fallen Star)
RATING: 2 stars

Original air date: 04/10/15

While setting this show at an Elvis impersonator get-together in Honolulu was potentially a good idea, some of the script by David Wolkove almost seemed as if the writer had never seen past shows, which is odd, because Wolkove has been involved as executive story editor, story editor, the author of the story, the teleplay or the script itself for a very large number of episodes.

The show began with not one, but two “previously on Five-0” sequences which wasted just over two minutes of time. One of these was easier to understand why it was included, being a prelude to the conclusion of last week’s show where Grover told his former friend and fellow cop Clay Maxwell, suspected of spousal homicide, that he would go to Chicago and do everything he could to “lock [Maxwell’s] ass up.” The other flashback went back three and four episodes where respectively (1) there was a major jewellery heist (a show co-written by Wolkove) and (2) Chin was arrested by Internal Affairs investigator Coughlin as part of his brother-in-law Gabriel’s plan to get out of jail and Gabriel later murdered Coughlin.

You have to wonder why these two sequences appeared in the show at all, though these summaries have been more frequent this season. Are the number of people watching the show dropping, or is it just their attention spans? Or is this intended to provide continuity for the show when broadcast in syndication, assuming that it is not broadcast in the same order it is shown, or what? After all, we’re only talking about a range of five episodes, and there have been plot threads across multiple episodes in the show previously where viewers didn’t have to be reminded of what happened before in this manner.

Following this, we jumped to the Memphis Forever Tribute at the bogus Walani Hotel, where former Hawaiian rock star/now Elvis “tribute artist” Lane Collins (Peter Dobson) was singing “Burning Love” to an enthusiastic crowd before keeling over and dying shortly after. The sound mix for this part of the show was typically terrible, though probably just as well, because it covered up trivia spouted by the Elvis-costumed Jerry (a theme throughout the show, much to Danno’s annoyance) and lines by Max –- dressed as Elvis’s manager Colonel Tom Parker -- like the ridiculous “It takes serious sartorius muscles to pull off pelvic gyrations like that.”

Collins’ death was no accident, according to Max, but murder after someone put cyanide in a bottle of Cardigan’s Bourbon found in Collins’ dressing room. Suspicious minds drifted towards a suspect in Kaleo Fisher (Evan Gamble), formerly a guitarist in Collins’ popular group Freelance Riot, who has recently been abusing Collins on Twitter. When confronted at a hotel where he is singing songs like Eddie Money's "Two Tickets to Paradise" to tourists, Fisher says “Social media isn’t the best place to express yourself.” One wonders if anything should be read into this. considering the problems former star of the show Michelle Borth had in this area. Fisher did not kill Collins, but points McGarrett and Grover in the direction of someone who likely did.

In the sequence that followed, I found the treatment by McGarrett and Grover of Jane Miller (Calico Cooper), a fan so obsessed with Collins to the extent she killed him to "to protect his legacy," so "people will remember him for what he really was" very mean-spirited, unlike anything “previously seen” on the show when dealing with suspects. Handcuffed in the blue-lit room, any feelings of respect for her quickly went out the window with lines like this:

McGarrett: I'm pretty sure that Lane knew you were obsessed with him. It's just too bad that he didn't know how certifiably crazy you are.

Grover [a couple of minutes later, as he is leaving]: Whew, you're crazy.

McGarrett [later, outside the room]: So, I mean, how's the irony completely lost on this woman? The inspiration for killing her idol is the song she got the words wrong to.

Grover: Well, what'd you expect? The girl's 118 pounds of crazy.

While Miller really did kill Collins, blurting out a confession at about the halfway point of the show, she was yet another red herring in the big scheme of things because a comment by the trivia-obsessed Jerry led Danno to the man who designed Collins’ jewel-studded Elvis outfit which was just not what it should have been. This guy was found dead on the floor of his local costume supply business almost at the same time as three masked men entered the medical examiner’s office and stole Collins’ body (and his costume), holding Max at gunpoint.

Collins’ body is found close by shortly after, and one of the jewels left on his body yields a serial number on a diamond which is connected to the robbery a few episodes before, leading Five-0 to sleazy pawnshop owner and fence Barry Burns (Jon Lovitz, returning). Forced to spend his time at home with an ankle monitor restricting his movements, Burns has had visits from people inquiring about the location of the jewels from the robbery. In one of the few big laughs in the show, he tells McGarrett that if he didn’t get a deal from Five-0 to avoid jail, he’d “probably be someone’s prison bitch right now.”

His protestations to the contrary, it later turns out that Burns knew the location of the diamonds, which were in a private locker in a wine cellar, placed there by Radomir Ivanovic, the man who stole them. You will recall Radomir was gunned down by HPD at the end of the robbery episode. Burns assembled a “crew” to get these diamonds and arranged for the jewels to be sewn into the Elvis getup. These men would join the “Elvii” (Jerry’s annoying term) when they returned to the mainland and thus escape detection.

But Collins picked up the wrong outfit from the designer, leading to his involvement in this complicated plot. To make matters worse, Ivanovic’s brother Adrian (Ilia Volok), accused of committing war crimes in Bosnia, as well as extortion, kidnapping and murder for hire, is on the trail of the gems and arrives in Honolulu to threaten Burns, who spills the beans about his crew, who are promptly murdered by Adrian in room 1650 of the Walani Hotel. Adrian dons the jewelled outfit and attempts to flee, but the usual idiotic firefight ensues outside the hotel and he is killed by McGarrett, to whom Kono says “Nice shot, boss.”

Since there are seven minutes left in the show at this point, you know what is coming: drinks, this time at Rumfire, a bar located in the Sheraton Waikiki Resort (one of the show’s sponsors). Here we are treated to Jerry singing another hit from “the King,” Love Me. Jorge Garcia does a creditable job with this imitation, but there was a major element of “Puh-leeze” to what took up almost two minutes of show time.

But wait, there’s more! Chin is on his way to Rumfire when he is called by Gabriel, who says that there is something of interest back at Chin’s house, so Chin skedaddles there fast. By the time he arrives, the bomb squad has already checked out the place and found nothing. A cop hands Chin an envelope which contains pictures of Kono’s boyfriend Adam Noshimuri with some Asian guy who I originally thought to be his father Hiro (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), who we have not seen since Ua Hopu (Caught), episode 22 from season 2, where it was assumed that he was the bloody mess in Wo Fat’s bathtub in Japan. But I was told this is not correct and on checking, I discovered both of the actors in this photo, Ian Anthony Dale and Tagawa, are around 6 feet tall, which the older man is plainly not. Presumably this older guy is some Japanese yakuza boss (or maybe Wo Fat's father??), to be determined in an upcoming show, obviously leading up to what is supposedly the Kono-centric episode to come this season.

MORE TRIVIA:

• When Grover returns and is met by McGarrett at the airport, he says that he has several pizzas from Malnati's, a famous Chicago-area restaurant, in his suitcase. Grover did not make any headway trying to get evidence against his former pal, since the pal's mistress refused to talk to Grover, as did several cops on the force who did the usual "circle the wagons," protecting a fellow cop from accusations.
• During the gun battle, Suspicious Minds, another Presley hit, is heard in the background (not in a version sung by Elvis).
• At the bar, McGarrett orders a Longboard, lager made by the Kona Brewing Company. So do Kono and Danno. Grover gets a strawberry daiquiri.
• Adrian Ivanovich’s date of birth is July 8, 1981. He is 214 cm tall and weighs 98 kg.
• Peter Dobson, who played Elvis imitator Collins, also played the young Elvis in Forrest Gump.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 20 Review (S05E20) -- ‘Ike Hānau (Instinct)

(S05E20) ‘Ike Hānau (Instinct)
RATING: 3 stars

Original air date: 04/03/15

Powerhouse acting by Chi McBride was the main feature of this show.

Clay Maxwell (Mykelti Williamson), Grover's old police buddy from Chicago, and his wife Diane (Kim Wayans) are visiting Hawaii, celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary, and the three of them with Grover's wife Renee (Michelle Hurd) are shown hanging out at a restaurant. The next morning, Grover has hardly recovered from his hangover when he gets a call from Clay who says that he and Diane were out hiking in the Kualoa Mountain Range when Diane slipped and fell off a cliff to her death.

Grover hurries to the scene, but soon starts to get suspicious over this turn of events, because he knows Maxwell is very manipulative based on something which happened when the two of them were at the police academy years before, among other things. The rest of Five-0 can't believe that everything is not as Clay reported it, especially McGarrett. Chin and Kono do the usual investigation of the couple's financial records, but find nothing.

Grover wants to get his hands on Maxwell's cel phone, which seems odd, considering Chin would normally snoop in the call history records and so forth. I'm sure Grover knows what the cel phone number is, and could have given it to Chin. Grover asks his wife to get the phone, which almost puts her in danger from Clay, who "has a temper." Eventually she does get it, and in record time, Grover finds a photo of Maxwell with LeAnn Stockwell, an attractive woman who is a trainer at a gym Clay frequents who Clay describes as "some piece I had on the side."

This leads to a confrontation in the blue-lit room, but despite some very heavy threats by Grover, Maxwell does not give in. And there is no reason why he should, since all the evidence which Grover has amassed so far is strictly circumstantial despite the fact that Grover makes a big deal about how information on the phone which is removed (like pictures of Clay with LeAnn which he shows to his now-former friend) can be undeleted. Grover says he will return to the mainland and track down every bit of evidence that he can use to put Maxwell away for good. But you will notice that Grover does not say that he found any deleted text messages on the phone with words to the effect that Maxwell and his girl friend wanted the wife to die, or for him to kill her, for example.

There was a sub-plot with Danno and Mindy Shaw that, by my rough calculations, took up about 20% of the show. It was inconsequential. It was difficult to hear what the two of them were saying at the beginning of the show because the sound mix was so crappy, but they ended up stuck in an elevator with a dead body on the way to the morgue with no connection to the outside world, either through the elevator intercom or their cel phones. Danno had a panic attack because of his claustrophobia and Dr. Shaw calmed him down, including some physical contact which, like Scott Caan's returning presence , seemed designed to raise the level of chatter among women fans who are crying big tears because Caan has been away from the show recently. Before being rescued by Officer Pua Kai, Shaw dug a bullet out of the corpse which, when combined with some fingerprint evidence, was quick to establish who the killer was, summarily arrested by Danno near the show's end.

MORE TRIVIA:

• When in the elevator, Dr. Shaw starts out her quick autopsy of the corpse by stating the date, which is the actual date of the show: April 3, 2015.
• Someone on IMDB was saying "how could Grover leave his wife alone with this guy [Maxwell, when they let him stay at Grover's house]," but this doesn't make sense, because the guy is not a psycho killing women, just his own wife. If he knocked off Grover's wife as well, then suspicion would fall on him for his own wife's murder like a ton of bricks. From my true crime reading days, I am aware of cases where husbands killed their wives (usually multiple wives, often to get insurance) ... and they don't get caught until some clever cop figures out a pattern which might involve the wives falling off a cliff (i.e., being pushed off), as in the case of Randy Roth.
• Richard Yeager (Christian Martin), who murdered his business partner (the dead guy at the beginning of the show who ends up in the elevator with Danno and Shaw), actually says he wants to speak to his lawyer when arrested by Danno!
• The music had a big climax when Grover exclaimed, "He [Maxwell] DID THIS!"
• When Grover talks to his wife about his theory that Clay murdered Diane after Clay goes to get some rest in a bedroom at their house after his ordeal, their conversation seems very loud, at the level where I'm sure that Clay could hear them talking.
• McGarrett was also on screen about 20% of the time. Kono and Chin were seen less than 10%.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 19 Review (S05E19) -- Kahania (Close Shave)

(S05E19) Kahania (Close Shave)
RATING: 3 stars

Original air date: 03/13/15

This episode was not bad, falling into the category of "how could it be worse than the one(s) that preceded it?" (both of which were major stinkers).

Unfortunately, there was a very stupid sub-plot of Jerry getting mistaken for a home invader robbing and attacking divorced women. The show began with Jerry getting picked out of an HPD lineup by one of the victims with "beyond a reasonable doubt" certainty.

Chin, Grover and Kono did the investigative work trying to get Jerry sprung from becoming what Jerry called "the next Hurricane Carter," referring to the boxer who spent almost 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

It turned out that three of the invader's victims all used the same law firm (Kaio and Reed), so it didn't take much effort to track down the culprit who worked there. The guy turned out to be a big Samoan-looking dude with long hair, but the bigness and hair were where the resemblance to Jerry ended.

The crime of the week (or, more specifically, big action of the week) happened in and around the barber shop of Odell Martin (Michael Imperioli reappearing after only 5 episodes). Much of the acting in this part of the show was very good.

McGarrett was getting a shave at some early hour of the morning, like around 6 a.m. -- probably the first time O'Loughlin's McGarrett has appeared clean-shaven on the show since it began, if I recall correctly. This was a new barber shop because it ends up looking like Swiss cheese after a bunch of Armenian gangsters shoot it up. (The previous location in S05E14 is a local landmark).

These bad guys are after Eran (Steven Krueger), a young guy who flees inside. Eran, who has been shot in the knee, says he was working at his job at the Hoapili Bakery on Palolo Avenue (bogus business, real street) and witnessed these Armenian dudes executing some guy.

After the gangsters, led by Ari Bailan (Ivo Nandi), spray the shop with automatic weapon fire, McGarrett soon runs out of ammunition. Odell manages to lock the drop-down metal gate in a scene which is ridiculous, because as he does this, a bullet comes flying towards him in slow motion. Bullets do not really fly in slow motion, and if this was real life, Odell would be toast! After a very long time, an HPD cop eventually shows up in response to phone calls about the shooting, but he is dispatched with a bullet to the head.

Barricaded in the shop with bad guys both at the front and back doors and Odell's closed-circuit TV disabled, McGarrett is at his wits' end, only to discover Bailan cutting his way into the place with a chainsaw through the Kahanu Flower Shop next door. This leads to a very cool stunt with not one, but two guys becoming human torches as Odell and McGarrett fashion a Molotov cocktail from various barbering supplies like hair dye and after shave.

McGarrett gets Odell to drive Eran to King's Medical Center after Eran is further wounded during the final confrontation with the gangsters. But on the way there, Eran grabs a gun that McGarrett gave Odell and gets him to drive to a marina.

Meanwhile, McGarrett confronts the local Armenian gang boss, Garig Dobrian (Mark Ivanir).

Odell has already provided McGarrett with info about this guy, who relocated from Los Angeles where the trope of an Armenian gang was already used a lot on The Shield, a show which co-starred Alex O'Loughlin. Odell describes Dobrian as "ruthless. Drugs, shakedowns, insurance scams -- got his hands in all of it. He owns the Rainbow Valley Supermarket over on Palolo Avenue, but that place is just a front."

It turns out that Dobrian is Eran's father, and that he ordered his men to kill his son, who he calls "a sick boy, touched by the devil," after he found out that his son was involved in the murder of several children. Somehow Dobrian knows that McGarrett was trying to protect his son, saying "I had to make it right, but my associates failed to stop him."

The show ends with McGarrett shooting Eran dead at the docks (yet another suspect!) and then finding evidence to close this case, though you have to wonder why HPD never did this, considering how many children were seemingly killed, judging by the stack of photos McGarrett looks through, bringing to mind the line about how such events can rock even the most hardened investigators.

MORE TRIVIA:

• Danno was not in this show. McGarrett said "he'll be back in a week," without specifying where he was. In fact, the rest of Five-0, investigating Jerry's dilemma, had nothing to do with McGarrett at all during the show.
• There are three pictures shown of the home invader's victims. The first of these, Susan Lipsberg, has a large cut on her right lip in her photo, but not when she fingers Jerry in the lineup. The other two women are named Carol Oyama and Mary Washimura.
• Odell's new shop is supposedly located in the 1200 block of Queen Street (1284 precisely), which a look at Google Maps will disprove. This address is actually located quite close to the beach in Ala Moana Beach Park, though.
• McGarrett commits a major faux pas when he leaves his cel phone in his Silverado while having a shave, so he cannot call HPD after the shooting starts. As well, Odell had "a falling out with the phone company years ago," and he "[doesn't] do cell phones." If so, you have to wonder how did McGarrett contact Odell to "open up early, [and] sacrifice your morning paddle, all for my schedule."
• While moving stuff around in the shop, McGarrett finds Odell's diploma for law school, specifically Fordham University. The date he received his degree was May 10, 1972. Michael Imperioli is only 48 years old, which would probably be much younger than someone who received this degree after spending three to four years after getting a bachelors' degree at university. In other words, Imperioli's character would probably be in his mid-60's, at least! When telling McGarrett that he had had enough of studying law after he got this degree, Odell uses the expression "wela ka hao," which translates as "strike while the iron is hot."
• Grover is Mr. Potty-Mouth again, calling Chin's brother-in-law a "sick son of a bitch," and telling Tauna Lahani (Pogi Tevaga), the suspect in the home invasions, "I don't think you got the stones [balls] to run, do you?"
• Max, who is Jerry's alibi, tells Chin reluctantly the night before Jerry was arrested that the two of them were at a Magic: The Gathering tournament which features geeky trading cards. Max pocketed a pile of money at this tournament, though, according to Wikipedia, "The gambling rule is forbidden at sanctioned events and is now mostly a relic of the past, though it still sees occasional usage in friendly games."
• At the end of the show, how does McGarrett know where Odell and Eran are?
• During the first meeting Chin had with Jerry while the latter was in jail, there was actually NO MUSIC for about 50 seconds. Amazing! The sound mix for this show was unusually bad, by the way, especially when heard on a relatively low-fi system.
• When talking to Chin, Jerry makes reference to Locked Up Abroad, a National Geographic Channel reality show about people who have been arrested while travelling.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 18 Review (S05E18) -- Pono Kaulike (Justice For All)

(S05E18) Pono Kaulike (Justice For All)
RATING: 2 stars

Original air date: 03/06/15

This show, with a script by Lenkov and Solarz, was actually pretty good up to a point (to be discussed shortly). It had nonstop action with characters running into and out of scenes with high tension as two of Five-0 were taken out of action, plus very good villains. It should really have been a two-parter.

After a flashback to Danno knocking off "drug dealing scumbag" Marco Reyes earlier this season, it began with McGarrett tossing a football around with Nahele Huikala (Kekoa Kekumano), the troubled youth who stole his car in S05E12. As usual, fun is interrupted by a phone call, in this case Joe White acting as the Harbinger of Doom, telling McGarrett that Danno is in really big trouble.

Danno is talking to his daughter Gracie's class about police work along with Max when two Federal Marshals show up and take Danno away, arrested for murder, specifically that of Reyes. McGarrett cannot get into the Federal Detention Center to talk to Danno, who is being grilled by Ben Alexander, a slimy "State Department" type (meaning CIA), well played by Raphael Sbarge.

As if this isn't bad enough, Chin Ho is busted by Rex Coughlin from HPD Internal Affairs (Robert Knepper, giving an equally oily performance), who was on Chin's ass in S04E13. The charge is "bribery, tax evasion, criminal misconduct and conspiracy to commit murder," all relating to the money which Chin "borrowed" from his incarcerated brother-in-law Gabriel Waincroft (Christopher Sean) to help Danno pay Reyes the $18.5 million ransom for his brother Matt.

Much of this harkened back to episodes of the classic series where the theme was along the lines of "some member of Five-O is soo screwed, how will he get out of this mess?"

Joe provides a lot of the answers, thanks to a flash drive he picks up in Chinatown in a package of hard packed Carolina Menthol cigarettes. It seems that Reyes was connected to some Colombian cocaine cartel's money laundering scheme. Money invested by Wall Street bankers in the Colombian housing market ended up in this scheme, and without the flow of drugs and money continuing after a subsequent Colombian government crackdown, the U.S. economy would have been in serious trouble. Reyes was in charge of moving the coke under the watchful eye of the CIA. Reyes knew the location of $1.3 billion (3 tons) worth of coke, information about which disappeared with Reyes' murder.

Despite Alexander mentioning the word "lawyer," Danno waives extradition to Colombia and gets flown to a prison there which makes the archetypal bad Turkish one in the movie Midnight Express look like Disneyland by comparison. Danno is subjected to brutality from both the prisoners and guards at this joint far beyond that which any human can endure.

After McGarrett manages to buy time from Alexander, Joe gets further intel that the cocaine, which no one, including the Colombian government, can locate, is probably in an oil refinery owned by an old Reyes front man which has been off line for several years, but now has multiple security guards protecting it. Add to this the fact that during his encounter with Reyes, Danno's brother's body came delivered to him in an OIL DRUM (duh!).

All they have to do now is go to Colombia and locate the cocaine, which they do even though 9 hours of the 48 hour grace period granted by Alexander have already expired. Considering a direct flight to Bogota from Honolulu takes about 12 hours (that is 24 hours return), this does not give them a lot of time, especially since once arriving there they have to drive about 120 miles to the town of Ortega where they track down Frank Bama (Jimmy Buffett), Joe White's/Five-0's pal formerly in South Korea who, without any explanation whatsoever, is now in Colombia. This is the "point" at which the show goes totally stoopid, degenerating into the usual A-Team adventure that results whenever Bama is around, with the Five-0 team (McGarrett, Kono, Grover and White) flying to the oil refinery in a helicopter which looks like a "washing machine with propellers."

If this wasn't ridiculous enough, the story suddenly jumps back to Honolulu where the returned McGarrett confronts Alexander, telling him that the cocaine was destroyed by the Five-0 team and they also found Reyes' books which reveal Alexander to be seriously involved in the whole dope-smuggling business. (Presumably these "books" were of the cover-your-ass variety.) McGarrett tells Alexander he wants Danno returned to Honolulu ASAP after which he strongly recommends that Alexander retire from the intelligence agency ... and guess what ... it all comes to pass!

My notes for the show kept a running track of times during events as the show came closer to its end with comments like "how can they resolve this?" The last five minutes of the show were taken up with Danno's return and Joe White telling McGarrett that ... surprise, surprise ... the one who spilled the beans on where the cocaine that Reyes was involved with was hidden was McGarrett's goddamn mother! (This is why McGarrett seemingly got preferential treatment to Danno, despite the fact that both of them were present at Reyes' murder.) Get lost!!

Chin Ho's dilemma was resolved in a much simpler way. Gabriel, who was supposedly going to testify against the arrested Chin, was taken to a well-protected safe house. After striking a deal with Coughlin for transfer to a minimum security prison, Gabriel is about to sign the paperwork which Coughlin has drawn up, when he fatally stabs the IA cop in the eye with the pen and escapes (though to where is a good question)! No Gabriel means no case against Chin, though you would wonder why Coughlin didn't get his testimony recorded or witnessed by some other cops.

Aside from the idiotic time-compressed ending of the show, I found the total immorality of the arrested characters with respect to their charges disturbing, particularly Chin Ho. Coughlin told him bluntly, "You took drug money from a cop killer. No matter how it was used, that's still a crime." Chin's excuse was "I 'borrowed' that money to help pay for that man's [Danno's brother's] ransom." Even a teary-looking Kono got into the act, saying that Chin was "losing everything that he ever worked and fought for his entire life." Danno, on the other hand, seemed more contrite when returning home after his prison experience.

MORE TRIVIA:

• During the question and answer with Danno and Max, some smart ass student in the class asks Max "Ever find anything weird in the poop chute?," a line which surely rates as one of the all-time tasteless on this or any other TV show. Max replied, "Young man, if you're referring to the anus or the descending colon [it sounds like he says "semi-colon"], then the answer is 'Yes'."
• According to McGarrett, Max takes Gracie to "Rachel's place," meaning Danno's ex-wife, but she has been missing in action from the show for a very long time, supposedly living now in Las Vegas. Maybe Rachel and her husband Stan still maintain a place in Hawaii with full-time servants where Gracie can be taken care of. After all, who looks after her while Danno is at work?
• When Joe plugs his flash drive this into the Supercomputer in the Five-0 office, it doesn't look like it has a standard USB connector, even though we saw that in the previous scene.
• McGarrett confronts Alexander, telling him that "this man [Danno] was denied counsel ... that's a violation of his civil rights." Considering the 57 varieties of violation of civil rights committed on the show in the last four years, this is a pretty funny line.
• Joe tells McGarrett "we earned our Trident today," referring to the U.S. Navy's Special Warfare insignia, also known as a "SEAL Trident." At the end, Joe seemingly is following McGarrett at a distance because after McGarrett drops Danno off, Joe suddenly appears out of nowhere.
• The episode also harkened back to classic Five-O shows where McGarrett was jerked around by the Feds. But do U.S. Marshals really have the kind of super power seen in this episode? McGarrett, who usually flashes the "immunity and means" card, seemed reduced to a total state of impotence by their actions.
• The music was improved a bit over last week's, especially the passages which aped John Powell's classic scores for the Bourne movies like when Joe was in Chinatown.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 17 Review (S05E17) -- Kuka'awale (Stakeout)

(S05E17) Kuka'awale (Stakeout)
RATING: 1/2 star

Original air date: 02/27/15

I really disliked this show, a major contender for Worst Episode of Five-Zero Ever. If had to give it a name, other than the one above, I would have called it "Two Men and a Pussy" (TMAAP).

This was a major league apartment-gument between McGarrett and Danno. Overall, the show was much worse than the similar S03E03 which I also did not like, where the duo were marooned, afloat on a boat.

My notes taken during TMAAP were littered with comments like "Stupid!!" and "Shut up!!" It began with a two minute and 41 second continuation of their Governor-sanctioned psychological therapy seen in this season's premiere episode, S05E01, and went downhill from there.

What I hated the most was the music which had the usual plink-plunk associated with "comedic" and/or "cute" scenes throughout, because -- among other things -- the incessant arguing between McGarrett and Danno, who were "working on their relationship," was supposed to be funny, but it was not. The music score was probably the worst one yet heard on the show.

After a jewellery store is robbed, McGarrett and Danno set up shop with cameras and phone taps across from the apartment of one of the suspects, Emma Mills (the very attractive -- read: large-breasted -- Jessica Lowndes). The comic-relief characters who dropped by, including neighbor Ruth Tennenbaum (Cloris Leachman) and geeky dope dealer Ricky Schiff (Charlie Saxton) as well as the non-stop chatter between McGarrett and Danno really drove me crazy. Much of the show played like a bad version of Hitchcock's Rear Window.

The woman named Agnes whose apartment they are commandeering is a serious cat lady. This leads to interaction between McGarrett, who confesses his liking for cats, which he describes as "ninjas," and the resident feline, Mr. Pickles, in scenes designed to appeal to Facebook cat-video fanatics. (Danno tells us that he is a dog kind of guy.)

As if this isn't dumb enough, McGarrett enlists the help of Jerry to try and track down who recently stole Mrs. Tennenbaum's fern. Comedian Jon Lovitz appeared as Barry Burns, a pawnshop-like merchant in "gold and unwanted jewelry" seen on local TV in sleazy commercials who is acting as fence for Emma's $3 million worth of stolen loose diamonds.

The scene at the end where Emma's partner and bad guy Jacob Anders/Radomir Ivanovich (Zoltan Hayth) shot up the jewellery store in a manner like The Terminator where he wounded or killed at least half a dozen cops was in very bad taste, especially considering the cutesy-poo finale outside Kamekona's shrimp shack which came after this.

This episode was Daniel Dae Kim's TV directing debut. I have really nothing to say about this, because the whole episode was so distracting, other than "I guess he has to start somewhere," and "I wish him well in his future endeavours."

MORE TRIVIA:

• For all the show's faults, I laughed like hell when Leachman's character told McGarrett and his "partner" Danno "I fully support gay marriage." After she left, Danno had a snappy response: "I personally would have gone with the gay thing to keep our cover." Danno also had another good line, saying the apartment they were using "smell[ed] like loneliness and despair," to which McGarrett said the smell was mothballs.
• "Family values" WWW sites are not going to be happy with this episode, especially the scene where Emma is revealed to be in cahoots with Mia Price from the jewelery store (Arden Cho) and the two are in a lesbian relationship. They are seen kissing and later McGarrett is listening to them making out.
• The book given to McGarrett and Danno at the beginning of the show for "homework" is The Perfect Partners' Workbook: Exercises in Conflict Resolution and Team Building by Susan Rothman. There actually is a marriage and family therapist in California named Susan Rothman, who, according to her WWW page, is "a practicing zen student and lead[s] a group called 'Being Mindful'." But as far as I can determine, this book and its author are both bogus.
• Conan O'Brien's drummer/band leader Max Weinberg, seen in the remake of Hookman where Danno had another idiotic whiny rant, reappeared as gunshop owner Norm. He had a serious run-in with Anders, who beat him up and stole small and large firearms plus body armor and explosives. (Are these all items one could obtain in a gun shop in the USA?)
• Anders is a member of Serbian special forces who participated in the Bosnian war, a tiresome trope for bad guys on the show.
• Not only was the music bad in the scene where Anders extracted a bullet from his stomach (put there by his partner Emma at the beginning of the show) but it was overbearingly LOUD, something I get at least one complaint a week about through my WWW site from people who think the site is officially connected to CBS.
• Emma's apartment is in the art-deco style Waikiki Cove located at 2118 Kuhio Avenue. When Danno calls for an ambulance to deal with her injuries, he says the address is 2119 Kuhio, apartment 503.
• Not be overly picky, since this show is "fiction," but the building from which McGarrett and Danno are surveilling, shown briefly in a frontal view, is also on Kuhio Avenue, and their window faces the street. So, if this was "real life," they would not be able to see into Emma's building at all. As well, the window frame in her room is different than what can be seen on the art deco building through Google Maps, though that picture may have been taken several years ago. When McGarrett and Danno enter her room, they do it through a sliding glass door, and the only place these are located on the building (from what I can see) is via the balconies of the apartments. Are McGarrett and Danno leaping across balconies like McGarrett did in the last show? There is also a fire hose on the right of Emma's window through which McGarrett is spying, which does not make sense, because this would probably be in a hallway in the building. When Mia Price visits Emma, the two of them go into what looks like a bedroom off to the left (from Five-0's viewpoint), but later McGarrett is watching them have sex in silhouette, presumably in the living room, since that's where his camera is focused. (The second computer on the right of the table is used to communicate with the Five-0 office, among other things.)
• The scene where gunshots and screams are heard from Emma's building on the third day of the stakeout confused me. I thought that the couple fighting was Anders and Emma, but it was not. It was some other couple two floors down at the end of the building. Although I did not recognize them (i.e., not Anders and Emma), McGarrett and Danno, using binoculars, did not either, which is interesting, because you would expect they would, because they have been watching the building for three days. I don't know how they can hear these screams and two gunshots, because the windows of this couple's room appear to be closed. McGarrett and Danno run outside and over to Emma's building and they go to this couple's apartment which is empty, saying "We just got played." (The room looks like someone was painting in it, vaguely reminiscent of a scene in Hookman in the room above Norm's gun shop.) Then they go to Emma's condo two floors up and find her mortally wounded by Anders. When I asked questions about this on IMDB, member fishead924 there suggested that Anders arranged for the couple on the third floor to stage the fight to draw McGarrett and Danno away from Emma's room where he was shooting her and taking the diamonds. Even if Anders hired these people to distract the stakeout, how much time would this buy him? Does he expect that McGarrett and Danno, who he obviously realizes are watching, would go and help the other couple, maybe because it is "the thing to do" (i.e., a domestic dispute is not good) or it will interfere with their surveillance? On the stakeout camera footage viewed later after the commercial, Anders doesn't seem to take a long time after he plugs Emma, so it's odd that McGarrett and Danno don't run into him on their way up to her room. The bottom line is: this is yet more sloppy writing on the show with the usual "means -- no matter how stupid -- justifies the end" kind of logic.
• We find out in this episode that McGarrett used to play the guitar, something Jack Lord's Steve McGarrett also did. He gave up his musical career when he was traumatized during a grade ten talent show. The actor playing the young McGarrett, Taylor John Smith, had little resemblance to Alex O'Loughlin. Not to be too cynical or anything, but I thought considering the "comedic" angle of the show, maybe they should have done an Airplane-like spoof and had the young McGarrett played by a black guy.
• The phone number for Barry Burns' company Gold Blast USA is 555-0101 (no area or 1-800 code).
• Danno says that his favorite music is Bon Jovi: "I could tell you about every song he ever wrote."
• Jessica Lowndes, the female "bad guy" and one of the few things worth watching during this show, especially when she peeled off her clothes, is from Vancouver, my home town. Interestingly, in S01E09, the execrable Po'ipu (Siege), Emmanuelle Vaugier, the villain, was equally attractive, and also from Vancouver. Alas, both of these women were knocked off. I was recently "studying" Krista Allen, another good-looking actress who appeared in S04E18. She was not knocked off and not from Vancouver, but it looks like she might have made several soft-corn porno movies (do a Google search for her and feel free to post in the Five-0 Discussion Forum with your take on this).

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 16 Review (S05E16) -- Nānahu (Embers)

(S05E16) Nānahu (Embers)
RATING: 3 stars

Original air date: 02/20/15

This episode, well directed by Joe Dante, could be called "The Tale of Two Psychos."

The first of these was Frank Simpson (David Hoflin), the husband of Amber, Danno's girl friend. Turns out that Amber's real name was Melissa Armstrong and she had married Simpson who abused her so badly she had fled as far away from New York where they lived as possible, i.e., Hawaii.

Danno and Amber (Lili Simmons), making her third appearance on the show, were re-establishing their relationship and spending some time together at an isolated location near Waimanalo. Somehow Simpson managed to track them down, which was odd, because even Five-0 had no idea where Danno was.

Simpson first visited Kamekona's shrimp shack where he inquired about Amber with a photo. This set off alarm bells with the big guy who fortunately snapped a picture of Simpson's car and sent it to McGarrett. Then Simpson made inquiries at Amber's company, though it is equally unlikely that the boss there knew where she was.

Eventually Simpson ended up at the romantic retreat where he knocked out Danno and threatened his ex-wife in a very nasty manner. After Danno punched the shit out of Simpson, getting stabbed in the process, he and Amber were leaving on their way to the hospital when Simpson suddenly appeared out of nowhere and made further threats. Amber drove right into her ex, with the result he flew up on to the roof of the car and then back down in front of it via the hood (a great stunt). Amber then drove over him like she would a speed bump, a move that I suspect will return to bite her in the ass eventually, even though she and Danno were seemingly the only witnesses. (Don't forget the "old lady" of season one who fingered Kono!)

The second psycho on the show was Jason Duclair, played by former UFC fighter Randy Couture. Duclair was a serial arsonist who had terrorized people in California, then relocated to Hawaii. Posing as an exterminator, he cased people's houses, then returned to burn the places down with the people trapped inside.

Duclair was pursued by ATF agent Kathy Milwood (Melina Kanakaredes) from Orange County, who had followed his early career of two dozen fires. She nearly lost her life when Duclair torched her house, killing her husband, after she taunted him during a TV press conference where she called him a "weak, frightened coward" who was sexually dysfunctional.

Duclair was extremely nasty, grabbing and knocking out Milwood as she followed him into the Lava Gardens Hotel where he was going to climax his career with a big-time blaze. He doused her with White Spark camp fuel and was just about to incinerate her when McGarrett broke into the room via the next room and the balcony between them.

Kanakaredes' acting was exceptionally good -- too bad she cannot stick around to join the team! As she was leaving at the end of the episode, McGarrett told her "Don't look back, you can't change the past," again pretty funny, considering what a mess his own life is. The acting of the two villains was also very good.

There was a stupid sub-plot about McGarrett and Grover playing golf which took up about six minutes of the show's time. It featured U.S. Women's Open golf champion Michelle Wie giving advice to McGarrett and acting as his caddy as he participated in a charity tournament for the HPD Widows and Orphans Fund. The less said about this, the better. No doubt the gorgeously photographed shots of golf course scenery were designed to ensure that the show continues to qualify for Hawaii state production tax credits .

MORE TRIVIA:

• When Chin is talking to McGarrett about trying to locate Danno, having figured out that Amber's husband is after her, he says "I'll reach out to friends and [or "at"?] work and see if anyone knows anything [i.e., where Danno and Amber are]." Shortly after, Duke tells Chin "My boys spoke to one of Amber's co-workers; he said that their boss might know where Amber and Danny are. He also said that an old friend of hers came by the office this morning, asking the same question. We're trying to track down the boss. As soon as that information comes in, I'll get it to you." But it is never specifically said that the boss told the husband where Amber was. No matter how the husband identified himself, either as her husband or an "old friend," and the boss knew about Danno's relationship with Amber, because Danno had phoned him to get her off work (or some other reason), why would he?
• Duclair's character was very reminiscent of the classic Five-O and Zero character Hookman the way he kept newspaper clippings of his crimes (but framed!) on his wall. At the end, Duclair fingers a book of matches he seemingly lifted from his prison guard, reminiscent of the "surprise" ending of Woe to Wo Fat, final episode of the original show.
• Trying to find Duclair at the Lava Gardens Hotel (a bogus place), Five-0 goes to room 2104, which, according to the hotel, the killer checked into. But on the 18th floor we saw him get out of the elevator he shared with a family and go into a room directly opposite the elevator. (The room door does not close after he enters -- obviously so the camera can follow him in.) When Five-0 don't find anything in room 2104, they go out into the hall, and you see a room with number 2110. But as they are standing opposite the elevator where they see Milwood's blood on the elevator floor, behind them on the wall is another sign which indicates where rooms 1808 to 1834 are. There is no explanation as to how the Duclair either books the room on the 18th floor or gets the key card to open the door. It seems a stretch that Five-0 notices the blood in the elevator, considering there are three of them.
• Five-0 figures out Duclair is at the Lava Gardens because he left his computer running at his house where Five-0 breaks in, trying to find him. There is an e-mail regarding the hotel reservation right on the computer screen which McGarrett sees! Talk about stupid writing. Why wouldn't Duclair turn the computer off, since he has left the house? There are also questions about how Duclair could board up the front door of houses he is torching to keep its occupants from escaping during the fire without them hearing him do this.
• Duclair's exterminator license number is 45X2-ZY2Z-XY1. He works for the No Vacancy Pest Control.
• It takes just over half an hour to drive from Waimanalo to the Tripler Army Medical Center.
• Simpson's New York driver's license #B4259103K shows his address as 1813 Herkimer Street, Brooklyn 11209. (An actual street, though no such address.) He was born 08-08-81. The license expires 08-09-18. Amber's driver's license under her married name #B3486162M shows her birthdate as 06-09-84. It was issued 06-30-14 and expires 07-01-18. The issue date is odd, because Danno first met Amber in the episode broadcast on 01-10-14.
• Milwood uses the expression "son of a bitch" twice.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 15 Review (S05E15) -- E 'Imi pono (Searching for the Truth)

(S05E15) E 'Imi pono (Searching for the Truth)
RATING: 2-1/2 stars

Original air date: 02/13/15

The crime of the week part of this episode was not bad.

Roko Makoni (Barkhad Abdi), a warlord from the Congo responsible for brutal kidnappings, rapes and murders during the 2000s and described as "the most wanted man in the world," moved to Hawaii several years ago with the help of Ben Hamilton (Grant Bowler), a CIA "cultural attaché" with the American embassy in Kinshasa. Having faked his death in Africa with the help of Hamilton, Makoni is living a new life under the name of Earl Robinson and working as a taxi driver in Honolulu. But Makoni is recognized by Patrice Thomas (Feikamoh Massaquo), members of whose family were murdered by Makoni in Africa. Thomas came to the States from the Congo as a political refugee and moved to the islands. Thomas contacts Julius Brennan (AJ Buckley), a freelance journalist and documentarian who befriended him while reporting on the Congo conflict and sends him some pictures connected to Makoni. As a result, Brennan also comes to Oahu.

As the show begins, Brennan meets up with Hamilton, who he knew when in the Congo. Hamilton later describes Brennan as acting paranoid and "not the Julius I knew." Shortly after their dinner, Brennan is garrotted in his car by Makoni, who was likely tipped off by Hamilton.

When Max starts examining Brennan's body, he finds writing all over the his chest. Assistant ME Shaw describes this to McGarrett and Danno as hypographia, a "behavioral condition characterized by an intense desire to write." Some of what she and Max say about this condition has been taken almost word-for-word from its Wikipedia entry (see below*). There is also similar writing all over Brennan's hotel room.

Jerry manages to crack this writing's "code." It contains a mark which is "the arrow of Sagittarius ... referring to the zodiac symbol of ancient Babylonian origin representing the soldier" (seriously). This code also contains Thomas's name, and when Five-0 arrive at his apartment, they find him the victim of a staged drug overdose. The Sagittarius symbol is branded on Thomas's body from years before..

Finding photos of Makoni's taxi on Thomas's computer leads Five-0 to the warlord, who pulls out some heavy-duty weaponry and the usual firefight ensues. He escapes because, once again, Five-0 can't hit the side of a barn door, or, in this case, a fleeing hijacked car. Makoni has another taxi than the one he usually uses secreted in some building with a lot of C4 explosive in the trunk. After taking hostages, one of whom he shoots in the stomach, Makoni is surrounded by cops on a Honolulu street (corner of Kapuni and Cleghorn). There McGarrett tries to negotiate with him and he is just about to shoot McGarrett when Kono plugs him from afar with her usual expertise.

There were plenty of opportunities to stretch this plot out to the show's full length. For example, nothing is made of the C4 in the trunk of the taxi. Didn't anyone think that the supposedly clever Makoni would have had some kind of detonation device that he could have used to further threaten everyone? There also could have been connections made between the CIA man Hamilton and McGarrett's mother, hopefully without having Ma McG putting in an appearance.

Unfortunately, far too much of this show was taken up with the usual "family" nonsense. As if to make up for his recent absences, Danno rattled on and on about Gracie getting text messages on her new cel phone from some boy at school who he described as a "little thug" and "predator." (Danno was able to view these messages thanks to some technical screwup by the phone company.) We have heard this before, haven't we? Not only was Danno whining about this as McGarrett dumped some butter in his coffee at the beginning of the show, but then we had to endure further ranting from Danno as they were driving. I must admit that the end of the show, where Danno resolved his "trust" issues with his daughter, was touching, but this was during another beery "ohana" finale at a Valentine's Day barbeque where Grover was dressed up in some ridiculous chef's outfit which transformed him into a jazzy version of the guy on the Cream of Wheat box. To top this off, at this party Jerry was seen having the hots for Dr. Shaw as the others looked on, chuckling. Did anyone not figure that when Shaw gave him a rose earlier telling him to give it to someone that he cared about, that she would not be getting this flower back eventually?

MORE TRIVIA:

• Danno uses some peculiar expression when he and McGarrett are driving.

  Danno: When I was a kid, if I liked a girl, I had to go up and talk to her, right, like, with my mouth, a human being. Now, any kid with thumbs, a family share plan, gets to walk around, thinking they're the mack.

  McGarrett: The mack? You say "the mack?"

  Danno: The mack, yeah. I don't know. It's the smooth jazz ["on hold" music on his phone], baby. It's got me thinking about the 90's, you know?

• Gracie and her boyfriend are seen hanging out at Via Gelato, an actual Honolulu locale.
• During the hostage-taking, how does Makone know McGarrett's name?
• Max was far less annoying in this episode than usual. He mentioned that he was going to be meeting his girl friend Sabrina for Valentine's Day. He described her his "paramour," a term usually used for "a person with whom someone is having a romantic or sexual relationship and especially a secret or improper relationship." When questioned, Shaw tells him that "I have a date with my Kindle and a nice bottle of Cab," which Max describes as "wonderfully pathetic."
• In the CBS PR material for this show, dated January 22, 2015, Makono's name is Roko Contee and Brennan's is Joseph Boyd. There are two other characters listed, Kee Mun, played by Hoon Lee amd Little Girl, played by Ciara Fortuno, who seemingly do not appear in the show at all.
• Part of the negotiation between Makoni and McGarrett involves a helicopter. To where? It's not going to get to the mainland, that's for sure. Is it going to the airport where a plane awaits him? After he is captured, McGarrett tells Makoni he is going to The Hague, meaning the International Court of Justice.
• Patrice Thomas's driver's license #729K419 shows he lives at 1109 Kahuamaka St., #210 in Pearl City 96782. He is 6'0" and weighs 175 lbs. His date of birth is 04/22/1991. Considering he is 25 years old, why would he be branded with the Sagittarius symbol, since this was supposedly done by Makone on his "kidnapped child soldiers"?
• Brennan is shown interviewing Thomas and his brother Wesley [sic] in the Congo during the conflict years before in a video which Five-0 got very quickly from some editor who worked on it. Rather than being filmed with a single camera, it employs the multi-camera techniques and closeups similar to Five-0's photography.
• Makone's Laulauna Taxi Company license, 2994992-49920, and Hamilton's Diplomatic Immunity Card, #2997543796-0087 have signatures which look like they were written by the same person. The license plate of Makona's taxi is QDI 851. The other taxi he has with the C4 in the trunk has a license YF5 852.
• According to Mike Timothy, Makone's "C4" taxi is a 1995 Ford Crown Victoria. As to whether the driver could control the locks in the manner depicted in the show, Mike says, "There is a rocker switch on the driver's door panel which locks or unlocks all doors. In addition, there is a knob at the top of the door panel for all four doors that runs up or down depending on the master door lock switch. There likely is a power door lock switch on the passenger front door. As originally designed, it is not possible for the driver to lock the rear doors in a fashion such that the rear seat passengers could not unlock and open the doors themselves. Police cars (Crown Victoria Police Interceptor) models of course have that feature, but not a retail sale or fleet sale (cab) car. There may be a switch on the driver door panel that deactivates the power window switch (power window lockout). Indeed the 1968 Park Lane Brougham has such a feature, though it was worthless to McGarrett, as he never ever drove with the windows up. No car with power door locks, however, has had a power lock override."
• The writing on Brennan's chest has disappeared between the time it is originally seen by Max and Shaw and when Jerry comes to the morgue. Presumably it was washed off before the body was sliced open, but isn't this considered evidence?
• *Wikipedia:

  Hypergraphia is a behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write. Forms of hypergraphia can vary in writing style and content. It is a symptom associated with temporal lobe changes in epilepsy, which is the cause of the Geschwind syndrome, a mental disorder. Structures that may have an effect on hypergraphia when damaged due to temporal lobe epilepsy are the hippocampus and Wernicke's area. Aside from temporal lobe epilepsy, chemical causes may be responsible for inducing hypergraphia. [Note there is nothing mentioned about stress.]

  [Under "Characteristics":] Patients with hypergraphia exhibit a wide variety of writing styles and content. While some write in a coherent, logical manner, others write in a more jumbled style (sometimes in a specific pattern).[citation needed]

  The Show:

  Shaw: It's called hypergraphia. It's a behavioral condition characterized by an intense desire to write. It's a symptom associated with temporal lobe epilepsy and can be triggered by high-stress life events.

  Danno: He's had plenty of those.

  McGarrett: Yeah, or maybe the stress of thinking somebody's out to kill you. Looks like a code.

  Max: That was my first assumption as well, until I took a closer look. (Gives McGarrett a mirror.) The words are backwards.

  [Holding the mirror, McGarrett reads several of the words.]

  McGarrett: What does this mean? Do you guys understand this?

  Shaw: It actually makes sense that it doesn't make sense. Think of it as nervous doodling, a frenzied firing of neurons in the brain.

  Max: Some people who suffer from hypergraphia write in a coherent and logical manner. Others, like Mr. Brennan, have a more jumbled style.

Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 14 Review (S05E14) -- Powehiwehi (Blackout)

(S05E14) Powehiwehi (Blackout)
RATING: 2-1/2 stars

Original air date: 02/06/15

This episode brought back Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jeff Morrison (Greg Grunberg) as well as gun runner JC Dekker (Xzibit, in his third Five-0 appearance). Morrison has sprung Dekker from Halawa with a fabricated back story involving legal technicalities to help him track down Roman Zednick, a Bulgarian involved in everything "from narcotic trafficking and K&R [kidnapping and ransom] to assassination and piracy." Zednick showed up on Oahu a few days ago, wanting to buy guns.

To meet Zednick, Dekker has to contact him through Sidney Ames (David Cordell), a "concierge for criminals," the local "go-to guy" if you are interested in "weapons, muscle, safe house[s] and body disposal." Strangely, Five-0 has never heard of Ames. After his meeting with Zednick doesn't go well, Dekker is taken away by Ames to be knocked off, but he ends up turning the tables. Despite being shot in the ensuing confrontation and being very badly beaten, Dekker kills Ames and manages to get back to Halawa where he attempts to climb the fence and is shot yet again, which is where the story begins. (Why doesn't he just drive up to the front door of the prison?)

Suffering from a bad case of amnesia because his head hit a rock during the fight with Ames, so much so that he can't even recognize Morrison, Dekker doesn't have any idea what has happened to him. Five-0 manages to find out how Dekker met Zednick after talking to Odell Martin (Michael Imperioli), a former Eastern US low-level crime figure who was into "bookmaking, cigarettes and weed" and now runs the Moku Cuts barber shop. After they locate the place where the fight with Dekker and Ames took place thanks to some chemical analysis, Chin Ho manages to get info from Ames' cel phone which leads them to a house at 2121 Kahaleo Avenue where Zednick is supposedly staying. Five-0 typically knocks off three of the five people at the house, thus eliminating potential suspects/witnesses. Zednick manages to escape after threatening Morrison and his family, and McGarrett finds a woman named Danielle (Ana Alexander) wounded in a room.

Danielle gets transported to the same hospital as Dekker as he is slowly figuring out what has happened to him. Included in this is a flashback to when he was at Ames' house where he was told by Danielle that -- surprise! -- she was Roman. (The guy acting as Roman's decoy was really named Emil Hossa (Tudor Munteanu).) This results in a very serious situation as Kono, assigned to be Dekker's nurse, has to deal with Danielle/Roman suddenly becoming Super Villain and taking over their wing of the hospital by cutting the power to the elevator, among other things. (How D/R figures out how to do this boggles the mind.) At one point, Kono takes a hypodermic needle which looks like it is usually used to inoculate horses, draws off some of her blood and dribbles it on the floor to throw D/R off their track as they try to escape. D/R's pursuit of Kono and Dekker climaxes with a tremendous fight between Kono and D/R which ends with Kono taking a pair of defibrillators and applying them to D/R's chest, throwing her across the room and seemingly killing her. Thanks to a brainstorm by McGarrett back in the Five-0 offices that Danielle is Roman, Five-0 arrives shortly after.

While the crime of the week was interesting (as least on a second viewing) though formulaic, the rest of the show was not.

After the main titles, the show began with Kono dithering over her relationship with Adam, telling him his company is a "business that was born out of corruption." In a scene full of banal dialogue, Adam assures her that he is trying to make everything legitimate, but she isn't convinced. I was all ready to rant about this, but I already ranted about it in May of 2013 in my review of S03E23 and virtually nothing has changed! After having the crap beaten out of her by Danielle/Roman, Kono shows up at Adam's office at the end of the show and asks to become his wife. Now I am a sucker for scenes where Kono looks sad, like when she is gazing at pictures of her and Adam on her phone, but enough is enough and hopefully this will be an end to this soap opera sub-plot which is really sooooo wrong (see my rant)!

The show ended with Jerry (described by Dekker as Five-0's "mascot") driving Adam's Ferrari and singing Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head?" At least this sequence was actually filmed outdoors instead of in front of the usual process screen. Allowing Jerry to drive the car was Adam's "payment" for Jerry having coerced some friend at Leonard's Bakery to whip up a batch of macadamia nut malasadas which are usually only produced once a year. This was Adam's peace offering for Kono after their "argument" earlier on. This finale, which went on for far too long, was just plain stupid.

Danno was not in this show, having gone back to New Jersey to deal with some old case of his which came up on appeal. Neither was Max, even at the scene where Ames had been shot dead by Dekker.

MORE TRIVIA:

• After Dekker arrives at the hospital, McGarrett suggests that in order to keep Ramon from getting off the island, they should "kill Dekker" by planting false news reports. Grover says "We need to clear this wing out as well. Even though there's security up here, there's a lot of foot traffic. The less people that see Dekker, the better." Kono then says, "There's another prison ward at King's Medical. We can have the guards transfer EVERYONE there." Morrison replies, "I can get a guy down here to handle security." Kono's word "everyone" is hardly audible. I thought she actually said "him," meaning Dekker, which would make a lot more sense. It would have avoided Danielle/Roman running into Dekker there later.
• When Five-0 confronts Hossa in the Foster Botanical Garden, not only is Morrison -- who Hossa threatened earlier -- present and standing up, quite obvious for Hossa to see (even though he does not), but they seriously endanger all the people in the garden who they order to lie on the ground as they surround Hossa with guns drawn. Hossa is carrying a grenade, which he does not get a chance to use, fortunately.
• Kono says that the last time they dealt with Dekker "he seemed like a changed man." Like Sang Min, Dekker is definitely Five-0's pal now, dispensing romantic advise to Kono concerning her and Adam -- nonsense like "Your boyfriend sounds like a decent guy," "I'm guessing you're the problem; you're the one who can't commit. What's that all about?" and "What you're doin', it ain't cool. If you can't commit by now [after being in a relationship for three years], you need to be fair to the guy and cut him loose. Don't be stringin' him along."
• The license number of the car Ames uses to chauffeur Dekker around (sometimes in the trunk), and which Dekker is seen driving to the Halawa fence at the beginning of the show, is PIV 290.
• The location of Martin's barber shop is a real barber shop, Island Style Cuts at 843 Kapahulu Avenue. Unlike in the Google maps view, it has a barber pole on the wall outside. In the background as McGarrett and Morrison are walking there, you can see the Kapahulu Vista Apartments. Despite the fact that McGarrett and Morrison are seen driving in a location which suggests that this barber shop is out in the sticks, it is really not.
• I thought Morrison was a mainlander, but it doesn't look like this is the case. After he surprises him at Ames' place, Hossa threatens to kill Morrison's family, who are at 2756 Kalawao St. This street number in the closed captions is 2476, as opposed to 2756 as heard in dialogue by Hossa and Grover.
• Jerry tells Kono and Dekker that "I have a little man crush on the guy [Adam]."
• Considering Dekker seems to be bleeding pretty badly during his and Kono's attempt to escape from Danielle, why isn't there any of Dekker's blood on the floor of the laundry room where he hides?
• The book Jerry is seen reading -- The Secret History of Freemasonry by Paul Naudon -- is a real book.
• Bad words: "He's a slippery son of a bitch" (Grover referring to Ames).