RATING: 2 stars
Original air date: 1/9/15
This episode was bland, with far too much cutesy-poo stuff, especially Kamekona getting involved in some Shrimpapalooza cook-off, being tutored Karate Kid-style by Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto and going up against Sam Choy (both real Hawaiian restaurateurs). Maybe this comic relief was to make up for the absence of Danno, who was nowhere to be seen. Jerry did appear, helping out Five-0 in the Takahamo Cleaning & Restoration truck, including running it into the bad guys at the end to stop them from escaping.
The crime of the week involved Lukas Janssen (Henri Lubatti), an art thief from Belgium, smuggling a stolen Van Gogh into Hawaii and, to avoid getting arrested, hiding the painting in the carry-on suitcase of Bryan Wallace (Gerald Downey), a father travelling to the islands with his family. After Wallace arrived and was settled in his hotel room and the rest of his family went down to the pool, he was shot by Janssen, who took back the painting. Janssen then used it as an entry ticket to meet local art collector Tom Emery (Casper Andreas) who offered similar valuable stolen paintings for sale to a select few in a back room of his Oahu mansion.
As usual there was something stupid in the script -- in this case, the fact the Janssen put the Van Gogh into the carry-on suitcase. Maybe someone would like to explain to me how he did this. Was the case beside the family in the pre-boarding area of the departure terminal or was it in the luggage space above the seats on the plane, where Janssen was sitting right next to them? In either case (no pun intended), wouldn't have someone SEEN Janssen open the suitcase (assuming it was not locked) and put the painting inside? Geez...
Acting undercover, Chin and Kono infiltrated a get-together at Emery's place with the help of geeky dealer Gerard Hirsch (Willie Garson), who was attending an art collectors' meeting and auction in Honolulu. (Kono, wearing slinky dresses, was -- as expected -- the "bait" to attract him.) Unfortunately, their cover was blown by Janssen and his technologically sophisticated associates, who took everyone at Emery's hostage and then attempted to escape with the paintings from the inner room, resulting in a ridiculous shootout outside the mansion which put the fleeing guests in great danger.
The other major guest star was English actress and Lost alumni Rebecca Mader playing Nicole Booth, an investigator for Bishop & Copley Insurance who was trying to track down the Van Gogh, supposedly worth $55 million (the painting seen in the show was based on one in real life).
Once again, out of all the cops at HPD, Officer Pua Kai (Shawn Thomsen) had some connection with Five-0. This was surprising, considering his antics two episodes earlier with the ticket he gave McGarrett and Danno for cutting down the Christmas tree. In light of this, I was surprised that Kono didn't have anything to say about working with him, but maybe this was counterbalanced by his confession that he was no longer interested in her and had found another girl friend (note to show producers: please spare us from encountering this woman in a future episode!). Pua appeared in the hotel's security room, trying to figure out via surveillance camera footage who attempted to kill Wallace, drawing on his former experience in S03E17 as a security guard at the Marriott Hotel. At Kono's direction, he managed to pull up a closeup of a tag on Wallace's suitcase that Janssen was taking out of the hotel. Do security cameras usually have such magnification?
The photography had plenty of tourist shots, plus quite a few closeups of McGarrett. The music was back to its usual nonsense, including far too much of the string pizzicato-like accompaniment.
MORE TRIVIA:
- Tom Emery's place was located at 1055 Olohua Road, Honolulu 96816. His driver's license, number 938H311, showed his date of birth as 08/22/1974 and was isued on 08/22/1998 with a 20-year span (according to various WWW sites I checked, the longest you can get a license for in Hawaii is 8 years). Emery was 5'11" and weighed 175 pounds.
- Janssen's Belgian passport number P3013GL showed his birthday to be 12.05.73. The passport was issued on 05.12.10.
- When Booth said she could get the schematics for Emery's high-tech house, she did so VERY quickly.
- Near the end of the show, when Janssen and his associates, using some radio frequency detector, figured out that Chin Ho was wearing glasses which not only contained a camera but a microphone, why didn't Jerry, who was monitoring the video and audio from these, just turn them off?
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