by Mr. Mike » Sun Dec 18, 2016 10:45 am
One thing I thought was good about Friday's show was the color photography which was outstanding, especially the beginning birthday party. As well, the yellow tinge for the photography of "Mexico," aside from bringing back bad memories of the show's first season, was also very effective and similar to that seen in the recent James Bond movie Spectre.
But what a pity that this, as well as some incredible stunts near the end of the show, showed off its good production values when the script was total baloney, another example of Five-O going to some foreign jurisdiction and operating with impunity.
I didn't find the business with Danno and Grover taking over the morgue in Ciudad Juárez to be very amusing, especially considering the music behind this sequence, including the really gross parts of it, to be kind of "happy" as opposed to "loud and dramatic." Ditto for the scene where the disguised members of Five-Zero broke into the police station and recovered the money from the corrupt cop. Do they think there will be no repercussions for this? HELLO -- someone is stealing back the money stolen from Sara's uncle, could the people doing this possibly be connected with him?
As far as repercussions are concerned, I thought the business with McGarrett talking to big boss Ramirez (shades of El Chapo) was absurd. Juárez has a reputation as being one of the most violent and corrupt cities in Mexico, if not the world. According to Wikipedia, its reputation in this regard has improved somewhat in the last couple of years, but a more recent news report quoting some enforcer involved in the drug trade -- http://www.businessinsider.com/violence-in-ciudad-juarez-rising-says-cartel-hitman-enforcer-2016-11 -- suggests that it is just as bad as it ever was..
In Juárez, drug gangs will kill someone for the most insignificant reason and problems with the cops, not to mention the gangs, have been well documented. So McGarrett just walks into Ramirez's place and wants to have a mano a mano chat with this guy, who exemplifies the most stereotypical "we don't need no stinkin' badges" type of Mexican, hoping he will help them help locate Sara? In real life, McGarrett would have been shot dead or would have had his head cut off with a chainsaw!
Ditto for the end -- why would the bad guys take Chin Ho away, why wouldn't they just execute him on the spot? And why is Chin Ho singled out as the one the bad guys want to capture? After all, it was McGarrett and Kono who were responsible for the killing of their pals in Hawaii in S07E03. Or were they willing to grab ANYONE from Five-Zero?
by todd » Thu Jan 05, 2017 6:22 amJust got around to watching this.
I felt this episode was better than the one star you gave it.
I agree with some of the plot holes you pointed out:
- Breaking into the police station to steal back the $700k was absurd, as the corrupt police would come back after the one they stole it from in the first place (Sara's uncle).
- McGarrett walking onto the property of one of Juarez's biggest crime bosses was beyond reckless, even by McGarrett standards. The crime boss was also far too nice, and was in fact given a "human" side, as we got to see him playing with his son in the pool. In reality, these Mexican crime bosses are brutal, heartless people.
- Chin would have been executed on the spot near the end of the episode, rather than brought somewhere.
- Kono would have heard on the tapes who had aided in Five-O being set up, and communicated it to Chin. Instead, she just called Chin and told him it was a setup, without taking a few extra seconds to tell him who did it.
However, overall I liked the episode -- provided I didn't think about it too much.
Why was Chin having such an extensive birthday party? It seemed to be a major event -- like a milestone birthday. However, the Chin character seems to be over 40, while also under 50. (Daniel Dae Kim is 48, but looks younger.) They purposely did not state Chin's age at the birthday party.
It seems the party was just an excuse to cram all of the Five-O bit players in one spot for the "winter finale" episode.
Are we supposed to conclude at this point that Sara's aunt and uncle are actually decent people, and not in the drug trade?
by Mr. Mike » Thu Jan 05, 2017 10:04 amSomeone else e-mailed me to also say that my rating was too low, and if you are looking at the show from the viewpoint of mindless action and "don't think about it too hard," then I agree it should get more than one star. But my hatred for these foreign adventures for our heroes is well-known...
If I was being very cynical (what? more than normal?) I would say that this episode and the other shows to places like North Korea, Pakistan, etc. were designed to take advantage of Americans' ignorance of geography and world affairs, which is well-known. After all, Five-Zero is an American show, it takes place in the USA and it's shown on American television. But it's also shown in a lot of other countries, so I guess we can assume that it's taking advantage of people's ignorance in those other countries as well.
I would be curious to know how people in South Korea (assuming Five-Zero is shown there) view those earlier episodes where the merry band went to the country to the north of them. No doubt the people in South Korea would be laughing themselves silly, just like people in Hawaii used to (and still) get a good chuckle out of geographical anomalies taken by Five-O and the new show.
As I suggested in my review, there were also issues with the depiction of Mexicans in this episode. Have there ever been Mexicans or people from Central or South America on the show who were portrayed as nice and normal? For a few moments, Sara's aunt and uncle were possible candidates, but their reputation was quickly besmirched. Muslims also haven't been treated too well on the show, and there are other ethnic groups from Eastern Europe who are similarly depicted as villains.
Of course, someone has to be bad guys and Muslims in particular have a very bad reputation at the moment, though some WWW sites point out that the chances of being killed by Muslim terrorists since 9/11 in the USA are somewhat less than being killed by drunken toddlers with guns. I am only being partially sarcastic here. Sites like this tend to point out that people doing the killing were typically born in the USA and/or government-approved immigrants, not terrorists who snuck into the country. These sites do seem to gloss over the number of people that were INJURED, though