Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 9 Review (S05E09) -- Ke Koho Mamao Aku (Longshot)

(S05E09) Ke Koho Mamao Aku (Longshot)
RATING: 2 stars
Original air date: 12/12/14

The thing I liked the most about this show was the change of scenery to the Big Island.

It began on the slopes of Mauna Loa where a Mars Rover-like device was cruising around the mountain while a guy in an astronaut suit tended to it in the midst of the barren Mars-like landscape. (This is connected to a real research project.) A cowboy, Keone Maka (Christopher Huffine) suddenly showed up and dropped dead, beginning the crime of the week.

With complications including cowboys, horses and a rodeo, much of the crime of the week was interesting, more so to me than the original show's low-key ninth-season rodeo episode Requiem for a Saddle Bronc Rider.

Investigating Maka's death, Five-0 talk to Al Mokuau (Ron Yuan), boss of the local rodeo, who suggests that Maka had trouble with Luke Pakele (Cody Easterbrook), a bull rider who was doping animals with steroids. They track down Pakele, who lives in the bizarre Kalapana Gardens where houses are constructed on a lava flow field. He is the red herring suspect who says that he was "pissed" at getting fired from the rodeo, but did not kill Maka. Maka's place has been trashed, and a vial of what turns out to be horse blood is found in a milk carton in the refrigerator. Maka made numerous phone calls to Jeff Harrison (Frank Ashmore), a trainer connected with Urban Myth, a Kentucky Derby horse which mysteriously disappeared on the mainland some time ago. Chin determines that Harrison is on the island, but when Danno and Kono arrive at his motel, Harrison collapses, foaming at the mouth. At the motel, Max and local medical examiner Sanjeet Dhawan (Ravi Patel) find a bottle which contains traces of liquid nicotine. The blood sample from Maka's fridge is also analyzed and determined to belong to Urban Myth. Five-0 figures that after the horse was stolen, it was taken to a stud farm on the island, and one of the 3 stud farms there happens to belong to Mokuau, the rodeo boss. Through Mokuau's financials, McGarrett discovers that a backhoe is to be delivered to a property Mokuau owns near Waimea, suggesting that he intends to kill the race horse and bury it. Quickly arriving at this location, Mokuau is put out of action and the case is closed.

For this episode, McGarrett stayed in Honolulu for meetings with the Governor and was on screen just a bit less than 20% of the time. Jerry was nowhere to be seen (yay!). Max, Danno and Grover flew to the Big Island, with Kono showing up soon after. Chin Ho held down the fort in the Five-0 offices.

On the negative side, the show was far too Max-centric. The show's resident geek became overly conflicted mere seconds after he stepped off the helicopter because of his previous relationship with Dhawan, who he had encountered at medical school. At one point, Max raised his voice louder than I ever recall hearing on the show, including the expression "son of a bitch" directed at Dhawan. All the fuss turned out to be over "a woman," specifically some Star Trek action figure of Yeoman Janice Rand the two had fought over years before. Seriously, there were times in this show when I felt like punching Max in the face.

Also on the annoying side was the cleverness and speed with which certain elements of the crime of the week were figured out, like how the blood from the refrigerator was tied in to the missing race horse and how the poison was determined to be liquid nicotine, a component of e-cigarettes -- not to mention the speed with which Five-0 got to Urban Myth's execution location.

And then there were issues with the kidnapped horse. How could Mokuau provide stud services with Urban Myth? Surely he would have to tell people the horse's name and background if he were to demand high fees! The fact that, as he said, "no one cared" about the horse and the fact that its owners had likely received an insurance payout didn't negate the fact that it was stolen.

The show's sub-plot had McGarrett cutting down a Christmas tree in a protected forest on Oahu because it was too expensive for Danno to buy one. This was dumb, aside from giving the two an excuse to bicker about something. But so was the related sub-plot of Officer Pua Kai (Shawn Thomsen) investigating this "crime." It seemed odd that the show's resident comic-relief cop would be the one chosen out of HPD's 2,000-plus officers to deal with this, especially considering his previous relationship with members of Five-0.

I'm sure McGarrett and Danno could get a smart lawyer to easily overturn the resulting $1200 citation, because Pua's "photo lineup" was highly prejudiced against the two of them. All of the guys in the lineup except McGarrett and Danno were tough-looking Hawaiian dudes. The woman who picked them out didn't have to work too hard, describing them as "two haoles."

More likely, though, they will use the usual "immunity and means" nonsense, but on what grounds? Maybe McGarrett could plead temporary insanity, saying "I had to cut the tree down because that freaking Danno was driving me crazy."

I thought it pretty funny at the end when Kamekona was leading the singing of "Silent Night" they cut the song similar to the way the Five-O theme is chopped during the show's end credits. To make up for this, there was an expansive arrangement of the Five-O theme near the beginning when Max, Grover and Danno arrived at the crime scene by helicopter.

MORE TRIVIA:

• Though the name of the astronaut at the beginning of the episode was not mentioned, his name in the end credits, Richard Royce, was the same as the character in the original show's 10th season episode Shake Hands With The Man On The Moon, about a washed-up astronaut involved with a sleazy real estate developer.
• Dhawan's license plate on his Volkswagen "Thing" (same car as Max was seen driving in the season two premiere episode) was SET4STN, i.e., "set for stun."
• Harrison's Los Angeles phone number is 323-555-0155. He used his credit card numbered 6159 4202 0073 2189 to buy a ticket to Honolulu on Palm West Airlines. The ticket cost $426.00. The "Awww" reconciliation between Harrison and his horse near the end of the show was strictly out of movies like My Friend Flicka and probably very appealing to the Facebook cat video crowd.
• Danno got to drive in this episode, and very, very fast, as they transported the poisoned Harrison to the hospital.
• When Five-0 arrives at Mokuau's Nakata Ranch, why do they have the sirens blaring? Surely there is no easier way to get a suspect to run (though Mokuau was not there).
• Watch at the very end of the show for Santa and his sleigh crossing the moon.