RATING: 1-1/2 stars
Original air date: 10/17/14
Lots of people fawned over this episode, and Peter Lenkov, co-writer with Ken Solarz, almost broke his arm patting himself on the back because of what he thought of it. (Twitter: "Ending of 504, tonight's ep, is one of the best we've ever done. Career highlight for sure.")
I didn't find it that great.
The crime of the week was outlandish. Hit man Joseph Stegner (operating under the name Gordon Bristol, played by Lee Tergesen) comes to Hawaii, and, despite the fact he is kind of mild-mannered-looking, manages to overpower five law enforcement officers who detain him because he was carrying some heavy artillery in his suitcase.
Stegner escapes from the cops and is eventually tracked down by Five-0 using the usual security camera/facial recognition techniques. He is just about to be arrested when he is shot dead by another hit man, Nick Mercer (Timothy V. Murphy). Both of them work for the same Detroit mob family, the Bagosas. This has Five-0 scratching their heads since they can't understand why one hit man would take out another in this fashion.
Mercer, also known as Valentine (because "he has no heart," according to the mainland's Special Agent Chapman (Alysia Reiner)) was wounded by McGarrett when he shot Stegner. He commandeers an ambulance, leading to a chase by McGarrett and Grover in the Chevy Silverado, which performs in a rather gutless manner (not good P.R. for General Motors).
When finally captured, Mercer proves to be a hitman with a heart -- literally. He received a heart transplant after a car crash a while back, and suddenly had a major attitude change, finding himself unable to kill people as per orders from Albert Bagosa (Carmen Argenziano), boss of the crime family. Feeling unusually magnanimous towards his intended victims, Mercer set up an elaborate witness protection-like scheme which just happens to be located on the west side of Molokai (how convenient). All of the people he was paid to knock off are living in a LOST-like compound, far away from the prying eyes of the world. Stegner was coming to Hawaii to kill these people.
Word of Mercer's second near-death experience reaches his employer Bagosa, who arrives by jet on Molokai to the tune of "Taking Care of Business." He is accompanied by several well-armed thugs and all of them intend to wipe out the people in the secret compound. But Five-0 (and Mercer) beat them to this location and mess up their plans big time with the silly help of Jerry providing electronic "diversions." Mercer even stops Bagosa from killing McGarrett. But because Mercer was really a bad guy, he is taken away at the end of the show. Maybe he will get some kind of special consideration, despite the fact that he supposedly killed at least 100 people?
The big deal about this show getting Lenkov and others excited was the resolution of the business with Marco Reyes threatening Danno and his daughter over $18.5 million which Danno's brother Matt stole from him. The episode began with yet another "previously on Five-0," taking up a minute of time. I don't know why they have done this for the last two shows, but rarely did it otherwise, except for premiere episodes after the previous season's cliffhanger. Did someone finally figure out that if the show is in syndication, it might be difficult to follow these soap opera-like plots?
If the show hadn't already reached its quotient of preposterousness with the admittedly original crime of the week, I might have been a bit more sympathetic towards the conclusion of this Danno arc. But once again we have Jerry and Kamekona providing comic relief, Danno getting emotional, flapping his hands and talking to people while not looking at them, and Chin Ho finally getting $5.5 million to give Danno from his brother-in-law Gabriel (tsk tsk) in exchange for getting him moved to a better prison (Gabe isn't doing well in Halawa because he is tagged as being related to the cop Chin). This extra money is needed because, for some reason, Matt's money which Danno dug up last week was $5.5 million short of the $18.5 million Reyes had requested.
Danno and McGarrett fly off to Colombia to meet up with Reyes in some favela shithole (I thought they were going to just meet him on Oahu). They are taking the $18.5 million with them which, if it was in $100 bills, would weigh well over 400 pounds. Does their "immunity and means" extend to them, two white guys, arriving at a Colombian airport carrying this cash in huge bags? The reaction of the customs people and cops would probably be considerably greater than that of the law enforcement types who detained Stegner at the beginning of this show.
Reyes takes the money and "rolls out the barrel" which supposedly contains Matt's body (though we never actually see this). Predictably, this freaks Danno out and after he and McGarrett leave, there is the off-screen sound of fighting and gunshots when McGarrett (and Danno?) supposedly overpowers the guards (also heavily armed) who admitted them into Reyes' presence. Danno returns and puts a bullet into Reyes head ... in other words, committing murder (tsk tsk).
There is plenty of speculation as to where the show is heading now (and don't forget Chin has extra money floating around, since McGarrett and Danno will take the $18.5 million back, I am sure). Does this mean Scott Caan will be leaving the show or his character will be having yet more emotional turmoil in the future? Stay tuned...
MORE TRIVIA:
- Five-0 should get to the rifle range for some practice. It's the second show in a row where they can't shoot out the tires of an escaping vehicle, instead blasting the rear window.
- The closed captioning for this show was pretty funny (I was watching some of it on Global TV in Canada). Important dialogue was not translated, but things like "engine roaring" were.
- Jerry and Kamekona are both now seen surveilling Vintage Books outside the store, kind of a dumb move since both of them are now known to the store owners, Jerry because of his previous surveillance, and Kamekona because he sold the store a book from Jerry last week.
- Danno refers to Reyes as a "son of a bitch."
- Prior to Mercer hijacking the ambulance, he threatens its driver and his assistant after they offer to drive him to the Straub Clinic, a real Honolulu hospital.
- OK production values, good stunt work with "O'Loughlin" running between cars and up on to the hood of a cop car, music was nothing special, the episode was directed by Peter Weller.
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