TV Tyrant

By Stu Robinson,

The teaser the end of last week’s show said it all about Season 2, Episode 10 of CBS’ new Hawaii-Five-0: Jenna Kaye! Wo Fat! North Korea! Jimmy Buffett flying a helicopter!

Drama? Sure. Action? Hell yes! Plot advancement? Finally. Plausibility? Zero, zilch, bupkis.

Jenna Kaye (Larisa Oleynik) lures McGarrett to North Korea, ostensibly to ransom her fiancé, whom she said was being held by rebels. Viewers already know that Jenna is a weasel, having seen her drive a getaway car for Wo Fat (Mark Dacascos) at the end of the season premiere. So McGarrett is the only person in the world surprised when she turns her gun on him while Wo Fat sneaks up behind and whacks McGarrett on the head.

Wo Fat has persuaded Jenna to deliver McGarrett in return for her fiancé’s release. Of course it’s a double-cross. When she demands to see her fiancé, she is led to a room where she sees, from behind, her fiancé strapped to a chair and obviously beaten. She advances, and her hope turns to horror as she realizes that he is stone-cold dead. She barricades herself in the room and uses her satellite phone to place a hysterical call to Danno. She has just enough time to give her location, fling her phone out the window and then gruesomely dig out a tiny file from underneath the dead fiancé’s skin before Wo Fat’s henchmen break in and drag her back to the room where Wo Fat is administering a beating to chained-up McGarrett.

Back on Oahu, the investigation of the week has revealed that Jenna has been lying to the members of Five-0. After getting her call, Danno seeks out McGarrett’s mentor, Lt. Cmdr. Joe White (Terry O’Quinn), for help. White arranges a rescue operation that takes the team, along with a handful of Navy SEALS repaying a debt to McGarrett (Season 2, Episode 3), off to South Korea. There, White recruits old war buddy Frank Bama (Buffett) to obtain weapons and helicopter the team into North Korea.

But back to the beating. McGarrett is hanging, arms chained to the ceiling, like a boxer’s punching bag. Which he basically is at this point.

“Tell me about Shelburne,” Wo Fat keeps demanding.

McGarrett’s inability to answer makes the crime lord angrier and angrier, until the lightbulb goes off over McGarrett’s head:

“You don’t have any idea what Shelburne is, do you,” Steve says.

Just then, a guard enters with Jenna’s sat phone. While he talks to Wo Fat, Jenna slides the tiny file to McGarrett. Wo Fat then turns back to them, walks over to Jenna and shoots her dead. He then tells McGarrett they are going to get on a plane and McGarrett is going to lead him to Shelburne.

They’re gone by the time the rescue team reaches Wo Fat’s lair, but Kono taps into a satellite to find Wo Fat’s convoy, which Frank and Lori chase down in the chopper. Lori uses a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) to take out a bridge, forcing the convoy to backtrack into an ambush by the Five-0 guys, Joe and the SEALS. McGarrett is rescued, but Wo Fat escapes. The episode concludes with Frank flying the team off into the sunset.

At this point, I have to acknowledge:

• McGarrett would never go into North Korea on his own with Jenna.
• The plot only works if McGarrett believes Jenna unquestioningly.
• Jenna would never be so naïve as to believe that Wo Fat would keep his part of their bargain. She’s personally seen how he likes to eliminate loose ends; she drove the getaway care after he killed Victor Hesse.
• There are easier ways Wo Fat could capture or kill McGarrett. Instead, he lays an overly elaborate trap worthy of a James Bond (or Austin Powers) movie.
• Neither McGarrett nor his rescuers seem to have a problem acquiring the necessary vehicles and materiel halfway around the world on short notice.

Then there is the most obvious omission – the North Koreans. The country is a giant, paranoid prison camp. Despite the existence of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the de facto border between the two Koreas, the area is one of the most heavily militarized in the world. The two sides technically remain at war; no peace treaty was signed at the end of the Korean War and there are occasional violent flare-ups. According to Wikipedia, North Korea has the fourth-largest military in the world, at an estimated 1.21 million armed personnel.

Yet Wo Fat’s gang; McGarrett and Jenna; and the rescue team call cross the border unimpeded by the North Koreans. Bama’s helicopter never draws the attention of those 1.21 million armed forces. Then, after a bridge demolition and a jungle shootout, the team flies back across the border without being pursued by North Koreans or intercepted by South Korean forces.

I’ve often written that, with Hawaii Five-0, you have to suspend your perception of reality and just go along for the ride. And I enjoyed this ride, especially after two subpar episodes. But c’mon! There’s suspending reality, and then there’s completely laughing at it.

Guest Stars

The writers did a better job of introducing Buffett than they did with the unfunny reunion of two Heroes cast mates two weeks ago.

Frank: “Drink?”
Danno: “No, thank you. I more of a margarita guy myself.”
Frank: “Can’t argue with you there.”

SEAL leader Wade Gutches, played by veteran character actor David Keith, makes a second appearance.

And Jenna Kaye? While, I’ll say this for the H50 writers: They have no qualms about killing off a character, even one the audience has come to know, when his or her story is at an end.

Romance, and Potential Romance

Chin Ho proposes to his ex-fiancée, Malia Waincroft (Reiko Aylesworth). She accepts, but their embrace is interrupted by Chin Ho’s cell phone and the murder du jour.

When the helicopter lands to pick up the rescue team, Lori bounds out of the shotgun seat to embrace McGarrett with a HUGE hug.

Final Thoughts

For the first time, McGarrett is rendered totally vulnerable – completely dependent upon his friends for survival. He stands up to Wo Fat’s beating and eventually uses the file from Jenna to escape, but he is caught immediately. He has no resources remaining when Danno finds him tied up in the back of a truck. This differs even from the season premiere, in which Joe also led the rescue but McGarrett was able to help himself.

Shelburne became even more of a mystery with McGarrett’s realization that Wo Fat doesn’t know who or what it is either.

Lori picks up an RPG launcher for the first time and takes out a bridge with one shot. There has got to be a joke about women with big guns here somewhere.

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Stu Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations practitioner and social-media guy based in Phoenix.

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