By Stu Robinson,

Episodes 8 and 9 of CBS’ new Hawaii Five-0 were little more than filler. Neither advanced any of the ongoing story lines; in fact, the only back story to come up at all was Danno’s housing saga. Neither episode advanced the McGarrett family subplot; neither mentioned Danno’s budding romance with the hot museum curator.

Episode 8 involved a terminal cancer patient killing a Customs agent to protect his supply of alternative medicines – only to find out that the doctor behind the non-traditional regimen was a quack. Episode 9, after several red herrings, came down to a plastic surgeon trying to cover up a botched procedure. So if there was any common theme, it was … beware of doctors?

Episode 8

In the series’ latest example of stunt casting, Episode 8 reunited Masi Oka, who plays crazy coroner Max Bergman, with former Heroesco-star Greg Grunberg, who played the dead Customs

 

agent’s boss, Jeff Morrison. The writers tried to wink at the actors’ former relationship, but the attempt fell flat.

Max: “Do I know you?”
Morrison: “No. I don’t think so.”
Max: “Yes, I think we’ve met before.”
Morrison: “No. I think I would’ve remembered a guy like you.”
Max: “Well, I’m rarely wrong about previous human encounters.”

Huh? [Cue crickets chirping.]

Other notable moments:

• Max has traded in his VW Thing (seen in the season premiere); his WARP 9 license plate is now affixed to a bright yellow Chevy Camaro.
• Kono tells Chin Ho that she’s now okay with him dating his ex-fiancée, Malia. That was fast. But Kono also is back to flirting with her favorite lab tech: “Thanks, Fong. You’re a geek god.”
• In a shoutout to America’s Customs and Immigration agents, Morrison gives the victim’s posthumous award of valor to McGarrett, who hangs it in his office at Five-0 headquarters.

Less notable was the idea of the team four-wheeling into the jungle in search of a ditched parachute – and finding it. Equally lame was the cherry picker poorly disguised as a branch that Lori used to recover the chute.

Episode 9

The intro is an adrenaline-pumping high-speed car chase that ends with the suspect escaping but the police finding a body in the trunk of another car.

[Cue the boffo Hawaii Five-0 theme.]

Danno, now reduced to sleeping on McGarrett’s couch due to “black mold” in his crappy apartment, is driving his host crazy by keeping the TV on and loud through the night. Why? He can’t stand the sound of waves crashing into the shore, which he calls “Hawaiian water torture.” The ensuing argument is interrupted, of course, by the call to action. And so begins the search for the victim’s identity.

While not as bad as the previous episode, the ensuing plot won’t end up in the H50 Hall of Fame. The victim turns out to be a witness to organized crime who left the U.S. Marshals’ protection program after two of his fellow witnesses turned up dead. (Head scratcher: If they were all in witness protection, how would he know?) We’re fed a scenario, complete with Boston Irish hit men, in which the victim’s past caught up with him – except the hit men still are looking for him, which means they obviously didn’t kill him. Turns out he died during facial-reconstruction surgery and the doctor tried to cover it up.

The show does delve into the world of vintage muscle cars, and the folks who steal them.

During an outdoor car show in an oceanside park, Lori must go undercover. She pulls up in a classic Ford Mustang and steps out wearing a tank top, tight leather pants and stripper-style

plastic high heels. In the past, it’s always been Kono who had to vamp it up under cover; she finally gets to register her opinion of all those cheesecake scenes.

Lori: “I still think Kono would’ve looked way hotter in this outfit.”
Kono: “Sorry Sister, I did my time undercover. Now it’s on you.”

Never mind that Lori, a transfer from Homeland Security, likely has much more time on the books than rookie cop Kono. But the latter gets to display her bad-ass cop credentials later in the show when she reprises her stone-cold sharpshooting skills she used in Season 1, Episode 12 to take down Victor Hesse.

Even more gratuitous, the writers populate the car show with myriad bikini-clad onlookers. While the scene was by the ocean, it was not on a beach. And most of the women I know, even ones who are walking advertisements for the bikini industry, cover up with shorts or a sarong when they step off the sand.

Kamekona and Max again provide the comic relief.

The way that Taylor Wily uses facial expressions and body language makes it almost unnecessary for Kamekona, the giant shave ice/shrimp vendor, to utter lines. And I had to laugh when he gave Chin Ho and Kono a Spam-scented air freshener for their car.

Max may be relying a bit too much on silly costumes. After dressing up like Inspector Gadget in Episode 2 and Keanu Reeves from The Matrix in Episode 7, he appears as Danny (the John Travolta character) from Grease at the end of this episode. Of course, that allowed the writers to add a second bit of Lori cheesecake, dressing her up as Sandy (the Olivia Newton-John character).

The writers also went to the well again with a final scene in which McGarrett fills in the blanks for the victim’s girlfriend. They used this same approach in Season 1, Episode 22 (a/k/a the Rick Springfield episode) – and possibly other times, it seems so familiar.

What the writers didn’t do is tell us who led the cops on the chase in the opening scene, or why.

Closing Note

Both episodes were put to shame by the “scenes from next week” at the end of Episode 9.

McGarrett! In North Korea! With Jenna Kaye and Wo Fat! And Jimmy Buffett?

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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.