Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 1 Review (S05E01) -- A'ohe kahi e pe'e ai (Nowhere to Hide)

S05E01. A'ohe kahi e pe'e ai (Nowhere to Hide).
RATING: 1-1/2 stars
Original air date: 9/26/14

The crime of the week in this show, "torn from today's headlines," had a drone attacking people on Diamond Head and on Waikiki, the latter vaguely reminiscent of the actions of the "terrorist group" in the original show's seventh season premiere The Young Assassins.

Despite the drone spraying bullets all over people at the beach, the number of people who were actually killed (7) or wounded (at least 19) seemed pretty small. One could say the same for later in the show when it was pursuing Danno's car which was acting as as bait, giving new meaning to the expression "couldn't hit the broad side of a barn door."

The drone was stolen from Venpax, a company located in Hauʻula on Oahu (how convenient for Five-0's investigation) which was creating drones under some kind of top-secret national security contract. The evil-voiced guy who stole and then programmed and operated the drone was Jonathan Redmond (Ned Vaughn), a former employee of the company, who had been fired some time before for stealing company hardware. After the recent attacks, he stupidly contacts Five-0 by phone, saying "America needs to be reminded what it's like to be terrorized," seemingly oblivious to the fact that his voice might have been on file with the company after he had made several threatening calls to them after his dismissal (which it indeed was). DUH!

Turns out that Redmond was working for the SRS, a Russian terrorist organization made up of former Soviet intelligence agents who were were trying to spirit one Lawrence Turner out of the country. The Edward Snowden-like Turner (and remember -- the real Snowden had a serious connection to Hawaii) was a systems analyst working for a local military contractor who the CIA discovered had used his security clearance to download thousands of classified documents. The drone attacks were a smoke screen for SRS types to land a plane on a downtown Honolulu street (I'm not making this up) right in front of Turner's place and provide the whistleblower with valet service to get out of the country. They were foiled by the Five-0 team, including conspiracy freak Jerry Ortega, who maneuvered another drone to fly into the plane as it attempted to take off, resulting in it crashing and exploding on the same street.

There were plenty of questions about this evil-looking black drone-like/stealth/Short TakeOff and Landing plane. First, are there any streets in downtown Honolulu which are straight enough to attempt these manoeuvres? Second, despite the fact that at the beginning of the show we saw a scene of a street with abandoned cars, there were no cars at all on the street where the plane landed and tried to take off. And finally, where did the plane come from? It's almost 4500 miles from Oahu to Russia. Did the plane come from an aircraft carrier somewhere? If so, why didn't local radar detect it? Or did the bad guys pick it up at the local Sinister Rent-a-Plane?

Relative to what else was going on in the show, I actually didn't mind the drone and related business, despite the general stupidity of things like the plane's landing and attempted take off. There was the usual clever deduction by Kono and an exciting shoot-up and takedown of the bad guys.

But the rest of the show was REALLY awful. When you get to 36 and a half minutes of the show with the crime of the week wrapped up and there are 7 and a half minutes left, you know there is a big problem.

Things were already bad at the beginning of the show, which had McGarrett and Danno taking part in an therapy session with a Governor-sanctioned psychologist which went on for almost four and a half minutes. It played like a "Previously on Hawaii Five-0..." segment where the two of them talked about how they got together, how they (don't) get along, and so forth.

As if that wasn't bad enough, we had a continuation of the Kono/Adam soap opera, which bookended the major story, starting with them acting lovey-dovey in a beach shower and ending with Kono thinking about becoming Adam's wife and concerned about their safety (so you know something horrible will be happening to them soon).

Then there was some baloney with Chin Ho visiting Gabriel, his brother-in-law in Halawa. You may remember Gabriel from S04E13 which, by the way, I had just watched a day before, confirming that this was one of the best Five-0 shows ever (also co-written by Lenkov and Solarz, the authors of this mess under discussion). When captured way back then, gang member-turned drug kingpin Gabriel offered Chin a bribe of $25 million to "walk away." Chin now wants Gabriel to sign an affidavit to the effect that he never received these funds, since HPD Internal Affairs still has a bug up their ass, as evidenced by some guy surveilling Chin at the beginning of the show as he is on his way to work in a shiny classic red Mustang, license number JGO 217. But you have to ask -- why would Chin have taken the money, unless it was just to stop him from killing Gabriel?

And then there are a couple of guys connected with Vintage Books, a store that Jerry was surveilling at the beginning of the show. They look at a picture of Jerry on one of their cel phones, saying words to the effect that if they can't figure out who he is, "this guy has be taken care of."

To top it off, the show closes with Danno finding some guy in his house who knew Danno's fugitive brother Matt. This guy, whose name is Marco Reyes (Anthony Ruivivar), says that the Matt "took something" that he wants Danno to help him get back. No doubt Gracie will be in peril again...

Puh-leeze, puhleeze!

Seriously, I almost fast-forwarded through the last 7 and a half minutes...

MORE TRIVIA:

• McGarrett's explanation for why they hired Kono during the opening session: "We needed a female and she fit the bill."
• Jonathan Redmond's driver's license (number 593A175) reveals his address to be 3127 Pawlonia Street, Wakpahu, HI 96797. His date of birth is 11/13/1986, the license is to expire on 03/22/2015. His stats: 5'10", 180 lb., brown hair, brown eyes. The number on the employee card for Venpax, his former employer, is 79331965. His Social Security number as per his HPD criminal record is 977-43-8744.
• The local company that the SRS's money ($500,000 to Redmond alone) was funnelled through was Mahahehi Textile at 94-103 Truman Street, Honolulu 96802.
• Could all the people on the beaches have really been evacuated into their hotel rooms, houses, and so forth in two hours? What was to stop the drone from killing people in some place other than the tourist traps?
• The color scheme of Oahu was far too green at the beginning of the show.
• Vintage Books is located very close to Tea at 1024 on 1024 Nuuanu Ave. in Honolulu. While talking to McGarrett and Danno while doing his surveillance of this store, the owner of which he suspects of counterfeiting, Jerry refers to McGarrett as "McGruff," the crime fighting dog.
• Inputting the GPS coordinates for Redmond's controlling location that Jerry takes off the drone into Google Maps (21.288824 N, 157.852856 W) produces a location which is in the ocean off Ala Moana Park.
• The original Five-O theme was heard briefly as the team arrived by helicopter at the Diamond Head shooting site at the beginning of the show.