Hawaii Five-0: Season 5, Episode 13 Review (S05E13) -- Lā Pō‘ino (Doomsday)

(S05E13) Lā Pō‘ino (Doomsday)
RATING: 3-1/2 stars

Original air date: 1/30/15

I liked this show, despite the fact that, if you think hard about it, much of it was pretty stupid. It was a total turn-off-your-brain, kick-ass episode, something we haven't seen for quite a while. In fact, I think this was the most kick-ass of any episode I've yet seen on Five-Zero, though my memory for past shows is not what it could be. The crime of the week took up the entire 44 minutes and there was a minimal amount of the usual "ohana" drivel.

The beginning of the show had a "holy fucking shit" moment. Joe White, now running a private security business, comes back to Hawaii accompanying Mitch Lange, a serviceman who has contracted H5N4, a deadly form of bird flu. Why Lange is isn't being taken to the mainland is a mystery, especially since it's later revealed there is no level 4 biosafety lab on Oahu where he could be treated.

McGarrett grudgingly meets Joe, expecting no doubt to be jerked around yet more by his former mentor with regards to issues concerning his mother. But Joe says that he is "not gonna duck [questions] anymore ... You want answers -- I'm here to give you answers." McGarrett is skeptical, describing his mother as "self-serving."

As they are on their way to Tripler Medical Center to give Lange a shot of serum which will cure his ails, complete with a hazmat team and a police escort, a giant wrecking ball hits McGarrett's car and several terrorist types appear out of nowhere and kidnap Lange. Both Joe and McGarrett seem to be seriously injured, but McGarrett hops on the motorcycle of some cop who got knocked off during the attack and follows the kidnappers' truck. Once he finds it, it is empty.

At the Five-0 offices, Nalani Dyer, the Honolulu Center for Disease Control station director, played in a rather matter-of-fact way by Clare Nono, gives the team the dope on Lange's malady, which has a very high mortality rate of 85% (actually 93.9% according to the stats Dyer rattles off, 1315 of 1400 infected people in the Philippines where the virus originated). Later, Dr. Jill Loi (Elaine Kao) at the University of Oahu tells Danno and Kono that if the virus reaches the general population, it will not only decimate everyone in Hawaii, but everyone in the entire world!

Five-0 later determines that Dr. Howard Rennick, head of virology at Oahu State University is somehow involved with the attack. When they arrive at Rennick's home, they have a firefight with terrorists, and they find Rennick's wife tied up in a closet. She tells them six men kidnapped her husband three days ago.

Despite the fact that Dyer said it would be difficult to set up a level 4 lab, the bad guys got Rennick to order $30,000 worth of laboratory equipment with his credit card and all these supplies were delivered to Oahu and set up on some farm in the middle of nowhere (Hau'ula) ... within the last three days!

Not only that, Michael Carson (Mikal Vega), the guy in charge of this operation, a former CIA agent who went rogue years before and recruited various mercenary types from Yugoslavia, Albania and Russia to help him, is able to test the virus, which will be distributed with bees who have powder extracted from Lange's infected blood on their wings using a process called lyophilization (freeze-drying).

Everyone suddenly becomes very clever. McGarrett realizes that charred burlap and pine needles found in the nostrils of one of the terrorists he shot dead during the initial attack is something associated with a "bee smoker," a device used in beekeeping to calm honey bees. Chin Ho cross-checks spikes in power (a level 4 lab needs a lot of electricity) with addresses where bees have been purchased or sold recently.

Five-0 arrives at the farm in the middle of nowhere and has yet another shoot-out with the rest of the terrorists, but a "Waimea Honey Company" truck full of bees manages to head to downtown Honolulu to do damage. Joe White manages to get on the truck and is involved in various mind-bending stunts, including driving the truck off a dock in a manner highly reminiscent of the show Hookman in order to neutralize the virus-laden insects.

The show ends with McGarrett and Joe sort of friendly, but McGarrett is still suspicious that Joe is hiding something. I am predicting in my Nostradamus manner the dreaded double-M (McGarrett's mom) will be appearing soon, or at least her story thread will come to an end.

MORE TRIVIA:

• Hau'ula, the location of the farm, really is "in the middle of nowhere." According to Google maps, it would take over an hour to get to Honolulu if you wanted to drive a truck off a dock there.
• I'm sure the shots of the huge cargo plane landing at the beginning of the show, containing Lange and the hazmat team, have been seen before in some other episode.
• Rennick's employee number on his O‘ahu State University identity card is OSU20-00457. O‘ahu is spelled incorrectly with an apostrophe rather than an okina (yes, I know ... I spell it wrong all the time too!).
• As Joe White is driving the truck full of bees off the dock, he says "The only easy day was yesterday," the motto of the Navy SEALs.
• Considering how deadly this H5N4 is, it's disturbing how McGarrett opens the empty truck which contained Lange's body at the beginning of the show and the way the Five-0 team stands around looking at Lange being removed from the farm at the show's end.
• There are episodes of the original Five-O with vaguely similar themes:
  • Episode 30 -- Sweet Terror -- A terrorist wants to wipe out the Hawaiian sugar cane industry with a fungus so countries will have to buy their sugar from a certain "island" (Cuba, which is not specifically named).
  • Episodes 46 & 47 -- Three Dead Cows at Makapuu -- A microbiologist who develops a "biological mutation hostile to all forms of life on earth" comes to Hawaii where he intends to unleash this deadly substance and wipe out all life on Hawaii as a protest against the evils of biological warfare and show that "the world is on the brink of a terrible catastrophe."
  • Episode 188 -- A Killer Grows Wings -- A sleazy land developer introduces harmful insect larva into the sugar cane crop on a woman's ranch because he wants her to sell the place to him for peanuts so he can develop a $30 million resort village.
• Bad words: "You weren't really born a crazy son of a bitch" (Grover to McGarrett); "I bet that pissed you off" (Joe to McGarrett).
• When McGarrett tells Joe about his last encounter with Wo Fat where he found out about his mother covering up the murder of Wo's mother, he says "that was a crime." This is pretty funny, considering some of the hijinks he and the Five-0 team have gotten away with in the last five years.
• The February 2nd episode of the CBS show NCIS: Los Angeles is also featuring bioterrorism!
• By the end of the show, we never find out what really motivated Carson, the boss of the operation. Was he trying to ransom someone (like the government) or what?