By Stu Robinson,

The producers and writers of CBS’s new Hawaii Five-0 are turning stunt casting into the equivalent of an Olympic sport.

After a great episode featuring guest star James Caan (Brian’s Song, The Godfather, NBC’s Las Vegas), the H50 brain trust took its game up a notch for a guest appearance by TV legend Ed Asner (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant) in Season 2, Episode 19.

For Caan, the writers simply had to create a cranky/funny old guy character. With the 82-year old Asner, they had to update and reintegrate a character he played in a 1975 episode of the original Hawaii Five-0. In the episode “Wooden Model of a Rat,” Asner played August March, a smuggler who tried to frame the original McGarrett (Jack Lord) for art theft.

Well, the writers outdid themselves, not only in weaving the March character into a contemporary story line – complete with African “conflict diamonds” – but also in their cool expository use of footage from the 1975 episode as Honolulu Police Capt. Vince Fryer (Tom Sizemore) briefs the new McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) and Danno (Scott Caan). March was “imprisoned for ordering the murder of two of his business associates,” Fryer says in a voiceover. “They made the mistake of trusting him and they got a bullet for it.”

Of course, it really would have been over the top if they’d worked in an unbilled cameo from one of Asner’s living MTM costars, such as Moore herself, Betty White (The Golden Girls, Hot in Cleveland) or Gavin MacLeod (Love Boat) – but we can’t have everything.

Sister, Sister

The premise behind Asner’s episode is McGarrett’s sister, Mary Ann (Taryn Manning), returning to Hawaii in her new job as an airline flight attendant. After a brief visit with her brother and Danno, she is busted with $20 million in diamonds taped to her body while trying to board her flight back to New York. She tells McGarrett that a man waiting in her hotel room had forced her to smuggle the gems, saying he’d taken her friend and fellow flight attendant hostage and wouldn’t release her until Mary Ann delivered the diamonds to his accomplice in New York.

Of course, McGarrett calls his team into action to get his sister off the hook. McGarrett, Danno and Fryer eventually pay a visit to March, recently released after 30 years in prison, figuring someone of his background would likely have heard of any plot involving $20 million in diamonds.

I won’t get into the details of the plot because I don’t want to spoil a fantastic twist at the end. Suffice it to say that, though some of the details were convoluted, I was able to figure out who likely framed Mary Ann. Asner is great in the episode, and Sizemore deserves credit for raising his game as well. At first, I didn’t like having Sizemore on the show, but his appearances this season have warmed me up to Capt. Fryer.

Papa’s Ghost

After meeting McGarrett, March recalls that a policeman named McGarrett had escorted him to prison.

• March: “I tried to offer him $100,000 bribe that day, a fortune that time.”
• McG: “My father wasn’t that kind cop.”
• March: “But there were plenty of cops around him who would’ve taken that money.”

It was reminiscent of Season 1, Episode 7, when guest star Robert Loggia, playing a Pearl Harbor survivor, recalls knowing McGarrett’s grandfather aboard the USS Arizona. “I walk past that Arizona Memorial every day, and I am reminded of their sacrifice,” he tells McGarrett. “The man that you are named after is a real hero. You should be very proud.”

And speaking of McGarrett’s family, what’s happened to the character’s back stories? Two straight episodes centered around guest stars have pushed aside the main characters’ personal stories.

• Kono takes March to Charlie Fong’s lab to examine a diamond under the microscope. But Fong (Brian Lang), Kono’s potential love interest, isn’t there.
• How’s Danno’s relationship with his ex-wife since he was forced to shoot her second husband in Season 2, Episode 15.
• How’s married life, Chin Ho?
• And the McGarrett back story? Paging Wo Fat!

Argument of the Week

McGarrett and Danno bicker in the office rather than in the car:

• Danno: “What are you being paranoid about?”
• McG: “This is not paranoia, Daniel. This is been happening a lot lately. You guys have been acting weird.”
• Danno: “Well. I think you should relax, maybe, and stop over analyzing things.”
• McG: “Relax? That’s funny coming from you.”
• Danno: “Okay, do what you want to do. Be paranoid; go nuts; let your mind play tricks on you. Next thing you know, you’re going to be wearing a tinfoil hat [and] babbling about black helicopters.”
• McG: “Black helicopters are real.”
• [McG answers phone.]
• Danno: “What do you mean, they’re real?”

Turns out that Danno and the rest of the team are trying to spring a birthday surprise on the boss.

Notes

• I’m not one to carry on about political correctness, but it was odd when Mary Ann described her hotel assailant as “dark skinned” with an accent, when he was obviously black. Not African-American, mind you, but actually African. Also, one of the characters informs another that “flight attendant” is the preferred term for “stewardesses” these days.
• Normally Hawaii Five-0 is really overt with its product placement, and from the premiere one of its top sponsors has been Hawaiian Airlines. So why wasn’t Mary Ann a Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant? Instead, she wore a generic, 1980s-style uniform. (The colors resembled those of the old America West Airlines.) And the shot of her scheduled flight departing had the plane’s tail blurred out. All this is particularly odd considering that Hawaiian Airlines didn’t shy away from having a murder on one of its flights in Season 2, Episode 15.
• BREAKING NEWS (March 26, 2012) — The “Deadline Hollywood” website is reporting that Michelle Borth will become a regular in the H50 cast next season. Borth (Combat Hospital) has played McGarrett’s Navy girlfriend, Lt. Catherine Rollins, during the show’s first two seasons. She most recently appeared in Season 2, Episode 16.

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Stuart J. Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations practitioner and social-media guy based in Phoenix.