RATING: 3 stars
Original air date: 10/3/14
This episode featured a kidnapping, perhaps the most popular crime category on the show (see review of Powa, S01E17, where I noted that of the first 17 episodes of the reboot, 9 were about kidnapping). The show recycled some familiar tropes, including Kono as confessor to kids, Danno as a concerned, sympathetic father and the usual red herring plot.
This time, Sophie Larkin, the daughter of a US SEAL lieutenant in Afghanistan, is kidnapped during a performance at her school (the bogus Punaloa Academy). Suspicion is this has something to do with compromising the operation her father is on, but Vice Admiral Graham Rhodes (Patrick St. Esprit), previously seen in S04E16, denies this is the case.
It turns out that Maggie Porter (Ocean Riley), another girl who was hanging out with Sophie prior to their show, was the intended victim of the kidnapper. Her parents Eric (William Mapother, formerly seen on Lost) and Caroline (Natasha Henstridge) are wealthy manufacturers of children's products, including car seats.
One of their car seats was defective and caused the death of a two-year-old girl whose father, Jason Hollier (Brian White) conspired with his late wife's brother and sometime criminal Michael Wiley, paroled six months before, to commit the kidnapping. Wiley used the access card of a substitute teacher, Ben Sutor, to get in to the school, though there is no logic to this, since the school was open for parents attending the show. There is also no indication why Wiley chose Sutor to get the card. Sutor is later found murdered by Five-0. This all seems a rather grand scheme, considering Hollier is an amateur criminal and Wiley is not a particularly sophisticated one either.
When the Porters get a phone call saying their daughter has been kidnapped, despite the creepy-voiced caller telling them not to call the police, they immediately do, and McGarrett and Danno arrive without trying to downplay their presence. Later when the kidnapper phones with more instructions, he knows that the police are involved.
The Porters co-operate with the kidnapper(s). Caroline takes a ransom of $1.6 million to a location on the Manana Trail, but it turns out that Hollier isn't interested in the money. Instead, he wants to kill Caroline because of the anguish his daughter's death put him through. Caroline covered up evidence that the car seats were defective and, unknown to her husband (this is hard to believe, considering the legal paperwork that was generated), paid off Alan Pollard (Gareth Williams), the chief engineer at their company, to avoid a trial. Pollard designed the car seat and after it was in production he realized that it was likely to cause injury and told the Pollards. It is interesting that the amount of ransom Hollier asked for was $1.6 million, perhaps because Pollard, wracked with guilt, had recently offered to give Hollier all the money he had received, which was this amount. Hollier had refused it.
The show began and ended with scenes involving Marco Reyes, the sinister character played by Anthony Ruivivar, now identified as "a prominent realtor in Colombia," who wants Danno to help him get $18.5 million that Danno's brother Matt stole from him. Reyes says that Matt told him that Danno knows where this money is, which Danno does not.
This show was a major improvement over the previous week's. The child actors were very good. I didn't much like Jerry Ortega's comic efforts helping the Five-0 team, taking time away from Kono (Grace Park looked VERY good, incidentally). The photography was above average. The music had a few palatable moments, but also a couple of offensive pounding cues.
MORE TRIVIA:
- According to teacher Ben Sutor's driver's license which was numbered 843R342, his date of birth was 04/17/79, he was 6'1" and he weighed 210 pounds.
- There is product promotion for Skype, sponsor Microsoft's instant messaging client.
- When Kono delivers a laptop to the Porters' house via the fictional Palm Shipping and Delivery service, the package shows that their address is 3169 Halenal, Honolulu 96815. On the package there is what looks like a phone number -- 5553272347 -- and a tracking number: 28839029-4992-WTS.
- Jerry is seen in a silly scene using an EMF (Electromagnetic Field) reader which monitors "telekinetic activity ... ghosts." This is in his mother's house because she has moved out to Maui to be closer to her family. Jerry refers to his mother as "Moneypenny" and later describes McGarrett as "Captain America." The scary bald-headed guy from last week's premiere episode, connected with the bookstore Jerry was surveilling because of suspicions of counterfeiting, is seen outside the house keeping an eye on him.
- The crash that killed Hollier's daughter was on Route 93 which, according to Wikipedia, "is a major east–west highway on the island of Oahu which begins as Interstate H-1 terminates in Kapolei and ends at Kaena Point on the extreme northwest end of Oahu, just past Makaha. It is part of the Farrington Highway. As H1 ends near Kapolei and Ko Olina, it continues as a four lane, and then two lane highway up into the Waianae and Makaha area, the 'Leeward Coast,' of west Oahu."
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