S05E11 - “‘V’ For Vashon: The Patriarch” - Plot

(Prepared by Bobbi Baker)


Act One

Flashbacks to Chris Vashon's (Robert Drivas) attempted apprehension and death as well as Honore Vashon (Harold Gould) hiring high-priced hit man Dylan Heyward (Don Knight) from Melbourne, Australia. Heyward's setup and firing into a dummy in McGarrett's office and his testimony in court against Honore to send him to prison. It ends with Dominick Vashon's (Luther Alder) vow of revenge, "my turn!"

Nick goes to visits Honore at Oahu State Prison exchanging pleasantries about the family. Then they get to business, namely a man named Sullivan (Robert Luck) who will be released next week but will need some persuading. Nick isn't worried, as Tosaki (Kwan Hi Lim) will handle that part of it.

Sullivan is brought to Nick's house where Nick tells him what he wants done and he's willing to pay for it by a lot. When Sullivan balks, Nick comes up with a clever lie: he tells Sullivan there are 15 grams of heroin in his apartment placed there on McGarrett's orders so he can bust Sullivan again. Sullivan asks how Nick knows this information and Nick says he makes it his business to know everything going on in Hawaii that may prove useful to him. Nick proposes Sullivan go home, look for the drugs and if he finds them to come back so they can discuss more about Nick's proposal. In actuality, Nick and Tosaki planted the drugs so they can continue to use Sullivan!

In McGarrett's office, Danno walks in with an expense report: $50 for a tip from Joe Akkuda (David Lippy Espinda). According to Joe, Nick's house is up for sale as well as his criminal empire either the whole lot or piece meal. McGarrett asks Danno's take: they've cracked the Vashon empire but McGarrett doesn't buy that. McGarrett knows he's being blamed for both Honore's prison sentence and Chris' death and nothing is settled until Nick is in jail or dead. McGarrett believes Nick is up to something.

At Nick's house, Sullivan is back with a pair of officers breaking in and finding the stash. Sullivan agrees to do Nick's bidding as long as there is a getaway for him. Tosaki hands him a .38.

The next day, McGarrett is leaving a luncheon based on a message from the office. Harvey Mathieson Drew (John Stalker) follows him, leaving for his own reasons. They both enter the elevator to go downstairs just after Sullivan takes it on Tosaki's signal. Sullivan lays in wait until they walk out in his line of fire. Sullivan fires three shots as McGarrett quickly spins around to fire two rounds hitting Sullivan. McGarrett rushes to the elevator car but is unable to get in and runs up the stairs.

When the elevator opens at the lobby, Sullivan is laying there with a woman near a panic attack upon seeing him. The security guard (Robert Harker) rushes in before McGarrett arrives from downstairs. McGarrett has the hotel clerk (Jim Hutchinson) call for an ambulance, HPD and his office. McGarrett finds Sullivan dead and asks for his gun but the security guard said there wasn't one with an onlooker (Walter Yoshimitsu) speaking in a loud tone there was no gun! McGarrett knows he's in deep but the cavalry is en route. Meantime, Tosaki returns to the daytime shadows.

Tosaki returns to Nick's house with the gun he gave Sullivan. He reports it went well with a cousin putting the icing on the cake. Nick says they make their next move tomorrow when Tosaki brings Mrs. Sullivan (Pat Herman) to see him. Nick is quite pleased because the police will find no gun and no slugs: Sullivan was shooting blanks! Nick is smug, as McGarrett has killed an unarmed man.

Act Two

Doc Bergman (Al Eben) briefs McGarrett on the two bullets he fired with one severing the abdominal aorta and probably killed him before he fell over. McGarrett still wonders about the gun.

McGarrett sees John Manicote (Glenn Cannon) next with Drew. Manicote isn't happy with all the heat on his office as phone calls and cablegrams swarm in. McGarrett is the only witness to see a gun with Sullivan and the three shots could be anywhere. Drew is helpful on one front: he can say he heard more than two shots were fired.

Mrs. Sullivan is taken to Nick for a visit. She isn't impressed by the series of events, especially with the DA believing McGarrett's story. Nick offers her $5000 to go to the editor of the morning Telegraph to tell her sob story about her husband being a model prisoner and how McGarrett tried to interfere with his parole.

Manicote is unhappy and McGarrett is just about livid because Sullivan was convicted three times for the same offense: drug pushing. Manicote also mentions the implication of Five-O planting narcotics in his apartment and McGarrett comes nearly unglued. They then move on to the message McGarrett received from the hotel switchboard: it was faked. The discussion comes to a disturbing conclusion: McGarrett's story "cannot be substantiated". Manicote has no choice but to go after a Murder Two indictment as McGarrett points out even a hint of a whitewash will negate all their hard work over the years.

The news spreads fast and wide with Nick watching the news with hawk's eyes. The trial is set for the 23rd.

In the courtroom, the Five-O team members have no choice but to testify against McGarrett: first Chin, then Danno both stating there was no gun and no slugs found. McGarrett eyes his lawyer (Norman Dupont) uneasily knowing his goose is cooked with their testimony. Berman, the lawyer, calls Drew to the stand who says he heard five shots all together but Manicote chops up Drew's testimony during cross-examination equating the shots to cars backfiring. The judge (Don Over) asks the jury if they have reached a verdict and they have: guilty! Berman gives oral notice of appeal and the judge allows McGarrett to remain free on bail pending appeal. The team is devastated telling McGarrett they will get to the bottom of what's going on. McGarrett and Nick stare down one another before Nick leaves the courtroom.

Act Three

McGarrett goes to see Nick at his house to find out why he was in court during the verdict. Nick claims he was there to see justice done and it was "to my complete satisfaction". Nick lays it all out pouring salt into the wound: a conviction resulting in job suspension from a jury of his peers, sentencing by a respectable judge, prosecuted by a close friend and his own men testifying against him. Nick washes his hands of the whole affair but McGarrett knows he pulled the strings. As McGarrett goes to leave, Nick gives him a final thought: McGarrett's prison sentence is death because they will find him dead one day in his cell.

McGarrett is taken to Doc Bergman's beach house with the Five-O team in tow. They regroup as Manicote follows shortly after. Manicote wants to get at it after Danno contacted him about McGarrett's meeting with Nick. Manicote sees the possibility of an engineered frame but there are parts that will be difficult to prove such as the gun disappearing. He also points out the piece not part of the engineering: Harvey Drew's testimony. While Drew defended both Chris and Honore in their trials, is the "most respected attorney in Honolulu" really in that deep to Nick? McGarrett thinks so and wants to know where he stands legally. Manicote answers he can ask the authorities to help find new evidence as part of the appeal process. McGarrett doesn't have to ask but does so anyway. He wants Chin to find everything possible on Drew and to the whole crew: tear up the elevator to find the gun!

At the Ilikai, they enlist the help of an HPD officer named Chuck (Beau Vanden Ecker) to try to find out what happened with the gun. They reenact the scene with the elevators blocked off and Danno standing by them in the lobby. Downstairs, Chin pretends to shoot Ben who collapses in the elevator. As the doors close, Chuck rides the elevator from the top, swooping in to grab Ben's gun and jump to the top again: with eight to ten seconds to spare! Danno is one happy camper reporting to McGarrett the good news.

As they discuss the reenactment at Doc's beach house they come to the conclusion that the same guy who swiped the gun would also kill Sullivan in a very lethal manner. There's no time otherwise. McGarrett wants a second autopsy looking for an alternative cause of death. Doc Bergman obliges, finding someone plunged a needle six inches into Sullivan's left ear. There are two or three guys maybe who fit the bill: strong, agile, and useful with a needle. The three leave off to find their quarry.

Act Four

Chin goes to Drew's house, where his wife (Wisa D'Orso) brushes off Chin saying whatever is going on can keep for another week. At the same time, Ben goes to see Joe asking about a cat burglar who got really rich really fast, "make me chuckle". Joe names "Spider Brown" who was in the poor house one day and the next wearing "shiny shoes" flashing a lot of money. Joe says it stopped being funny when Spider dropped a name. Three days later: no more Spider, shiny shoes or "crispies". Ben knows the name without Joe saying it: Vashon!

At Drew's office, Danno and Chin want to see his appointment book for the last year, visitors, clients, messages, all of it: it's listed in the court order when the secretary (Sandy Kernell) presses. They work inside his private office finding nothing except some unanswered messages from a Raisbeck (John Beatty) who Danno wants run through the HPD computer. Danno goes back to the secretary asking for more on the Raisbeck messages. He discovers Drew intentionally avoided the calls and Raisbeck never left a number. As well, when Drew refused to speak to him, Raisbeck was at first afraid but then became angry. Danno knows something isn't adding up and it's about to get weirder: they find Raisbeck lives in a high-priced apartment when he's not in jail. Ben double checks with the prison as Raisbeck and Honore are two cells from one another in the same cellblock.

At Doc's beach house, Danno puts it all together: Raisbeck lives high on the hog with a $500 per month apartment and "a closet full of expensive clothes" with no back account. The rent and utilities, when they were on, were paid in cash. Raisbeck has been in for eight months in the cellblock as Honore. Danno isn't 100 percent certain what Raisbeck is: a relative Drew wants hidden or perhaps something more damning. McGarrett puts a plan in motion to have Drew tell them outright, calling Manicote. Manicote then calls Drew's wife to bring him back to Honolulu to meet in Manicote's office.

Drew walks into Manicote's office with Five-O and Raisbeck waiting on him. Drew is ready to throttle Raisbeck and now Five-O knows the whole story: Raisbeck was Drew's side affair! Raisbeck went to Honore because he would have been brutalized if he didn't. "I needed friends". Drew tells McGarrett he had no choice; he had to protect his life, practice and future because if he didn't do what Nick wanted it would be ruined. Never mind that perjury did that for him.

Five-O closes in on Nick's house as Tosaki calls warning him about Five-O. Nick thanks him for all his help over the years and vows McGarrett will not arrest him. The doorbell rings and Nicks pulls out his gun loading it. Just as Five-O enters his office; Nick points the gun to his head and pulls the trigger! McGarrett finds a paperweight with a 'V' stamped on it; he turns it upside down and slams it on the desk.

This plot summary Copyright Bobbi Baker ©2019. No reproduction of any kind without permission.


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