By Stu Robinson,

I’ve been busy with the day job this month, so I have to play catch-up on Season 2 of CBS’ new Hawaii Five-0 – starting with Episodes 3-5, a an arc that could be titled, “Oh no, Kono!”

I’m going to limit myself to a quick overview.

The Plots

Episode 3: A Navy SEAL is found dead while camping, an apparent suicide. McGarrett and the team must prove that it wasn’t, and then find the killer.

Episode 4: Five-0 must figure out why somebody killed a diver who specialized in treasure hunts.

Episode 5: Why did somebody kill the University of Hawaii’s women’s volleyball coach?

The Backstories

Booted from Five-0, Kono starts hanging out with shady ex-cops in Episode 3. Chin Ho tries a couple of times to intervene, but she basically tells him to buzz off. By Episode 4, she’s part of their team; in Episode 5, she finds herself driving the getaway car for a mortally wounded hit man.

In a challenge to the space-time continuum, after Chin Ho and Lori ambush the hit man and Lori shoots him, Chin Ho returns to the office and gets yelled at by McGarrett, who then manages to join Danno and Lori in time to arrest Kono, who still is fleeing in the car with the dead hit man.

While McGarrett and Chin Ho interrogate her, Vince Fryer (Tom Sizemore) bursts in and confirms what some of us guessed back in Episode 3 — that Kono was working under cover in an Internal Affairs investigation.

You knew the writers wouldn’t let Kono go bad. Her relationship with cousin Chin Ho is too integral to Five-0’s dynamics. And while she looked deliciously bad in a clingy black dress, all those colorful bikinis in the show’s wardrobe department wouldn’t “fit” a woman who had turned to the dark side.

In the McGarrett saga, Steve’s Navy mentor, Joe White (Terry O’Quinn) puts in for transfer to Pearl Harbor to oversee SEAL teams there … and be a recurring character. He tells McGarrett that he’s sent the video of McGarrett’s father with the late governor and Wo Fat to the Defense Department for an attempt a sound extraction – then puts off McGarrett every time he asks about it. After McGarrett learns, in Episode 4, that it was a lie, he confronts Joe.

McGarrett: “Know what? I know he was your friend. But he was my father. Whatever it is you’re trying to protect me from, I can handle. You understand me?”
Joe: “Did you ever think that maybe you’re not the only one I’m trying to protect?”
McGarrett: “What are you talking about?”
Joe: “Risk vs. reward, Steve. How much damage are you willing to do to your family, to your family’s name? ‘Cause whatever’s on that video is not going to bring your father back.”

Guest Stars

Is that a Baldwin brother? Yes, that’s William Baldwin, the pretty one, playing Frank Delano, leader of the crooked ex-cops.

Sara Roemer (Disturbia) plays the murdered SEAL’s widow.

Patty Duke, Oscar winner and 1960s TV star, turns up in Episode 4, playing the victim’s Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother.

And, yes, that was Peter Fonda in a throw-away role as a high-profile treasure hunter who’s real quest is for investor dollars. I’m sure CBS invested a few dollars in his appearance.

The star volleyball player in Episode 5 is played by Tania Raymonde (Lost). I didn’t watch Lost, so I don’t know if/how here character interacted with Daniel Dae Kim’s. The woman on the run is played by Meredith Monroe, who has grown up since playing Andie McPhee on Dawson’s Creek.

Romance

Episode 4 introduces a potential new love interest for Danno in the lovely form of Autumn Reeser (Entourage). She plays a museum curator who assists Five-0 by analyzing some evidence. Though Scott Caan also was on Entourage, it’s also unclear if those characters’ paths crossed.
McGarrett: “You should ask her out for coffee.”
Danno: “I don’t want … I’m not looking for a relationship.”
McGarrett: “Coffee’s not a relationship, it’s a beverage.”
Danno: “That’s not true. Every single relationship starts with a cup of coffee. Then it’s dinner. Next thing you know, you’re divorced and you’re moving to Hawaii so you can see your daughter every other week.”
(Are we supposed to recall the coffee talk between McGarrett and Lori during a stakeout in Episode 2?) Near the end of Episode 4, Danno waits outside the Bishop Museum after dark for the curator to emerge. He asks her out for a cup coffee, and she agrees. In real life, of course, he’d probably end up with a whiff of mace and a stalking charge.

Later, McGarrett needs a notebook decrypted. Enter his Season 1 girlfriend/plot advancer, Navy Lt. Catherine Rollins (Michelle Borth). But the magic appears to be gone. As he joins her on a park bench and gives her a freshly picked flower, she asks: “What do you need this time?”

Subsequently, McGarrett walks into Five-0 HQ with Lori, and they spot Catherine waiting in Steve’s office.
Lori: “Who’s that?”
McGarrett: “That is an old friend.”
Catherine is in her dress uniform, which McGarrett finds odd. “Orders came in today,” she says. “My flight for the gulf leaves tonight.” Awkward, but it does clear the decks for a potential romance with Lori – and for Borth to star on another season of ABC’s Combat Hospital if it’s renewed. Before leaving, though, Catherine informs McGarrett that the Defense Department hadn’t received an intel request from White.

But it’s not just viewers speculating about a potential attraction between McGarrett and Lori:

Danno to McGarrett about Lori: “Listen. She follows orders. She likes sports. If she was into blowing stuff up, romantic getaways at the DMZ, I’d say we are looking at a love connection.”

During Kono’s walk on the wild side, lab technician extraordinaire Charlie Fong (Brian Yang), last seen flirting with her late in Season 1, expresses his concern to her cousin, Chin Ho.

Chin Ho, meanwhile, appears to have something developing with his ex-fiancée, Malia Waincroft (Reiko Aylesworth). When he meets her for lunch at Kamekona’s shrimp truck, we find out it’s at least the second date they’ve had recently. Later she tries to talk sense into Kono – implying more of a past relationship between the to than viewers had been led to believe.

Additional Snappy Dialogue

Oddball coroner Max Bergman (Masi Oka), is giving giant shave-ice guy Kamekona (Taylor Wily) a run for his money as the show’s comic relief. In Episode 2, he enters Five-0 headquarters wearing dark glasses, a khaki trench coat and matching hat – and carrying a large manila envelope.
McGarrett: “Hey … Creepy, why are you dressed like inspector gadget?”
Max: “Ropening a closed case without authorization is considered risky. So I took precautions.”

Danno needles McGarrett about his SEAL background: “So, what, you’re not going to tell me about Operation Strawberry Fields?”
McGarrett: “No.”
Danno: “No, no. Of course, you’d have to kill me. … I’m just curious, though: Was there an Operation Abbey Road? Were you The Walrus?”
He looks at Joe, who has stopped at a locked door.
Danno: “Time to shut up?”
Joe: “Roger that.” [Opens the door.] “Are you ready for the Magical Mystery Tour?”

Product Placement and Hawaiiana

The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, named for the last descendant of Hawaii’s Kamehameha royal family, is where Danno meets, and is smitten by, curator Gabrielle Asano in Episode 4. The Bishop Museum is home to an extensive collection of natural, cultural and historic artifacts from the islands.

The episode then offers a history lesson of its own when Charlie Fong identifies a piece of evidence as a $5 bill with “HAWAII” stenciled across the back. Such “Hawaiian overprint notes” replaced regular U.S. currency on the islands during World War II. After Pearl Harbor, the authorities opted for the overprint currency because it could simply be declared worthless if the Japanese invaded.

Max is like a kid in a candy store on a visit to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JPAC), the largest forensics lab in the world.

Episode 5 showcases University of Hawaii athletics. It opens at a women’s volleyball match, after which the coach is murdered. NCAA rules prevented the actual players from being on the show, but producers asked the crowd from a real UH volleyball match to stick around afterward and cheer on the actors. Local actor Joe Toro plays the ill-fated coach.

The getaway car driven by Kono is a Cadillac, in keeping with the show’s car credo: Chevys good; other makes bad.

Notes

In another bending of the space/time continuum, McGarrett finds out that a different SEAL is on his way to becoming a skydiving accident and inexplicably gets into the air with his own parachute in time to pull off a mid-air rescue.

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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.