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.

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By Stu Robinson,

Apologies for taking so long to post this. It was a busy week in Arizona Four-8.

After what I felt was Season One’s sloppiest episode last week, Hawaii Five-O came back this week with what struck me as the tightest episode yet. There were many twists, but – unlike last week – the viewer still had a chance to guess the result.

This week’s prologue put us in a submarine full of tourists. (I didn’t know there were submarines for tourists, except those of the Disney 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea variety.) Aboard, we find an annoying child being ignored by his cell-phone yelling mother until the following exchange:

Kid: “Mom! A mermaid; a mermaid!”
Mom: [Gasp!]

Following the boffo theme song, we find out the young woman floating upside down in the ocean was the daughter of a U.S. ambassador – and her sister is still missing. This particular diplomat is close friends with the governor (Jean Smart, in possibly her most-extensive appearance yet), so McGarrett, Danno and the rest of the Five-O team are summoned to action.

Very quickly, they are tracing the movements of the diplomat’s daughters, who never returned from a trip to the movies the previous evening. The trail leads to a roofie-reliant lounge lizard, a forced-prostitution ring and a terrorist plot. The intricate narrative moves quickly, which doesn’t leave much time to develop the four main characters: McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin), Danno (Scott Caan), Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) and Kono (Grace Park).

What does this mean? Time to introduce secondary characters, who presumably will make reoccurring appearances as needed.

Turns out we met the first two last week: McGarrett’s sister, Mary Ann (Taryn Manning), and the Navy’s must beautiful satellite-reconnaissance officer, Lt. Catherine Rollins (Michelle Borth).

Yes, in a mere week Catherine has gone from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf to a convenient post at Pearl Harbor. This episode finds her in bed with McGarrett when he gets the call to action. (Thanks to Danno’s crack powers of observation, we do learn that our hero is a happier guy after getting laid – shocking, I know.)

Later in the morning, Catherine and Mary Ann end up bumping into each other – literally – in the McGarrett kitchen, giving us this classy repartee:

Mary Ann: “Big night last night.”
Catherine: “Hmm?”
Mary Ann: “Old house; thin walls.”
Catherine: “Oh God!”
Mary Ann: “Yeah, you said that a lot.”

Way to go, Steve-0.

We also meet the resident medical examiner, Max Bergman (Masi Oka from Heroes), the most eccentric TV doctor since Mary McDonnell’s surgeon with Asperger’s syndrome on Grey’s Anatomy. (Yes, that Mary McDonnell. In honor of Five-O‘s Grace Park, we’re playing “Six Degrees of Battlestar Galactica.”)

Add in the governor and there are four secondary characters to complement the four leads.

Like previous episodes, this one climaxes with an action sequence in which the Five-O team comes to the rescue at the last possible moment. However, this one was a little easier to follow and slightly more realistic. I didn’t need to rewind my DVR as much as in previous weeks.

Other bits and pieces worth noting:

• Papa McGarrett’s ghost lingers, as Mary Ann discovers the mysterious toolbox from Episode 1.
• McGarrett starts the episode driving a Chevy crossover but is back in his muscular Camaro by the end of the hour. I wonder how the writers will work in the electric Chevy Volt when it hits the market.
• For the second episode in a row, McGarrett calls upon Catherine’s satellite access to locate a quarry. C’mon, writers: The first time it was outrageous; the second, lazy.
• Getting tired of that same Hawaiian Airlines commercial.
• Hawaii Five-O has a Twitter feed (@HawaiiFive0CBS) and hash tag (#H50).

Still, it felt like Hawaii Five-O got back on track this week, which is fortunate because CBS announced Thursday that it has picked up the show for the full season.

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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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CBS gave us Episode 2 of its new Hawaii Five-O last night – a chance to see what direction the writers would go from the premiere, in which Steve McGarrett’s father is slain and the son is left to ponder how they became estranged.

The show continues to work through its Daddy issues in Episode 2.

Following an opening sequence in which a man is kidnapped at gunpoint while on the phone with his young son – and then that boffo theme song – viewers are treated to a montage of the four main characters set to a voiceover of McGarrett’s dad talking about the toll that police work can take on cops’ families. For McGarrett, it’s the relationship with his father; for divorced dad Danno, the potential impact on his little girl were he killed or disabled in the line of duty. Chin Ho and Kono struggle with the bribery allegations that ended his career with the Honolulu Police and that he believes will cast a shadow over hers.

What can I say? Subtlety is not this Hawaii Five-O’s forte.

Turns out this week’s kidnapping victim is a widower, so the episode continues with the team hoping to keep his son from becoming an orphan.

There is the requisite bickering between McGarrett and Danno – this time over issues as light as proper cop attire and as heavy as the effectiveness of torture. In both episodes so far, one of these bickering sessions has taken place in a speeding car. Given the amount of attention the characters appear to give the road, I sure wouldn’t want to be a motorist on Oahu.

And isn’t it a coincidence, they always seem to be driving Chevys. McGarrett pilots a muscular Camaro while Kono drives a bright red Chevy Cruze just like the one in the commercials.

Actress Grace Park has more to do in this episode as Kono, who is expecting to go through her Police Academy graduation in a matter of hours. While most of the episode features her in the serious, fighting-for-her-life mode she perfected on Battlestar Galactica, there is a scene in which she gets to play against that type, using origami to connect with the victim’s son. She also gets an extended hand-to-hand fight scene resulting from a plot twist I didn’t see coming. (Just when I was thinking the show was getting a little too predictable.)

Scott Caan continues to shine as Danno, uttering some of the show’s best lines while cutting McGarrett down to size. That’s important, because it appears to be the writers’ primary way of humanizing their hero.

The plot advances quickly, as the writers have packed a lot of exposition into however many minutes they have between commercials. A couple of the shootout scenes moved so quickly that I had trouble following the fighting. And just like in the pilot, I found that it’s best not to sweat the details. Viewers should just sit back and enjoy the ride. As quickly as you can say “Book ’em, Danno,” McGarrett and his team capture or kill the bad guys.

But even though each episode has a self-contained story, viewers can expect the series’ Daddy issues to continue. The pilot ended with McGarrett shooting his father’s killer on a dock, with the force of the bullets pushing the man into water. Episode 2 pointedly establishes that the Coast Guard has been unable to recover the body.

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Before I get into the meat of the matter, I have to ask this of the folks out there who didn’t like the finale of Lost last night:

You didn’t like the Battlestar Galactica ending either, did you?

I ask that not to accuse you of just not liking finales to shows you’ve loved. I ask that because in both cases, I believe the ending was absolutely the culmination of everything that came before.

The endings MADE SENSE. Yes, you can nitpick and complain about little things here or there that didn’t make sense. When you’ve unraveled as much string as both of these shows did, it’s hard to get it all back into a neat little ball of yarn.

Not all questions were answered, and in some cases that was infuriating (from both shows).

But, in the end, the show was what it was always about: The people. Love. Fate. Free will. The afterlife.

The only way to tackle last night’s action-packed ending is by bullet points. I’m emotionally exhausted and I still have two hours of 24 to watch tonight, and that promises to be as equally emotionally wrenching.

The afterlife

Let’s get one thing straight: The island wasn’t purgatory. Not for our Losties, at least. Sure, there are some people who are stuck there forever, running around whispering stuff, like Michael. But our Losties’ Purgatory or waiting room or whatever you wanna call it was the alternate universe. The flash-sideways.

The island was real. The Losties were absolutely alive.

The flash-sideways was a place where these people who had become a family could come together and finally find peace. And once they finally all came together, it was time to go into the light.

OK, that moment was totally hokey. But did you notice the statues of Vishnu and the Buddha in the rectory? Did you notice the stained glass window that had symbols from Judaism, Islam, Jainism, every religion, practically?

This wasn’t about a Judeo-Christian afterlife. This was a recognition that every religious or spiritual practice in the world has some sort of belief system about what happens after life on this world is over. If you were Buddhist, you could believe that the island and their tests there were their final tests before enlightenment. Or maybe the flash sideways was, and now they don’t have to be reborn again.

Love

Omg, when Juliet and Sawyer met again and recognized one another and kissed, I was bawling like a baby. (KNEW that the baby doctor was gonna be Juliet and that she was going to be Jack’s ex-wife.) And Jin & Sun, too. Like. A. Baby.

This show has always been about love and loss. From Day One.

And you know what? Team Darlton made us love these characters. Even the ones who annoyed you, you had moments of loving. Don’t deny it. Denial is ugly.

Jack/Jacob/Hurley/Ben

It made so much sense to have Hurley be the new Jacob. He was always the one who took care of people, made them feel better.

Jack’s job was always to fix things. In the end, he fixed the island. He sent Desmond down there to break it – but that was only, really, so he could kill Flocke. Flocke couldn’t be killed until the island was broken. When Des pulled the cork out of the island, Jack and Flocke became mortal.

By the way, how freakin’ awesome was that flying punch-down that Jack did to Flocke on the cliff? Cut to commercial. WOW.

So, anyway, Flocke could be killed. He couldn’t leave the island and bring his evil with him. He couldn’t end life, the universe and everything by leaving.

That was Jack’s job. He was always the fixer. Only when he gave up the idea of having to fix everything was he actually able to fix the thing he’d been working toward his entire life.

Once that was done, he wasn’t the person to keep the island safe. It made so much sense for it to be Hurley. The second Hurley went back with Jack to save Des and the Island, it became exceedingly obvious that was what was going to happen.

And bravo to Ben, in the end, doing what was right. Even telling Hurley that he could send Des back to Penny and his son, Charlie. Indeed, if Hurley was the new Jacob, couldn’t he make his own rules? Why couldn’t people leave the island?

Fine job, Ben. I liked that they invited Ben inside the church to come with them, but that Ben chose more time in purgatory, to atone for what he’d done, to make things right with Alex and Danielle. He’d redeemed himself and was “eligible” to move on, but he chose not to. Which redeemed him even more.

Desmond/Penny

Thank you.

De plane! De plane!

Who else let out a yelp and applauded when Miles and Richard found Lapidus bobbing in the ocean! That. Was. So. Awesome. I don’t know, I had a feeling he was still alive.

And Richard was still alive, too – was it his brush with death with Smokey what made him mortal again, or was it the cork being pulled out of the island? Probably the latter.

So Lost to have him find a reason to live again, once he knew he could die.

Duct tape fixes everything.

When Kate, Sawyer and Claire come upon the Ajira plane just about to taxi and Frank gets ‘em on, total sigh of relief, but also an intake of breath. Would they still escape the island? Nothing was ever certain on Lost, and they’d killed almost everyone else by this point, so it could have happened.

Questions:

Why wasn’t Miles in the church? And Richard, too? What about Frank?

Dharma initiative? Um, totally confused about that. How did they ever get to the island? Obviously, they were trying to find Elvar Hanso’s ship and did, but how did they even find it? Did Jacob allow them to come? Or did the MiB allow them to come, knowing the destruction they’d reign down on the Others.

WTF were the Others? Just people gathered by Jacob over the years to protect the island? Were they candidates? Were some candidates?

Why couldn’t babies be born on the island? Was it the nuclear bomb? I assume that, but it was never made clear.

Why did the Others have that superhuman strength? Did the exposure to the radiation make them all Hulk-like, except not green and huge?

What was Widmore’s backstory? We never really got that. We never learned how he got to the island, why he was there (Eloise, too). And who was Penny’s mother? How did that all transpire that he met some woman off-island whom he loved and had a child with? And how did Eloise and Faraday end up off-island? Did she leave when she found out she was pregnant so her child would live? (They hadn’t had Faraday yet when Widmore was forced to leave, right?)

Who in the hell was Matthew Abbadon? I know he worked for Widmore, but wtf? Ilana, too.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more questions and more thoughts.

_____

But I do want to say this:

Thank you to the entire cast and crew of Lost – you provided excellent entertainment and diversion for six years. The acting, the writing, the music, the editing, the cinematography – it was all better than we’ve seen on television in, maybe, ever. OK, a close tie with The Wire and Battlestar Galactica, but in a totally different way.

Thanks for being my Constant.

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The most interesting thing, to me, about Reins of a Waterfall, is that we started, finally, to see the Joseph Adama who was hinted at in Battlestar Galactica.

Up to this point, the Joseph Adams/Adama we’ve seen in Caprica is a family man. Sure, he’s related to a major crime family, but he’s the legit one. Sure, he works long hours, but he loves his family and is trying to do right by his son.

We saw snatches of a more domestic Joseph before the bombing, talking with his daughter and wife on the cell. We see it in his attempts to bond with Willie. We see it in his tears for his daughter, whom he now believes to be gone forever.

But the Joseph Adama we heard about on Battlestar was different. He was badass enough to have produced Bill Adama, who joined the military – about as big a rebellion as he could find, it appeared.

The Joseph Adama we heard about seemed mythical, almost. Larger than life.

And in the final moments of “Waterfall,” we saw that man begin to emerge.

His admonition to his brother to “balance things out,” was downright chilling.

For the Graystones, the hurt is only just beginning.

For the viewer, things are really starting to get good.

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The fascinating thing about a prequel is that it can answer so many questions.

In the case of Caprica, there were many questions never answered by Battlestar Galactica, and it appears we are getting those explanations. Starting to, at least.

For one, why did the Cylons believe in one god rather than many?

Well, Zoe Graystone, who is both Adam and Eve for the Cylons, was a member of the Soldiers of the One, a monotheistic group who believed terror was the means to an end. And she was more than just an enthusiastic foot soldier, I believe.

The attachment her teacher had to her was extreme. And with the first “true” episode’s revelation that the teacher is in a plural marriage, her looking forward to a “new family” on Gemenon would seem to indicate that perhaps that was her future. Did she know it? That remains to be seen. (And if the second episode answers that, shut up. It isn’t available until four days after broadcast on Hulu.)

Interesting point there: the Zoe-bot is a trinity. She is Zoe, she is Zoe’s avatar and she is the robot. Three sides of one, just like the Holy Trinity. To me, it’s a fascinating point, because I never understood the idea of the Holy Trinity. One scene in Caprica and I’m all, “Oh, THAT’S what that’s about.”

Obviously, the entire religion will coalesce around this Zoe-bot and as the robots are treated worse and the Soldiers of the One are driven further underground, she will become somewhat of a Jesus figure, no?

Another question: Why, really, did Cylons rebel?

That question was never really too hard to suss out, it’s your basic slave rebellion scenario. But, still, it’s interesting to see its roots rather than the aftermath.

And to see difference in how people react to the initial soldier robot. The one guy who’s all into Zoe and calls her a she and is trying to teach her, rather than order her around. Then there’s the other one, who just sees Zoe as a big hunk o’ metal that should just shut up and do what it’s told.

Amazing, of course, how little is learned from the Cylon rebellion in human society, with Capricans still maintaining their elite status within the Colonies by the time BSG rolls around in the timeline.

What I like most about Caprica so far is how although it’s connected to BSG through the character of William Adams — and I love to see glimpses of how his nature was formed through the Yin and Yang of his father and uncle (did you realize that was his uncle?) — it does stand on its own.

All the other characters are new. Even Joseph Adama is new, as he was past tense in BSG. In addition, the Joseph Adama we knew of obviously grew out of this tragedy and does not exist at this point. He has not yet become the man who begat, albeit intellectually, Romo Lampkin.

If Caprica continues along this path, it will be a rarity among prequels: Something equal to, if not surpassing, the original (used loosely, as the BSG we’ve come to love is a sequel to the BSG we knew and loved, cheese and all, in the 1970s).

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I reviewed it already, and you can read that here.

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Following in the hallowed footsteps of Battlestar Galactica, Lost‘s new promo photos are Last Supper-ish.

Coming Soon posted these two pics:

and

Definitely click through, you can enlarge them quite a bit.

My initial thoughts, after the jump:

Second photo (studied it first because it was more last supper-y than the first):
• Note the skulls on the ground
• Jin and Sun are not next to one another
• The new chick from last season is next to Richard Alpert, along with Claire. In fact, their little group is somewhat set back from the rest of the group.
• Locke, of course, is front and center, with that smirk. Jack and Sawyer, however, are RIGHT behind him. And Kate and Jin right there, too. They seem to be the focal point.
• Ben? Back row, glaring at Locke. He actually knows the truth, but no one’s gonna believe him.
• Note the jar of peanut butter at Locke’s left hand (to his right, as you look at him). Peanut butter has always meant something on the show, for some reason. Remember back in the first episode when Charlie chats up Claire? In fact, there’s another jar of peanut butter immediately to Kate’s right (left as you look).
• Lots of orchids on the table and I assume that relates to the Orchid Station. Is that the bombed-out station behind them?
• Everyone seems to be looking at Locke except Alpert and Frank, who seem to be looking at one another

I did photo number 2 first, no specific reason, but it was more of a clue picture, it seemed, and less of a cast shot. The differences from , however, seem interesting:
• Jin and Sun are together
• Claire is with her old Lostie friends, bumping Hurley over a spot to be in front of Frank, where Miles had been. Miles is in Claire’s old spot. And Ben and Sun switched places.

Let the games begin!!

And, if you’ve forgotten, this is the BSG poster:

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Before I share my thoughts about the telemovie, I have to say this: If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, click away NOW. Consider yourself warned.

So the idea behind “The Plan,” ostensibly, was to tell the untold story of the Cylons. The plan they had when they attacked the Colonies in the miniseries.

Problem is, The Plan itself boiled down to, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the humans.” (With apologies to Shakespeare.)

We knew that already. What this telemovie did – and did quite well – was to explain what happened with many little plot points, such as:
• Who did Caprica Six turn and speak to, turning over a metal case, when Baltar left her on that fateful day on Caprica in the miniseries (Cavil).
• How did Boomer’s programming work? How was she “activated”? (A statue of an elephant. Yes, really. An elephant. Why? Beats the hell outta me.)
• What really happened with the water supply being blown out. What really happened with Boomer shooting Adama (she obviously overcame her programming out of love for Adama, or else she would have just shot him in the head, killing him instantly).
• What really happened with that copy of Caprica Six (meaning, her hair was as platinum blonde as CS) with the glasses in Season 1 who accused Baltar of almost exactly what he had done down on the planet, but with poorly photoshopped images (one of her doppelgangers, a prostitute, walked a lot faster than she did and managed to elude the Marines after her, then took off her wig and the actual Six was ordered to airlock herself by Cavil).
• What was Simon’s deal? (One of his copies was married to a human and airlocked himself out of resurrection range in order to not blow up his ship, and his family. Another version was with Anders on the planet.

Other things I liked about the movie were that it showed how at least one of most models, even Cavil, ended up caring deeply for the humans. Leoben couldn’t get Starbuck and her special destiny out of his head. Boomer didn’t kill Adama when she had the chance because she truly loved him as a father (plus, she and Caprica Six were truly devastated when the humans they were leading to safety were slaughtered by Centurions). Simon killed himself rather than his wife and stepdaughter. Even the Brother Cavil with Anders grew to care about the motley crew of survivors he led. We still got very little sense of Doral and unfortunately we saw none of D’Anna.

And I liked that Simon was such a large part of the telemovie, because we hardly saw any of him for the entire run of the series and he always seemed so interesting to me.

I also liked the little moments where there was contact between the Final Five and the Significant Seven, which ranged from extremely significant (Cavil with Ellen on Picon in the strip joint) to minor (when the Five came to the airlocking of the two Cavils.

The things we didn’t find out, that I very much would have liked to have seen, were still vast:
• How, exactly, did Caprica Six’s body manage to shield Baltar from the nuclear explosion when she herself was destroyed?
• Who were each of the Significant Seven modeled after? We know Cavil was a copy of Ellen Tigh’s dad. What about all the others? I’m sure they all were based on someone from the Final Five’s lives.
• What about Daniel, the boxed No. 7 that was but a footnote in the original series, yet drove all the fans bat-guano crazy?
• Why did Leoben FREAK OUT when he saw Kara was dead on Earth? I mean, c’mon, the man FLIPPED THE HELL OUT. He couldn’t have run away any faster if Cylon-eating Dobermans had been on his tail.
• More about the Centurions. They came first, they had self-awareness first, they created the Significant Seven with the Final Five’s help. And how, exactly, did Cavil manage to erase the memories of the Final Five AND the memories of all the other models? It seems that would be connected to his control over the Centurions and Raiders.
• The backstories of the Final Five, how they were planted on the Colonies. They couldn’t age (or could they?), so how did their hanging around for 40 years work out?

I knew the whole issue of how the Final Five ended up leaving Earth and coming to the Colonies wouldn’t be addressed here, but that’s a miniseries/telemovie I’d LOVE to see.

In all, I felt the movie was a wonderful character study, especially of Cavil. When he knifed that boy after giving him a piece of apple, it became obvious we had never misjudged his character. The Cavil on the Galactica was obviously the Cavil who ended up in charge of things back at the Colony. He was irredeemable and it didn’t much matter what happened, he hated the humans and being modeled after them. That’s a story, I admit, that I’d like to see, as well.

Perhaps some of these issues will be addressed by Caprica (not the whole Earth/Kobol connection, though). Either way, that series looks to be very promising. I just have to watch it one more time before I write up my thoughts on that.

I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on The Plan, so please let me know what was good, bad or indifferent about it.

Oh, and here’s a couple of cool BSG-related posts:
• From i09: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About BSG Season 4
• From the Hairballs blog on HoustonPress.com: Why Battlestar Galactica Kicks Star Wars‘ Ass

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I went back and forth on whether I’d live-blog the Emmys tonight, mainly because, after all, this is a TV blog.

But then I thought about it.

Where’s Battlestar Galactica? Kings? Did Jericho ever get any love?

Sure, critical darlings 30 Rock and The Office, though relatively low-rated (compared with the CSI juggernaut, anyway) get lots of Emmy love – as they well should. But most of the best shows on television rarely get any attention from the academy, unless they’re on HBO. And even there, The Wire never got recognition and it was, bar none, the best show on television during its run.

And if nothing else, this blog is about quality television (OK, and sometimes Charles in Charge, but I was young, sue me). And the Emmy broadcast itself is not quality television. How does the Oscar ceremony win a freakin’ Emmy every year? (Though I have to admit, choosing Intervention for Best Reality Series is a teensy bit redemptive.)

So tonight, I’ll be watching the Curb Your Enthusiasm season premiere and the series premiere of Bored to Death. We’ll probably catch up with the season premiere of Fringe, which I was waiting for my husband’s return to watch.

The Emmys? I’ll probably glance on Twitter every now and again. Or maybe I’ll just wait ’til morning.

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