By Stu Robinson,

It took me a few days to recover from whiplash following the season premiere of CBS’ Hawaii Five-0.

No, not really. It just seemed like it.

I went into the Season 2 premiere wondering how the H50 writers could resolve last season’s cliff-hanger in a remotely plausible fashion. While I keep the emphasis on “remotely,” they did come up with a narrative to get the band back together for a second season — even if it involved brand new characters, suddenly revealed back stories and those whiplash-inducing reversals.

Last season’s cliffhanger left the Five-0 team in an existential crisis. McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) was under arrest, accused of shooting the governor; Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) was the Honolulu Police SWAT commander who arrested him; Kono (Grace Park) was being booked in the $10 million heist from last season’s Episode 12; and Danno (Scott Caan) seemed powerless to do anything about it all.

Cue the children’s choir at the governor’s funeral. To the sound of the choir, we see a montage of:

• Actor Terry O’Quinn, Kim’s former castmate from Lost, walking off military cargo plane wearing camouflage fatigues and being greeted by Danno;
• Kono sitting on a surfboard looking pensive (in a red bikini — yeah writers!);
• former CIA analyst and Five-0 ally Jenna Kaye (Larisa Oleynik) scrolling through evidence pictures on a laptop;
• McGarrett doing push-ups in a jail cell.

Back at the funeral, Chin Ho stands in a police honor guard scanning the mourners. He makes eye contact with Wo Fat (Mark Dacascos), and afterward accosts the criminal mastermind in the requisite macho confrontation.

Summoned to meet a visitor, McGarrett finds Danno waiting. Their initial exchange recalls two of Season 1′s running gags, their bickering and Danno’s attire:

• Danno: “Why are you you smiling at me?”
• McGarrett: “You’re not wearing a tie. It suits you.”
• Danno: “No, I’m not wearing a tie, because there’s no dress code for an out-of-work cop.”

Danno then yields to O’Quinn, whose first line to McGarrett is,“Let me guess: The governor had it coming.” O’Quinn’s character, Lt. Cmdr. Joe White, is identified as the man who trained McGarrett. Our hero dutifully calls him “sir.”

Next we see McGarrett in the jail’s exercise yard, where he is confronted by Victor Hesse (James Marsters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Caprica and Smallville), the man who killed McGarrett’s father in the Season 1 premiere. After a lengthy fight, Hesse stabs McGarrett in the gut, then speaks to him urgently, though his words are inaudible to the audience.

Cut to boffo theme song.

Confronted later in his cell by Danno and Chin Ho, Hesse explains that he stabbed McGarrett in a non-lethal way so he could escape. There is a quick cut and, sure enough, we see a bleeding McGarrett escape from an ambulance. Turns out Hesse is employing the same strategy tried by Sang Min (Will Yun Lee) in the penultimate episode of Season 1.

• Hesse: “I may be a soulless bastard, detective, but I’m no fool. Wo Fat is making one last deal. Then he’s going to disappear. But he’s not going to do that without tying up loose ends.”
• Danno: “Loose ends. By that you mean you, right.”
• Hesse: “Unless McGarrett kills him first.”

Filling Some Blanks

Among the evidence from Papa McGarrett’s toolbox, White recognizes a photo of a military decoration. He recognizes it as having been awarded to a Japanese pilot for bombing Pearl Harbor. White relates that the pilot later became wealthy and moved to Oahu hoping to make amends. He gave the medal to McGarrett, and later hired him to investigate corruption in the Honolulu Police Department.

With information from the old man, Kaye determines that another item from the toolbox, a key, fits a storage locker at the airport on Molokai. It had been reported that Five-0 would go beyond Oahu this season, so here are two quick scenes on Molokai (that could have been filmed anywhere).

Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) is confronted in the dead governor's office by the lieutenant governor (Richard T. Jones).

The locker contains grainy, black-and-white video from the private office at the governor’s residence, the very same place where McGarrett was framed for her murder. Danno and Chin Ho race to the residence and find a camera in an old clock before they are interrupted by the lieutenant governor (Richard T. Jones). At least he is identified as the lieutenant governor throughout the episode; wouldn’t he be the governor since his predecessor is dead?

Turns out the newly discovered camera captured a figure appearing behind McGarrett, tasing him, shooting the governor and placing the gun in McGarrett’s hand. Though viewers know it is Wo Fat, the video doesn’t show his face – so he can’t simply be arrested.

But the lieutenant governor does reconstitute Five-0, with two exceptions:

1. The team no longer will have blanket immunity to break the law; and
2. Kono must be cleared by HPD’s Internal Affairs Division before she can return to the team.

Finally, in another whiplash inducing scene at the end, it is revealed that there is, in fact, a mole attached to the Five-0 team. It’s just not Chin Ho, as I speculated in my Season One recap.

Subplots

It also was reported over the summer that character of  Dr. Max Bergman (Masi Oka), the oddball coroner, had been upgraded to a regular. This was confirmed in the Season 2 premier. Max finds an unconscious, bleeding McGarrett in his home and proceeds to treat him and alert Danno and Chin Ho.

“Max,” McGarrett says after regaining consciousness, “the least you can do after patching me up is call me ‘Steve.’”

Max quickly displays his sci-fi geek credentials.

When he suggests a brief car exchange with Danno, we see a tiny model of the USS Enterprise from the original Star Trek on his keychain. Perhaps it’s an homage, since the father of Oka’s character on Heroes was played by George Takei, Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek.

A VW Thing

Then there is his car: Danno ends up behind the wheel of a VW Thing with the license plate “WARP9.” [Kim occupied the Star Trek universe as well, guest starring on an episode of Voyager. And the actor who plays Papa McGarrett in flashbacks (William Sadler) was a recurring character on Deep Space Nine.]

Max ends up driving Danno’s macho Chevy Camaro.

Yes, the advertisers must have been happy, because product placement is back for Season 2. An early commercial tells us that, “Chevrolet is proud to power Hawaii Five-0.” Later in the episode, a Hawaiian Airlines jet figures prominently in the background as McGarrett climbs out of a helicopter at the Molokai airport. CBS also used the commercial breaks to promote the season premieres of some of its other big shows, such as CSI and Criminal Minds.

Danno’s ex-wife and daughter, last seen boarding a plane to the mainland after Danno failed to show up at the airport, were only referenced in the Season 2 premiere. In discussions among characters, we learn that Rachel’s pregnancy was further along than she’d realized — and that the father is “The Stan,” not Danno. We’re told that she and Grace are returning to Hawaii so Rachel can give her second marriage another chance.

Notes

• Not much is revealed about O’Quinn’s character, other than that he trained McGarrett in the military and was friends with Papa McGarrett for years. He’s unflappable: Told McGarrett escaped from jail, he responds that, “Patience was never his strong suit.” He also shows that he is good with gun, backing up Kono in a chase scene. (And what man wouldn’t back her up, since the writers had her wearing a snug pair Daisy Dukes.)
• While Wo Fat got away, the team did prevent the “last deal” Hesse mentioned – the sale of “dirty bomb” materials to a Eurotrashy dude who Kono shoots dead. But Hesse’s larger plan fails, leaving him dead in his cell.
• On a personal note, I was happy to see McGarrett dispatch one of Wo Fat’s henchmen with a “Book ‘im, Danno.”

###

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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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 haven’t had a chance to finish writing up my thoughts about the Caprica telemovie, but I had to post, in advance of tonight’s first “real” episode, two amazing clips from SyFy.

First, a “season” preview:

And then, this is a preview of tonight’s episode, which I won’t be able to watch until it’s on Hulu:

Looks awesome, no?

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I’ve not ended the So Say We All blog carnival for simply one reason: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan – the BSG telemovie – airs in September and from what I read this weekend on SciFi Wire, it’s gonna be amazing.

It’s written by Jane Espenson and directed by Edward James Olmos and it’s not exactly a secret what it’s about: It’s the Cylon perspective on basically the entire series. How and why the Cylons did what they did.

I think it’s a brilliant move because we pretty much were conditioned to believe the Cylons were just bad, unfeeling machines. Sure, they were given more humanity than the original BSG allowed, but in the end, they were bent on the destruction of humanity and, being human, that didn’t go over too well with us, the viewers.

Lest we forget, it was humanity who made the first move, by making slaves out of the machines. (I have the Caprica miniseries on DVD, by the way, and just haven’t had a chance to watch it. I’m hoping the slow summer season gives me the opportunity to watch it and finish Season 1 of Torchwood, too, but that’s another story for another day.)

One of the nice things about the telemovie, I believe, is that it’s going to give more airtime to some of the lesser-known characters. We had lots of time with the various iterations of Six, we got lots of D’Anna and the Sharons. Leoben had a not insignificant amount of screentime. But considering his role in everything, Cavil didn’t get as much play as one might have expected.

And Simon and Theodore (sorry, Aaron) got so little screentime it was easy to forget one or both of them. Aaron had virtually no facetime with the audience after the miniseries and Simon was in those couple of episodes that took place on the radioactive Caprica when Starbuck met Anders, and then showed up most as window dressing after that.

One might think we’d see more of those two in particular because they sided with Brother Cavil, and this is, after all, Cavil’s war.

Olmos pretty much confirmed that much in the SciFi Wire article, saying Dean Stockwell was basically the star of the telemovie:

I have to tell you right now, Dean Stockwell is a brilliant artist. He does a magnificent job of leading The Plan. The Plan is exactly that. It was how they planned to do what they did and what happened. It was monumental. All I can tell you is it’s an extraordinary look at the Cylons, how they masterminded what they did.

It’ll be interesting, too, if we learn more about the Final Five Cylons’ backstories, which seems possible. And maybe more about Daniel?

Olmos thinks the telemovie will give fans a reason and desire to go back to the beginning of the series and watch it again, with a new perspective.

I’d wager he’s right. After all, we don’t need much of a reason to go back and watch it all over again.

It’s supposed to air in September and I, for one, can’t frakkin’ wait.

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