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).

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.

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.”

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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.