Hawaii Five-0 (2010) -- Season 3 Episode Reviews

INCLUDING ODDITIES, GOOFS AND TRIVIA

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RATINGS:
★★★★ = One of the very best episodes, a must-see.
★★★ = Better than average, worthy of attention.
★★ = Average, perhaps with a few moments of interest.
★ = Below average, a show to avoid.

1. (S03E01) La O Na Makuahine (Mother’s Day) ★★
Original air date: 9/24/12

This episode was very disappointing and predictable with a paint-by-numbers plot. The screenplay was by executive producer Peter Lenkov, who was involved with the premiere and finale episodes for each of the two previous seasons.
As speculated on some fan sites, Adam Noshimuri, who was tipped off by Chin Ho, came to the rescue of Kono after she was dumped over the edge of Toothpick's boat. But considering Kono had a couple of minutes to live, where would Adam in his dinghy have to have been in order to find her? Right beside Toothpick's boat! And surely Toothpick would have made Adam look like Swiss cheese! How else can you explain this? Was Kono dragged miles underwater by some mysterious current in a couple of minutes? And, if so, how would Adam know where to find her. Stupid!
Malia, Chin Ho's wife, succumbed to her injuries, which produced some intense emoting by Daniel Dae Kim (one of the few good things about the show, along with Grace Park/Kono's sad looks). Of course, this meant that Frank Delano, responsible for Malia's demise, would be knocked off by Chin later, and guess what ... he was! (Delano, shooting back at Chin, couldn't hit the side of a barn door.) Toothpick was also shot dead by Kono, who did some fancy stunt work jumping on to the hood of his car.
And then there was Wo Fat, who escaped from jail AGAIN ... this time thanks to a ridiculous stunt with a claw-like device lifting the prison transport vehicle, similar to an armored car, taking him to the airport on the way to a Supermax prison on the mainland. This was highly reminiscent of James Bond, as was the following scene where the truck was dropped into the ocean and a couple of frogmen torched their way into the truck in a few seconds, murdered the two guards and helped Wo to escape to a ramshackle freighter nearby, which was nowhere to be seen as the truck plunged into the drink.
There were lots of questions to ask about this sequence and those which followed. Like how heavy was the prison truck and how big a helicopter would be necessary to lift it up? Who was paying for all of this? Delano? Delano told Wo that he needed to get his hands on $35 million worth of meth in the evidence room at HPD in order to make money. Delano then orchestrated some incredible scheme where he got five maintenance men to show up at a house owned by a woman who provided him with a van he was using to get around town. These men were promptly murdered and replaced by five of Delano's associates who went to HPD headquarters impersonating them, to clean up the mess from the bombing of the station seen in the previous show last year ... but, in actuality, to grab the meth. When these men beat it from HPD, they were followed by Five-0 and the cops, ending in an intense firefight on the streets of Honolulu, highly reminsicent of the film "Heat."
I did not like the character of Mrs. McGarrett at all. She has been secretly living for the last how many years in a very nice house in Japan (though Joe White had no trouble finding her). During McGarrett's younger years, she was a school teacher, but actually a spy working for some unnamed agency (presumably the CIA)! Among other things, she knocked off Wo Fat's father and escaped two assassination attempts by the PLO? Puh-leeze, puh-leeze! Although she was very apologetic to her son after they first met, as soon as she got back to Hawaii with him she started to have serioua attitude problems, getting all smart-mouthy with Danno in a cargument where she accused him of being "afraid of commitment." Terrible! Wo Fat confronted Ma McGarrett at the end, and shots were heard, but Wo left, presumably by the second-floor window, and the episode ended with some big questions about whether she had let him escape.
The music in this show was unbelievably bad. Other production values like the photography were, as expected, OK. Alex O'Loughlin looked VERY good (fit and healthy)!
MORE TRIVIA:
The episode has a new main title sequence, now including Michelle Borth.
Talking about how Danno's ex-wife might take Gracie to Vegas, McGarrett told him, "I thought you liked Vegas," perhaps an in-joke referring to Scott Caan's appearance in the three "Oceans" movies.
McGarrett used a bluetooth in his ear in this show rather than a cel phone -- maybe someone is finally clueing into the unsafe way he is driving.
The address of the woman connected with Delano, Maria Gold, who never appeared on the show, was 4319 Hilahila Road, Honolulu 96819.
Danno's new ringtone is "Evil Woman" by Electric Light Orchestra.

2. (S03E02) Kanalua (Doubt) ★★
Original air date: 10/1/12

The guest star on this show was Ed Asner, returning after his stint last season, again as August March, who "ran with one of the largest smuggling networks in the world." Overall, this was another disappointing show because of mediocre writing, resulting in a confusing plot and inconsistent characterization.
The crime of the week was a robbery of $30,000 worth of lithographs from the Momi Art Gallery located in the Aloha Tower Marketplace. One of the robbers, George Solani (Valen Ahlo) is wounded by an HPD cop and dies, but the other two escape in a hyper-powered car made up to look like a taxi and driven by ex-stock car driver Tyler MacNamara who successfully evades Five-0 and cops from HPD who are in pursuit. MacNamara was forced into this scheme because his young daughter Karen (Jasmine Stiefel) was kidnapped by the crooks, and after his job is finished, he is murdered and his body torched in the car in the middle of nowhere.
Figuring that someone is going to act as a fence for the stolen artwork, McGarrett and Danno ask March for assistance in cracking the case, like he provided in last season's episode. After telling them that he will "make some inquiries," March goes to visit Kimo (Akiu Sale), an enforcer type, asking for a favor. Shortly after this, March leads McGarrett and Danno to a warehouse on Sand Island owned by two "bad news" dudes, Matt and Tony Kapule, but one of the brothers is dead, and the second expires moments later. A picture from one of their cel phones shows one of the brothers in the Momi Gallery, where a couple of other works of art not accounted for are seen. It turns out that these are very valuable original paintings which were stolen by the grandfather of the gallery's current owner, Karl Strathern (Adam Kaufman), on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack 70 years before.
McGarrett and Danno confront Strathern after a high-speed chase with a spectacular finale, and he tells them that he was being extorted for a large sum of money over the "family secret" regarding these paintings. A fingerprint on one of the paintings turns out to be March's, and a gun recovered from March's apartment has links to both the assassination of the Kapule brothers and Angela Branson, the woman involved in diamond smuggling in last season's show. March tries to pretend he is not connected to any of this, but McGarrett and Danno aren't buying, and finally March says he will lead them to Karen, MacNamara's kidnapped daughter.
After taking them to a location on the Pali Highway, March escapes on to the freeway, where he commits suicide by putting himself in the path of an oncoming truck. Five-0 manages to figure out where Karen is located thanks to thermal imaging and a brainstorm from McGarrett. The show ends with a sucky beers-on-the-beach where McGarrett's girl friend Catherine, who has been snooping around at McGarrett's request, reveals to him that his mother did not leave Oahu as seen on the previous show, but is still there, in hiding.
I think Ed Asner's appearance on the show, both this year and last, took its inspiration from a couple of episodes of the original series starring Hume Cronyn as insurance investigator and master of disguise Lewis Avery Filer. He engaged in an amusing cat-and-mouse game with McGarrett and the Five-0 team while robbing commercial establishments like jewellery stores and money exchanges. The first appearance of the Filer character on the old show -- a classic episode -- was charming and funny, but then they brought him back for another episode the next season, and the character was no longer charming, but annoying, and the writing for that episode was crappy compared to the first one.
In the first Asner episode of the new show, his character, August March, was cantankerous but wary, not opening his mouth too much -- maybe because Captain Fryer (Tom Sizemore) was there and he was much more no-nonsense than Alex O'Loughlin's McGarrett. But in this second episode, March's character was far too cocky, and he gave Danno far too much mouth in a Danno-like fashion. As well, he was seen hanging around with criminal low-lifes like Kimo and being very sloppy with regard to his fingerprints, his gun, and so forth.
You also have to wonder if March really would commit suicide if all his options had run out, even though he was old and said that he did not want to go back to jail. Supposedly we are to accept this as part of his character, that he would come up with such a "diabolical" idea to totally screw around with Five-0's investigation, but it instead it just seemed like an easy way of getting rid of him.
The CGI when March got run over, by the way, was mediocre, and the way this scene was staged was dumb. When March, McGarrett, Danno and the cops all stop, they are not on the freeway, they are on a street beside the freeway. As McGarrett and Danno go towards the place where Karen is supposedly kidnapped (actually not), March looks towards the highway, then mere seconds later, there is a screeching of tires. You then see March standing, looking back towards McGarrett and Danno and the truck runs over him from left to right. Some people thought March got hit by a bus, but it is not a bus, it is a semi trailer with a container on the back which you see after the commercial as the cops are talking to the driver. In order to get on the freeway like he did, March would have had to walk on to the freeway and turn around. At the pace he was walking, and surely it would have taken time to get to this position, anyone coming down the freeway would have likely seen him and would have stopped and/or swerved to avoid him.
Then there is the issue of whether March masterminded the whole robbery and extortion scheme. It is very odd that March identifies Kimo as his "former associate." What does he mean by this? March has been in jail for 30 years, not counting the time since the previous episode. Kimo surely isn't that old. I doubt if he is over 50. After he goes to see Kimo, March takes a ride with McGarrett and Danno to the Kapule brothers' house (who are now dead -- killed by March). March knows that the Kapule brothers are involved in all this, even though McGarrett and Danno didn't mention their names when they were talking to him on the beach, because at that point, they didn't know their names. The logic of all this escapes me. Were the Kapules in this with March from the beginning, and he was taking his revenge because they double-crossed him, for example?
Don't get me going on the scene in the pool hall with Michelle Borth and Carlos Bernard (Tony Almeida from "24"). Michelle Borth is very nice to look at and I think she is a much better actress than the main distraction last season, but this little scene playing pool was stupid. McGarrett asked his girl friend to help find his mom. So suddenly out of nowhere, she is flirting with Bernard, whose character is "Witsec Agent Chris Channing." How she knew how to find this guy and figured out what his job is, is a big mystery. Witsec means Witness Protection Program, and she throws a bunch of questions at Channing to figure out what the password to his government account could be. His answers contain a bunch of possible stereotypical passwords like his dog's name, the street where he lived as a kid (this is the one that works) and so forth. Surely an agent like this would not use such a password. Then Catherine logs on to Channing's account via the laptop in her car to see if McGarrett's mother is hiding out somewhere on Oahu under the auspices of the program. And guess what -- she is! DUH!!
The story began and ended with Chin Ho grieving over the loss of his wife, Malia. This again showcased Daniel Dae Kim's great acting, which is the main reason this episode's rating isn't lower than it is.
MORE TRIVIA:
At the beginning where Kamekona is blowing on a conch shell, I thought he was "walking on the water" in the area where the funeral ceremony was being held! But it turns out he is just standing near the shoreline.
The robbery at the beginning is mentioned as being on Ala Moana Boulevard, but the Aloha Tower is actually a block or so from this street.
Danno was much more annoying than usual, referring to McGarrett as "Kreskin ... the Great McGarrett" and also telling his boss "Our marriage has become predictable." When he tried the same kind of sarcasm on Max at the scene with the torched car, Mac turned around and made a noise like a game show buzzer back at him which totally freaked Danno out.
March described McGarrett and Danno as "you two nudniks," a Yiddish word meaning "A pestering, nagging, or irritating person; a bore."
Kono was not having a good day trying to get information out of two criminals (Solani and one of the Kapule brothers) who expired before they could tell her anything.
Matt Kapule has the following aliases: Tony Aukai, Tony Keohokapu, Frank Halemano, Anakoni Nuuanu and Kekoa Waiwalole.
When McGarrett shows the picture of the dead Solani on the floor of the art gallery to March, a bag which was right beside Solani's head is not seen.
The final closeup of March when he is being grilled in the blue-lit room makes him look totally diabolical.

3. (S03E03) Lana I Ka Moana (Adrift) ★½
Original air date: 10/8/12

I really wanted to like this show. It sounded different, vaguely similar to Alfred Hitchcock's film Lifeboat where people are marooned, afloat on a boat. Not to say that the new Five-0 is in this league -- the story for the classic film was by John Steinbeck, after all. But McGarrett and Danno's adventure on the high seas which took up most of the first half of the show was awful, despite the outstanding color photography and interesting direction.
The problem? Danno's constant Odd Couple whining, which went on non-stop. This was so bad that a friend of mine told me he fast-forwarded through most of it, something he has never done before with the new show. Why does McGarrett bother even taking Danno out on a fishing expedition, considering what will likely happen? Awful, awful, awful! For an example of Danno-on-the-rag, this was by far the worst yet.
As the story begins, McGarrett and Danno are out on the ocean in the middle of nowhere catching tuna. A guy named Gil Scates (Todd Stashwick) appears in a dinghy, like he is in need of rescue. He pulls out a gun and makes the Five-0 duo jump into the drink. Before he leaves in their boat (which actually belongs to Chin Ho's uncle), Scates shoots holes in the dinghy. McGarrett promptly repairs these using some technique involving a plastic gas line that I can't understand. There are scares with a shark as McGarrett attempts to tow the boat to shore. Eventually, the two of them come across a dysfunctional yacht containing the dead body of one Al Burgess, all of which they correctly assume was connected with the fleeing Scates. The Coast Guard eventually picks up McGarrett and Danno, and promptly handcuffs them because they are on this yacht with a dead body and lacking any identification.
Once they get back on land, it's the usual red herring case, with them tracking down Scates, who is very, very dumb. Why does he just resume life as before, living in his old apartment and shopping at the usual stores, when his fingerprints were all over Burgess's boat? There is an interesting but preposterous stunt where Scates knocks the pursuing Chin Ho over the side of a building and Chin is hanging on for dear life. Kono, who was away from the scene briefly, returns, and notices Chin. She rushes up to the top of the stairs after some kick-ass moves immobilizing Scates who is trying to escape and manages to pull Chin back up. Can you believe this? Grace Park is definitely a lightweight, and when she is leaning over the edge, you would think that Chin would pull her down for sure.
Brainstorming by Chin Ho and Kono point to the involvement of Burgess's wife Katie (Cynthia Watros) in the crime, hiring Scates to knock off her husband, who was seeking a divorce. Considering she was reportedly the only other person than her husband with access to the yacht, she is suspected of screwing up the boat's engines ("a water intake valve was intentionally damaged") so that Scates would be caught on the high seas, a patsy for her husband's murder. But how could Katie do this? Would she have had this kind of technical knowledge considering it's suggested she and her husband rarely used the boat.
Scates was a rent-a-cop security guard working in Burgess's neighborhood who was fired because he was acting inappropriately, meaning he was stalking Katie, according to Burgess's sister Jenny (Julie McNiven), who is always around. You have to wonder how Katie would have contacted Scates after he was fired. It's implied that Scates had hot pants for Katie, maybe so much so that he wouldn't have had any bad feelings about his dismissal. Katie must have really given him a line to get him to co-operate with her plan! More likely, he was just very stupid. This is confirmed by the dumb responses Scates gives to McGarrett and Danno in the blue-lit room after he is caught. As well, Scates co-operates with McGarrett and Danno in entrapping Katie, presumably to lessen his own sentence, which would probably get the case against Katie thrown out of court later.
But Katie is dumb, too. Her relationship with Jenny is "edgy," so why does she invite Jenny to her house when she knows the police are showing up with bad news? Kono totally picks up on the negative vibes between the two. (This scene was backed by the usual banal "accompaniment to a police interview regarding someone who died" music.)
At the end, Five-0 rushes to Burgess's house to arrest Katie, but Jenny, taking revenge for her brother's death, knocks her off first. Once again, the crime and its resolution turns out to be incidental to the story line, leading to another sucky beers-on-the-beach ending, with the team gobbling down a tuna fish that Danno caught and Kamekona prepared.
MORE TRIVIA:
McGarrett complains to Danno about contaminating the crime scene on Burgess's yacht. But he opens the door leading down into the yacht's cabin, he turns the key which starts the boat and picks up the radio to try and call for help!
In this show, we learn why Danno didn't like the water -- some childhood friend of his drowned because of a rip tide while trying to rescue Danno -- not that this detracts from Danno's fingernails-on-a-blackboard ranting.
There were big issues raised by McGarrett's girl friend Catherine. First, McGarrett denied Catherine was his "girl friend" to Danno early on in the show. This may just have been an issue of semantics, though. Later on, Catherine is seemingly a member of Five-0, wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a gun (the latter similar to Joe White when he was around last season), helping the team kick down doors to check out Scates' apartment, for example. According to one WWW site, this is totally inappropriate considering Catherine's status with the navy. At least Michelle Borth was very hot as usual -- why, oh why, couldn't we have had her last season instead of Lori?
When McGarrett and Danno return, Max is there to greet them along with the other team members, and he offers Danno some "unguent" containing aloe for his sunburn. What was the point of this scene? Stupid!
We are told that Burgess' wife would inherit "millions," but the fact that he was rich was never established earlier. (Yes, I know they live in a nice house, but ...)
Kono says she checked with a law firm that Burgess contacted regarding a divorce from his wife. She says "according to the suits [presumably the lawyers at the firm], the pre-nup would have left her with nothing." What about lawyer/client confidentiality? If this pre-nup is on the public record, why mention "suits" in connection to it?
O'Loughlin as McGarrett wears a wacky hat, perhaps a tribute to some of the unusual headgear that Jack Lord sported during the original show's run. Someone tweeted me that on the night of the show's broadcast, executive producer Peter Lenkov sent a message on Twitter which shows Lord wearing one of his hats -- http://twitpic.com/b2ad6y -- suggesting it is the exact same hat. But it is not. Compare to http://fiveohomepage.com/images/aol-hat.jpg.

4. (S03E04) Popilikia (Misfortune) ★★ BOOK 'EM, DANNO
Original air date: 10/15/12

This episode was better than the previous one (not much), but once again I have to say "How could it be worse?" There were some interesting characters, verging on "rich folks from seasons 10-12 of the original show" territory, and the usual twisted red herring plot wasn't particularly difficult to follow. There was even a cargument of sorts between Kono and Danno -- though Danno wasn't paying much attention to the road ahead. On the other hand, there was sloppy writing and far too much soap opera with McGarrett's "mawm" who reappeared at the beginning of the show, confirming that she got the Witness Protection Services plane to return to Oahu, because she was very "persuasive."
With all due respect to Christine Lahti's performance as Doris, Ace of Spies, the character of McGarrett's mother is totally unbelievable. No person in their late 50's or early 60's (as I assume she is) would carry on the way she does. This is a middle-aged person filtered through a 30-year-old writer, acting smart-alecky like this is a situation comedy and coming up with totally unrealistic comments for someone of this age like "Your security system sucks." After living in seclusion in Japan, she now is "tired of running" and suddenly wants to forget about her past, saying "I just want to live my life ... I've already given him [Wo Fat] too much of my life." But as she appeared at very public places during the show, I kept thinking, "Who has her in their sights with a long-range rifle?"
The show began with Nicole Carr (Arielle Kebbel) getting a not-very-positive Tarot reading in Honolulu's Chinatown from Madame Esmerelda (Bai Ling), as her skeptical boyfriend, polo player Billy Keats (Robbie Amell) waited. Much of the dialogue in this sequence was incomprehensible due to the psychic's accent and the awful sound mix. Cut to the polo field, where Billy was practising. As he rode between the goal posts, his head suddenly left his body in a gory, but well-executed scene with much better CGI than seen earlier this season (the claw grabbing Wo Fat's truck, for example).
Five-0 is quick to investigate, with Max giving a dramatic demonstration of how the decapitation was accomplished -- by a thin razor-sharp wire strung between the goal posts. McGarrett immediately points out this is a "garroting wire," despite the fact that garroting does not involve decapitation, but strangulation. Max says, "the placement ... took into account the victim's height, as well as his daily schedule" ... not to mention the assumption that Billy would ride between the goal posts and he would not be slouched over at the time. If this was the old show, McGarrett would have said, "I want every medical supply house on the island checked to see who bought any of this wire recently," and the crime would have been solved quickly -- assuming that this fictitious wire could be purchased at a medical supply house or, perhaps, a store catering to spies. But no one even thinks about doing this! DUH!
Once again, Kono does the interview with the victim's friend, and Nicole tells her that Madame Esmerelda predicted that she would be "touched by death." Kono and Danno visit Chinatown, where the fortune teller offers to give them information for a price after Kono tells her to cut the B.S. This produces a real laugh-out-loud line when Kono tells Danno to pay Esmerelda $50, saying "You make more money than I do." Esmerelda tells them that Billy received a call during the reading (though it wasn't a voice call, but a text message), it made him nervous, she could see the caller ID and it was someone named "Al." How she could do this is difficult to understand, considering that she was sitting down and Billy was turned away from her, standing several feet away.
An examination of Billy's bank account shows that he was getting paid a lot of money from his former polo team, managed by "Al" Reingold. Also on Reingold's payroll was a fishy veterinarian in Nevada who was involved with doping horses with dermorphin, a real performance-enhancing drug, usually used at race tracks. When McGarrett and Danno confront Reingold at the polo field where a game is in progress, he bolts across the field, almost getting crushed by one of the horses. Back in the blue-lit room, Reingold admits to being involved with doping, but not murder.
A footprint with a logo from the polo club leads to "billionaire mogul guy" and owner of the Diamond Head Polo Club, Spencer Madsen (Jere Burns) and his wife Amanda (Sarah Finley). Both of these actors were well cast. The father had a shell-shocked look about him, a man who had worked hard to become rich, but also someone who had his balls seriously broken by his wife in more ways than one (as we find out). The blonde wife was a real piece of work who totally exuded bitchiness. As the Madsens are co-operating with Five-0, their son Jake (Guy Wilson), suddenly appears, and is freaked out about Billy's demise because he had switched practice times with Billy.
Later, further investigation by Five-0 reveals that ten years before, Jake was kidnapped for ransom and his finger cut off and delivered to his parents, similar to the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, who lost an ear. One of the two kidnappers, Randy Thorpe (Jake Dimich) has just been released on parole and has disappeared from his halfway house. Kono, who is leaving Madsen's house after viewing security video footage from the polo field, is ordered back to the place. Just as she arrives, the SUV that Amanda and Jake are about to get into is destroyed in a fiery explosion.
Thorpe is tracked down to the Paradise Motel via his credit card (dumb!) and when McGarrett and Danno bust in to his room, he leaps out the window in a stunt highly reminiscent of the old show's episode "Most Likely to Murder" (thanks to Jeff). Under interrogation, Thorpe admits to planting the bomb that blew up the SUV, but doesn't know who was behind the scheme, because, as usual, his contacts were through the Internet, money was deposited in a bank account, and so forth. When Thorpe says that he is glad that he finally got back at the kid who was responsible for him being put in jail, McGarrett punches him in the face.
McGarrett talks to Charlie Fong, who is doing forensics work on the SUV. Because it will take too long to process through HPD's facilities, McGarrett takes a sample of the explosive that blew up the car and gets his girl friend Catherine to run it by some of her Navy contacts, producing results in a ridiculously short time. Like in the previous episode, where McGarrett chewed out Danno for contaminating a crime scene, the chain of evidence for this explosive is totally destroyed! Fong determines that the trigger phone that blew up the car was in the passenger door of the car, intended for Amanda and Amanda's phone contains pictures of her together with Billy, the "headless horseman," suggesting the two of them were having an affair.
After Amanda is smothered to death in her hospital room where she is recovering from her wounds, video security footage is reviewed and her killer is revealed to be Jake. A further interview with his father brings forth some information that was not revealed during the original kidnapping investigation. For example, Amanda didn't want to pay the $20 million ransom for Jake (again, parallels to the Getty kidnapping). More recently, Spencer didn't do anything about her affair, something he regrets. Thus, Jake, who presumably knew or found out about all this, was "so angry" that he ended up killing his mother. Jake is apprehended as he is practising at the polo grounds with a well-placed shot to the shoulder by McGarrett.
The show ends disappointingly with yet another beers-on-the-beach, this time including Mom McGarrett, leaving us with the mystery of why Wo Fat escaped still unsolved.
MORE TRIVIA:
The whole grandiose scheme that Jake thought up (razor wire, cel phones, C4, anonymously hiring the guy who kidnapped him, etc.) seemed really beyond his capabilities in terms of planning it and purchasing all the components (yes, I know he is super rich, which may have helped him pull strings...).
Considering how intense the explosion of the SUV seems, it's amazing that Amanda would have survived at all.
Do they have an announcer doing play-by-play for the crowd at polo matches? Maybe just at American polo matches?
The music at the beginning as the camera circled around the Nicole preparing Billy's horse was actually interesting, as it was later when McGarrett's mother was opening the toolbox to reveal a film canister containing microfilm, where it was reminiscent of "Lost."
The second kidnapper of Jake, who died in prison, was named James Foskett. Thorpe was released from jail on 08-09-2012.
Billy's bank account number at the Bank of Oahu is 000618 9656412, and the current balance is $25,273.25. There is no date on the statement seen by the Five-0 supercomputer, it just says "90 days."
Another good line from the encounter with Esmerelda, when she suggests that "This relationship [Danno and Kono] is very strong and will yield many children."
Product placement (coco puffs) from the Liliha Bakery again.

5. (S03E05) Mohai (Offering) ★★
Original air date: 11/5/12

Another disappointing episode that I would have liked to like more than I did.
The beginning, with an HPD cop finding a smashed up car on a middle-of-nowhere road on Hallowe'en night, was full of creepy atmosphere, and I said to myself, "What a great production team they have on the show to come up with a scene like this." But then the story cut away to the psycho villain of the piece cutting up a woman in his basement torture chamber in a scene strictly out of "Saw" or "Hostel," continuing the grossness from the previous show with its decapitation.
There was also some "cute" writing in the show in McGarrett's efforts to get laid while watching one of the "Chucky" horror movies with his girl friend and some scenes with Danno's daughter. But this kind of writing was more appropriate to a situation comedy, not a police procedural.
After the teaser, Danno arrives at McGarrett's place, interrupting the make-out session, to complain bitterly that Gracie had abandoned him to go trick or treating on her own. There was a pretty obvious explanation for why she did this -- because of the shitty experience she had the previous year with the guy in the motel offering her mini-bottles of booze and her father's over-reaction to this! Kamekona was also featured in this opening sequence, seemingly borrowing a SEAL outfit from McGarrett. But would McGarrett have a Kamekona-sized jacket sized 6XL in his closet?
As usual, the light-hearted beginning of the show is interrupted by a call to duty, and when McGarrett and Danno arrive at the scene of the smashed-up car, they are told by Chin Ho that a pickup truck nearby was used to run the car off the road (strictly speaking, it was not off the road, but overturned in a spectacular fashion). Since the driver of neither vehicle is found nearby, Chin speculates that whoever forced the car off the road had an accomplice or had a car stashed near the accident scene. I don't buy the latter, though. How would the truck driver know exactly where he would accomplish his goal?
The credit card of Lisa Heller (Stefaney Rant), the driver of the car, was used by a bum released from jail very shortly before, and he is arrested, dragged into the blue-lit room and questioned. This is a red herring, which leads to an alley where Lisa's body is located. At the morgue, Max discovers that several of her vital organs have been removed and that whoever cut them out made no effort to preserve them, thus discounting the possibility of some body-parts racket. He also finds an imprint on Lisa's body made from the knife which killed her. This reveals an unusual symbol connected with the occult that leads Chin and Kono to a shop dealing with in Satanic and Wiccan merchandise where the clerk is a very hot Asian woman with tattoos.
Back at the office, Kono reads Lisa's e-mail using her usual amazing Supercomputer powers, and discovers Lisa went to a party at an abandoned house on Hallowe'en night, again in the middle of nowhere. When McGarrett and Danno arrive at this house, they find a stoner named Jesse Hills (Chris Coy) passed out. He shows them a video of the party that he made where Lisa was being groped by Lucas Hayes (Jordan Matlock) and pursued by a mysterious character dressed in a goat's head as the two of them left.
Cut to the basement torture chamber where Lucas is caged up, pleading for his life in an operatic manner which goes on and on. Twenty-five minutes in to the show, we finally get to see the bad guy, who is Seth Tilton (Christopher Marquette). He lives with his grandmother Helen, played by Lee "Catwoman" Meriwether, in a Norman Bates-like relationship.
The way Five-0 connects to Seth is stupid. They try to determine if there were any other killings of an occult, sacrificial nature around Hallowe'en in previous years. There are no results. So Kono does a search based on traits ascribed to serial killers. Danno even blurts out "serial killers -- they start small." Except their suspect is not a serial killer -- they just proved it. A serial killer has to kill at least three people and there were no killings. They find Seth because he was cruel to animals (one of the traits), which is a very long shot. (The other traits are someone who starts fires or someone who wets the bed.)
Back at Seth's place, Lucas manages to escape from the cage, and is trying to call the police when he is stabbed in the back by Granny Helen with a knitting needle. When Seth comes home, Lucas is lying on the floor, semi-conscious, and Seth pulls the needle out of him and drags his body to his car through the house, leaving a huge trail of blood.
McGarrett and Danno, acting on Kono's research, soon arrive at Helen's place, where the old lady is arrested and taken away. On her way to the police station, she fakes a heart attack and when the officer driving the car tries to help her, she pulls his gun out of his holster and kills him. She phones her grandson (using what -- her cel phone or the officer's?) and tells Seth that it's all over. Shortly after when the Five-0 duo arrive, she shoots herself in the head.
Tracking the cel phone, it's determined that Seth is somewhere near the Heiau (sacrificial altar) at Pupukea Ridge. This is an actual place. Only problem is -- it's located at the top of a ridge -- duh!! -- which is 300 feet above the ocean below. If you look in the background, you can see the waves from the ocean, suggesting that this location is at sea level, or pretty close to it.
Amazingly, Lucas -- placed on the altar -- is still alive, despite what seems like a massive loss of blood (continuing the comparison to opera), and just before Seth is about to slice into him, McGarrett shows up and shoots Seth dead.
Case solved. Another sucky ending follows. The music in this episode, which was highly reminiscent of Mark Snow's for The X-Files, was above average.
MORE TRIVIA:
I liked the parts where Michelle Borth acted like Catherine wanted to do it like a monkey with McGarrett. If this was on cable, like her naughty show Tell Me You Love Me, she probably would have. Her character had a nice little scene with Danno's daughter. Grace Park also looked very hot when they were looking in the trash bins.
Just before Seth prepares to kill Lucas in the basement (but he stops), he turns on the radio. The song playing is Tiny Bubbles.
Lisa Heller is an organ donor, according to her driver's license (irony, I guess). But I think everyone who has had a license displayed on the show is an organ donor!
The song at the end is Love Love Love by Avalanche City. I thought this song was heard in the film The Notebook, the movie everyone is settling down to watch at the end of the show, but it is not, as far as I can determine.
When Helen is taken away by the cop back to the police station, it is daylight outside. But a few minutes later, as we see her faking her cardiac arrest in the car, it is night time. Was she so smart she could have grabbed the cop's gun and shot him? I thought cops had some sort of button-down flap over the top of their holsters to prevent people from doing this. The number of the phone that Helen uses to call Seth is 808-555-0138. It has other entries on it like Dispatch, HQ, Bill Cell and Home, suggesting this is the cel phone of the cop she killed.
Would a 1996 Chevrolet pickup (the truck used to run the car off the road) have an airbag? According to Wikipedia, "airbags were not mandatory on light trucks until 1997"!
The phone at Helen's place has the number 808-555-0124.
The license number of Lisa's wrecked car is DL 6387. The one of the cop car where Helen kills herself is HPD 657.
Lisa Heller's driver's license number is DL 967R507. She lives at 2631 Maroon St., Honolulu 96811. Her date of birth is 03/22/1988, she is 5'3" and weight is 110 lbs. Lucas Hayes' license is 162X861. He lives at 130 Arcwood Dr., Honolulu 96817. His DOB is 12/29/1989, he is 5'11" and weighs 170 lb.
When Kono searches for people with a similar MO to Seth, she comes up with a short list of the usual suspects: Kenneth Kapuhola, Cynthia Taniston, Matthew Hidoku, Juanita Quichera, Ralph Kamamea and Celia Palahane. Seth was suspected of killing and eviscerating two boars, but his juvenile record over this was sealed. He lives at 1818 Hokoko Ave., Honolulu 96821 (his grandmother's house). His Social Security number is 986-00-2478.
The party that Lisa and Lucas attended was at 8701 Quiver St., Honolulu 96816.
Seth offers to go out and get his grandmother some heparin, an anticoagulant drug.

6. (S03E06) I Ka Wa Mamua (In A Time Past) ★★★
Original air date: 11/12/12

After the first five episodes of this season, all of which were mediocre, this episode was like a breath of fresh air. Although not fault-free, it had lots of forward momentum, three bombs, some cool stunt work, car discussion (not a cargument) which actually advanced the plot and a sweet story revolving around Danno and his daughter Gracie. It also had an exceptional performance by Scott Caan.
It began with Danno telling McGarrett a story in the form of a flashback to a drug bust in New Jersey on the day that he learned his wife was pregnant with his daughter. Danno shows up at a warehouse with his partner Grace Tillwell (Sydney Tamiia Poitier -- yes, daughter of actor Sidney). Surprising some guy with a suitcase full of drugs, they are almost immediately relieved of their guns by two thugs, Billy (Terrence Howard) and Ray (Tip "T.I." Harris) who want to know who Danno's informant is. When he doesn't tell them, he gets belted in the face with a rifle butt. Why Danno and his partner showed up without any backup at all is a good question.
Cut to the present, where Danno and McGarrett are tracking down a guy named Ashiri Ahmed a.k.a. Farouk, who has passport #14072153 from some Middle Eastern country and was born 14/08/60. When Farouk appears, there is a chase through crowds on downtown Honolulu streets and over cars with McGarrett almost getting run over. When Farouk pulls out a gun, Danno drops him with a couple of shots to the chest. This may not have been a good idea, since Farouk is wired with a nasty bomb in this area.
Following the opening credits, we are propelled backwards several hours to the scene of a bomb detonation in the Honolulu suburbs. Max is piecing together a body which was blown apart, continuing the show's obsession with gross body parts as seen in the previous two episodes. McGarrett uses his SEAL experience to determine that the explosion was caused by triacetone triperoxide. This is a real explosive substance which, according to Wikipedia, has a high susceptibility to accidental detonation. It's determined that the body parts belong to Qaseem Ramzi, a radical student who was expelled from Saudi Arabia according to his Interpol profile. McGarrett calls Catherine to do look into this character, and spells only his last name for her, when it seems like the spelling of his first name would pose more challenges. Catherine, wearing a bikini, is sunning herself beside the Hilton Hawaiian Village pool when she takes McGarrett's call. She is very hot.
As Danno and McGarrett are seen driving in the following scene, Danno has what is a relatively rational discussion with McGarrett about how his daughter has to grow up in "Fortress America" because of terrorists like Ramzi. A cel phone uncovered at the bomb site reveals a number, 808-5455-0134, which leads to an address at 680 Malakeke in Waipahu. There McGarrett and Danno encounter Ayhamal Safi who pulls an unloaded gun on them and is blown through a window when subsequently shot by McGarrett. There are plans taped to a wall in Safi's house revealing various terrorist targets like a power plant and the airport, along with a phony book "Guide to Manufactured Explosions." McGarrett dismisses these two targets as well defended.
Although she has had hardly any chance to change out of her swimsuit, Catherine pulls up in a vintage Corvette Stingway shortly after with information on both Ramzi and and Safi, specifically their relationship to Farouk, who was seen in the show's teaser. A bomb detecting dog finds something suspicious behind a panel in the house. McGarrett tells the dog's handler to get the beast out of the room, but doesn't say anything to the Five-0 team and Catherine as he cuts the panel away with a knife, revealing a cache of C4 and flexible rubberized explosive! Doesn't he consider that the panel might be booby-trapped? There is precedent for this kind of lack of caution in the old Five-O in the fourth season episode Rest in Peace, Somebody where McGarrett, who received a surprise bomb package in a previous show, opens both a desk drawer and the trunk of his car without considering either of them might contain a bomb.
As usual, Kono is relegated to dealing with Supercomputer matters, and she determines that Safi used an alias of Randy Ramirez to obtain a driver's license and a credit card which were used to rent a Lincoln Town Car. (Ford, the default car sponsor of the old show, is again associated with bad guys.) This particular rental model contains some kind of fancy GPS-like tracking device which Chin Ho uses to locate the car. It is currently parked near a retirement ceremony being held at the Palm Circle (also known as the Pineapple Pentagon) in Fort Shafter. The ceremony is being attended by the US Secretary of Defense and a lot of service personnel. The large gathering of people there is cleared out quickly, and a bomb disposal expert is sent in to remove explosives from the car's trunk. McGarrett and Danno, not to mention a lot of other people, stand around watching this, despite what Danno said at the previous scene -- that this Mother of All Bombs could "blow up an entire city block."
McGarrett gets the car's GPS from the bomb technician and can read it immediately to determine where Farouk is holed up. When the entire team arrives at his Waikiki address, Farouk is not there. In a line reminiscent of the old show, McGarrett orders Kono to "run facial recognition through every security camera on the island." Danno and McGarrett wait for Farouk to arrive, and the episode then fast-forwards the material from the teaser, wasting almost a minute of the show's approximately 44 minute running time.
At this point we are at the end of the teaser, with a proximity laser from the bomb strapped to Farouk's chest hitting Danno who cannot move, or both he and McGarrett will be vaporized. Another bomb technician arrives on the scene and after some very tense moments, deactivates this bomb. While this happpens, Danno gets to tell the remainder of his story, about how his partner Grace was murdered by the two thugs who he then overpowered and shot dead. Running outside the warehouse to get help from some passing police cars whose sirens had distracted his captors, Danno notices large black clouds rising from the World Trade Center in the distance.
The show avoided the usual beers-on-the-beach finale with McGarrett and Danno hugging each other and Danno rushing off to what was to have been the focus of his day, a father/daughter dance with Gracie.
Not only was this an acting tour-de-force for Scott Caan, but the thugs played by Howard and Harris were also very good. The "contemporary issues" script avoided beating around the bush and using bogus country names, instead coming right out and identifying the nationalities of the bad guys. The usual high class production values were also present, with the exception of the music which resorted to mosquito-like noises to suggest Middle Eastern terrorists and mostly fell back into the usual clichés. (Though no fan of contemporary hits on TV soundtracks, I'm almost beginning to like that part of the background score better.) Hopefully we will get other shows this season as good as this one, though after hearing that Victoria's Secret models are in an upcoming episode, I have my doubts.
MORE TRIVIA:
The driver's license for "Randy Ramirez" (Safi) shows he lives at 5783 Catamaran Ave., Honolulu 96825, he is 5'10" and weighs 180 lb. The license number is 881X253. His equally bogus "Outpost 66" credit card number is 5964 7818 9533 2167. It expires 02/15.
Almost 30% of the show takes place in New Jersey.
Danno gets punched in the face by the two thugs at least 10 times.

7. (S03E07) Ohuna (The Secret) ★½
Original air date: 11/19/12

With this show, Five-0 sank back to its usual mediocre third season level. The writing was bad, featuring caricature-like über-villains carrying out or participating in logic-defying actions which were created strictly to advance the plot. As well, there were major dollops of melodrama, with McGarrett's mother finally being reconciled with her daughter Mary.
At the beginning, computer hacker Zack Slater (Matt Bush) is released from the Hawaii Youth Correctional Center in Kailua (real name: Correctional Facility). He has been serving an exemplary 6-month sentence for breaking into the White House database. Although the character is supposed to be 17 years old, actor Bush, pulling a Michael J. Fox, is 26 and looks it. His parents, Brian (Alan Ruck) and Patricia (Melinda McGraw) are there to pick him up along with his "challenged" brother James (Gregory Kasyan) who plays with his computer pad, oblivious to what is happening. The mother is happy to see her son, the father acts pissed.
The four of them climb into their SUV for the trip back to town, but their GPS -- which someone is remotely controlling -- leads them to a middle-of-nowhere road. The car is forced off the road by some very nasty guys wearing skeleton masks. When the father tries to rescue his son, he is punched in the face. What is wrong with this picture (a phrase we can use a lot during this show)? Well, the aerial view of the center shows that it is hardly miles out in the sticks, so either the father (who admittedly may be in a flap over picking up the kid) or the son (who is supposedly pretty smart) should have recognized much earlier that they were not on the road home. When the car runs into something solid like a tree, the airbags do not deploy, by the way.
After the main titles, we are at the airport where McGarrett is meeting his sister Mary, who is now caregiver for Morty Sapperstein, an old man in a wheelchair, who wanted to see Hawaii as part of his bucket list. Seems like Mary's job as airline flight attendant didn't work out too well. Morty is played by comedy legend Shelley Berman, who is 87 years old, surpassing the geriatric Ed Asner (age 83) who appeared in two episodes of the new show. McGarrett is very disrespectful to Morty when the latter gropes his sister's ass.
The big question here is, why did it take 7 episodes for McGarrett's sister to show up? She asks what is the big deal that they couldn't discuss on the phone. Did McGarrett just call her recently? Several shows ago, why couldn't he have said to her on the phone "There is something really urgent that we have to deal with regarding our mother, get over here ASAP." If McGarrett really wanted his sister there, he could have pulled some major strings as part of the "unlimited means" that Five-0 has.
When McGarrett goes home without his sister, his mother is sad. But he is called away to the crash scene of the Slaters' SUV. As the resident Five-0 expert in dealing with kids, Kono has some cringeworthy dialogue with Challenged Brother who, like Jack Nicholson in the Shining, is typing something on his pad over and over -- specifically, the license number of the bad guys' van (654 TZE). Surprisingly, in the next scene, this van, which was stolen, has been picked up and is in the HPD impound lot. Zack's body is discovered in the back of the van. No one bothered to look in the van, even though there is an evidence sticker slapped on the back window.
Max tells McGarrett and Danno that Zack was tortured. Not only were his fingers broken, but he has bruises suggesting that he was nearly killed, then brought back to life with CPR. Those skeleton-masked dudes are really bad!
Back at Five-0, Chin Ho tells everyone that while Zack was incarcerated, he was a model prisoner, except for one occasion where he had a visitor in the form of Kong Liang (Russell Wong), "Chinese national and notorious cybercriminal." If Liang is identified in the Five-0 Supercomputer as such a "notorious" guy and obviously someone who is seriously wanted by the law, why wasn't he arrested at the time of this visit?
Liang runs a sweatshop full of hackers, and of course, his operation is right in Hawaii. In order to track him down, Danno again enlists the help of Adam "Toast" Charles (Martin Starr), a computer geek who works at a Best Buy-like store. Charles is labelled as a "recurring character" in the CBS press release for the show. though he hasn't been seen since the show's first episode, Ohana (note similarity to title of this episode, I don't think there is any significance to this). Of course, Charles knows about Zack, who is a hacking legend referred to as "Megaman," and also knows where Liang can be found. McGarrett and Danno decide to use Charles as bait, getting him to wear a wire and go to Liang's warehouse-like location on the pretext of getting a job. This whole scheme with the understandably very nervous Charles wearing a wire is stupid, especially considering he is a civilian who does not work for Five-0. After Charles freaks out over his undercover assignment when he is at Liang's door, McGarrett and Danno break into the place where Liang shoots at them with a cannon-sized weapon. They subdue Liang and give him a grilling (no time to take him back to the blue-lit room). Of course, he tells them everything that they want to know about Zack, how he wanted to offer him a job, etc., etc. (this is a red herring).
In the next scene, McGarrett's mom is shown tracking down Mary (something she said earlier she could do, given her CIA experience). She finds Mary at the Punchbowl Cemetery talking to her father's grave. Mom can't face talking to Mary. Lots of tears from both.
Back at Five-0, Kono tells everyone that before he was arrested, Zack uploaded something to an offline storage site which is presumably what is what got him killed. She spouts off some techo-babble about how the password for this site is very complicated, consisting of a 309-character number. Chin Ho then tells Kono to go to Zack's place and try to find the password because maybe Zack (you know, the genius computer hacker) had it "written down" (I'm not making this up).
When Kono arrives at the parents' house, there is seemingly a wake going on for their son, though no one connected with producing the show bothers to set this up. (For example, a display saying "In memory of Zack" or something like that ... surely they could have taken this time from the 20 seconds of tourist shots at the beginning of the show. As well, there doesn't seem to be anyone of Zack's age at this gathering.) Kono is snooping around Zack's room, as if he would just have left the password on a Post-It note on the wall, when Challenged Brother shows up. After Kono gets chummy with him in her "amazing ability to work with kids" way, he starts rattling off chemical elements. Kono figures there is some connection between this and the periodic table of same. She goes to a bookcase on the wall in Zack's room, pulls out a conveniently placed science book which has this exact table in it, opens the book to the exact pages containing the table and while the brother rattles off the elements, manages to jump around in the table to connect the dots (as if she knows where all the elements in the table are relative to each other). She gets the kid to go through his spiel again, not particularly slowly, and writes down a sequence of numbers connected with the elements. Of course, there are 309 numbers; Kono has time to count them all. (It really doesn't look like 309 numbers from what she has written down.) She phones Chin to tell him of her discovery.
Downstairs, the skeleton-masked guys show up and they mess around with the cel phone signals, so Kono's phone dies. They round up everyone and act very, very, nasty. Chin Ho is concerned, and gets an HPD cop sent to the house to check on Kono. He is shot dead by the bad guys and dragged across the Slaters' carpet, leaving a bloody trail (shades of two episodes ago with the guy dressed as a vampire in the granny's house). Before he dies, the cop alerts HPD who rush to the Slaters' house with Five-0. Inside, the skeleton dudes threaten to kill Zack's mother unless his father reveals what the password is. When Kono, who has also been rounded up, tries to intervene, she is belted in the head by the leader of the bad guys, Sean Winston (Carlo Rota, formerly Morris O'Brien on "24"). Winston, who has a connection to South Africa, and thus is very, very bad, is identified in seconds via a print off the car he and his pals drove up in, even though the house is surrounded by SWAT team types, making it unlikely an evidence technician would want to go anywhere near their car, especially in light of the fact the bad guys had no hesitation about killing the cop by his car outside.
Kono plays "Let's Make a Deal" with Winston, who gets an HPD prisoner transport truck backed up to the house. Kono and the bad guys leave, though one wonders exactly where are they going to go. What follows this is ridiculous. As this truck is driving down some road which has conveniently been cleared of all traffic, McGarrett suddenly emerges from under the back of the vehicle in an Indiana Jones-like move, being dragged along the street and pulling himself on to the back of the van. Then he places some explosive device on the van's back door (which makes a loud clanking noise), climbs on the roof of the van, walks across it (not exactly in a silent fashion), punches out the driver by reaching down from the top of the cab, opens the door, throws the driver to the street (the car swerves at this point), slams the door shut and talks to Danno and Chin who suddenly show up behind in a loud voice. And Winston and the people inside the van don't notice any of this?
Chin, who, as far as I am aware, has not been established in the series as an expert marksman like Kono, shoots at the explosive device, which blows the door off the back of the van, and then starts shooting as two of Winston's men appear at the door, firing back at Chin. WTF? Isn't there a good chance that Chin's bullets will ricochet around the inside of the van, injuring Kono? Kono starts to engage in kung-fu moves with Winston inside the truck, but the two of them fall out on to the pavement. (At this point, I was yelling at the TV, saying "Holy crap, they are going to get run over by the car containing Chin and Danno," considering it was very close behind. But when they hit the ground, this car is not even seen.) Presumably they would have had the wind knocked out of them (and fortunately Kono was on top of Winston when they hit the ground), but the two engage in some more martial arts moves, which puts Winston out of action. When it is all over, at least Kono looks very hot.
Anyway, to wrap up, it turns out that some mob boss who disappeared from protective custody three years ago hired Winston to give him what was presumably another identity and take care of his enemies. Zack had hacked into Winston's mainframe and discovered this. This mob boss conveniently lives on Oahu, so he is quickly captured. Zack's family shows up at Five-0 headquarters and Kono gives a little speech about how their son "didn't die for nothing." Challenged Brother wants to give her back her badge which she gave him earlier to break the ice, but she says "Keep it -- you've earned it." On the beach, Morty tells Mary a story about how he was estranged from his daughter who died in a car crash before they could be reconciled. As a result, Mary has a big change of attitude regarding her mother who jerked her and Steve around for years and shows up at her brother's place for a tearful reunion. End of show.
MORE TRIVIA:
Russell Wong, who played Liang, appeared in the 1997 pilot movie as Nick Wong, an FBI agent who the Lieutenant-Governor of Hawaii appointed with Jimmy Xavier Berk (Gary Busey) to be co-directors of Five-O. For someone who is a "Chinese national," Liang speaks pretty good English.
The car Mary has rented to transport her and Morty around is from the Akahai Car Rental Agency. The licence number is PL6857.
When the HPD cop shows up at the Slaters' house, the mother has serious facial bruises received earlier in the car accident. Why doesn't the cop think there is something unusual about this? The mother's body language, in the way she appears very nervous and glances away from the cop at the people who are being held hostage (which I think the cop cannot see), should also give him a clue that something is wrong.
Although cel phone and regular phone access has been disabled by the bad guys at the Slaters, Winston has some kind of satellite phone which he can use to get through to McGarrett almost immediately.
Kono's tablet computer shows the date of Monday, November 12.
When Danno and McGarrett are parked outside Liang's hacker warehouse, they are in the Takahamo Restoration van.
The bookshelf in Zack's room includes the following: La litérature du monde Français (bogus, littérature is spelled wrong, no author on spine, français would not be capitalized); High School Journalism -- The Write Stuff (likely bogus, cannot track this down); Philosophy (Nylen et al) (likely bogus); Integrated Coordinated Science for the 21st Century (a real book which you can purchase at Amazon.com); Calculus (likely bogus, no author's name on spine); The Jury Master (Degoni) (a real book).
The geeky mumbo-jumbo that Kono spouts off about Zack's complicated password ("The password has 1024-bit encryption which means the password is 309 numbers long") actually has some basis in reality -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers#RSA-1024. However, the business with the periodic table does not add up. There are 118 elements in the periodic table (I didn't check to see if that is the number specifically in the book, which is a real book, but I think it is, since it is a "21st century book"). If you take the number of each element, i.e., nitrogen is 7 (a 1-digit number), gold is 79 (a 2-digit number), etc. (as per Challenged Brother rattling them off), this does not total up to 309 numbers when you consider all the digits.
1-9 = 9 numbers
10-99 = 180 numbers (90 x 2)
100-118 = 57 numbers (19 x 3)
TOTAL = 246 numbers
So in order to make this password, there must be duplication of some of the elements. But, these large numbers are typically made up of semiprimes: http://planetmath.org/Semiprime.html
Creating a large number in this random manner would probably be less secure than a true semiprime number, not that it would be easy to figure out, though one WWW page -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_size -- suggests that the ability to crack large numbers like this is likely to happen "between 2006 and 2010."
A 309-digit number would look like this, by the way:
2680401941182388454501037079346656065366941749082852678729822424397709178250
4623002472848967604282562331676313645413672467684996118812899734451228212989
1630084759485063423604911639099585186833094019957687550377834977803400653628
6955344904367437281870253414058414063152368812498486005056223028285341898040
0795447435865033046248751475297412398697088084321037176392288312785544402209
1083492089
When Kono's cel phone signal is cut off and she tries to contact Chin again unsuccessfully, does she say "shit"?

8. (S03E08) Wahine’inoloa (Evil Woman) ★★ BOOK 'EM, DANNO
Original air date: 11/26/12

The story begins on Maui, as a couple of young adults (adult enough to go to a hotel to "do it," paying with the guy's father's credit card) are thrill racing in their SUV against burning sugar cane. A guy on fire runs on to the road and they hit him (either a nice stunt or nice CGI).
The teaser featuring this segment was a mere 50 seconds long. This was probably a good thing, because the show's producers needed all the time they could get with a major sub-plot involving Catherine and now-disgraced Witness Protection Agent Chris Channing (Carlos Bernard). Channing shows up at Catherine's place, very upset because he lost his badge and was suspended because she accessed the WitSec database with his user name and password -- though he still carries a gun. When she disarms him, he tells her that McGarrett's mother Doris is in danger, because a Colombian assassin named Mangosta who she failed to take out on a CIA assignment 37 years before is on the island and on her trail.
Back on Maui, O'Connell's gross, burned-up corpse (yet another one) is identified through facial recognition as Aiden O'Connell of 21 Lombard Street, Honolulu 96817. He was shot, dumped in the cane field and doused with gasoline which later ignited. O'Connell called psycho-therapist Olivia Victor (Vanessa Marcil) 27 times with his cel phone the previous day, finally connecting for one 8-minute conversation. Olivia's practice is in Honolulu, but she also has a house at 4214 McKenna Lane in Lahaina. When McGarrett and Kono confront Olivia at her place, she acts dumb, telling them that she lost her cel phone and she knows nothing about what happened to Aiden. McGarrett has a gut instinct that Olivia, who is a hot bitch, is guilty as hell of Aiden's murder. They arrest her, but she is later released because of no grounds for probable cause.
Later, back in Honolulu, McGarrett and Danno show up at Olivia's office asking to see Aiden's medical records which she and her receptionist are reluctant to give him. When McGarrett points out that doctor/patient confidentiality ends if a patient dies, Olivia relents, but the records have mysteriously disappeared. There is no explanation for this other than a "virus." McGarrett and Olivia have strong words, with her accusing him of having mommy and/or daddy issues. Shortly after this, a process server shows up at the Five-0 offices with a restraining order telling McGarrett to stay at least 500 yards away from her.
Despite this, Olivia tells McGarrett that she wants to talk to him at the Cafe Julia. He shows up, but this is a setup, and when Duke Lukela appears, she acts as if McGarrett is harassing her. Duke tells McGarrett to stay away, otherwise he will have to arrest him.
An examination of Aiden's bank account shows that he was recently paying $30,000 to a private investigator named Barry Martin. This P.I. is tracked down to Ala Moana where he is on a stakeout in an old Volkswagen van with a 1965 decal on the windshield. Inside the van, Martin is dead, but a laptop is recovered which reveals photos of several men, all of whom are outside Olivia's office, and some WAV audio files.
Cut to the sub-plot, as Channing and Catherine track down Mangosta, who is staying at a local hotel. Catherine breaks into his room using some sophisticated electronic gizmo and then manages to open the safe in the room which reveals surveillance photos of Doris. When the Colombian suddenly reappears, there are some tense moments, but Catherine escapes out the window and drops from the balcony to the room below in an acrobatic stunt.
When one of the men in the photos on Martin's laptop is identified as Judge Ted Reynolds (Mark Dillen Stitham), McGarrett and Danno visit him and confront him with an audio file of heavy breathing. The judge tells the incredulous McGarrett that Olivia was not his therapist, but his "madam," and that her practice was a front for a prostitution ring. The judge was paying a lot of money to Martin who was blackmailing him, as he was the other men, including O'Connell.
McGarrett figures that Olivia is going to try and get off the island and out of the country as soon as possible, so, to avoid the restraining order, he asks Catherine to put Olivia on the "no-fly" list. When she is identified at the airport purchasing a ticket for Rio, Five-0 is on the scene. Olivia murders a flight attendant to steal her uniform, and rather than leave the country, escapes from the airport, but she is caught while trying to take a cab back to town.
This show was not bad, up to a point. There wasn't the usual cargument, with Danno instead acting as what he thought was the "voice of reason," trying to overcome McGarrett's feelings that Olivia was guilty. But that point was reached after Olivia's arrest. Mangosta disappears and Catherine and Channing go to the McGarrett home, where there is blood on the floor. They get Chin Ho to track down a rental car (Mangosta's?) which leads them to what looks like a garage where, in a thoroughly repugnant scene, Doris is torturing Mangosta using jumper cables applied to his bare chest. Catherine manages to convince Doris to stop, and as they arrive back at the McGarrett home, Doris begs Catherine not to tell Steve what happened. WTF?!?
This scene with the torture totally puts this episode in the "total bullshit" category, right up there with the second season episodes featuring jury tampering by Five-0 and the trip to North Korea, and the first season show with the quasi-North Korean general. Ma McGarrett is turning into the Lori of the third season, seriously! She must die soon.
On the other hand, it was nice to see Michelle Borth as Catherine actually working a bit harder, especially since she is now a featured cast member. But with her, Channing (now a recurring character according to the CBS press release for the show), Ma McGarrett, Max, etc., etc. all competing for time with the Fabulous Four, maybe they should just rename the show "Hawaii Five-0 and Friends."
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In response to Channing's question as to who she was working for when she accessed the database, Catheirne replies, "Nobody ... I did it as a favor for her son, Steve." In other words, she was "working" for McGarrett!
Channing says the attempt to kill Mangosta was 37 years ago, but later when Catherine is taking to Doris, she says a recent photo of Mangosta shows him to be "30 years older than when you last saw him."
When Judge Reynolds is confronted with the audio file of his sexual encounter, Danno says that it matches the "date and time he signed into one of his 'sessions'." How would they know this date and time? Did they get access to the judge's medical history with Olivia (very unlikely, because, unlike Aiden, he is still alive).
How did Olivia find out about private investigator Martin, who she also murdered?
Why would Duke Lukela, a relatively high-profile cop, be the one to come to the restaurant to deal with McGarrett's violation of the restraining order? Because he is his pal?
Olivia's cel phone number is 808-555-0157. It strikes me as unusual that a therapist would give a patient her private cel phone number. Her driver's license number is 642K393, her date of birth is 12/29/1975, she is 5'1" and weighs 100 pounds. In Honolulu, her address is 1416 Fairview Ave., ZIP code 96819.
O'Connell flew to Maui on Suva Airlines and rented a car from the Akahai Rental Agency. McGarrett and Kono go to Maui in a helicopter numbered N6077H.
Catherine's license plate number is EOY 603.
Product placement for Microsoft's Windows 8 and Skype.
The "main case" in tonight's show had an unintentional connection to current events in Maine (because the show was likely filmed before these events happened) where a local zumba instructor was involved in prostitution with several prominent local people.
There were also some similarities between this show and the original series' episode "A Very Personal Matter," where Jack Lord's McGarrett was totally convinced of a doctor's guilt in the death of one of his patients. In that show, the doctor was innocent.

9. (S03E09) Ha’awe Make Loa (Death Wish) ★ BOOK 'EM, DANNO
Original air date: 12/3/12

This was a "Lord knows I've tried..." episode, which wasted almost 20 percent of its length with an idiotic sub-plot centering on Victoria's Secret Models being stalked by a crazed woman. Of course, there was no connection between this product placement (not credited at the end of the show, curiously) and the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on CBS the following evening which wiped out its competition in the ratings. (The models' presence on Five-0 did not seem to make a major ratings difference compared to this season's previous episodes.)
We already had a show about "models in trouble" (the Rick Springfield episode from season one, #22 -- Ho’ohuli na’au (Close to Heart)), but this was not the only thing that was rehashed in this show:
Someone gets seriously injured, ends up in the hospital, and is killed in the hospital by a person they know (headless horseman show, this season, #4 -- Popilikia (Misfortune)).
Someone climbs from one room to another on the outside of a hotel (the last episode!).
Someone with a serious disease is driven to extreme measures (season two, #8 -- Lapa’au (Healing)).

The last of these was the major plot in this show, and it went like this: While getting treatment for terminal brain cancer, Jim Rogers (Lochlyn Munro) befriends Martin Cordova (C. Thomas Howell), who is suffering from a similar condition. Cordova is a notorious hitman and mob enforcer responsible for twenty unsolved murders (how Rogers found out about Cordova's past history is never explained). In order to redeem himself in the eyes of his family from whom he has been estranged for six years, Rogers pays Cordova $20,000 to kill him during a bank robbery where he tries to play the hero, preventing some randomly-chosen woman from being taken hostage. Unfortunately, things don't work out well during the robbery. Rogers is not killed by a shot to the chest, but Sabrina Lane (Rumer Willis), a teller at the bank who Max has the hots for, is seriously injured. Cordova later shows up at the hospital to finish the job, strangling Jim. He then forces McGarrett at gunpoint to drive out to the middle of nowhere, where Cordova tells McGarrett to shoot him, since he is dying anyway. McGarrett refuses and Cordova is taken into custody by Five-0 who arrive in the nick of time.
The writing in this show was unbelievably bad. One might expect that Victoria's Secret models wouldn't be uttering sentences of Shakespearean complexity, but the speech by real company spokesgirl Behati Prinsloo -- playing herself -- to Danno starting "People think it's easy what we do" was embarrassing to listen to. McGarrett's "philosophical comments" to Cordova near the end of the show about the killer's children were almost as bad. Predictably, there were the expected nudge-nudge-wink-wink exchanges between Danno and McGarrett regarding the models. At the end, Danno brings his daughter Gracie to some Victoria's Secret event. Considering how uptight Danno is about making sure his daughter has the right kind of upbringing, this was totally out of character for him.
Kono also seemed out of character since she had more screen time than normal, abandoning her typical role of Queen of the Supercompter, and accompanying McGarrett as he tracked down the obligatory red herring suspect, Makani Jacobs (Alan Rowe), a hired gun during the bank robbery. This dope-crazed character led McGarrett and Kono on a chase through a Honolulu neighborhood while completely naked. The way they kept trying to disguise this by filming behind bushes and other strategically-placed objects in the foreground reminded me of Austin Powers movies. At least Kono's responsiblities spared us from much of the usual McGarrett/Danno banter.
In the "cute" department were Max's geeky attempts to strike up a relationship with Sabrina, his favorite teller at the bank. This did little other than make me wish that the irritatingly quirky Max should die a horrible death soon in an upcoming episode. For those fans interested in stunts, there was a succession of same when McGarrett chased Cordova through a hospital window on to a roof several feet below and down to street level. This whole sequence was crazy. A normal person attempting these moves would have been killed. It was like the opening of the recent James Bond film Casino Royale, which also had idiotic stunts.
Overall, a terrible episode, and one which produced more negative comment than I expected on some forums, even by people who usually go out of their way to be nice to the show. As usual, the photography was great and the music was very bad.
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Max makes a deposit for $2,698.00 in the bank at the beginning of the show. Sabrina writes her phone number -- 555-0177 -- on the deposit receipt.
There was the usual obscure geeky stuff:
The bank robbers use crystals sewn into their clothing which generate infrared radiation that disrupts the bank security cameras, making their faces appear to be glowing orbs.
Because of this and their inability to get information about Cordova using the usual techniques, Five-0 employs "vascular mapping," a "method of biometric identification through the analysis of the patterns of blood vessels visible from the surface of the skin," according to Wikipedia, which goes on: "Though used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, this method of identification is still in development and has not yet been universally adopted by crime labs as it is not considered as reliable as more established techniques, such as fingerprinting. However, it can be used in conjunction with existing forensic data in support of a conclusion."

When Danno shows Prinsloo pictures of his daughter and she tells him that Gracie doesn't resemble him, she tells him, "I'm busting your stones." Puh-leeze!

10. (S03E10) Huaka’I Kula (Field Trip) ★★★
Original air date: 12/10/12

This episode was funny and cute (cute in a way the previous week's show was not) and pretty logical (but see later).
Danno's daughter Gracie is at a Aloha Girls (Girl Scout-like) camp-out in the the Ka'a'awa Valley. McGarrett is a special guest who is supposed to be teaching survival skills, but instead ends up telling tall tales of dealing with killer boars. This idyllic scene is interrupted by the presence of Ron Rathburn (Tom Arnold), a security guard who survived a plane crash nearby in the jungle. He is trying to locate a package from the plane containing diamonds which he was trying to steal. Alberts takes McGarrett and one of the camping girls hostage, wounds Danno and locks Danno, the girls and their leader up in a storage shed. Danno manages to escape and contact Chin Ho at the Five-0 head office, which results in the usual fast trip to the crime scene to deal with the situation. Rathburn is later shot dead by his very nasty (though kind of stereotypical bad guy) co-conspirator Wilson Hines (Tom Schanley). Hines is just about going to knock off McGarrett when he is killed by Danno with a nice squib special effect.
Tom Arnold's performance as the desperate Rathburn (real name: Ron Alberts) was much better than I expected, though it was kind of one-note with Arnold continually yelling things like "Shut up" to his hostages in a manner suggesting he was channeling comedian Chris Farley. The acting from Lesley Boone as Madeline, the girls' leader and Emily Alyn Lind, as Lucy, the girl kidnapped with McGarrett, was also very good.
There was a sub-plot involving the return to Hawaii of Michael Noshimuri (Daniel Henney) and his reaction to his brother Adam's "cop girlfriend" Kono. The less said about this the better, other to note that the scene where Chin Ho expressed reservations to Kono about her continuing involvement with this family deserves mention for its totally unnecessary background score.
However (here comes the "but..."), this show was based on a premise that falls apart badly if you think about it, and not even think too hard.
Tom Arnold's character is an armed security guard, and his badge is seen on the Supercomputer in such a way that you can't see the company name. This badge, which is crudely made, says the company is "'The Number 1' Armed Response and Full Service Security Company in ALL of Hawaii Serving Oahu AND the neighboring islands." Rathburn, according to this badge, is "Licensed and Bonded."
We learn that Rathburn had three third degree theft convictions, two for misdemeanors and one for shoplifting.
So the first question is -- why didn't the security company pick up on these before they hired him? Aren't these kind of checks typical when you are hired to be an armed guard (especially if this is such a big and seemingly reputable company)?
Then there is the business of the plane. According to Kono, who is back to being Queen of the Supercomputer, "Yesterday a small plane crashed in the jungle about five miles west of you [Danno and the camping girls]. According to the flight plan, it passed right over your location before it went down ... The plane was transporting a couple of million dollars worth of diamonds for a jewllery expo on the islands."
So where exactly was this "small plane" going? From Honolulu to some other location on Oahu? From Oahu to some other island or vice versa? Or from the Mainland to Oahu? Why was it necessary to use a small plane to transport these diamonds? Couldn't they have been sent by a regular flight in an attaché case handcuffed to someone's wrist?
"A small plane" suggests to me a Cessna, not a Lear Jet, though some models of Lear Jets could make it to Hawaii from the mainland with a typical range of 2400 nautical miles (2217 nm from Los Angeles to Honolulu).
And why did Rathburn have a parachute as part of his elaborate scheme? Are parachutes normally found on "small planes"? If not, wouldn't this have drawn suspicion?
Also, wouldn't the fact that this plane went down and was carrying such an expensive cargo result in some huge dragnet by the cops to find survivor(s) and the jewels, i.e., there would have been people all over the area of the campground, possibly warning people to get out of the area because of the presence of an armed individual who had a previous criminal record?
Too bad more thought wasn't put into the script for this show, or it would have been one of the best of the season so far. At least the jungle photography was outstanding ... when viewed in high-definition, at times it was almost like 3-D!
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After Hines kills Rathburn, McGarrett and Lucy run away quickly. Despite the fact that Hines shoots at them with what looks like an automatic machine-gun-like weapon, he totally misses. And then McGarrett and Lucy run so far ahead of Hines that there is time for Lucy to hide in the underbrush after a discussion with McGarrett, despite the fact that Hines hardly looks like he is incapable of keeping up with them.
The idea of the plane crash in the jungle in this episode was reminiscent of the old show's episode "McGarrett is Missing." Plus there were elements of "Elegy in a Rain Forest" as mentioned by Jason from Dallas in the Five-O Discussion Forum, where an escaped psycho killer menaces people in the forests of Oahu. Not to mention "Lost" with crashed planes, stuff up a tree, etc.!
The location for the show, the Ka'a'awa Valley, is not a public park (if you want to obsess about discrepancies between real life Hawaii and that depicted on the show). It's located on a ranch, and you have to pay money to get into the ranch, then go to the valley. These factors (if this was real life) would have influenced the speed at which Hines showed up, as well as how Five-0 in the form of Chin Ho could have arrived at the scene so quickly and tracked down the hostages.
The sound mix when Lucy explained to McGarrett that she had found Rathburn near the camp at the beginning of the show was unusually bad.
Product placement: Leonard's Bakery.
Rathburn's Honolulu address is 32 Olele Avenue.

11. (S03E11) Kahu (Guardian) ★
Original air date: 12/17/12

This episode was BAD. Terrible writing and a plot which got totally confusing by the end of the show.
The show the previous week (MUCH better) featured kids and took place in the Ka'a'awa Valley. This one involved a kid and much of it took place in the Ka'a'awa Valley. Is someone running out of ideas or what?
Once again the show started on a stupid premise. McGarrett and his girlfriend Catherine are eating lunch at the retro Rainbow Drive-In and someone tries to carjack his truck. McGarrett overpowers the guy (we don't see this happening), rips out his nose ring and takes him to the cop shop. There he notices Ethan Awana (Tristan Lake Leabu), a young kid about 12-13 years old, sitting handcuffed after breaking one of the station's windows. So he takes an interest in the kid. Why? Is he now Mr. Social Worker or something? DUMB! (Yes, the stock reply to this is: McGarrett can relate to Ethan because they were both jerked around when they were young.)
Anyway, to avoid making this review three paragraphs long (I know, I am sounding like Danno), here is a summary of sorts.
McGarrett and Catherine take Ethan under their wing. Ethan is concerned about his father Bruce (Andrew Elvis Miller), who never came home the night before. Ethan is totally annoying, pouty, petulant, argumentative and constantly whining things like "I know what you guys are thinking" and "I know what you guys are doing" when Five-0 is trying to help him. In terms of just pissing me off, the way this character was written should get five stars out of four, and Leabu's acting was also worthy of praise (in a manner of speaking) in this department. Unfortunately, the music accompanying most of the scenes with Ethan was very, very bad (much worse than the writing).
A trip to Ethan's father's general store in the valley reveals a lot of blood, which leads to the show's red herring suspect, Moku Bradford (Juan Gabriel Pareja), who knows Ethan's father. He is suspected of killing Bruce, but a grave near his house turns out to be an imu where a pig is roasting, and Chin Ho gets showered with pig guts when he tries to dig it up. Moku says that Bruce was his friend and there is a logical explanation as to why Moku's fingerprints were on the shotgun suspected of shooting whoever left all the blood in Bruce's store.
At Ethan's house, Catherine wants the kid to pack a suitcase so he can come and stay with her and McGarrett. Ethan says there is one in the basement, but he is afraid to go and get it. There is no explanation for why he is so scared. When Catherine goes down to get the suitcase, she looks in it, and notices it is full of money. Back at the Five-0 office, Kono produces camera footage from a local hospital the night before showing a gunshot victim being dropped off anonymously by someone driving Bruce's car. After this victim later dies, Max determines that his kidneys contained traces of antifreeze and under his fingernails were leaves from the ti plant. Chin Ho immediately knows that this deceased guy has been ingesting moonshine, and he and Danno go to visit Chin's moonshining Uncle Choi in Panalu'u. Choi is played by an almost unrecognizable George Takei in a very brief appearance. He tells Chin and Danno that "bad hooch" is available at Bruce's general store.
Now hanging out in the Five-0 offices, Ethan escapes from Catherine and takes a taxi to the property of Darrin Hodge, who his father described as a "really bad guy." Hodge, along with several "friends" had an argument with Bruce previously. (Why Ethan specifically wants to go to Hodge's house is not explained.) McGarrett and Danno, who are close behind, break into Hodge's house, but instead find Moku there. He has been looking for Hodge who he figured knocked off Bruce, based on what he was told during his encounter with Five-0 earlier. Moku is grilled in the blue-lit room and confesses that it was him selling moonshine through Bruce's store, moonshine that Hodge supplied him with. (I don't get this, this was >Bruce's< store, right?) Moku says that he found out that Bruce was supplying some reclusive guy in the valley with goods, making a lot of money doing so, and when Hodge and his pals learned about this (thanks to Moku, who opened his mouth), they wanted in on the action.
Using her computer skills, Kono figures out that the bills in the suitcase in Bruce's basement, now in evidence with HPD, were part of a robbery in Chicago and the mastermind of this heist was one Stuart Rizzi (Lew Temple). They then determine that the "reclusive guy" is Rizzi, who bought a large property using cash in Ka'a'awa the year before. McGarrett, Danno and Chin go to Rizzi's "compound," but there is no one there, though they find two bodies, one of which is Darrin Hodge. They also find Bruce's car. McGarrett then has a brainstorm that Rizzi is going to Bruce's place with Bruce as hostage to take back any of the money he paid Bruce for goods and services. (Didn't Rizzi think that maybe Bruce put the money in the BANK?)
Catherine is looking after Ethan at Bruce's, and after Rizzi shows up with Bruce, there is a terrific kick-ass fight between Rizzi and Catherine (one of the few reasons to watch this show).
Are you still with me? I know this whole plot sounds ridiculous. In fact, when viewing the show the second time, I almost gave up!
In addition to this, there were several stupid things in this show:
When Chin Ho finds the "grave" near Moku's place he suddenly starts digging it up with a shovel he is carrying. What the hell was this?!? Doesn't the guy believe in preserving a crime scene?
While Catherine is looking after Ethan in the Five-0 office, she takes money out of her purse and leaves the purse lying right in front of the kid while she goes to buy him a pop in the hall. So Ethan steals money from her purse and runs out of the building after setting off the fire alarm. HELLO ... did ANYONE not see this coming?
After Ethan escapes and goes to the gate of Hodges' property, the taxi he took there drives away. We are looking from behind the gate at Ethan with the road behind him where he just drove up in the cab. The camera then shows Ethan from behind, trying to climb up over the fence, and suddenly McGarrett appears out of nowhere in a fraction of a second. McGarrett's car was not seen or heard behind Ethan, nor were any other cars. There must be at least two, because Catherine volunteers to take Ethan back to his place. McGarrett, Danno and Catherine were also not seen.
When they are going to Rizzi's house (and we know they are going to this location), there is this writing on the screen which says RIZZI'S COMPOUND with KA'A'AWA VALLEY underneath. Do the people making this show think viewers are too dumb to know where Five-0 is going? (Answer: YES. This is not the first time this sort of thing has annoyed me, by the way.) Considering Rizzi is such a rich guy, the place he is living in is kind of a dump.

Oh yeah, I forgot. This was a Christmas show! The end of the show featured the usual hanging out near Kamekona's Shrimp Shack as the big guy was promoting his new helicopter tour service. Aside from the annoying Max, who started talking about "the customary ritual of [Christmas] gift-giving" and was immediately told to shut up by Kamekona, this was good for a few laughs, as were some of Danno's sarcastic comments throughout the show. But overall, this episode was depressing.
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Does Ethan actually go and stay with McGarrett or Catherine at their respective places? I don't think so. I seriously doubt if he would enjoy staying at McGarrett's, especially if the wack-a-doodle Doris is there. As Danno says, "Christmas with the McGarretts is something you can't miss."
Bradford's criminal record from the Supercomputer shows his address to be 4813 Hekeke Place, Ka'a'wa 96730. Darrin Hodge's driver's license, taken off his dead body near the end of the show, says he lives at 1451 Howell Street, Honolulu 96820. The licence number is 613A221.
When Kono does her real estate search to find properties purchased with cash, she finds Morgana Briante, 320 Nabob St. (10-09), Philip Bowman, 14 Parkline Dr. (08-11) and Michael Garasovic, 176 Anatole Ct., (03-12), all in Ka'a'wa 96730. Bowman is Rizzi. This information is produced in a fraction of a second by the Supercomputer.
When McGarrett shows up at the end formally dressed, Kamekona refers to him as "007," likely an in-joke since Alex O'Loughlin was a candidate for the role of the latest James Bond, which was eventually played by Daniel Craig.
The helicopter seen behind the one at the beginning of the show that Danno is trying to wheel and deal for on Kamekona's behalf was the one flown by TC on Magnum, P.I.
Sounds like Danno has been making bets with Kamekona on football games, because there is reference to "refs blew a call," likely meaning the Seahawks-Packers game on September 24, 2012.
I had a good laugh at Kamekona's comment to Danno when the latter questioned why he had to try and make a deal for the helicopter: "Because the seller's a white guy and you haoles speak all the same language."
On the floor of Bruce's store there are bloody drag marks, just like in two other locations in shows this season: #5, Mohai (Offering) and #7, Ohuna (The Secret).
Danno tells Moku "We should dump your funky ass in an active volcano some place." That would require a flight to another island, since there are no active volcanoes on Oahu.
During his blue-lit questioning, Moku says of Rizzi, "He was a recluse like, uh, what's his name, Howard Hughes." Do you think that Moku would either remember or know who Howard Hughes was?
The comic book that Ethan was reading is actually the comic book that is done by showrunner Peter Lenkov called R.I.P.D. - City of the Damned, to be released in 2013.
When Five-0 team members (McGarrett, Danno and/or Chin) are approaching Hodges' and Rizzi's houses, totally armed to the teeth with these large submachine-gun-like weapons, they have to cross a wide-open stretch of ground. Is this like "safe"?
What about the guy who was shot in Bruce's store, presumably by Bruce himself? Shouldn't Ethan's father be charged with manslaughter or something?
At the end, McGarrett tells Ethan to give him a call in about "10 years" to discuss employment opportunities with Five-0. I seriously doubt this is something that we as viewers will witness.

12. (S03E12) Kapu (Forbidden) ★★
Original air date: 1/14/13

This show was a painful experience because I had to watch it while it was actually on, including the obnoxious commercials. For some reason, it was not available from my "usual sources" prior to local broadcast time, the first time I can recall this ever happening. This was not the only such anomaly connected with this show -- as far as I can determine, there was no CBS press release distributed for the show ahead of time either.
When I rewatched the show the next day, I didn't think it was that bad, though not particularly good either.
This was the show with a major gimmick. A posting on CBS's Facebook page said, "We're handing the reigns [sic] over to YOU [the viewers] to choose the ending." CBS's blab made a big deal about how THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS EVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF TV (or words to that effect). But CBS seemingly forgot that years before, social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a sort-of-similar experiment, designed to study the effects of television violence, which involved an episode of the CBS program "Medical Center," with subjects viewing one of three endings. However, this Five-0 show was probably the first time this kind of decision-making for a non-reality TV show was tried with social media (Twitter hashtags) in addition to direct input on CBS's own WWW page in the States.
This show featured two cases of babysitting for guys who were pains in the ass. Kono was assigned to look after Sang Min, who returned to Hawaii from a Supermax prison in Virginia to testify in a court case in exchange for a sentence reduction. Danno had to look after his "bad attitude" nephew Eric (Andrew Lawrence) who was shipped to Hawaii by his mother to "straighten him out." Danno described this job as "like house-training a puppy."
The Sang Min sub-plot was largely a waste of time, other than to give Will Yun Lee an excuse to chew scenery, act like the Hawaiian Tony Montana and make offensive remarks to Kono. (When Kamekona showed up with a suit for Sang's court appearance, Sang actually described the outfit as "Tony Montana style.") Turns out that returning to Hawaii was really an excuse for Sang to implausibly punch out an assistant deputy attorney and a cop assigned to guard him so he could escape and check up on his wife, who now had a new boyfriend or husband. This sent Sang into a state of depression, with Kono offering some consoling words as he sat on the curb outside his now ex-wife's house. Kono's attitude seemed very strange, considering the way Sang treated her in the pilot episode of the show, forcing her to strip almost naked.
As far as Danno's nephew was concerned, despite yet another relative or acquaintance of the Fabulous Four helping solve an investigation with potential risk to themselves and the fact that Eric was far too clever, this was not that annoying (no more than Danno, anyway) with the kid helping to figure who committed the show's major crime, the murder of a university professor named Joel Cutler whose body was later dumped in a bath of acid. The resulting gory scene was featured during the teaser where a fraternity newbie being hazed in a dark room by a scary amplified voice took a break from downing 100 shots of beer as part of his initiation.
For the first time in either Five-O series, the show took a trip to Niihau, the "forbidden" Hawaiian island where McGarrett and Chin Ho tracked down a colleague of the murdered professor, Dr. Brian Stephens (Jeff Fahey), who was working along with Cutler on the cure for adrenoleukodystrophy, using plants on the island previously thought to be extinct.
The show's gimmick of choose-the-ending was largely a bust. The geeky results posted on the WWW based on an anal-ysis of the Twitter hashtags used during the voting (#theStudent, #theTA and #theBoss) revealed only around 7,200 people voting in the Eastern time zone and a disappointing 1,000 or so in the Western time zone. (These results did not take into consideration the voting on CBS.com, which is a big secret.)
Of the show's final 7 minutes and 8 seconds, only the first 2:07 was devoted to the resolution of the crime. Prior to the commercial, Danno enlisted the help of Bullwinkle (Matt L. Jones), a friend of his computer wiz pal Toast, to look into Cutler's e-mail to determine who was the killer. Then he phoned McGarrett with words to the effect "YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHO DID IT." After the ads came the big reveal, with McGarrett and Chin Ho then returning to the base where the Niihau foreman (Jason Michael Fong) said something like "We've managed to track down all the people who are hunting on the island with the exception of [FILL IN THE BLANK WITH THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO WAS CHOSEN]." McGarrett and Chin then returned with lightning speed to knock off this guy before he could take out Stephens, who could connect him to Cutler's murder
All three solutions to who was the killer were edited in virtually the same way, with the remainder of the final act (including Sang Min's sad discovery and the wrap-up with Stephens and his sick son in the hospital (Xander Vandenburg) being exactly the same.
The three choices were:
Tyler Brown, The Student
Brown (Patrick Pintor) was snooping around with his computer looking for exams to help him cheat on tests, and when he found Cutler's research that he was doing in conjunction with Stephens, figured he could pass the work off as his own and get rich.
Bram Helms, Cutler's Teaching Assistant (TA)
Helms (Ward Roberts) knew Cutler, his boss, was working on something big, so he went fishing to find out what it was. When he found out, he killed Cutler so he could claim the work as his own. He was also selling exam results to students, including Brown, and was pursued and tackled by McGarrett while running away after being confronted with this revelation.
Patrick Roth, The Boss (of the University Department)
According to McGarrett, Roth (Scott Michael Morgan) must have gotten sick and tired of watching his employees publish papers and cash in, and when he saw Cutler was on to something big, he killed him so that he could claim the work as his own.
All three of these possibilities were lamely written, as revealed by the endings on the CBS and Canadian Global TV sites.
For example, how could they each have determined that Stephens was connected to Cutler? This presupposes an equal level of geekiness in terms of snooping with computers for all of them. Did all three of them have access to the presumably large amount of acid which was used to try and dissolve Cutler's body? Why would all three of them do this "murder staged to look like a robbery" in the university lab, as opposed to some other location (not to mention by some other means)? And finally, how could they all have flown to Niihau under the pretext of being part of a hunting party? This requires establishing an alibi for the time they are away from Oahu, getting a rifle, pretending that they have some interest in hunting, etc.
I would have suspected the TA to be the killer, because he had the closest contact with Cutler. As well, he was a sleazy individual because he was selling exams.
The student was the least likely, but he was the choice of people in the Pacific time zone in both Canada and the USA! Because this was so unlikely, Danno had to send the incredulous McGarrett a picture of the kid because McGarrett couldn't remember him at all (the only one of the three who got this treatment).
As far as the boss was concerned, did he have access to Cutler's computer and research notes? If he published a paper based on Cutler's work later, wouldn't Cutler have contacted other academics while doing his work, who would recognize that something fishy was going on? He was the choice of people in the US Eastern time zone.
MORE TRIVIA:
Why was the video at the beginning during the hazing ritual distorted? Was this to suggest someone was filming it with a video camera?
Sang Min appears in a bathrobe while Kono is guarding him. He sits down, and she tells him to cross his legs. It looks like you can see his pubes!
The obligatory red herring suspect, Rebecca Fine (Janel Parrish), a student living in a sorority house, was seen by Roth leaving Cutler's office in tears, suggesting some kind of sexual relationship between the two (this idea turns out to be unfounded). She gives Five-0 a lot of mouth about their "textbook police harassment" and how her father is some bigshot lawyer until Chin reveals the reason she escaped (riding pitifully slow on a motor scooter) -- because she flushed some dope down the toilet prior to McGarrett breaking down her door. Her driver's license doesn't have a number, merely her name in large capital letters. Her address is listed as 85 Kenworth Ave., Honolulu 96817. She is 5'4", weighs 114 lbs. and her birthdate is 10/14/92. Her student number is 738634286.
While on Niihau, there is a real "no shit, Sherlock" moment as McGarrett and Chin track down Stephens by going through some tall grass. McGarrett says "Based on all these broken branches, somebody came through here recently." DUH!
Prior to McGarrett and Danno finding a back room full of research materials in Cutler's house, there is a slight electrical sound in the background. McGarrett tells Danno "Shhhh!", which is merely an excuse for the boring background score to be jacked up to further cover the equipment noise.
Chin Ho speaks Hawaiian to one of the residents of Niihau. This was translated into English in the closed captioning. I don't know if it appeared in the show itself in subtitles (it didn't in Canada). The conversation goes like this:
Woman (reacting to picture of Cutler): He would go into the jungle on his own. We've also seen smoke coming from the same area. About three miles north.
Chin: When was the last time you saw him?
Woman: Not for a few days. But the smoke was there this morning.
Chin: Thank you for your help.
The 100 shots (1 oz.) of beer being consumed by the hazed student at the beginning of the show is the equivalent of about 8 12-ounce bottles.

13. (S03E13) Olelo Ho’opa’i Make (Death Sentence) ★★½
Original air date: 1/20/13

This show was not bad, except for the ridiculous ending, which was highly reminiscent of Five-0's A-Team adventures into North Korea last season.
The show began with an unnecessary flash-forward to the arrest of Frank Delano's brother Paul (Daniel Baldwin) outside the Ilikai hotel. (This was later repeated during the show.) It then backtracked 14 hours to Chin Ho's place where he was handcuffed to his bed and drugged by Paul and an associate, out for revenge because Chin killed Delano's brother in the season's opening episode. Chin was then taken to Halawa prison where he was tossed in a cell.
Aside from filler with Kono and Adam Noshimuri sharing a bubble bath and Kamekona trying out his new spam breakfast burrito on the members of the team (sans Chin), the team spent much of the first part of the show figuring out that something was wrong with Chin, who had texted McGarrett the night before that he wanted to take time off, ostensibly to remember Malia, who he met exactly eight years before.
Dr. Harriet Palmer, Chin's therapist, even showed up at the Five-0 offices to betray her patient's confidence and tell the team of her concern after Chin didn't show up for an appointment. This was an unorthodox and gimmicky plot device with little point other than moving the investigation along to its next level.
Inside Halawa, Chin encountered a really bad guard named Warrick (Matt Gerald) who was working with DeLano and Kaleo (Jason Scott Lee), who Five-0 sent to jail in episode eight of season one for murdering Danny's partner. Chin also ran into Sang Min, who became his pal, trying to protect him from the other prisoners, with the idea, of course, of using this to his own advantage later.
The scenes inside the prison were superbly staged and filmed, especially during a riot which started after Sang Min set some mattresses and books ablaze to try and attract the attention of the Honolulu Fire Department. Unfortunately, this didn't work out too well, with Chin even deeper in trouble. When finally rounded up by some of the convicts for a face-to-face with Kaleo (who Sang Min had knocked out earlier), Chin was stabbed and Sang was locked up, with Kaleo remembering that Sang had snitched him out to Five-0 in the earlier show.
By this point, Five-0 had arrived outside the prison, where McGarrett took Warden Grier (Brickwood Galuteria) to task for allowing this situation to develop, letting the warden off far too easily. With Grier saying he had to follow protocol, McGarrett decided Five-0 would not, and commandeered Kamekona's helicopter to land inside the prison. Once inside, McGarrett, Danno and Kono subdued, killed or scared off hundreds of convicts and rescued Chin, as well as Leilani, a nurse who Chin met during his attempt to escape, who is likely his new girlfriend. Sang Min cut off his mullet and left the prison in a blue (guard's?) uniform.
If the writers for this show had not painted themselves into a corner with this silly rescue, this would have been one of the best shows of the season, especially considering the powerhouse acting of Daniel Dae Kim, Jason Scott Lee and Will Yun Lee.
The show ended with Chin Ho recovering in hospital (getting to try Kamekona's spam special) and Kono using a "mobile data extractor which has a built-in SIM card reader and creates a cloned phone" to determine who is the mysterious person calling her boyfriend Adam.
The people producing the show made a big deal in advance about how this show would feature as-yet-unheard music by Jimi Hendrix. Unfortunately, this was far too brief and also mixed in with the usual garbage. I thought it was going to be much more prominent.
MORE TRIVIA:
Paul Delano's criminal record shows that he spent time in Joliet. He didn't move too far away when he got out of jail. His home address as revealed by the Supercomputer is 1432 Caliper Street, Joliet, IL 60431. He arrived in Honolulu on January 10th.
The number of Kamekona's helicopter is N6007H (yes, same as in the Christmas episode).
Almost as stupid as the ending was the way most of the guards conveniently were nowhere to be seen for much of the show, other than Warrick.
In a line straight out of the old show, McGarrett asks his girl friend Catherine (who is on her ship in Pearl Harbor) to "monitor closed circuit video feeds from all over the island" to find Delano's brother. As well, McGarrett is pretty clever -- he knows exactly how Chin Ho's home alarm works.
The thunder in the background as trouble is brewing between Kono and Adam over the mysterious phone calls was too stereotypical.
Hopefully Leilani will avoid the "Chin Ho curse" and survive for a few episodes.

14. (S03E14) Hana I Wa ‘Ia (Scandal) ★★½
Original air date: 1/21/13

This show had a lot of promise, even though it ventured into later-season territory of the old show with Five-0 "taking a case just to protect the Governor's friends," as Danno put it.
The specific friend was Congressman Chris Freed (Wiley Pickett), a Medal of Honor recipient and former military chum of the Governor, running for U.S. Senate in a special election taking place two weeks in the future. Freed is staying at a house in Kahala owned by a couple of the Governor's other friends who are out of town on vacation in Nepal. A hooker named Serena Andrews is found dead in the house late at night, strangled in a very nasty way. The Governor calls McGarrett out of a custody hearing for Danno where he is appearing as a character witness, outfitted in his dress blues, and tells him he wants this murder investigated in a top-secret way.
The Five-0 team run into a lot of obstacles. Chin and Kono have to listen to Mollie Bennett (Alicia Ziegler) covering up for her roommate Serena, even though Mollie is a hooker herself, not a "student." McGarrett and Danno have to deal with Freed's campaign worker Josh Lowry (Robbie Jones), who throws a bunch of platitudes at them until they mention the dead woman. As well, the Governor interferes with the investigation, getting his staff to tail Chin and Kono and telling the forensics lab to delay examining DNA which was found on, in or about Serena's body. In an unusually strong scene, McGarrett forces his way into the Governor's office and tells his boss what he thinks of this interference, even suggesting that the Governor wants everything covered up because he is involved with the murder himself.
The red herring suspect, whose DNA is found at the crime scene, turns out to be Ryan Webb (Patrick Fischler), a geeky associate English professor from the mainland, who is in Honolulu for a mystery writers' convention. With a smile, he tells McGarrett and Danno while being grilled in the blue-lit room that he and Serena "did it" in the washroom of the Liki Tiki bar. He seems excited that this is something that he would never experience in his hometown of Lima, Ohio.
Five-0's efforts to track down Freed himself are fruitless, because the Congressman has disappeared. His campaign manager Amy Davidson (Stephanie Jacobson) engages in more obfuscation with McGarrett and Danno. As well, the times she gives out for various events which took place the night before have no consistency. Kono manages to pull up some surveillance camera footage which show Davidson leaving a bar with ... WO FAT!
Now I knew that this character would be appearing on the show, because Mark Dacascos' name was the first one in the main credits. It turns out that Wo has Amy wrapped around his little finger because she is helping him set up Freed to take a fall over the murdered hooker so that his opponent in the election, Brad Powers (Greg Wrangler) will easily win it. In fact, Wo has kidnapped Freed, who is being held at a shack out in the middle of nowhere.
Around this point, I started yelling at the TV. Wo Fat, über-mastermind and master criminal, is engaging in this penny-ante scheme with Powers? Wo wants to rebuild his empire by buying a politician so he "gets a friend" in Washington? Huh? I don't think so. How the mighty have fallen!
The presence of Wo manages to connect some dots from the beginning of the show, specifically Amy meeting a mystery man (Wo) in the bar where she has been hanging out with Lowry, and someone else (also Wo) threatening Serena with a gun shortly after this. There is a gun-like explosion which leads into the main titles, which makes no sense at all, because Serena was strangled, not shot to death, and there is no mention of gunshot wounds anywhere during the subsequent forensic investigation. (My theory is that the "blast" from the gun was just an effect leading into the main titles, but this is stretching things.)
Wo is still a pretty bad guy, because while Davidson is trying to explain what is (not) happening with Freed to McGarrett and Danno in the campaign office, she reveals that she is wearing a wire which is monitoring her every word. When she takes off the wire and destroys it by stepping on it, one of Wo's associates shoots her through the head using a long-range rifle from the next building. This guy attempts to escape in a Mercedes (must be a big budget for this show) and the Five-0 duo pepper the car's windshield with bullets, resulting in a spectacular car crash and stunt with both McGarrett and Danno leaping out of the way. Wo also threatens to harm the daughter of Freed, who is a single parent.
Back in the shack in the middle of nowhere, Freed manages to escape from being handcuffed to a chair and flees. Wo follows him, murders some hunter to take his all-terrain vehicle and uses it to speed through the tall grass after Freed. Wo is just about to knock off Freed when a helicopter carrying Danno and McGarrett (Kamekona's helicopter, used in the episode the day before, actually) appears silently from below a cliff where Freed is cowering and a terrific gun battle ensues. As if what Wo has been doing up to this point wasn't absurd enough, neither Danno or Wo (McGarrett is flying the copter) can't hit the broad side of a barn door. Because Freed has been wounded and has to get to the hospital, McGarrett is frustrated that he has to forego pursuing Wo till another day.
The ending of the show, with McGarrett and Danno sitting on the beach and meeting the Governor, who is wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts and carrying a six-pack of beer, was lame. The only compensation was finding out that Danno won his custody battle.
MORE TRIVIA:
The reason the "special election" is being held is because "Senator Chang died in office," according to Lowry. I wonder if this is obliquely referring to long-term Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inouye, who died in mid-December? I think the show would have been filmed before this, though.
When Danno and McGarrett come out of the campaign office after the first time they meet and grill Amy, Freed's chief of staff, Danno says that she is a terrible liar, and something that the subtitles translate as "The professor was shot and now Serena in a bathroom stall at 9:15 PM." This doesn't make any sense. If you listen carefully, it sounds like he says "The professor was shogging off Serena in a bathroom stall at 9:15 PM." I suspect he either says or meant to say "shagging." I doubt if the line was censored, though I can't see if his mouth is saying something else.
According to Chin, only the caretaker claims to have a key to the house where the murder took place, other than the owners, who are out of town. But if this is true, how did the Congressman get into the house where he was staying? And how did Amy get into the house later, where she found the body?
Serena Andrews' driver's license, number 582T879, says she lives at 36 Lakeland Street, Honolulu 96817, is 5'1" tall, weighs 100 pounds and was born 02/04/1990. According to his Ohio DL, Webb's street address is 156 Howell St., Lima 45806. He is 5'11" and weighs 185 pounds. His Social Security number is 981-00-1456.
Why was Wo threatening Serena with a gun during the teaser (aside from the fact that he didn't use it to shoot her)? During this scene, where she tells him "I told you everything I know," the two of them seem to be on top of a hill. Are there hills in the Kahala district like this? Wikipedia describes Kahala as "fairly flat," i.e., near the ocean like the place where Jack Lord's condo was located.
When Chin and Kono are driving after interviewing Serena's roommate, Chin Ho makes a pretty rank comment that "The guys we're dealing with [who pick up hookers] usually aren't thinking with their heads ... not the big one anyway." At this point Kono almost bursts out laughing. I think that Grace Park was not anticipating this line.
According to the subtitles in this show, the house where Freed is staying is at 3500 Hunukai Street in Kahala.
Amy's credit card number is 6011 6157 2929 0922.
Kamekona will be pissed that his helicopter took so much abuse during the firefight with Wo Fat.

15. (S03E15) Hookman ★★★
Original air date: 2/4/13

This was the reboot within a reboot, an updated version of the classic 1973 sixth season episode which featured a double amputee with hooks for hands. In that show, Curt Stoner, a.k.a. Hookman, was out to get revenge on Jack Lord's McGarrett and other cops. This time Stoner was after Alex O'Loughlin's Steve McGarrett, the son of one of the cops who interrupted a bank robbery he was committing years before, as well as the other cops who responded to the call. As in the original show, Stoner's hands were blown off by an explosion from dynamite being used to threaten the bank employees, updated for the current show with an obligatory gory flashback scene.
There were so many potentially good things about this show, but they were largely negated by the music and Danno's idiotic ranting about gun control issues. The latter was very similar in effect to the ranting in Lana I Ka Moana, the "adrift in a raft" show earlier this season, which caused that episode to plunge into the ratings trashbin.
The music was the usual, which is to say bad. It began with "Every Day Is Exactly The Same" by Nine Inch Nails, which had me wanting to turn off the TV right away. Not that I have anything against this group or this song. Instead, once again the viewer is being told what kind of mood to be in through the use of some pop music. The original's score by Morton Stevens, which won one of the show's two Emmy awards, is one thing that people remember from the earlier episode, so the moral of the story should have been "if you're going to do a tribute to the old Hookman, then don't mess around with the music." Fortunately, the Nine Inch Nails song lasted just over a minute. But then we were subjected to the usual thud-and-blunder background score, and as usual, it would not shut up. The one moment of the show when I really paid attention to the music was in the scene where Hookman's Mustang went flying off the dock. There was no music, no sound effects, NOTHING. And it was very effective! The suspense at the end of the show, where in the original, the telephone call from Hookman interrupted the silence as McGarrett prowled around Stoner's apartment, was completely eliminated by the background thump-thump-thump and succeeding noise in the new one as Five-0 breaks into the room.
Peter Weller both played Stoner/Hookman and directed the episode. (The prosthetic hands were those of Jason Kroger, who, surprisingly, did not receive any credit at the beginning or end of the show). Weller's acting was very good, and very scary. At one point, when he was strangling a man who interrupted his sniping, his face got so horribly contorted it looked like some skeletal Star Wars character. This Hookman was one very tortured individual.
Executive Peter Lenkov said before the broadcast that they followed the old show letter-for-letter. Much of the show, including dialogue based on the original script by Rod Baker and Glenn Olson, was the same or similar to the older show, as were numerous locations (comparative picture), including the opening sequence where Hookman walks through a cemetery (comparative picture) and climbs a hill to murder HPD officer Keoki with a long-range rifle. Even the font for the main titles was similar to the old show, with the name of the episode -- which was not translated to Hawaiian -- being flashed on screen for the first time in the show's three-year run. Click on these links to see the main title and credits for the old show and the main title and credits for the new show.
The sequence with Don McKinney (Charlie Murphy), the doped-up guy getting the cops involved in a shootout was interestingly done. This time, Stoner sold a rifle to McKinney, now a crazy black guy driving a huge pimpmobile type car, which should have made it look like he was the one who knocked off Keoki, aside from the fact that Five-0 was too clever to come up with this conclusion. Then Stoner made an anonymous call to HPD saying McKinney was "sitting on a huge stack of meth," resulting in the firefight which led to the death of the second cop, Ookala. The way Stoner's location on a top of a nearby building when he shot Ookala was determined by Charlie Fong using a form of triangulation was also an interesting update.
The big car chase was not as exciting as it could have been, because they already duplicated the best part of it last season on the Five-0 part of the NCIS crossover show. The explanation as to how Hookman survived underwater in the new show was just as mysterious as the original. They were exactly the same, with Hookman resurfacing in his fleabag room, totally enraged.
Some things were left out, like the business of Larry Thompson, another cop who responded to the original robbery, being shot. Thompson is suggested to be Ookala's partner, and he is the one who finds Ookala's body after the shootout with McKinney. Near the end of the new show, Duke Lukela (also established at the last minute as another cop from the old robbery) suddenly gets shot without any buildup at all as if to make up for the omission of the Thompson sub-plot. The shooting of Duke is far too abrupt, almost as if the show's creators had an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink attitude as the show wound to a close.
Danno's rant in Norm's Sportsmen's Shop (changed from a jewellery store in the original) was beyond ridiculous, especially when he abused Norm, the owner, as being "a delusional gun nut." His motormouthing during the car chase was also painful to listen to. Considering Danno was relatively subdued at the beginning of the show and also in the car when he and McGarrett were discussing the murdered Keoki (a close family friend of the McGarrett's), it was almost as if the writers realized they hadn't fulfilled their quota of Danno-isms and increased their efforts as the show went on. During the rant in the store, Norm asked McGarrett, "Is he off his meds or does he always act this way?" It's unfortunate that the writers chose this show to suggest once again that Danno suffers from one of those diseases with a long name used to explain a character's actions on a show like House or some forensic cop show, maybe in this case, the "Totally Annoying and Inconsistent Television Character Syndrome."
On the positive side, this show had what was perhaps Alex O'Loughlin's best performance of the series, with the scene in the Five-0 office where he talks to Ookala sensitively acted (Norman Compton, playing Ookala, also did a good acting job, as did the actor in the original show.)
The finale of the show took place at the same location as the original show, with Stoner getting killed when he was on top of the Y. Anin Ltd. Bldg. at 1149 Maunakea Street. (The nearby 1904 Sumida Building was also seen.) The ghosts at the very end didn't bother me that much. It was kind of cute, and at least it wasn't another beers-on-the-beach finale. According to the commentary on the season three DVDs, this scene was added by Peter Lenkov.
MORE TRIVIA:
The fourth disc of the third reboot season's DVDs contains this episode, but it also includes Hookman from the original series for comparison purposes.
In the original show, a woman sitting in the hearse in the opening funeral processor screams loudly after the coffin flies out on to the street, a very effective touch. This didn't happen. At least we were spared from seeing the coffin open up, with the sight of a decomposing body.
McGarrett determines that McKinney was not Keoki's killer because he "couldn't hit the side of a barn door," something Danno demonstrates again at the end during the shootout with Stoner. Kono is the one who takes Hookman out with a well-placed shot (Danno in the original show).
The license plate of the Mustang hauled out of the water was JSB 624. At least it was the same model that Stoner was driving, unlike in the old show. (But was this a stolen car? No mention is made of checking the plates of this car to determine who owned it.) The crane provided to recover the car was from Haku Crane & Rigging, LLC (a real company located on Sand Island).
According to his Supercomputer prison record, Stoner's Social Security Number is 903-41-6632. His number while in Halawa serving the sentence for the bank robbery was TE 4600 0623. His address is supposedly 7218 Kaupalena Street, Honolulu 96821 (no one suggests that this is no longer a valid address). A default Five-0 name of Robert Sternwig is seen on Stoner's Certificate of Parole, and Warden Aldrin Grier provided him with a letter of recommendation after he left Halawa.
Jason Kroger makes a cameo appearance in a mailbox store when Five-0 are searching for Stoner near the end of the show. Character actor Terry Plunkett, who appeared in 16 episodes of the earlier series, plays the proprietor of this store. By breaking into a filing cabinet containing index cards of the mailbox owners, Stoner's address is revealed to be 750 Taran Street, Apartment 324, Honolulu 96818 which is close to the store.
As an experiment, I merged some music from the beginning of the old show with video from the new show. You can see this by clicking here.
It is raining during the finale of the show.
Newspaper clippings from the "Pacific Register" newspaper are seen on the wall in Stoner's apartment. One of them has a large headline: "BANK ROBBERS [sic] HANDS BLOWN OFF."
On her Facebook page, Helen Kuoha-Torco, whose hips were seen at the beginning of every episode of the old Five-O, said: "Hey everybody!!! I am on tonight's episode of Hawaii Five O, The Hookman. I am driving in a funeral procession. The car that is behind of the family's car behind of the hearse. Yes, it is my Mary Kay car, and they covered the Mary Kay signs on it with black tape, and glued on another license plate. My license plate says 'MARYK1.' It is pretty fast, so tape it and you can see it in slow motion. This was the most fun episode that I have ever done in the new episodes. Loved it!!!"
Some photos from the show can be seen here.

16. (S03E16) Kekoa (Warrior) ★★½
Original air date: 2/11/13

This show was not bad, though kind of formulaic. It recycled some tropes from previous shows:
Young people having fun run into criminal elements who change their life in a big way (season 1, show 17)
Rich types gather at a Honolulu mansion to participate in illegal activity (season 1, show 3)
Mixed martial arts fighting (season 2, show 6)
"Fishy" stuff (season 1, show 20)
The show begins with some partying women leaving a male strip club. The women's car is rammed by bad guys who pop several shots into a body in the trunk of their stolen car before fleeing. Turns out this body is that of Thomas Hoapili, who ran a local fish market. Some time before, Hoapili turned in one Quentin Thorne to the cops, and Kamekona, who is Hoapili's cousin, figures that Quentin's brother Eddie is out for revenge. McGarrett and Danno make sure that Kamekona doesn't take the law into his own hands, and grill Eddie, who says that he was following Hoapoli around recently because he wanted to rob him of the large profits from his fish business. So much for the red herring suspect (no pun intended).
Max's autopsy of Hoapili's body reveals that Thomas suffered severe trauma and was in a fight before he was shot. Thomas's daughter Maggie (cultish actress Summer Glau), who has given Five-0 information that has holes in it, is hauled into the blue-lit room and, after pleading from her uncle Kamekona, reveals that her father was involved in Kapu Kuialua (a.k.a. "lua"), an ancient Hawaiian martial art involving hand-to-hand combat. Five-0 pays a visit to a secret lua training camp in the middle of nowhere, where a couple of dozen beefy and traditionally dressed Hawaiian guys fight, throw spears at each other and make scary faces. Shane Kawano (Joel de la Fuente), the leader of the group, says that Thomas was respected and had no enemies.
A tip from Kamekona leads Five-0 to figure out who the fleeing suspects were after the car crash at the beginning. They are both mixed martial arts types involved in underground matches at various international locations: Kat Carrigan (an unidentified actress?) and Ramsey Pollack (the nasty-looking Keith Jardine). A video in Carrigan's room shows Pollack seriously pummeling Thomas in the empty swimming pool of some mansion as cheering people look on.
Five-0 scratches their heads over all this, but finally figure out that Maggie is the real main attraction for illegal bouts on Oahu. She has been trained in secret by her father because he had no son and wanted someone to carry on the lua techniques. What is the connection between her and the two evil MMA types? Kawano, who was upset because her father, an "extreme traditionalist," wouldn't listen to his demands to make money from lua, and presumably arranged for Carrigan and Pollack to come to Hawaii. (It is also presumed that Thomas told Kawano about Maggie's training. This is a stretch because despite Thomas being like "like a brother" to Kawano, the fact that she wouldn't tell Five-0 or Kamekona anything about lua, and the fact that lua seems to be a "no girls allowed" kind of activity, makes you wonder why Thomas would tell him.)
Whatever ... Maggie is kidnapped and taken to the mansion where drunken rich types place bets and watch as a nasty fight between Kat and Maggie ensues. Kat even breaks Maggie's arm, but she fights back and defeats Carrigan. Then Kawano steps into the empty pool to take care of her. Conveniently, Five-0 shows up and the proceedings come to an end with the bad guys and spectators hauled off to jail. Kawano is dispatched by McGarrett with a shot to the knee similar to Indiana Jones' shooting the big turbaned guy with the huge sword.
The thing I liked most about this show was the gorgeous photography of the gorgeous Hawaiian scenery, such as at the beachfront house of Mick Logan (Treat Williams), a former Navy intel type now using his surveillance experience in the private sector. McGarrett hires Logan to spy on his mother, who "goes dark for a few hours every day" and is "racking up too many miles on the odometer." Logan thinks this is all creepy and cautions the mortified McGarrett that he might end up seeing his mother naked. This probably comes to pass, because Logan's surveillance of Ma McGarrett in a supermarket is kind of a flop, which leads to dates between the two. Logan pretends to be the "fabric king of Ohio" before Doris figures out who he really is and what he is doing. She actually acts pretty normal in this episode compared to previous ones.
The episode also had very good acting by Taylor Wily as Kamekona, probably his most dramatic performance of the series so far.
MORE TRIVIA:
Max's computer desktop as shown projected on the wall in the autopsy room, consists of a closeup of piano keys. Danno's desk in his office has a picture which looks like it was drawn by his daughter Gracie.
Kamekona drives an old Ford Bronco very reminiscent of one used in episodes of the old show, particularly seasons nine and ten. When McGarrett and Danno are tailing him to Eddie Thorne's house, it is also reminiscent of the old show, i.e., much too close. Amazing, the shots of Kamekona driving to Thorne's are NOT process shots!
Alex O'Loughlin's voice in this show is very gruff, likely because, according to reports, he was "sick as a dog" while filming the show.
Charlie Fong finds Kamekona's fingerprints on a gun through AFIS, which stands for Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the U.S. national system used by police departments and United States federal agencies such as the CIA, and FBI.

17. (S03E17) Pa’ ani (The Game) ★★
Original air date: 2/18/13

This was another formulaic episode. It was sort of OK for the crime-of-the-week (see below for "some conditions apply"), but, as a couple of other reviewers noted, focused too much on the Pro Bowl game being held January 27th, and events connected with it. In fact, the Pro Bowl subplot took up almost 30 percent of the show’s running time. Since I have no interest in football, American or any other kind, I found this part of the show beyond tedious, especially the ending where McGarrett and Danno, having missed the big game due to their work commitments, played some touch football in Aloha Stadium where the game was previously held.
The beginning was kind of cool, where a bunch of computer types from Ardus Microsystems took part in a Tactical Ops Fantasy Camp. Guys dressed and equipped like Army types shot it out with Jihadists, also played by employees from the company. One of the developers dressed in military fatigues, Scott Davis, got killed for real by an unaccounted-for member of "the other side."
Suspicion falls on Ardus employee Brent Mercer (Brennan Elliott), who is trying to leave Hawaii in a big hurry. It turns out he had made a fool of himself with Davis the night before, and was trying to avoid him in a major way. Mercer is bailed out by company boss Neil Redding (Pat Monahan), who says that Mercer "doesn’t have the balls to kill someone." Redding is worried that Davis’s murder is going to impact the company financially.
Max’s autopsy reveals that Davis was drugged with flutoprazepam, a real sedative and muscle relaxant used in the treatment of severe insomnia. McGarrett and Danno head to La Mariana Tiki Bar, where Nicky "The Kid" DeMarco, an old acquaintance of the McGarretts, is the owner and lounge singer. He is played by Larry Manetti, ex of "Magnum, P.I.." Nicky’s bouncer Isaiah (Napoleon Tavale) tells the two of them that he saw Davis leave the bar with Holly (Rebekah Steen), a grifter known for ripping off rich businessmen
Kono tracks Holly’s cel phone to the Kealohilani Tower at the Waikiki Beach Marriott. Holly is not there, but Kono sees a security video where Holly got into a fight with some guy who was punched out by Houston Texans running back Arian Foster acting as a good Samaritan. Danno and McGarrett talk to Foster, which lets Danno make a total fool of himself asking Foster some questions about a fumble he committed in a game which screwed up Danno’s fantasy football league stats. (McGarrett describes fantasy football as "Dungeons and Dragons for sports geeks.")
DNA from Foster’s ring leads to Timothy Cross (Matt Bushell), a dishonorably discharged army veteran, expert sharpshooter and felon who is hauled into the blue-lit room, He confesses to hiring Holly (whose real name is Lana Sullivan) to knock Davis out with the drug and steal the "intellectual property" on his laptop. But Cross, who says that he did not kill Davis and was hired via "double-blind" contacts, tells them that Holly freaked out over his plan and did not give him the data.
McGarrett and Danno pay a visit to Beth Sullivan (Shannon Lorance) who knows what her sister Lana (Holly) is up to. Holly has made a contact with a man who is willing to buy what was on Davis’s hard drive. Chin discovers that among the contents of Davis’s now-missing computer was information relating to the development of a next-gen chip set on which the company was staking its future. But Davis had e-mailed Redding many times that the chip set was not viable, so Chin figures there is something suspicious about the fact that there was a $30 million life insurance policy on the now-murdered Davis.
When McGarrett and Danno arrive at the place where Holly is meeting her mystery buyer, he turns out to be Redding, who also had hired Cross. Redding wanted the data stolen so no one would realize the chipset project was a flop (he throws the flash drive into the harbor) and presumably wanted to cash in on the insurance policy. He is taken down in an athletic chase sequence with McGarrett on an escalator.
As usual, there were some problems with the script:
When Isaiah, the bouncer from the bar, attempts to run away from Five-0, Nicky somehow gets ahead of him and stops him with a punch to the face. How Nicky does this is hard to believe, considering he seems to have trouble walking from his spot beside the piano to the table where he talks to Danno and McGarrett.
How did Holly get in touch with Redding? This makes no sense. She was dealing with Cross, whose relationship with Redding was a big secret. Cross doesn’t make any mention of having contacted Redding (even secretly) telling him that his business relationship with Holly turned out to be a big flop. In fact, Cross tells Five-0 that his clients (meaning Redding) are going to be mighty displeased.
How would Redding have financially benefited personally from the $30 million life insurance policy?
Finally, why would Davis bring his laptop containing the hard drive with all the sensitive company information to Hawaii? Even if he is a workaholic, wouldn’t this information have been encrypted or password-protected to boot? At the end of the show, when Redding escorts Holly at gun point, she tells him "I took a look at what was on that drive -- I know what you're trying to hide." How would she know this unless it was NOT encrypted (highly unlikely)? She is not a computer geek, is she? DUH!

MORE TRIVIA:
"DQ" e-mailed me to point out in this episode there are continuity errors reminiscent of the old show. At the beginning, McGarrett is wearing a blue shirt over what looks like a blue T-shirt ... but some times this blue T-shirt looks like it is black, maybe because they didn't do color correction or whatever. Danno is wearing a blue striped short-sleeved shirt. Same shirts when they are grilling Mercer. But moments later, when the two of them talk to Redding, McGarrett is wearing a green polo shirt and Danno's shirt has changed to a solid light blue! Then, when they run into Catherine outside the Five-0 office shortly after this, it's the blue/blue (or blue/black) combination again for McGarrett and Danno is back to blue striped. When the two go to interview Arian Foster, McGarrett is wearing the green polo shirt, which stays that way for the rest of the show. Danno is wearing what looks like a solid color purple shirt when he is going to Holly's with McGarrett in the car, which presumably happens the next day, because when Kono talks to them about Holly it is approaching night time (again, a color correction issue?). When they get to Holly's place, Danno's shirt changes to the solid light blue one and stays that way until the end.
Lana (Holly) and her sister Beth live at 2419 Popoolinu Avenue, Honolulu 96813. Holly’s driver’s license number is 763A883, she was born on 11/09/85, is 5’7" tall and weighs 115 pounds.
When she gets turned down by McGarrett over some tickets she has for the game, Katherine rubs it in about his "man-date" with Danny and the "three-way bromance" between the two of them and Kamekona, who holds a third ticket for the game.
The swishy security guard at the Marriott Hotel (Shawn Thomsen) is reading Michael Connelly’s crime novel The Black Box.
Not only does Danno embarrass himself with Foster, but the subsequent cargument with McGarrett is equally awful.
At the crime scene where Davis got knocked off, there is a very hot HPD evidence technician named Dakota Hayes, played by Jenny Mollen. She must become a regular character, please!
Kono determines that the height of the "Jihad guy" who kills Davis is 6 feet tall, but the guy is crouching. Does the computer software that determines his height take this into consideration?
Some of the files taken from Davis's hard drive, including those relating to "Failed Tests," as revealed on the computer screen at Holly's sister's place, date back to 2002.
When Danno and McGarrett are arguing about quarterbacks at the beginning of the show, Kamekona comes up with "deeply insightful analysis," uttering lines which are almost of Masterpiece Theater quality. Kamekona’s cousin Flippa (Shawn Mokuahi Garnett) also appears in the show.
Seriously, when I first saw Redding, I said to myself, "This is the bad guy." And he was!

18. (S03E18) Na Ki’i (Dolls) ★★
Original air date: 3/18/13

Once again, the logic behind the events that kick-start an episode were flawed and the show's writing left a lot to be desired.
As Dog the Bounty Hunter is holding a "third striker" named Russell on the hood of a car, Dina Moore, a school teacher later determined to be living a secret life as a member of the Liahi Diamond Dolls roller derby team, falls from her balcony onto the car's roof. (Contrary to what was in the CBS press release, it was not the bounty hunter's SUV, but some car parked on the street.) Prior to this, Dina was drugged by the episode's bad guy with gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB) which disoriented her and/or made her lose her sense of balance. Now, in order to fall off a balcony, usually you have to go over the balcony railing. There is no indication that she was thrown off the balcony (Max's suspicions to the contrary) or pushed, or that the drug made her suicidal. In other words, she somehow slipped (this is stressed during the show). In this case, how could she end up so neatly on top of the car unless the balcony was exactly above the car? As far as I can determine, the car was NOT parked right beside the apartment, but on the street.
As well, the way events transpire does not tally with Max's autopsy later. He says that when Dina hit the car, her "tibias shot through her kneecaps upon impact." In other words, she hit the car feet first. But this was not the case. She landed on her back, with her legs in an inverted "V" which then broke the car's back window!
The procedure used by Max to determine the injection point on Dina's back was also confusing. Max painted a blue substance called toluidine on her back, then sprayed a clear liquid over the area and shone a light on it to reveal the place where the drug was injected -- except the view of Dina's back did NOT show the square-like mark indicating the puncture area on Max's monitor. This was a golden opportunity for Max to come up with yet more geeky blather which was missed.
The roller derby aspect of the show bothered me a lot less than I expected it to, and Michelle Borth turned in a relatively good performance considering the shallowness of the script. The competition between the Diamond Dolls and South Shore Sirens was a lot less aggressive than the training sessions for the Dolls which preceded it. You have to wonder how the Diamond Dolls could put out a "casting call" with only a day or so until the tournament and come up with a new member based on what seemed like a very quick tryout. I thought it was pretty funny when McGarrett told everyone about the soon-to-be-undercover Catherine's experience with ice skating and seeing pictures of her in a little tutu shown to him by her father. The way everyone was cracking a smile definitely put this in the category of "too much information."
For the second show in a row, I figured out who the bad guy was well in advance of the big reveal near the end. In this case, it was Eric Blair (Drew Powell), the Diamond Dolls' coach. As part of her investigation, Catherine managed somehow to get his entire hard drive transferred in what seemed like only a few seconds. This made no sense at all, unless the information stored on this guy's computer was so small it would fit on a typical flash drive (64 gigs max?). How long would it normally take to accomplish this? Several minutes, I think. And how did Catherine get the information to Chin Ho?
The "porno" pictures which were on Blair's drive, revealing him to actually be Larry Banks, a felon who produced and distributed porn on the mainland, were pretty tame stuff. Why couldn't they have had some of the shots a bit more revealing (tastefully done for network TV, of course)?
But the big question with this computer was, similar to the previous episode, why would Blair put something not intended for the public eye on a personal laptop which was seemingly unprotected?
It wasn't only Blair that had "security issues." McGarrett's Mawm's house was burgled by some guy presumably connected with Mangosta, the Colombian assassin out for revenge from this season's episode #8, Wahine’inoloa (Evil Woman). A ski-masked guy broke into her house, which had an elaborate security system, and stole a metal box containing a microfiche with "unredacted action reports from [her] entire career in covert ops." DUH, Mawm! When Doris encountered this burglar, there was a kick-ass fight, and Doris seemed to be getting the better of the guy for a few seconds, but then he slammed her against the wall and escaped.
There was some intense emoting between McGarrett, Catherine and Doris at the end as Catherine revealed that she was sworn to secrecy regarding the attempt on Doris's life in the earlier show. But the whole Mawm business is becoming far too much like the incessant Joe-White-jerks-McGarrett-around-episode-after-episode plot line from season two. I predict that Doris is not long for this world...
MORE TRIVIA:
Blair/Banks' address on the mainland was 8218 9th Ave. SW, Seattle, WA 53033. This is almost a real address if you look it up on Google Maps, but the postal code is totally wrong. This ZIP code is for Richfield, Wisconsin, not Washington state, where it would be 98106.
The sound mix was mediocre in a couple of places where you wanted to hear it. One was where Danno was making some joke about one of the roller derby women's names. (When the woman (Tiffany Dupont) told him her real name was "Crimson Bride," Danno asked if her parents were "big Denzel [Washington] fans," referring to the actor's appearance in the film Crimson Tide.) The other was where they were interviewing Sharon Morgan (Zoe Bell), a pediatrician suspected of involvement with Dina's murder, about her private life as a roller derby participant.
According to "LittleGloves" on IMDB, the song heard during the Dolls' training session was Don't Give Up by Noisettes.
Sharon Morgan's address is 3318 Fornandes Street, Honolulu 96818. She weighs 130 pounds and is 5'8". Her driver's license numer is 192R201. Blair's driver's license, number 689A718, shows he lives at 1674 Keoula Lane, Honolulu 96817. He is 6'1" and weighs 214 pounds. His Social Security number (under his real name of Banks) is 942-36-0467.
A good quote from McGarrett to his mother: "We're not exactly The Waltons."
When Max shows Dina's body covered with the blue chemical, Danno asks why he is turning "our victim into a member of the Blue Man Group," referring to the trio of humanoid characters called Blue Men, played by actor-musicians who all wear bald caps and uniform blue makeup. Danno also reveals that his mother was a big fan of roller derby, and her favorite skater was Skinny Minnie Miller, a real roller derby legend.
When Catherine finally gets on to the Dolls, she tells Crimson she is sorry about Dicey (Dina). But how would Catherine know about this? Would the tryouts have mentioned this was because Dicey was killed? Or would this news have been in the papers? During the tryout, Catherine comes in second, and McGarrett has to pull strings to have the first-place winner arrested because of unpaid parking tickets. How would they know this woman's real name? There seems to be a big aura of secrecy surrounding the real names of members of the roller derby teams.
Interesting comment by marquis74 about Max Factor heir Andrew Luster at the hawaii-five-0.proboards.com forum, I wonder if this influenced the script. This is from Wikipedia: In 1996, 1997 and 2000, Luster was accused of giving three women GHB, a date rape drug (this is the same drug used by the bad guy in the show), and raping them while they were unconscious. Luster was brought to trial in 2002. Soon afterward, police officers found videotapes of Luster raping the women in question, including one tape labeled "Shauna GHBing." In January 2003, while on trial for rape, Luster left the country and was declared a fugitive from justice by the judge. [...] During his flight, Luster found his way to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he lived under the assumed name David Carrera, surfing and partying. He was captured by bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman, his son Leland Chapman, Tim Chapman, and two TV crewmen in a noisy scuffle on June 18, 2003, and was then taken into custody by Mexican authorities. The next day, Luster was returned to the U.S., and imprisoned. Chapman was subsequently arrested for deprivation of liberty because bounty-hunting is prohibited by Mexican law, a charge that was ultimately dropped in August 2007.

19. (S03E19) Hoa Pili (Close Friend) ★★½ BOOK 'EM
Original air date: 3/25/13

I thought this show was going to be connected with the trendy issue of sharks getting their fins lopped off to be used in soup. But this wasn't the case. Instead, it had sharks, sacred animals to Hawaiians, being freaked out by tourist boats, becoming less afraid of people and moving closer to land, which pissed off some of the local Kapu dudes. The crime of the week had nothing to do with sharks, but with drugs being dumped in the ocean and some fishermen getting involved way over their heads in trying to make a fortune from these drugs.
One thing that you can definitely say about this show is that it was extremely complicated. There was far too much information to be absorbed all at once.
It began at night out on the ocean with a cuckolded husband named Ryan (Brendan Ford) threatening to knock off his best friend Liam (Yuri Lowenthal) for screwing his wife on the boat he had bought for his wife Allie (Tara Platt) and named after her. Ryan actually used the word "screwing" and there was a lot of skin revealed in the scene with the couple "doing it." Just as he was about to pull the trigger, another boat nearby exploded violently. Most of this action was accompanied by music which was a total ripoff of John Powell's iconic score to The Bourne Identity. The music from that film has been alluded to by the current composer duo on several occasions, but never as blatantly as this.
Following the opening titles, the obligatory cute/comedic scene before McGarrett gets called away to work was Kamekona playing flight simulator games with him and Catherine showing up in a bikini, distracting them both (and me too). McGarrett was soon on his way to the crime scene at Haleiwa Harbor, where the fire-damaged Oahu Shark Tours boat was being examined. Craig Brant (Mac Brandt), co-owner of the tour company, was hyper because this was the third of his boats that had been recently burned. He told McGarrett that Five-0 was just as clueless as HPD in trying to solve the crimes. McGarrett and Danno were soon on board a Coast Guard vessel heading out to where Brant's brother Jason would have normally retrieved the shark cage used by their customers. Danno wondered why tourists would want to be put into a cage and then dunked into shark-infested waters. This was peculiar, considering Five-0's experience with a shark cage in the third show of the first season. The cage was located, and predictably, Jason's body was found inside.
Back on land, Max's preliminary look at Jason's body suggested that he was murdered before he was thrown in the cage. Considering there was no top to the cage, it's difficult to understand why Jason's body didn't just float away or the sharks didn't come inside it to chew him to pieces.
Following this was the first of two carguments, seemingly to make up for the lack of any in the previous week's show. This one was about Kamekona getting his helicopter pilot's license and operating a tour business. Danno said the idea of Kamekona flying over Honolulu made him "uncomfortable." When McGarrett replied that he knew that the entrepreneurial Kamekona would succeed, Danno said McGarrett had his "I know everything" face.
Although from the opening explosion, one might assume the tour boat was badly damaged, back at the Five-0 office, Kono revealed that there was some blood spatter discovered during the investigation on one of its railings and a recently-discharged "bang stick," or shotgun-like weapon used to scare away sharks underwater, was also found. She speculated that since Jason had no gunshot wounds, he had used this device to defend himself. Also, despite the fire damage, Charlie Fong determined that there was some paint from another boat on the tour boat's side, and he tracked that down to the Carlyle, owned by a fishing company also using the Haleiwa wharf as its headquarters.
McGarrett and Danno immediately headed back to Haleiwa and talked to fishermen and co-owners of the Carlyle, Joe ("Jay") Leppert (James C. Victor) and Bruce Kaneshiro (Kelsey Chock). They had a good excuse for the damage to their boat. They told the Five-0 duo that they attempted to be "good Samaritans" when they saw Jason getting pummelled by someone from the Kapu recently, and during the subsequent altercation, their boat bumped into Jason's.
This led McGarrett and Danno to Pupukea and the hangout of the Kapu. On the way, Danno cargumentatively tells McGarrett, over McGarrett's objections, that he feels the Kapu are guilty of Jason's murder. When they arrive at the Kapu area, where a house is on fire, they tell Kapu leader Kawika (Kala Alexander, in a recurring role) of their suspicions that someone from his "surf club" was involved in the boat explosion. Kawika gets the scary-looking Levi (Tanoai Reed) to admit to beating Jason, but Levi says he just wanted to teach Jason a lesson because his company was encouraging the sharks to learn bad behavior. Levi also has a good alibi for being nowhere near the explosion the night before.
Cut back to the blue-lit room, for the first of three sessions, where Craig Brant is being grilled, his fingerprints having been found on an empty gasoline can near the torched Kapu house. McGarrett was seen giving this can to a cop shortly before, telling Chin to pick up Craig. There is no indication how they managed to process the fingerprints so quickly. Craig admits to setting the Kapu house on fire, saying this was an example of "an eye for an eye." McGarrett points out that the Kapu guys had alibis, and despite Craig checking to make sure there was no one in the house before setting it ablaze, it was not a good idea to burn down someone's house because you could end up serving a lengthy prison sentence. (Charging Craig for this crime is never mentioned later.)
Chin's girl friend Leilani from the prison break episode shows up and derails the action for a few minutes, but then it is back to business as Charlie Fong shows Chin and Kono how a pet food dispenser with some explosive chemicals was used to start fires on two of the Oahu Tours boats. This M.O. was similar to one used at a construction site a couple of years before, and the suspect in that case was one Jimmy Amana, who had said the land under the construction site was sacred. Putting in more time than normally seen during an episode, Chin and Kono track Jimmy (Dennis Lee) down to Chinatown where they pursue him, culiminating in an interesting stunt where Jimmy flies over a car. Just as they are about to haul Jimmy away, two FBI guys show up and tell Five-0 to let him go, because Jimmy is a criminal informant who has been working a RICO (racketeering) case with them for two years. There follows a cool confrontation reminiscent of the way "Feds" used to jerk McGarrett around on the old Five-O, except this time, our boy and girl override the FBI (especially since they weren't keeping tabs on Jimmy when the previous night's explosion happened), with Kono shoving the guy into their car and wishing the Feds a nice day.
Jimmy gets the blue room treatment, and admits to setting the previous two fires on the docked tour boats, but denies having anything to do the explosion the night before and the murder of Jason. And what he says is backed up by a sudden revelation from the forensics team, who checked over the boat again, that there was no pet dispenser method of combustion used there -- DUH!
At the medical examiner's officer, Max has something unusual on his autopsy table -- a mako shark (isurus oxyrinchus), which had an arm in its stomach. After Max runs the prints from the arm's hand through AFIS, Chin connects this body piece to Hal Lewis, one of the co-owners of the Carlyle, especially since it has signs of buckshot. He says that the story Hal's partners Jay and Bruce gave McGarrett and Danno was a "fish tale," and that Jason was murdered because the sharks wandering too close to shore were interfering with their fishing business. Five-0 go to the address used by all three of the fishing partners (identified only as "Suspect's House") where they find Bruce dead. They also find a large plastic barrel which smells like MDMA (ecstasy). A pill in the bottom of the barrel is connected by Charlie Fong to a Taiwanese cartel importing the drugs into the island. They seemingly ditched a shipment when they were flying over the area where Jason's boat later blew up. McGarrett speculates that Jason saw the drugs being dropped from the plane as did the three on the fishing boat, who confronted Jason and killed him. This doesn't explain why the fishing boat wasn't seen anywhere near the tour boat during the teaser.
Jay is tracked down to Sand Island where he is finalizing a deal for the "X" with some locals. But the nasty Taiwanese gang also is there, just as Five-0 makes an arrest. They are disarmed and about to shipped off to Taiwan in a container when Kono, who was told by McGarrett to "secure the perimeter," drops a container on the Taiwanese gang boss Tsai (Bruce Locke) who is just about to fillet Jay. It's hard to understand how Kono managed to climb up into the crane, figure out how to operate it (you can hardly hear any noise from the crane except just before the container drops) and aim the container with such precision that it wipes out the boss and associate but misses Jay, who is standing only a couple of feet in front of them.
A kick-ass confrontation ensues, which was highly reminiscent of a video game where the programmers try to have as many characters fighting at one time as possible. (The episode was directed by series stunt co-ordinator Jeff Cadiente.) Jay tries to escape, but McGarrett quickly captures him, and it's off to the blue lit room for the final session of the show where Jay gets told what a jerk he is, because (a) he knocked off his two co-workers and (b) the ecstasy he stole was totally worthless.
Bookended by nice shots of Hawaiian scenery, "awww" moments follow where McGarrett and Kono visit Craig Brant to help provide closure for his brother's death (still not arresting Craig for arson!), and Chin and Danno go to the Kapu area to help rebuild the house which was torched.
The show ended with Kamekona, having obtained his pilot's license, taking the boys and Max for a helicopter tour, including some blatant product placement for the Hilton Hawaiian Village. This sequence went on far too long. When everyone broke into the theme from Magnum P.I. at the end, this was a serious violation of the Five-O/Five-0 space/time continuum, considering Magnum had references to McGarrett (no relation to anyone on the current show).
MORE TRIVIA:
The Carlyle was one of the Oceanic line of fishing vessels made in 2003 by Altor Nautical. The Marina Slip Agreement for it was in the name of Jay's name, whose address was 567 Barter Lane, Wailua 96791. It was dated 11/14/2010 and the boat was anchored at Slip G-114.
Hal Lewis (the arm), like everyone else connected with the Carlyle, had an address at 567 Barter Lane. His driver's license number was 975A719, DOB was 02/13/72, he was 5'10", and weighed 160 lbs. Jay Leppert's DL was 592R301, DOB was 4/30/71, he was 5'11" and weighed 150 lb. Bruce Kaneshiro's DL was 608F674, DOB was 11/18/71, he was 5'11" and also weighed 150 lbs.
Levi talks about his nephew being menaced by sharks at Kammieland. According to a WWW page, this is located just south of Sunset Beach on the North Shore. "It's a reef that long walling lefts on bigger swells and shorter fast rights. On smaller days this is a fun option especially if you're not up to more hardcore breaks such as Pipe. Named after one of the original northshore general stores, kammieland markets which opened in 1961."
The "bookem" at the end for Jay is "Book him, Kono."
Leilani's phone number, which she gives to Chin Ho, is the bogus 808-555-0134.

20. (S03E20) Olelo Pa’a (The Promise) ★★
Original air date: 4/15/13

This show was billed as a prequel to the pilot episode of the series, but there was little in it about Hawaii Five-0. While it was connected with McGarrett's pursuit of Victor Hesse's brother Anton who was brokering an arms deal with some rebels in North Korea, and an excerpt from the pilot episode was seen where Anton was taunting McGarrett in the military vehicle, much of the new show filled in background about "what made McGarrett the way he is today." The regular cast, who appeared in this show for only about 70 seconds total, must have been glad to get the week off.
Although much of the show, directed by Joe Dante, was well done, it was sabotaged by the script writers' usual serious misconceptions of North Korea which we have seen before in Ki’ilua (season two, episode ten) as well as Po'ipu (season one, episode nine) which featured a North Korean-like general.
In the teaser, probably the least suspensful of any seen during the show so far, McGarrett receives the body of his Navy SEAL buddy Freddie Hart (Alan Ritchson) at some grubby-looking bridge in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea as part of a prisoner exchange which has been in the works for three years. This locale is totally unlike typical shots of the DMZ which show fancy buildings, heavily fortified areas, mines, obstacles to prevent people from crossing, and so forth. McGarrett's combat outfit at the bridge seemed inappropriate, aside from the fact both his jacket and hat looked a couple of sizes too small. The North Korean big shot handing over the body had some "official" uniform on. Shouldn't the Americans' uniforms have been more respectful considering the occasion? As well, in the real world, the North Korean guys would have wanted to make this a well-publicized big deal that they were giving the body back, but the whole occasion had an air of secrecy about it.
Catherine is there with McGarrett, and I can't understand why. Just because McGarrett has the God-like ability to pull strings for all things Five-0 related in Hawaii, would he be able to ask for her to come along in a capacity like his second-in-command? It's almost like she there because she was his puppy dog or something.
Soon after this, McGarrett and his girl friend are in a hanger waiting to take off for the U.S.A. At this point, McGarrett opens the wooden casket and discovers that the body is not that of Freddie. Why did they wait until this point to do this? Wouldn't the North Koreans have anticipated that McGarrett would figure out quickly that the body was someone else's, especially considering the instantaneous DNS anal-ysis Five-0, and I'm sure other American investigative agencies, usually uses? And for that matter, why did the North Koreans not take the hoods off the prisoners that were being exchanged back on the bridge?
This is when the show started to get really stupid.
McGarrett puts in a call to Joe White (Terry O'Quinn), who is seen riding a horse in "Montana" (Hawaii with the Rocky Mountains in the background thanks to CGI), asking him to pull strings while he goes back to get Freddie's body. Then, despite having only a 24-hour time frame and the fact the Korean DMZ is 160 miles long, they manage to quickly track down Frank Bama (Jimmy Buffett, who was seen in the previous season two episode). Bama's helicopter used for a mission into the People's Republic in the earlier show is kaput, so he drives them to some "old smuggler's route" where McGarrett and Catherine trek through the jungle and soon wind up at the camp of the "far east terrorist organization" Dark Sun, where McGarrett captured Anton Hesse three years before.
All sorts of topographic blunders follow. McGarrett and Catherine spy on the camp, and when the exact same guy who knocked off Freddie drives away in a beaten-up Mercedes 420 SEL, McGarrett is able to overtake him. He tells the guy "you're going to take us to him [Freddie]," but they drive further away from the camp, rather than closer to it. The guy jumps out the door, causing the car to run into a tree which knocks out both McGarrett and Catherine temporarily. Quickly recovering, McGarrett realizes that the guy is running back to the camp and manages to follow and overpower him. When the guy calls out, he is close to the camp (note the cars in the background) and others hear him, but when they check out what is going on, they do not find McGarrett and his captive. McGarrett then forces the guy to dig up Freddie's body -- because they are suddenly only feet away from where it is located! Discovering that Freddie was not only killed, but his body was desecrated, McGarrett is out for revenge. But, on his way back to the camp, he and Catherine are captured by half a dozen of the rebels after a brief gun battle.
At the camp, McGarrett encounters rebel leader Han Ji-Woon (Rick Yune), who was the one who gave the orders to mutilate Freddie. When a grenade left under the now tied-up guy who dug up Freddie's body explodes far away, McGarrett and Catherine trip their distracted guards, grab their rifles and wipe out several of the rebels. Han is shot several times by McGarrett and killed. There is still gunfire and chatter in the background (though no one is coming after the dynamic duo), so McGarrett and Catherine escape and manage to transport the remains of Freddie's body out of North Korea. How this is done is not shown.
This is followed by a flashback to the capture of Hesse, obviously not Norman Reedus, the same actor as in the pilot, since his face is never seen and Freddie just slips a bag over his head. Another firefight follows, showing that the rebels are just as incapable of hitting the side of barn door three years before as they were during the recent shootout with McGarrett and Catherine. The seriously wounded Freddie covers for McGarrett, who manages to drive away in a truck despite the fact that at least a dozen heavily-armed rebels are only feet away and peppering the truck with bullets.
What a pity much of this show was such a mess. There were several good sequences:
Joe White training SEALS at the Navy's Coronado base, including McGarrett and Freddie.
Freddie being conflicted about whether he wanted to be in the SEALS, with McGarrett talking him out of quitting.
McGarrett being assigned the Apocalypse Now-like mission (which "does not exist") to capture Hesse.
The spectacular skydiving sequence where McGarrett and Freddie parachuted into North Korea in search of Hesse.
The scene where McGarrett dug up Freddie's body, with serious emoting by Alex O'Loughlin.
The finale, where Freddie's body was buried with military honors, and McGarrett consoled Freddie's family and young daughter.

MORE TRIVIA:
The obligatory gross scenes consisisted of shots of the bodies of Freddie and the other soldier and a snake being chopped up so Bama could drink a combination of snake's blood and rice wine.
During a brief phone conversation with Catherine, Danno tells her that he has a plate of wings from the Side Street Inn waiting for McGarrett when he returns.
The show was broadcast on April 15th, the anniversary of the birth of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung (1912-1994).
Just before McGarrett and Catherine are captured by the rebels, McGarrett looks over a cliff near a waterfall. I expected him and Catherine to both jump over.

21. (S03E21) Imi loko ka ‘uhane (Seek Within One’s Soul) ★★★
Original air date: 4/29/13

The gimmick for this episode was that it was almost all part of the Savannah Walker talk show. Aisha Tyler played the Oprah-like "Queen of Talk" Savannah, showing and telling an audience assembled on the beach in front of the Hilton Hawaiian Village about her 24 hours following the Five-0 crew around as they cracked a case. There were parallels between this show and the tenth season episode of the original, The Cop on the Cover, where Jean Simmons played a pain-in-the-ass reporter for a national magazine whose presence following Five-O around was authorized -- like Savannah's -- by the Governor.
I liked this new episode a lot more than I expected. The whole talk show concept was pretty cleverly done with a Savannah logo in the corner of the screen throughout and the opening credits in the same font as her show (the same way Hookman's credits were different earlier this season). The quality of the hand-held camera video was intentionally mediocre compared to the live shots during the TV show and the obligatory cargument with Savannah in the back seat as McGarrett and Danno bickered was while they were actually driving on a Honolulu street (I think), unlike the usual carryings on in front of a projected backdrop.
The way that Five-0 treated Savannah with indifference was pretty funny. On the other hand, Max, a major fan of her show, acted totally geeky. In the morgue he was wearing contacts, hair gel and a suit. Danno telling Savannah and the camera crew to "beat it" got a shocked reaction from the audience, who were probably motivated by telling them "think of what Scott Caan said when he dissed Hawaii." The whole show was full of quotable lines like Kono replying to Savannah's "How did you get so tech savvy?": "X-Box."
I thought the on-the-beach audience could have been oohing, aahing and clapping a lot more, and there could have been more "technical problems" like at the end of the show when the camera was damaged and the cameraman used his cel phone. As well, there were several instances where Savannah and her crew were privy to far too much information.
The crime of the week had to do with stolen U.S. currency plates. There were parallels between this and another old show, the third season, two-parter F.O.B. Honolulu (more about that later). A horribly mutilated body is found at the beginning of the show, and Wo Fat is nearby, disguised as a cop. Turns out that the body was that of a former Treasury Department employee named Gary Ray Percy (a.k.a. Roger Collins) who stole some currency plates with the help of a 3-D printer at his office in Washington, D.C. Percy was being tracked not only by Wo but also a Russian mobster (from Kansas City -- seriously). Percy/Collins’ arm had a tattoo removed which contained vital clues to the location of the plates.
As the talk show went on, I sort of wondered if they could pull this off for 40 plus minutes, and as it got towards the end, everything started to get d-r-a-g-g-e-d out. The case got very convoluted with the usual Five-0 plot complications that often defied logic. How Kono determined that the Russian was involved made little sense, as did the way the tattoo matched up with a map of the Ko'olau Valley and a tree the currency plates were buried under, especially since the picture of the tattoo was blown up from surveillance camera footage at the tattoo parlor. As Savannah explained all this to her no doubt dumbfounded audience, I started feeling that she was no longer the talk show host, but just the narrator of what was happening on the monitors behind her on the beach.
The killer/mutilator of the treasury employee turned out to be the brother of Percy/Collins’ girl friend Kammie Leeds. She blabbed to her brother Tony after the room she and her boyfriend were sharing was trashed, either by the Russian or Wo. Tony's criminal past was only briefly hinted at and impossible to pick up from the mug shot which was seen for a fraction of a second. It listed his past crimes as assault, attempted murder and breaking and entering. Turns out this was because some transitional dialogue from Savannah around this time was left off the soundtrack. It showed up in the subtitles: "Recently paroled, Kammie's brother, Tony Leeds, had a long rap sheet and extremely violent history."
The big climax of the show came in the valley, where Wo Fat suddenly appeared flying a helicopter, trying to escape from the crime scene with the plates. Unlike in episode number 14 of this season where there was a firefight involving Wo where none of the bullets hit their mark, Five-0's fusillade involving heavy-duty weaponry knocked the copter out of the sky quickly, and Wo suffered an ignominious capture in front of Savannah's cameras.
Even though he is now confined to a heavily-guarded hospital room, the big question is – will Wo escape again? My theory: this is not Wo but his double, like in the old show’s episode Here Today, Gone Tonight, where McGarrett says that Wo has two doubles.
Probably the thing that I liked the best about the show -- there was almost NO MUSIC!!
MORE TRIVIA:
In F.O.B. Honolulu, Wo Fat is in Hawaii and after U.S. currency printing plates (the value has gone up from $20 to $100). Other interesting coincidences between the older show and this one (thanks to Jeff and Bill K. for adding to the list):
One of the other people after the plates is a Russian, played in the old show by Roger C. Carmel, best known as Harry Mudd in two episodes of Star Trek.
Some big shot in Washington, D.C. has a major interest in the case, in the old show Jonathan Kaye, in the new one Secret Service agent Kershaw (Noah Beggs).
Both shows include a makeshift map (in the old, Carmel's character, finding a pad where a map has been drawn, uses a pencil tracing of the impression that had been left on the pad; the April 29 episode had a tattoo that was really a map).
There is a battle with a helicopter in an out-of-the-way location.
The guy who originally has the printing plates in his possession ends up dead.
At the end, Wo Fat is seriously wounded, but is not captured in the old show.

According to the Savannah show, Charlie Fong's real name is actually "Che." As far as I am aware, this is the first time this has been established. Fong looks kind of stunned when being interviewed.
Max gushes to Savannah that while an undergraduate at Arizona State, he was known as "Beerman," not "Bergman."
Chin Ho tells Savannah that he wanted to be a "jazz trumpeter." When she says "Oh, like Miles Davis?", Chin says words to the effect that there was only one Miles Davis, and that's why he became a cop.
Chin defines Wo Fat for the twenty-first century: "Wo Fat is a ruthless son of a bitch. Wo Fat is a global terrorist. He tortured and murdered innocent people. He supplies arms to our country's enemies. He's a true sociopath. He's devoid of any morals or scruples." Chin wonders to Savannah if he can say "son of a bitch" on TV, which is pretty funny, considering how many times this phrase has been heard on Five-0 recently.
When Catherine admits on Savannah's show that she uses military resources to "help a friend," despite the fact that McGarrett and her C.O. "go way back," you have to wonder if this is going to have serious repercussions for her.

22. (S03E22) Ho’ opio (To Take Captive) ★★★
Original air date: 5/6/13/13

This was an above-average episode, primarily because it had very serious subject matter: the kidnapping of young children. This brought out the father in Danno, and no matter what one may say about Scott Caan's bitching about the show and Hawaii, there was an outstanding performance from him, on par with the 9/11 episode and the one where Danno's daughter was kidnapped last season. Alex O'Loughlin's acting was also well above par and very intense.
According to a blog by Honolulu Star-Advertiser columnist Mike Gordon, this episode was inspired by a conversation between executive producer Peter Lenkov and Tip Gilbert, whose daughter Maile was abducted and brutally murdered in 1985 and whose name is used for the Hawaiian equivalent of the Amber Alert. Gilbert played himself in this episode, along with friends in the Pacific Knights motorcycle club who helped Five-0 investigate the case.
In a bizarre coincidence, news broke almost at the same time as this show was broadcast about three women who escaped from forcible confinement in Cleveland. Not only was the duration of one of these women's imprisonment the same -- 10 years -- but her name -- Amanda -- was the same as one of the captive girls on the show.
Unfortunately, there were several distracting scenes in the show, the worst of which involved the soap opera revolving around Kono and her boyfriend Adam, obviously leading up to some big complication in the season finale. The beginning of the show had Kamekona refereeing a silly sumo-style match on the beach, which provided Kono and Chin Ho the opportunity to talk nearby about the fact that Adam had not been heard from recently. To compound matters, Kono then got Catherine to use her intel abilities to track down Mr. "Sato," whose name had been dropped by a yakuza goon who interrupted Kono snooping around Adam's desk (where a picture of her and Adam was prominently featured). Puh-leeze! Catherine quickly discovered that despite the name of Sato being as common in Japan as Smith is in North America, this particular individual, first name Riku (Interpol ID JR323459), was an oyabun (Yakuza boss) in Osaka, and Adam had been seen recently hanging out with him.
The bad guys in this show, Ray Beckett (Henry Rollins) and Terry Beckett (Mare Winningham) were very nasty, "purchasing" girls to scam welfare benefits. Rollins was just creepy, and Winningham very effectively portrayed a deranged woman under the control of her husband who was also sympathetic to the kidnapped girls. Both girls had been sold to them by Helen Cantera, played by an uncredited actress. The show began with the discovery of the body of Amanda Morris (Kanani Rogers) who was murdered by Beckett because she was approaching the age of 18, when her use to him in getting an additional $500 a month to supplement his disability payments would run out. She was replaced by the 6-year-old Ella Bishop (Mykayla Sohn), who was lured from her yard by Cantera disguised as an HPD officer. The girls were kept shackled in a secret back room in the Becketts' house.
As good as the story for this episode was (by Peter Lenkov with teleplay by Noah Nelson), the writers could not stick to Keeping It Simple as far as the character of Helen Cantera was concerned. Considering the woman shot herself in the head when confronted by Five-0, details were added to round out her back story, suggesting that she was the "big boss" of the kidnapping racket. According to Chin Ho, there were 21 fake ID's for Cantera's victims created by one David Parsons in the Vital Records Division of the Hawaii Department of Health over the years. How many people were involved in this racket with Cantera, if any? Her car had been freshly repainted from blue to red in less than a day. Was she capable of doing this herself? The money in the drawer at Cantera's place was estimated by Kono at around $40,000, who said it was from "trafficking children for profit." So where were these other children? All being sold to people who wanted to scam welfare benefits? Or were they taken off the island for some sinister purpose? Cantera's character was already very bad, it wasn't necessary to make her worse at the expense of causing us to think about what was a very effective story line.
There was a short cargument in this episode over whether Danno could keep his promise of finding the kidnapped Ella to her parents, but it was relatively subdued. What was really surprising was the fact the music was better than usual. Maybe the producers found some extra money in the budget so the resident composers could write some new cues. The ending of the show, with Danno visiting Amanda's parents who were reading her diary kept while a captive, was serious in keeping with the show's overall tone.
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Ella Bishop's Social Security number was 962-49-2381. Her address from which she was abducted was 286 Hapai Road, Honolulu 96814 and her parents' phone number was 808-555-0176. She was 6 years old (date of birth 02/24/07, 3'9" and weighed 48 pounds.
The falsifying of the IDs sounds very much like what James Watanu was doing in the classic Five-O second season premiere episode A Thousand Pardons -- You're Dead. Amanda's name during her captivity was Jessica Beckett. When her body was found, she was 5'2" and weighed 120 pounds. Ella's name was changed to Lisa Beckett with a new birthdate of 08/13/2006.
How did the motorcycle gang so quickly manage to find the exact truck which was suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of Ella? Note that this stolen van was a Ford Econoline (license number HJ9 2446), another slap at the sponsor of the old show. It was driven by Lloyd Grimes, the episode's obligatory red herring suspect. He was played by Don Swayze, brother of Patrick.
Helen Cantera's 2007 Dodge Intrepid had the license number SD2 10L. Her driver's license number was 391K792, her date of birth 06/13/68, and she was 5'9". Her address was 3117 Puhikapa Street, Honolulu 96817.
The Becketts' home address was 1110 Okaka Road, Makaha 97692.
Becoming a stock Kono line: "Guys, there's something inside you need to see."
During the sumo match, Kamekona is calling "Hakkei yoi," which is to encourage the wrestlers to get a move on when action has stopped, and "Nokotta" which means "the bout is still live!" according to Wikipedia.

23. (S03E23) He welo ‘oihana (Family Business) ★
Original air date: 5/13/13/13

I swore that I would not write more than my original one-paragraph review about this "from the sublime to the ridiculous" episode, but I cannot resist. It is deserving of one star, not because it was utter garbage (the usual reason for this rating), but because it was so dumb. I felt bad for the actors in this show having to to partake in such an idiotic plot and spout such drivel.
The show had very little to do with Five-0. It was mostly a transitional episode dealing with the Kono/Adam soap opera and McGarrett's mother's attempts to recover the microfiche stolen in this season's eighteenth episode. To help her get it back, she had the assistance of Commander Wade Gutches (David Keith) and her boyfriend Mick Logan (Treat Williams) plus the volunteered help of her son.
The presence of Gutches was totally illogical. He appeared in two previous shows, the one where Navy SEALs were being knocked off and the show ended with Five-0 witnessing a Mexican drug cartel takedown by SEALs (season two, episode three), and the first A-Team adventure into North Korea (season two, episode ten). How does Gutches know Doris? Is he a friend of Mick, who has been established previously as a retired Navy intelligence officer? Is Gutches now retired?
After the theft of the microfiche, Doris pulled a print from the break-in and hacked into the FBI national fingerprint database from a free publically accessible wi-fi hotspot. Considering Doris is supposed to be some kind of super spy, which suggests a certain level of intelligence (literally), can you think of any move which is so stupid? Of course, the FBI has no trouble tracing the IP address and then getting a security camera photo of Doris where she is logging on to the Internet. Then one Kevin Hobbs at the FBI, formerly at the naval academy, calls Catherine, because they know she is McGarrett's squeeze, to tell her about all this, rather than just calling McGarrett himself!
When McGarrett confronts his mother, she tells him that she used the fingerprint to determine that the guy who stole the microfiche was one James Austin, an ex-military man who was dishonorably discharged. He was hired by Tyler Cain (Craig T. Nelson), who worked with Doris at the CIA. (How she figures out Austin works for Cain is never established.) Cain left the agency to open up a private military company which is "supplying mercs to every dictator with a checkbook." Now about to be appointed Director of National Intelligence, Cain wants the microfiche back because it contains information that might interfere with his Senate confirmation, and "a lot of ex-operatives could be burned by the evidence that is on there," according to Mick.
Despite the fact that Cain's office in the First Honolulu Tower where the safe containing the microfiche is located has security guards left, right and center, Gutches has little trouble snooping around in the building disguised as a man checking the fire extinguishers. Mick manages to get a copy of a key card for the building using some sleight-of-hand techniques.
Then comes the big "Mission Impossible" sequence with McGarrett and Doris. Mick inexplicably sneaks into the electrical/phone room of Cain's building without being detected, and manages to control cameras and other monitoring equipment, knowing exactly which components in the room to disable. (Later on, Mick leaves the building without anyone noticing him as well.) McGarrett and his mother enter via the roof, rappelling down ropes beneath a helicopter piloted by Gutches, also without being seen by anyone in all of Honolulu.
The way the 60-plus-year-old ninja mom Doris was leaping around inside the elevator shaft and running through the building as guards pursued her and her son was laughable. When she was cornered in the room with the large window, I expected her to jump through the window and plunge to the ground, latching on to some window-washing equipment on the way down.
The mission ended in Cain's office where McGarrett threw the microfiche (or seemed to) into a fire in a metal container like a garbage can in order to free his mother from Cain's clutches. No one writing this scene considered that if there really was a fire like this, the smoke detectors in the ceiling would have alerted the fire department immediately.
As far as the Kono/Adam sub-plot is concerned, this has been going on far too long. I kind of liked it when we first found out about it, because Kono was TOTALLY NAKED, but I recently did a Google search for this kind of cop/criminal relationship. I found out that there are very few instances of it, because there are all sorts of complications that have to do with undermining the credibility of the cops who are involved, not only in relation to the criminal they are screwing, but their job generally.
Of course, it is far too much work for the writers of Five-0 to use these kinds of complications to make for some interesting repartee between the characters. Chin Ho, for example, seems totally accepting of Kono “doing it” with Adam (and it is a VERY serious relationship because Kono’s picture is right on Adam’s desk!). In this episode, Danno knows about it too, though he has never mentioned it in the past. So does McGarrett also know? Does it have his blessing?
No doubt Five-0 can use Kono's relationship in an undercover way to find out all sorts of dirt on Adam and his pals. But this would be at considerable risk to her emotional health, another angle which could have been developed by the writers, assuming we want to go further down the soap opera road. But it hardly has been, other than the standard pouty Kono-with-her-sad-big-brown-eyes looks!
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The sound mix for the final critical line, where Max revealed that Kono's gun was used to kill yakuza found dead in a field at the beginning of the show, was totally incomprehensible. I had to "rewind" and play this line again to understand it (though I had an idea what was being said). The field where the yakuza bodies were found was mentioned as being along the light rail line planned for Oahu. This has been in the works for years, and the line is scheduled to open in three phases between 2015 and 2019.
The teaser for this show was very short, about 47 seconds.
When Danno and Chin Ho confront Michael Noshimuri in the gym where he has just beaten the crap out of his sparring partner, I found it hard to believe that the Five-0 duo could seriously take Michael on, even together. Michael tells them to contact his lawyer, whose phone number is 555-0198.
The helicopter that Gutches is piloting is numbered N9511.
Kono has a "Hey there, it's Five-0" moment when she confronts a couple of yakuza thugs in a warehouse. For her trouble in trying to arrest them, she is shot in the stomach, though the bullet doesn't hit any vital organs.
As McGarrett and his mother leave the building in the elevator, he reveals that what he threw in the flaming garbage can was not the real microfiche, which he shows to her. DUH!! Aren't the cameras in the elevator turned back on now?

24. (S03E24) Aloha. Malama Pono (Farewell and Take Care) ★★
Original air date: 5/20/13

After all the anticipation and all the joking around making up funny scenarios as to what could happen with this season finale, and considering all the stupid ones that might have happened but never did (i.e., Wo and McG are brothers, blah blah blah, which hopefully will never happen now), this episode was very disappointing.
The main story wasn't that bad, a typical Five-0 case with lots of non-stop, kick-ass action, though it had a few of the usual problems. However, the ending was schizophrenic, as if one team of writers had worked on the show up to that point, and then another team, who had absolutely no idea what the first team were doing, worked on the final scenes.
The episode began with Kono on the run from HPD, carrying on from the previous week's show where her gun was determined to have killed Victor Asanuma, a yakuza found in a dumping ground. Presumably Max was obligated to spill the beans, since a prosecuting attorney was the one who ordered her arrested. McGarrett threw Kono's cel phone out the window as they raced through the streets of Honolulu in the usual fashion. Surprisingly the HPD car tailgating them didn't see this. At one point while the HPD cars were tied up in traffic behind them, Kono ducked out and McGarrett and Danno continued on to the point where they were boxed in by Duke Lukela and several other officers. Duke's reaction at this point was incredulous. You would expect him to arrest McGarrett or force him to reveal Kono's whereabouts, but after the usual Five-0 stonewalling, Duke just walked away, frustrated, saying "I hope you know what you're doing, Steve."
Off the hook from breaking numerous laws, McGarrett and Danno are called to a plane on an airport tarmac where the five people inside are all dead, either shot or with their throats slit. After discussion with Luis Braga (Miguel Sandoval), a government bigshot, the plane and its occupants are determined to be connected with the CIA. It was taking Rafael Salgado (Michael Irby), a member of the NLM (National Liberation Movement) from Brisbane, where he was brokering an arms deal, to Guantanamo. Salgado is suspected of being connected with a "domestic terror threat."
Kono arrives at a secret house known only to Adam's family. Adam assures Kono that he has her best interests at heart, despite hanging out with a yakuza boss in Japan. He says that he is trying to protect Kono and divest himself of his family's criminal enterprises at the same time, knowing that his brother Michael is working on assembling an "army" to fight for the family business.
One of the cel phones from the murdered men on the plane is used to track down a woman in Oahu named Lyla Simmons (Yara Martinez), the former girl friend of Salgado, who she knew as Pedro Silva. She met him in Peru while studying literature, and had his child. After realizing how radical he was and that he was connected with a bombing on their university campus, she wanted to get as far away from him as possible. When Five-0 checks on her young son Jack, he is gone.
Figuring that the mastermind Wo Fat knows something about Salgado, McGarrett pays him a visit in his Supermax-style "High Risk Detention Facility" at an "Unknown Location," where he is protected by numerous armed guards. When he offers Wo 15 minutes of exercise a day outdoors in exchange for his co-operation, Wo says "I burn easily." Getting nowhere, McGarrett says he will cut off the medication used to control the pain from the horrible burns that Wo received two episodes ago. Wo replies, "What's next? No dessert?" As McGarrett is about to leave, Wo quickly speaks up, providing information that leads to Arturo Casey (Yancey Arias), a sleazy local entrepreneur who traffics in "arms, explosives, chemical weapons, and identity papers." On his way out of the prison, McGarrett learns that his mother was also visiting Wo there within the last 48 hours.
Despite the fact that she is number one on HPD's Most Wanted list, Kono goes with Adam to a Noshimura family "supply depot," searching for evidence that Michael stole her gun. And they find it, in the form of gloves covered with blood that Kono suspects Michael wore when he knocked off Asanuma. They are interrupted by Michael, and Adam pretends to be looking for a gun for protection. Kono hides under a van, and after Adam leaves, Kono manages to sneak out and rejoin her boy friend.
Kono subsequently meets Charlie Fong on the beach and gives him the bloody gloves, asking him for a favor. She tells him that she is fighting for her life.
Arturo Casey is rounded up and gets the blue-lit room treatment. When threatened by McGarrett, Casey tells him to take a hike, which produces a surprising quote from McGarrett, very similar to that in the news with the recent Boston bombings: "You don't have rights when you supply material support for a foreign terrorist network." Casey finally cracks after McGarrett threatens to release him and spread the word that he was co-operating with their investigation.
Doris shows up and McGarrett confronts her, saying that he knows she was visiting Wo Fat. He also wants questions answered with regard to her continuing deception of him. Unfortunately, just as she is about to reveal why she let Wo Fat go during this season's first episode, they are interrupted by Danno who tells McGarrett that they have tracked down the black 2010 Cadillac Escalade loaned by Casey to Salgado.
With the help of HPD and Catherine using the usual naval resources, they catch up to this SUV and take Salgado into custody. When asked where his son Jack is, Salgado says that he did not kidnap the boy, but members of the NLM who are in Hawaii did. They want to exchange the boy's life for his own.
Salgado says that the terror attack planned by his organization is going to be in San Francisco, but he refuses to give any more details until he knows his son is safe. Five-0 takes Salgado outside via the back door of Five-0 headquarters just as some members of the CIA are coming in the front to interrogate him. Outside, they carjack some guy's SUV which they use to take Salgado to the meeting place where he is supposed to make the exchange for his son.
Meanwhile, at the crime lab, Fong determines that the blood on the outside of the gloves is that of the murdered yakuza, and DNA inside the gloves belongs to Michael Noshimura. Unfortunately, Michael shows up in the lab, stabs Fong and takes the gloves with him.
At the meeting place in Kaneohe, Salgado meets with his fellow revolutionaries, who are suspicious about whether he has been talking to the cops. Just as they are about to execute both him and his son, Five-0 appears out of nowhere and starts shooting up the place. Salgado is seriously wounded and rushed to the hospital where he manages to tell McGarrett before he dies that the terrorist attack will take place on San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. McGarrett relays the information to the appropriate people. Jack is reunited with his mother.
Back at their secret hideout, Adam and and Kono are confronted by Michael, who threatens to kill her. A struggle between the two brothers results in Michael being shot dead. Chin Ho shows up and tells Adam that he should get out of town ASAP.
This is when things started to get really stupid.
Although McGarrett had been bitching out his mother only a short time before, she suddenly shows up at some dock in Honolulu where the whole team is assembled, acting all chummy. She has arranged to get Adam a ride to China on some freighter to hide out until the heat in Honolulu blows over. When asked by her son why she is doing this, Doris says "I get to help people you care about, it's the least I could do." She even used the expression "To be continued..." WTF?!? Kono then decides to go to China with Adam! Worse yet, Chin Ho tells McGarrett "Steve, don't stop her," and whispers to Kono "Follow your heart" as a goopy pop song, Promise by Ben Howard, is heard in the background. Kono, Doris and Adam board a freighter which looks like some CGI ship in Life of Pi, sort of the modern-day equivalent of a pirate ship on an indoor lake in a 1940's Warner Brothers movie. It sails off as the (now) Five-0 trio and Catherine look on.
Back at the office, Chin Ho decides to give his new girl friend Leilani, who he met during the prison break episode, a call. Danno, upon returning home, finds his girl friend Gabby, who brushed him off in the previous show, waiting for him. She appears on screen for all of 28 seconds.
McGarrett returns to Wo Fat's Hannibal Lecter-like prison where he wants some answers. But Wo says he wants McGarrett's help to get out, just as an explosion and muffled gunfire is heard behind the heavy metal door to the cell. Then an acetylene torch starts to cut through the door. What?!?
MORE TRIVIA:
Considering the show was tolerable up until about 35:40, the rating for this show (based on 2-1/2 stars, which it would have been to that point) should actually be 2.03 stars.
How would Salgado know how to get in touch with the kidnappers once he got to Hawaii? Note, he is using a cel phone stolen from one of the CIA guys ... wouldn't the CIA have been tracking it?
How did Michael know that Fong was working on the gloves?
How does Five-0 get to the scene where Salgado meets the revolutionaries without being detected? After all, they all went to the scene in the carjacked SUV. How does Five-0 know exactly when to get out of the car so they can sneak through the underbrush while the exchange with Salgado (which only takes a few minutes) is going on?
The sound mix for this show was extremely bad in several places. When Max told McGarrett at the hospital that Charlie Fong had been "stabbed," I thought he said that he was "dead." Second week in a row for some climactic line from Max being difficult to hear. Chin telling Kono to "Follow your heart" was almost totally inaudible, as was what Catherine said to Kono during their final hug: "I'm seriously gonna miss you sista [sic]." This is taken from the subtitles. But Kono replies to her (also according to the subtitles): "Ditto," which REALLY was inaudible.
Catherine's old boyfriend Lt. Commander William “Billy” Harrington (Justin Bruening) shows up unexpectedly as she is walking down the street in Honolulu relaying information to McGarrett on her phone. Are we to expect yet more soap opera next season with complications between the three of them? Note this character's last name, same as Al (Mamo on the new show, Ben Kokua on the old).
Considering there are at least nine guards outside Wo Fat's cel, the people who are supposedly breaking in must be pretty efficient. Personally, I am guessing that what's going on out in the hallway is all a diversion stage-managed by McGarrett to get Wo to start talking very fast about a variety of subjects.
Salgado's Interpol page reads as follows:

RAFAEL SALGADO

BACKGROUND
Last known country: Columbia [sic]
Nationality: Peruvian
Place of birth: Huacho, Peru
Last known address: Unknown
Association: National Liberation Movement
Base of operation: Latin America
Territory: Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia [sic], Panama, Nicaragua

CRIMINAL HISTORY
Wanted dead or alive for crimes including murder, extortion, kidnapping, arms and drug re[lated activities]
Arrested in 2007 for his connection in terrorist bombings in Brazil, Columbia [sic], Chile and Argentina. Held in Chile but escaped during a prison riot in 2008.

PERSONAL HISTORY
Salgado has military training as he served in the Peruvian army from 200-2001 [sic], but was dis[honorably] discharged.
Came onto the NLM's radar after his involvement in a bombing of a campus science building [which left] two dead.

No known next of kin
McGarrett tells Salgado "You've murdered hundreds of civilians." But the electronic "paperwork" from Interpol above that is seen on screen briefly suggests that only two people died in the bombing at the university.
When they catch Salgado, he says "Mi hijo [my son] ... they took my boy." According to IMDB user OneTicketToFarhampton, the other stuff that the guys say in Spanish when Salgado meets up with them later in the middle of nowhere is as follows. Armed thug to Salgado: "Get on your knees." Armed thug into radio: "Bring the boy."
The chain of evidence of the gloves with the blood/DNA on them leaves a lot to be desired.
In the final scene on the dock, there are several instances of lens flare.

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