By Stu Robinson,
A few weeks ago, I posted a recap of Hawaii Five-0‘s season finale. Now that I’ve had a few weeks to reflect on it, here are my big-picture thoughts on the show’s plot and character developments.
The team faces an existential crisis following the season finale. McGarrett and Kono are under arrest; Chin Ho appears to be their jailer; and Danno seems powerless to do anything about it. It’s hard to imagine how our heroes will get out of this mess (but obviously they will so there can be a second season).
In the days following the finale, a couple of questions formed in my head:
Whose side is Chin Ho on? Much as I hate the thought, could one of the show’s primary characters be a rat? McGarrett never really checked out Chin Ho in the pilot; he just took the ex-cop at his word that he wasn’t dirty. Chin Ho knows a lot about McGarrett’s father and says it’s because he was a mentor, but we don’t know if that is true. Perhaps he was onto Papa McGarrett for the bad guys. And it was never really explained how Victor Hesse managed to get the drop on Chin Ho and wire him up with explosives in Episode 12 – the event that led McGarrett and Kono to rob the Honolulu Police asset-forfeiture locker for ransom money. Chin Ho’s situation vis-à-vis the HPD took a number of odd turns during the season, with him going from shunned in the pilot to leading a SWAT team in the finale. He also made some inexplicable decisions in his go-arounds with Internal Affairs officers. And in the season finale, he stormed out of the Five-0 office moments before it was raided by HPD, only reappearing in the penultimate scene with the SWAT team.
Where is the money? The $10 million in cash that McGarrett and Kono “borrowed” to ransom Chin Ho was burned by Hesse. McGarrett and Kono saw it burn, as did viewers. But the team later was told that no money was missing. How could that be? My thought during the season was that Wo Fat had somehow replaced it, for reasons unknown. But after learning in the finale that Gov. Pat Jameson (Jean Smart) was in league with Wo Fat, I realized that the team only thought the money was there because the governor said so. It might not have been. Was the cash recovered in the finale the remnants of Hesse’s bonfire, or did the mysterious Wo Fat singe another load of cash and plant it for HPD to find?
Beyond those questions, the mystery behind the murders of McGarrett’s parents only became murkier, while Danno’s family life became sappier.
Daddy issues dominated the season – McGarrett’s questions about his absentee father contrast with Danno’s moving to Hawaii to remain in his daughter’s life. Weekly plots included fathers’ sacrificing so their sons would have better lives, fathers losing children, even fathers being victimized by their offspring. Whether a child can be proud of his or her father is a central theme. Even the characters acknowledge the show’s daddy issues, with Danno at one point asking McGarrett: “Why is it that every time somebody’s father is involved, you get all goofy? … You lose all objectivity.”
Season One Character Analyses
Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) – In my review of Hawaii Five-0‘s season premiere, I noted that McGarrett carried an icy, brooding anger that could get old quickly unless he warmed up to the other main characters. He did that to an extent: His comic “carguments” with Danno have become legendary among fans, and he has an almost empathic link with Chin Ho during action sequences.
But he never really relaxed. His father’s murder had brought him home to Hawaii, only to find that his mother’s death in a car explosion was no accident. Though he identified and arrested his mother’s killer in Episode 13, the man was killed before McGarrett could learn his motive.
Even though the writers gave McGarrett a beautiful girlfriend, she appeared in only three episodes and didn’t do much to soften him up. Danno’s daughter, Grace, had better luck, with McGarrett becoming a surrogate uncle – so much so that she was okay with him picking her up from school after Danno was injured in the season’s second-to-last episode.
Ultimately McGarrett remained fixated on finding out why his father was murdered and became angrier when he discovered that his mother’s death in a car explosion was no accident either. Unfortunately, this inner rage led him right into Wo Fat’s trap in the season finale.
Danny “Danno” Williams (Scott Caan) – After the first few episodes of the new Hawaii Five-0, critics hailed Caan as the show’s breakaway star for his portrayal of McGarrett’s partner. But Danno seemed to lose his edge as the season progressed. The New Jersey cop who bickered constantly with his ex-wife and hated living in Hawaii mellowed out, even learning to surf at one point. Sure, he continued to wear a tie – a running joke among the Hawaiian characters – and held up his end in the carguments, but it seemed like he turned into a bit of a marshmallow in the second half of the season. Perhaps the turning point was an odd episode in which he let his criminal brother, Matt (Dane Cook in a ridiculous bit of stunt casting) escape at the end of a melodramatic airport scene.
On the upside, Danno’s relationship with ex-wife Rachel moved from open hostility to a rekindling of their love. He remained an attentive, devoted father to Grace throughout the season.
Unfortunately, “Book ‘em, Danno” – McGarrett’s signature line in the original Hawaii Five-0 – appeared to fall by the wayside. If this was an attempt by the show’s creators to separate themselves from the original, it was unnecessary. Those throwback elements – the theme song, the boxy black Mercury Marquis and “Book ‘em, Danno” – were what kept Hawaii Five-o in the American consciousness for the three decades it took CBS to bring it back.
Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) – Daniel Dae Kim didn’t have to leave Hawaii following the last Lost. He just exchanged one beach for another to become Chin Ho, an ex-Honolulu cop mentored by McGarrett’s late father. Bounced from the force after being accused of stealing money, Chin Ho, we later learn, was covering for his uncle, a veteran cop with a very sick wife. Yet the details remain murky. McGarrett trusts him implicitly, and the two seem to share an uncanny telepathy during action sequences. During the first half of the season, at least, Chin Ho was the character who always had the others’ backs.
In the later episodes, however, Chin Ho made a number of questionable decisions at the intersection of his personal and professional lives. These seemed out of character, and gave rise to my suspicion.
Beyond his relationship with HPD, the show revealed very little about Chin Ho’s personal life. His ex-fiancée shows up in Episode 14 amid questions of who dumped whom. Though that set the stage a possible subplot concerning them, the writers apparently passed on that option. In Episode 16, Chin Ho exchanged smoldering glances with a beautiful federal witness he was protecting, but it already had been established that she was headed for the witness-protection program. And in the season finale, McGarrett and the governor implied separately that Chino Ho and Laura Hills, the governor’s public safety liaison, had eyes for each other – which came as a surprise to views who’d seen no evidence of that whatsoever during the season. Not that it mattered, since Hills was killed with a car bomb moments later.
Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park) – A former professional surfer who graduated the police academy during the season, Kono is Chin Ho’s young cousin. Though she would appear to
have made the Five-0 team through pure nepotism, she displayed talent and toughness as the season progressed. During chase scenes, she excelled in cutting off the fugitive at the pass. She displayed sharpshooting skills when picked off Hesse from a hillside overlook before he could detonate Chin Ho.
This is the second time Park has appeared in a series update in a role originally held by a man. She played Boomer/Athena on Syfy’s updated Battlestar Galactica. She is a talented actress, but the H50 writers won’t free her from gender stereotypes. Kono’s surfer background provides a pretext for her be in a bikini on a regular basis (something she does very well), and she is the team’s go-to member whenever a child must be interrogated, reassured or otherwise nurtured in the line of duty.
Kono also was the untainted voice of common sense to her cousin, particularly in regard to resolving his past with HPD, but Chin Ho ignored most of her advice.
Aside from a brief flirtation with a former surfing buddy in Episode 6, Kono didn’t find a potential love interest until Episode 22. He was a smart-aleck lab technician named Charlie Fong (Brian Yang). Witty, handsome and claiming to know her, he wouldn’t say where or when they met. She didn’t remember him, and it became a running gag as she subtly attempted to get the information from him. Fong also appeared in the season finale, linking Hills to McGarrett’s anonymous weekly clues via handwriting analysis. We’ll have to see if this goes anywhere in Season 2.
Secondary Characters
Kamekona (Taylor Wily) – The giant shave-ice vendor appeared in 13 episodes, usually bringing some much-needed comic relief to balance the show’s tightly wound tone. He is the show’s go-to utility character: Need a tip, a ride, a babysitter, a gun – even a shave ice? Kamekona’s your guy. It’s implied that he has a history with McGarrett, but Season 1 never explained it.
Grace Williams (Teilor Grubbs) – Danno’s cute, precocious daughter appeared in 12 episodes. The reason Danno left his beloved New Jersey for Hawaii, her main role was to be … cute and precocious.
Rachel Edwards (Claire van der Boom) – Viewers got to know Danno’s ex-wife as the unseen party to angry telephone arguments. Remarried to a wealthy businessman who Danno and Grace call “The Stan,” she took Grace away from New Jersey, prompting Danno to relocate. Danno’s portion of the phone conversations painted Rachel as a screaming shrew always looking to block his access to Grace.
When Rachel finally appeared in Episode 10, she was not at all what viewers had been led to expect. It quickly became clear that she and Danno were getting tired of bickering and retained some fondness for each other. Though Rachel enjoyed the affluent lifestyle of her new husband, she hadn’t forgotten all that she learned as a cop’s wife, the good as well as the bad. And when Danno was in jeopardy, she showed cunning and resourcefulness to help him escape.
The rapprochement continued. By the season finale, she was carrying Danno’s second child and they were planning to return with Grace to New Jersey.
Gov. Pat Jameson (Jean Smart) – After recruiting McGarrett to create Five-0 in the season premiere, the governor gave him a seemingly unlimited budget for equipment and guarded his back in jurisdictional disputes. It was a shocking twist, then, to learn in the season finale that she was in league Wo Fat. Turns out she created Five-0 so she could keep tabs on McGarrett, and hopefully control him. That didn’t work out so well, as Wo Fat shot her dead and planted the murder weapon on an unconscious McGarrett.
Dr. Max Bergman (Masi Oka) – The oddball coroner appeared in four episodes. Expect more from him next season, as Oka told Entertainment Weekly in June that Bergman will be upgraded to a series regular. “They were kind enough to offer me more regular work,” he said. “I don’t know yet if it I will be needed for every episode because they are writing the next season now, but Dr. Max Bergman will be more involved. … I hope they delve into his personal life more. Max Bergman is a nut and I’d liked to know more about who he is and what he does with his time.”
Mary Ann McGarrett (Taryn Manning) – Mary Ann may have more emotional issues than her brother. Papa McGarrett sent her to live on the mainland years earlier, evidently to protect her from whatever shenanigans cost him his life. It was implied that she is a bit of an L.A. wild child, yet she is the only other member of McGarrett’s immediate family still breathing.
Because Mary Ann disappeared after Episode 5, I started to joke about mid-season that her photo was going to turn up on a milk carton. Six episodes later, we found out that she really was kidnapped, but big brother was able to rescue her because the dumbest kidnappers ever failed to confiscate her iPhone.
Whether Mary Ann returns to the islands in Season 2 is anybody’s guess. I hope she does, because she was an interesting character with a lot of potential for new story lines. The answer might rest in what else is going on in actress/singer Manning’s career when it’s time to start filming.
Navy Lt. Catherine Rollins (Michelle Borth) – McGarrett’s girlfriend is in the same boat. (Naval officer in boat, get it? Hahahaha, I slay myself.) Borth has the lead role in ABC’s recently debuted Combat Hospital, playing a Canadian military doctor in Afghanistan. Work schedules are likely to play a major role in determining whether Rollins is back for H50 Season 2.
In terms of plot utility, she’s not crucial. Her primary function was to give McGarrett access on demand to U.S. spy satellites whenever he lost track of a suspect.
Jenna Kaye (Larisa Oleynik) – A CIA analyst on personal leave, Kaye turned up in Episode 19. She shares McGarrett’s obsession with Wo Fat, whom she said had her fiancé killed. Her knowledge of Wo Fat is matched only by her ineptitude in the field. After a frosty start, she and McGarrett join forces, and by the season finale she seems like an adjunct member of Five-0.
Executive Producer Peter Lenkov told Screenrant.com in June that Five-0 would get a new member in Season 2. Kaye would be my first guess, since she probably wouldn’t have a future with the CIA after pursuing Wo Fat on her own. Of course, it also could be Bergman or another character.
With her fiancé out of the picture, Kaye could become a romantic interest if she returns. Though she strikes me as a bit mousy for McGarrett, she shares some personality traits with Chin Ho.
Laura Hills (Kelly Hu) – Once one gets past the fact that the writers actually killed off a hot chick, one realizes how expendable she really was.
The governor’s public safety liaison appeared in only three episodes and never really needed to be there. It was like the producers stunt cast a name costar but didn’t know what to do with her. At first, it looked like she might become either a love interest or the team’s bureaucratic nemesis, yet neither materialized. The show muted her beauty with boxy business suits, and her plot contributions were random.
Granted, Hu is nowhere near A list, but she’s been the lead in a couple of movies and a TV sitcom and has some talent to go along with her looks. Having her under contract for no good purpose might be the real-life reason the character had to go.
Bad Guys
Wo Fat (Mark Dacascos) – Will McGarrett’s nemesis return for Season 2? My guess is yes,because there still is so much that viewers don’t know about Wo Fat. The question likely will be answered in the season premier. Even if the writers get McGarrett off the hook for the governor’s murder, a necessity for there to be a Season 2, it doesn’t mean the crime will be traced to our lead villain.
Victor Hesse (James Marsters) – The man who killed McGarrett’s father in the series pilot and rigged Chin Ho with explosives in Episode 12 was last seen receiving a prison visit from Wo Fat. He knows what got Papa McGarrett killed and might use that information as a bargaining chip.
Sang Min (Will Yun Lee) – My guess is that the human trafficker and jailhouse snitch, who appeared in four episodes, will be back for Season 2. He is valuable to the writers as a utility bad guy who can be useful in advancing a plot line. He is sort of an evil twin to Kamekona, except that one is big and tall while the other is short and slight.
What Worked; What Didn’t
↑ Kamekona really brought some needed levity to the tightly would members of Five-0. But he wasn’t simply a clown; I found that I really enjoyed the lighthearted yet loyal character and how he interacted with the team.
↑ The “carguments” between McGarrett were highly entertaining, though I wouldn’t want to be driving on the same road.
↑ The theme song: Boffo!
↓ Audio quality was consistently poor the whole season. The background noise was too loud, too often drowning out the dialog. That’s especially harmful to a show such as Hawaii Five-0, which depends upon quick, witty banter among characters and subtle clues to its various mysteries. I often found myself rewinding the DVR to try and make out key pieces of dialog.
↓ The pacing of large fight scenes was a problem too. Quick video cuts made it tough to follow who was doing what to whom. More exercise for the rewind button on my remote.
↑ Casting actors of Asian and Pacific Island descent. The folks on the show look like the people of Hawaii, though perhaps a bit more buff. Ric Young, the actor who played Gen. Pak in Episode 9, appeared in a 1976 episode of the original Hawaii Five-O as “Chinese travel agent.”
↔ Guest stars ran the gamut from good (Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Robert Loggia), to adequate (Kevin “Hercules” Sorbo, Rick Springfield) to awful (Dane Cook, Greg Germann, Nick Lachey/Vanessa Minillo).
↓ Inconsistent treatment of “Book ‘em, Danno” – the classic line from the original Hawaii Five-0.
↑ The show does a nice job of incorporating its Hawaiian locale. It taps the local culture and exploits the islands’ breathtaking scenery in ways that really make it stand out from other network procedurals. It’s been reported that Season 2 will get Five-0 off Oahu to some of the other Hawaiian islands.
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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.
A big part of it was that it was science fiction, and I’d been a sci-fi geek for as long as I could remember.
