by Mr. Mike » Sat Oct 29, 2016 11:09 am
Typical Hallowe'en episodes in the past (one for every previous season except the first) have been disappointing, either 2 or 2-1/2 stars out of 4. I don't think this one was even a 2.
In last night's show, the colors were very nice, making you feel this was really happening on Hallowe'en, I'll give you that. Good production design and photography.
As far as the music was concerned, there were some nice bass rumbles making my subwoofer get excited, but there was also the usual cliched pizzicato plink-plank meaning "this is cute," or "this is funny."
Nothing mentioned about Chin's niece, I think ... unless I fell asleep during those parts of the show. (Just double-checked, no mention of Sara.)
The Kono/Adam stuff was dumb. While attempting to help someone injured in an accident, they are taken captive by some "death cult" in the backwoods of Oahu. HUH?? And when they escape they come upon a house where they ask for help, and, of course, the guy in the house is connected to the cult. The whole thing seemed like something you would find in the backwoods of a backwards U.S. state.
Kono and Adam's repartee while they were escaping was far too "cute." Are they going to turn into Nick and Nora Charles or MacMillan and Wife? I shouldn't mention the latter, no doubt Lenkov will want to remake this show with Grace Park and Ian Anthony Dale.
Jerry wasted everyone's time again, helping Danno's kids carving pumpkins and taking them out for trick or treat. All this did for me was illustrate how the characters of Grace and Charlie have really grown up as we have been watching them!
At least Danno was relatively subdued compared to the last episode.
As far as the haunted house business was concerned -- MEH. Contrived baloney with the usual red herrings.
by Mr. Mike » Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:15 pmReviewed at length (augh):
http://fiveohomepage.com/2010-log7.htm#6
by todd » Sun Oct 30, 2016 11:41 pmFirst off, I noticed your link to the "Alex O'Loughlin Intense Study" blog, which is apparently a blog for " posting huge amounts of animated gifs of Alex OŽLoughlin and some doodles of him."
Wow. I had no idea such a thing existed. As you might guess, it's run by a woman (named Paula), but there are plenty of comments on each blog from various other women drooling over Alex. I wonder if this factor is somewhat of a draw for the show? Being a straight male, I never thought about it in those terms. In case you want to see it, here's the blog: https://alexoloughlinintensestudy.wordpress.com/
Regarding the show itself and your review:
I agree that the Jerry/Grace/Charlie segment was a waste of time. I was just thinking recently that we hadn't seen Grace in awhile, but that I didn't really miss her. (I never really liked that character in the first place.) If anything, it just seemed sad that the kids had to spend Halloween without either parent, though this fact wasn't really explored in the episode! Is the child actor playing Charlie the same one we originally saw? He seems to have aged quickly, though maybe it's just been a long time since we last saw him.
The Kono/Adam kidnap segment could have been good, but it ended up being ridiculous. My biggest problem with it was the massive number of people involved in the whole scheme. It seems incredibly unlikely that so many psychos could be found to get together to commit yearly murder, especially in a place with a population as small as Oahu. Furthermore, it's unlikely that a recurring criminal conspiracy with so many members could exist without being detected. Furthermore, at the end, it was pretty ridiculous how the bad guys kept coming despite the clear indication that Kono and Adam had a gun (and were using it), yet seemed to surrender to police so easily. This is especially foolish given that, if Kono and Adam were in control of the house, they obvious had called police by that point.
The Kono/Adam segment was possibly inspired by the real-life story of serial killers Charles Ng and Leonard Lake, from 1985. These two crazies lured innocent people up to their cabin in a remote area of northern California, and then tortured, raped, and killed them. Between 11 and 25 victims were murdered there. An exact count was never had, because it's not clear if certain disappearances in the area were related to Ng/Lake or were separate. Lake killed himself with a cyanide pill when arrested. Ng got away, made it to Canada, and a 13-year extradition fight took place between Canada and the US. Canada did not want to send him back to California to face the death penalty, even though ironclad proof existed of his guilt. Lake and Ng videotaped many of their crimes, so there was zero doubt that they were guilty. Finally Canada sent him back in 1998. Here's a story you can read about the situation: http://www.biography.com/people/charles-ng-11735781
While it was never shown what the cult was going to do with Kono, Adam, and the other person abducted, the scene where they were each shackled to a pole resembled what Ng and Lake had done to their victims. I have to think it was inspired by that story.
However, the Ng/Lake story only involved two killers, where this ridiculous version involved what seemed like 15 of them.
The action sequence where Kono bit the attacker, followed by she and Adam performing perfect set of unlikely moves to get out of it was just too tough to swallow, even by Five-0 standards. It didn't have to be that way. The attackers were unshackling them anyway, so it would have made much more sense to see them fighting back once already able to move unhindered.
I found it ridiculous that Five-O didn't check out the identity of Marjorie's assistant. Wouldn't she already be a possible suspect, even without an established motive at that point? Pretty foolish that they had to find out her actual name (and backstory) only after discovering the man she murdered in order to keep things quiet.
Overall, it was still kind of a fun episode to watch (minus the pointless Jerry stuff), so I would personally give it two stars. It could have been better if they just paid more attention to detail.
by Mr. Mike » Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:36 amI agree with you about the "death cult." It doesn't make any sense that a dozen or more people could partake in this and no one would ever find out about it over the years. Surely someone would have blabbed! This reminds me of what serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins once said, "If you don't want to get caught, then don't talk about where the bodies are buried." If the cult had consisted of only 3 or 4 people, this would have made a lot more sense.
Another thing, considering the cult had these German shepherd dogs caged up, why didn't they use the dogs to track the escapees down? I thought it was pretty dumb the way that Bobby, the hick who lived in the house near the cult's hangout, called the cult on his cell phone once he had Kono, Adam and Dana under his control ... but the cult members were already searching for the trio ... but not as dumb as how quickly the cops showed up to rescue everyone, considering how "out of the way" all this was.
Note that when the cult woman, pretending to be an accident victim, flags down Kono and Adam, the road they are driving on does not appear to be a major highway. Furthermore, how did the accident, where the car went off the road, happen?
by Mopsy54 » Mon Oct 31, 2016 5:10 pmIt was OK but I tune to see the islands, the sights, the beach bunnies if any and the wonderful weather considering we here are going into winter.