[NOTE: This post brings us up to date for tonight’s Episode 20.]

It begins with a misdirection:

At night, a man boards a yacht offshore. Armed with a pistol, he enters the cabin and moves forward. At the door to the main bedroom, he stops and listens – then quietly turns the handle. He eases the door open and sees his wife and best friend having sex.

Moments later, the three are on the rear deck. The friend is kneeling and staring into the barrel of the husband’s gun. (The woman has covered up and just watches.) Just as it appears the husband is about to pull the trigger, there is an explosion on another boat about 100 yards away.

So much for the dramatic love triangle. When McGarrett arrives at a marina following the boffo Hawaii Five-0 theme song, we see – in the background and for just a second – the husband in handcuffs with the wife and friend standing close by. And that’s the last we see of them. There is no further explanation or resolution because Season 3, Episode 19 is about the explosion on the other boat.

From there, it’s a standard H50 investigation – a murder, an environmental issue, a red herring, a moral, some snappy dialogue and a couple of chases. But the writers throw viewers a change-up when the team makes the arrest:

• McGarrett: “Book ’im, Kono.”
• Danno: “Oh! Where’s the love?”
• McGarrett: “I’m sharing this one.”
• Kono: “Thanks, boss.”

Bikini Impact

Before being summoned to the marina, McGarrett is using a flight-simulator video game to teach Kamekona how to fly a helicopter. Catherine returns from surfing wearing a skimpy bikini that distracts Big K, causing him to virtually crash his virtual helicopter.

Later, Danno tells McGarrett it’s preposterous that Kamekona could be approved to fly a chopper. McGarrett offers a bet: If  Kamakona earns his pilot’s license, Danno must fly with him. We can see where this is going.

Familiar Faces

The episode includes a couple of returning guest stars.

Kala Alexander returns as Kawika, leader of the North Shore surf gang, or club, depending upon whether you see it McGarrett’s way or Danno’s. The two head out to question him after a witness reports having seen one of his guys beating up the murder victim a week earlier. It’s Alexander’s fourth appearance on H50, and the first this season.

In another scene, beautiful nurse Leilani (Lindsay Price) from the prison/Jimi Hendrix episode drops in on Chin Ho at Five-0 headquarters. She asks why he never called after rescuing her from the inmate riot. When he stammers that he didn’t have her phone number, she points out that he is a cop and it’s 2013 – she assumed he could find her. She asks if he is married, casting a pall over what looked like was going to be a romantic scene. “I was,” he answers. She walk around to his desk, scribbles her phone number on a Post-it and hands it to him, saying, “When you’re ready.” The scene is unrelated to the rest of the episode, so the writers must be foreshadowing a return to Chin Ho’s star-crossed personal life.

Rising to the Past

Episode 19 closes with a cool, nostalgic scene. Kamekona is piloting his chopper over Honolulu. McGarrett is in the copilot’s chair. Danno, looking glum, is in the back seat with coroner Max, who is inspired to vocalize the theme from Magnum P.I. (1980-88).

• Danno: “Hey, hey! What are you doing? You getting a seizure? Stop it!”
• Max: “I just felt the Magnum P.I. theme was appropriate.”
• Kamekona: “Aw, I used to love that show. Higgie-baby was the man.”
• Max: “I was very fond of Higgins myself. And Cmdr. McGarrett shares the same Navy SEAL lineage as Magnum. And …” [Looks at Danno]
• Danno: “What? What! I’m not Rick, okay?”
• Max: “Well, everyone can agree you’re Cmdr. McGarrett’s humorous sidekick.” [Laughter]
• Kamekona: “If we’re playing this game, it’s obvious who I am: the dashing chopper pilot T.C.” 

H50’s ongoing homage to Magnum P.I. began in Episode 11, with a helicopter painted somewhat like the one on Magnum and continued in Episode 17 with a guest appearance by Larry Manetti, the actor who played Orville “Rick” Wright on the Tom Selleck detective show.

Notes

• During the helicopter scene, Kamekona practices his tour-guide spiel, describing some of the landmarks below – and offering a great opportunity for product placement. “The beautiful Hilton Hawaiian Village, a resort built for a king,” he says. “Elvis stayed here in ’57.”
• A CBS promo for tonight’s Episode 20 teases that Terry O’Quinn and Jimmy Buffet will return for another foray into North Korea. McGarrett SEAL mentor Joe White (O’Quinn) and helicopter pilot Frank Bama (Buffett) joined members of the Five-0 team on a reckless mission to the belligerent communist state in Season 2, Episode 10.
• A news release posted on the Hulu Plus website said Aisha Tyler, a comedian and cohost of CBS’s The Talk, will play a talk show host on the April 29 episode of H50. It also indicated that the episode would include Wo Fat (Mark Dacascos).
• TV Line has reported that Christine Lahti, who portrays Doris McGarrett on H50, will play a police captain in a CBS pilot of Beverly Hills Cop.

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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.