Hawaii Five-O (1968-80) — Season 5 Episode Reviews

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SEASON FIVE (1972-1973) - QUICK INDEX

The numbering system below uses Season/Episode numbers, i.e., S01E01 = Season One, Episode One. It also includes the numbering system found in Karen Rhodes' Booking Hawaii Five-O. These are the numbers in (parentheses).

S05E01 (97) - Death Is A Company Policy (George Chakiris, Laraine Stephens, Michael Ansara)
S05E02 (98) - Death Wish On Tantalus Mountain (Ricardo Montalban, Diana Muldaur, Michael Margotta)
S05E03 (99) - You Don't Have To Kill To Get Rich, But It Helps. (William Shatner, Ric Marlow)
S05E04 (100) - Pig In A Blanket (John Rubinstein, Louise Latham, Dennis Redfield)
S05E05 (101) - The Jinn Who Clears The Way (Khigh Dhiegh, Joe Sirola, Soon Taik Oh)
S05E06 (102) - Fools Die Twice (Clu Gulager, Michael Conrad)
S05E07 (103) - Chain Of Events (Linden Chiles, Lou Frizzell, Mary Frann, Dirk Benedict)
S05E08 (104) - Journey Out of Limbo (Keenan Wynn, Philip Ahn)
S05E09 (105) - 'V' For Vashon: The Son (Robert Drivas, Harold Gould, Luther Adler)
S05E10 (106) - 'V' For Vashon: The Father (Harold Gould, Don Knight, Luther Adler)
S05E11 (107) - 'V' For Vashon: The Patriarch (Luther Adler, Harold Gould)
S05E12 (108) - The Clock Struck Twelve (Manu Tupou, Patrick Adiarte)
S05E13 (109) - I'm A Family Crook — Don't Shoot! (Andy Griffith, Joyce Van Patten)
S05E14 (110) - The Child Stealers (Richard Lawrence Hatch, Richard Anderson, Jack Hogan, Meg Foster)
S05E15 (111) - Thanks For The Honeymoon (Patty Duke, Larry Kert, Carol Lawrence)
S05E16 (112) - The Listener (Robert Foxworth, Greg Mullavey)
S05E17 (113) - Here Today... Gone Tonight (Monte Markham, Sandra Smith, Madlyn Rhue)
S05E18 (114) - The Odd Lot Caper (Richard Basehart, Ron Hayes, Jack Hogan)
S05E19 (115) - Will The Real Mr. Winkler Please Die? (Nehemiah Persoff, Mark Lenard, Malachi Throne)
S05E20 (116) - Little Girl Blue (Ronald Feinberg, Jackie Coogan, Tisha Sterling, Nina Foch)
S05E21 (117) - Percentage (Milton Selzer, Leonard Stone)
S05E22 (118) - Engaged To Be Buried (Irene Tsu, Erik Estrada, Richard Yniguez, Simon Oakland)
S05E23 (119) - The Diamond That Nobody Stole (Eric Braeden, Beulah Quo)
S05E24 (120) - Jury Of One (Five-O Stock Company Players)

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97. (S05E01) “Death Is A Company Policy” ★★½

QUICK PLOT:

Duke Lukela is implicated in shady financial dealings and suspected of leaking information which kept some underworld figures from being arrested.

Click here to read Full Plot. Thanks to Bobbi for her help with the plots in this season!

REVIEW:

Season five features a revised main title with no teaser. During the opening credits, there is an iconic scene with the entire Five-O team walking to Manicote's office. New Five-O team member Ben Kokua (Al Harrington) describes himself later as "Polynesian." There is no explanation given for Kono's departure. The shot of Ben jumping over the fence in the main credits is from the twenty-second episode of the season "The Diamond That Nobody Stole," but it was actually the third show filmed. The music behind the team's march across the screen in the episode promo is from a previous "military" episode.

Prior to this, local criminal kingpin Piro Manoa (Michael Ansara), who Five-O have been after for six or seven years, knocks off his old pal Johnny Resko (Harry Williams) by shooting him dead as the two of them embrace. Two days later, Resko has some of his pals send a "voice from the dead" letter to McGarrett which tells of three things that can be used against Manoa, connected with the 1968 murder of Anna Royoto: 1) the gun used to kill her, now in the safe at Resko's apartment; 2) a tape, in the attic of Resko's brother's beach house, where Royoto begs Manoa not to kill her over $60,000 she owed him; and the name of a witness to the murder, Sylvia Chang, who was hiding in the next room when the murder took place.

When Five-O go to investigate all three of these things, they are stymied: Resko's place has been trashed and the safe emptied; the brother's beach house has been torched; and Sylvia Chang is found dead, hanging from the ceiling in her apartment. Because the contents of Resko's letter were divulged only in front of Five-O and District Attorney Manicote's staff, it is obvious that someone from those two outfits spilled the beans that an investigation was portending.

Duke, who has been liaising with Five-O, at least with the name of "Duke", for some shows in the previous season, gets the finger pointed at him as the one who leaked the information. As well, he is dragged into a mess of financial impropriety to do with dealings in Sand 'n Surf Condominiums Inc., where he is alleged to have invested $80,000 (400 shares at $200 each) three years before when the company was set up. Dividends from this investment were received by Duke who deposited them in an account with the Outer Islands Federal Bank and then transferred the money to another account in the specific amount of $19,200 on August 11, 1972. There are questions about where Duke would have gotten the $80,000 which he invested with Sand 'n Surf. He says that he took out a second mortgage on his house a couple of years before to help his niece set up a business on the Big Island, but never specifically says that the amount was $80,000. In fact, he says "Where would I get money like that [meaning $80,000]?"

Now this business with Duke, which is very shaky, as McGarrett demonstrates when he has a brainstorm and basically figures out what is really happening, is designed to deflect investigation from Chris Lahani (George Chakiris), assistant to Manicote, who was the one passing the information from Resko's letter via Runny Grose (Richard Morrison), a low-level stoolie working for Manoa. It seems very peculiar that Manoa would use the services of Grose, who hung out with Angela Caroll (Jo Pruden), a hooker who lives in a low-rent apartment. After Grose disappears, murdered by Manoa, Caroll flees to the mainland, because Grose told her "things when the lights were out." We later find out via Manoa that Caroll was murdered as well. Five-O sets up a scam with a woman being kept under witness protection in an apartment building pretending to be Caroll. Lahani tries to talk to her, but fails, but not before he sees her, and then compares her with a photo taken with Grose that is in HPD's "iron brain" – which Five-O has planted.

Lahani's education at Harvard had been paid for by the mysterious Swiss-based company called Bryce-Halsey which is the major shareholder in the Sand 'n Surf Condos, where Duke invested. It is supposedly an underworld über-organization that Manoa is connected with.

After Five-O and Manicote's office investigate each other's team, with the result that Duke is the most likely suspect, Manicote tells McGarrett that he has never had such a strong case. But what can he prove? He cannot prove a connection between Bryce-Halsey and Duke (i.e., they gave him money) because the company's information is hidden behind privacy information in Switzerland. "Duke" seemingly did get a lot of money to invest, but it's never clearly revealed where this money came from. And where is the evidence that Duke passed the information from Resko's letter along to Manoa somehow?

The whole business about making Lahani a plant in the DA's office and then setting up a frame for Duke ("a key officer") three years in advance of minor waves being made with Manoa seems like overkill. Manoa seems to be a very low-budget kind of operative, as can be seen by the ease with which he is disposed of at the end of the show. Even if all the three things in Resko's letter were not dead ends, they would only result in Manoa being convicted of murder and not necessarily reveal any of his other criminal activities or his connection with Bryce-Halsey.

It seems that Miss Simpson (Laraine Stephens), Manoa's sexy but bitchy accountant who detests him, is a lot more in charge of things than Manoa himself. Though Manoa tells Grose, in front of Simpson, that she only audits his finances twice a year, she has her finger in more pies than this. As Grose looks on, she gives Manoa a cable, presumably from Bryce-Halsey, which says that Grose's services are no longer required. Manoa reads this out to Grose. Shortly after this, the stoolie is knocked off, dumped in the ocean in a barrel like Resko was.

At the end of the show, Simpson contacts Bryce-Halsey by sending a cablegram to them in Zurich to take care of both Manoa and Lahani, who are meeting in an out-of-the-way place, "up on the Makapu'u cliffs on the military road," according to McGarrett – a location which will be seen in the next episode as well.

This information is obviously passed on quickly to the local affiliates of Bryce-Halsey, and their helicopter knows exactly where Manoa and Lahani are getting together — just like McGarrett and Five-O, neither of these things being particularly logical. Both Manoa and Lahani are shot dead by a guy with a rifle in the helicopter, along with Manoa's two stooges, one of whom is Moe Keale, uncredited, named "Moe" in the show. McGarrett and Danno, though not particularly close to where the men were meeting, shoot at the helicopter, which explodes. The special effects for this explosion are very bad.

The most interesting thing about this show is the trivia revealed as the Honolulu Police Department's computer, a.k.a. "Iron Brain," is used to investigate members of the Five-O team as well as Manicote's office to make sure they are "clean" and find out who leaked information connected with Resko's tips.

McGarrett says that even the "history of sexual behavior" will be included, to which Danno asks, "Do you want bachelors to sign [a release] too, Steve?" McGarrett replies, You got something to hide, Danno?" which produces an uncharacteristic huge smile from McGarrett and a laugh from Chin Ho.

According to his birth certificate, McGarrett was born March 10, 1927 in Metropolitan Hospital in Los Angeles and weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces. Something is seriously wrong with this date, since McGarrett describes himself later in the show as a "Capricorn goat — very stubborn" (a birthdate of March 10 would make him a Pisces).

McGarrett's measles immunization was done by M. Stevens, M.D., an in-joke referring to series composer Morton. His father John was a plumber whose business address was 4024 Radford Avenue, Los Angeles, and his mother, the former Doris Callahan, was from Boston. (Note the parallels with the Five-O reboot where the father and mother were John and Doris respectively.) In 1944 McGarrett was attending Valley High School. Some of his marks were: Biology - B; Journalism - A; Drafting - C; Geometry - A minus; American History - B minus; Phys Ed - A. An "enrollment form" shows Stephen J. McGarrett as living at 13921 Ressener Street in Van Nuys, CA, with a phone number of 780-7616.

Duke was born June 19, 1926. He has had Badge #260 since 2-11-62. He is 5'10", weighs 175 pounds and has blood type A, Rh negative. On one of Duke's ID cards, there is an emergency contact person, Joseph Meniosa, 17469 Ahonai Place, Honolulu with a phone number 277-9277, which is the same number as appears on some paperwork for Paul Drummond (Robert Witthans), who works for Manicote.

Danno's credit card numbers are 06491351 0109 for Visa/Chargex and 4024 622 350128 for MasterCharge (expiry date of 02/73 or 75 on the latter) — the logos for both companies are obscured. There is no computer analysis mentioned for Ben or Chin Ho. All of this trivia is quite fascinating, but the computer knows far too much — even more than McGarrett does usually.

Ben grew up with Chris Lahani, who speaks Hawaiian to him at one point. Ben says they are "Same age, same school, same neighborhood. Both kids, sons of fishermen on the Olomehani docks."

Five-O and Manicote's staff discuss the leaks of information with the Governor. When there is speculation that the judge who signed the warrants, Arthur Kalehei, may have been the source of the leaks, the Governor finds this "preposterous," saying that the judge was "past president of our bar association," with the suggestion that the Governor was a lawyer before his current job.

Lahani says that he was the one who obtained the warrants, and that he was with the judge from the time the warrants were signed until the raids were over. But does this mean that the warrants were not in the hands of the people making the raids?

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

The suggestion is if you work for Bryce-Halsey, you better toe the line, or you end up dead!

EPISODE PROMO:

Click here to see the promo. Use the back key in your browser to return to this screen.

CASUALTY LIST:

Thanks to Bobbi for help with the Casualty Lists in this season. Where someone is injured seriously and they are not confirmed dead, a "best guess" may be made that they died from their injuries.

Death: Johnny Resko shot by Piro Manoa, body is dumped into ocean in barrel.
Death: Sylvia Chang found hung in her apartment.
Death: Runny Grose killed by Manoa, body dumped into ocean in barrel.
Death: Angela Carroll killed in Los Angeles by Bryce-Halsey (not seen by us).
Death: Manoa shot by assassin hired by Simpson/Bryce-Halsey.
Death (x2): Manoa’s thugs shot by assassin hired by Simpson/Bryce-Halsey.
Death: Chris Lahani shot by assassin hired by Simpson/Bryce-Halsey.
Death (x2): Assassin and pilot killed when helicopter explodes after being shot at by McGarrett and Danno.

MORE TRIVIA:

• McGarrett tells his crew: "I want the book on the Sand 'n Surf Condominium company. I want to know who they are, what they are. I want to know whose money is behind it. I want to know their banks, their stockholders, investment syndicates now, you name it. If they're public, check them out with the SEC."
• In S09E16, "Dealer's Choice — Blackmail," a company name is Surf and Sand International, though the actors' lips show they are actually saying "Sand and Surf International." In this episode, McGarrett mistakenly says "Sun 'n Surf International," which Danno corrects to "Sand 'n Surf."
• When Manoa tries to persuade Simpson to join him in a dip in his "$15,000 pool," calling her "Miss Ice Cube," she resists and he says, "Put the numbers away and think about me as a man." She replies, "I already have, and I became violently ill."
• Angie Caroll takes a taxi with the phone number 732-5577 on the roof.
• Karl Albrecht from Interpol is mentioned when Bryce-Halsey is being checked out.
• There is hand-held camera work at the beginning after Manoa knocks off Resko, who the camera follows to the ground.
• A Honolulu porno theater near Carrol's apartment is showing the film Hot Skin. According to IMDb, there was an actual film by this name dating from 1965, also known as Hot Skin and Cold Cash. Another WWW site describes its plot: "After her husband is sent to prison, his poor wife takes a job as a prostitute in order to support herself. Among her clients: beatniks, college students, even a priest."
• The music is an original score by Morton Stevens, not exceptional, but it helps to make up for some of the episode's inadequacies.

GALLERY:

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98. (S05E02) “Death Wish On Tantalus Mountain” ★★★

QUICK PLOT:

Five-O has to figure out who is responsible for the death of two of an egomaniacal racing car driver's mechanics.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

Ricardo Montalban makes up for his bizarre performance as a Japanese-American crime lord in S01E04, "Samurai," with his portrayal in this episode of the hot-tempered racing car driver Alex Pareño. He arrives on Oahu with the intention of breaking the hill-climb speed record on Tantalus Mountain (elevation 2,014 feet, above Honolulu) of four minutes and 26 seconds. This course is described as "five miles of uphill treachery."

Pareño is accompanied by his fiancée Angela Sordi (Diana Muldaur) and son Niki (Michael Margotta). Together, the three of them comprise a very dysfunctional family.

Niki, Pareño's child with his first wife Felicia, was kicked out of school in England for cheating and then tried to set fire to the dorm. Angela, "no shrinking violet," is described by Chin Ho as a hell-raiser who "jumped in a public fountain in Paris and did a kind of a one-woman aquacade" and who threw a bottle of wine at a photographer on another occasion. Pareño himself had a reputation as "king of the swingers, before, during and after marriage" until he met Angela, then "he bopped a few guys in nightclubs for making cracks about her."

The show takes a while to get going while Pareño's yellow DeTomaso Pantera sports car is unloaded from a Sealand container at the Honolulu docks. He micro-manages its unboxing and receives adulation from a small crowd, including John Stalker as Gordon Miles from the Sports Car Club of Hawaii, an old friend who Pareño has encountered at places like Le Mans, Watkins Glen and Sainte-Jovite, Quebec.

Soon after he and his family have settled in locally, Pareño's long-time mechanic Dimitri Burgholtz (Jim Demarest) is murdered. Rather than sticking around at his place to answer McGarrett's questions, Pareño goes to check out the course with his son. When McGarrett tracks him down, Pareño arrogantly says, "I am not accustomed to taking orders," and refuses McGarrett's offer of police protection. Pareño throws his weight around, suggesting he has some kind of diplomatic status which has brought a man named Saunders (Wendell Martin) from the State Department to Hawaii.

Pareño sends for another mechanic from the mainland to check the car "from top to bottom," but despite being given the seal of approval, the car crashes, having been tampered with, killing the mechanic during a test run.

Muldaur, who is gorgeous and appeared as McGarrett's old girlfriend Cathy Wallis in S03E04, "Time And Memories," gives an edgy performance as Angela. She tells McGarrett that the night Dimitri was murdered, she saw him return in a cab around one in the morning with "a younger man," but when asked for further details, acts like McGarrett is being a huge pain in the ass. Niki later tells McGarrett that he was the other guy in the cab with Dimitri, who he was escorting home after the mechanic went on a bender at a local bar.

McGarrett is fed up with these shenanigans, telling Chin Ho, "I want the book on these people. Interpol, mainland police, newspaper morgues."

Something fishy is going on between Angela and Frank Brill (Steve Merrick), a moustached guy who was present in the crowd during the ceremonies on the docks at the beginning of the show. Angela doesn't want Pareño — or McGarrett — to know what is going on between her and Brill. Niki, on the other hand, is aware of her connection to him, having noticed glances the two exchanged at the docks and also having spied on Angela when she went to a nearby location in the Kahala area where she met Brill. Angela tells Niki to keep quiet about this, but he says "Why don't you try and persuade me?" with a suggestion of asking for sexual favors from his stepmother-to-be.

Chin and Ben tail Angela when she takes another trip to meet Brill, this time slipping him an envelope with cash in it. While Pareño is out testing a new red Pantera on Tantalus, Five-O and the cops bust Brill, and a blood-stained wrench is found in the trunk of his car, likely used to kill Dimitri.

Angela is hauled into the Five-O offices. Only after being accused of being in cahoots with Brill to murder Pareño does she reveal that she was being blackmailed by this small-time hood living in Hawaii with records of arrest in Paris and New York. Brill has some "pictures" of her from when the two of them were lovers years before.

Pareño shows up with a lawyer to spring Angela from McGarrett's clutches, but is very disturbed to see photos of the money exchange between her and Brill. It is a good question who took these pictures, probably Chin and/or Ben, even though we never saw them doing this. There is a big confrontation in McGarrett's office with Angela explaining Brill was blackmailing her. Pareño feels betrayed because she wouldn't trust him, instead dealing with Brill behind his back. When Angela tells Pareño not to race, he laughs at her and says, "The performance is over, Angela."

Pareño is determined to carry out the hill climb. He told Gordon Miles earlier, "I know all the legends, that the mountain is jinxed, a tower of evil, the answer to every driver's death wish. But you see, Gordon, I have everything to live for. Everything. A son to carry on my name. A beautiful woman I love, huh? No chance for a death wish." Two "official scrutineers of the Sports Car Club of America," one of whom is Jimmy Borges, uncredited, in his first Five-O appearance, give the Pantera a thorough examination, concluding "the car's perfect." McGarrett leaves, saying the case is now wrapped up, despite the fact that there are still some big questions unanswered.

That evening, Pareño surprises Niki tampering with the car which was just okayed just a few hours before, and McGarrett and Five-O are close at hand. It turns out Niki is the one who murdered Dimitri, planted the wrench used to do this in Brill's car and tampered with his father's yellow Pantera, all because of the way his father treated his mother.

Niki has a complete meltdown, yelling at his father, "You're the only one in the world. And you treat people like dirt. And you treat my mother like dirt. You kicked my mother out of the house, and you brought her [Angela] in and you gave her everything that was ours. I hope you die on that mountain. I hope you die. I'll kill you. I'll kill you." He is taken away by Five-O.

McGarrett explains to Pareño that after the big scene in his office, Angela told him she knew how sick Niki was, how much he hated his father, but couldn't bring herself to tell him. Pareño looks devastated. Angela subsequently leaves him, but he still attempts to break the record on Tantalus, though I can't find indication anywhere in real life that this kind of challenge really existed and and it was one which would attract a world-class racing driver!

The music is by Pete Rugolo (his only score for the series), well-known for innovative big band arrangements. It is not bad, considering it is different than most of this season's episodes which rely on original or stock Five-O music, but far too often just putters along in the background without supplying any dramatic tension.

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: Dimitri Burgholtz hit in the head "left temporal region" with a wrench by Niki Pareño.
Death: Mechanic from California dies in exploding car crash.

MORE TRIVIA:

• "Tantalus Drive" in the show is actually Kamehame Drive up behind Koko Crater in the Hawaii Kai area, a one-lane road which is seen in several other episodes. The place high up, supposedly on Tantalus, from which Pareño waves to Angela and Niki, is the same location used at the end of the previous episode where the "massacre" took place.
• This episode features the car on fire in the credits at the beginning of the show. During this sequence, Pareño's yellow DeTomaso Pantera is initially seen racing up the narrow Tantalus Mountain road, but, according to Colby May, "the number on the side of the car that wrecks is 96 [not 9]. It appears to be painted gray and yellow and is definitely an open-wheel race car. It's possible that it is a drag racer — the way it crashes is consistent with the spectacular crashes you see in that variety of racing." It is also driving down a two-lane road with a line down the middle and a "parking lane." McGarrett later refers to this accident as "a car over the cliff." "A car running into a cliff at the side of the road" would be more accurate.
• While the murder of Dimitri happened the night before events in the show take place, when McGarrett talks to Niki on the "next day," he says "Someone [Angela] told us they saw a man bringing Dimitri home the other night" — not "last night."
• Carl Albrecht from Interpol is referred to for the second show in a row.
• Jimmy Borges' character is named Kimo Kono. He is also seen very briefly from behind as one of the race officials watching Pareño's final conquest of the mountain.
• Two badges can be seen briefly on the rear of the red Pantera replacement car as it speeds away near the end of the show. The badge on the left side of the license tag is a stylized "deTomaso" logo, with a chrome bar that crosses the "t" and flows down to the "o" at the end of the badge. The badge on the right side says "Pantera" in a similar stylized script (thanks to Colby May).
• A Snap-On-Tools "Equipment Display and Training Van" is pictured at the starting point for the race.
• The Seatrain company featured at the beginning of the show filed for bankruptcy in 1981 and went out of business shortly after.
• When Niki tells his father to accept McGarrett's protection, Pareño yells at his son, saying, "When I want your opinion I will ask for it, Nicky. ¿Entiendes lo que te digo?" The line in Spanish means "Do you understand what I'm saying?" or "Do you understand what I'm telling you?" (thanks to Brad Blanchard)
• When McGarrett asks Pareño who would want to have him killed, the driver replies, "The list is rather long." In the episode promo Montalban is seen from the front when he reads this line, but in the show, he is seen from the side.
• Angela is trailed by Chin Ho and Ben to the Kings Village, which has been described as a "mall with a historic look, featuring shops, restaurants and the daily changing of the King's Guard." This changing of the guard can be seen in the background as Angela enters the mall where she meets Brill and gives him the $10,000. In the show, the Kings Village is located at 131 Kaiulani Avenue, but McGarrett later says that the photos of Angela were taken at the International Marketplace (now gone), which was located at 2330 Kalakaua Avenue, close to Kings Village, but not in the same location.
• Chin and Ben search Brill's apartment and car, and are not being particularly careful not to leave fingerprints on things they touch. When Chin finally finds the blood-stained wrench used to kill Dimitri, he picks it up with a hanky. Later, there is a lab tag on the wrench which shows that this case is now "File No. 1645."
• Before the final run up Tantalus, Pareño comes out of a trailer which looks very similar to the mobile dressing room which Jack Lord used to use while on location. The license number of this trailer is X-9404 (Lord's trailer's license was FIVE-O); the license has white writing on a dark blue background.
• When Angela is being held at Five-O on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, a woman who looks like Jenny, the receptionist, comes to tell McGarrett that Pareño and his lawyer are waiting in the front office. But we never see this woman's face, so it is unlikely that it is Peggy Ryan.
• The body of the murdered Dimitri is taken away in a Physicians Ambulance.
• McGarrett's car's tires squeal on dirt when he returns to town after meeting with Pareño on Tantalus.

GALLERY:

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99. (S05E03) “You Don’t Have To Kill To Get Rich, But It Helps.” ★★★  BOOK HIM, BEN 

QUICK PLOT:

Suicides of well-to-do businessmen are connected to a lucrative blackmail operation.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

Bill Edwards, later Jonathan Kaye, plays Wallace H. Schuster of Dallas, Texas. His credit rating is Triple A, he is first vice president in line for the top of his company, Trans-Oceanic, married with two children, member of the Chamber of Commerce, and a deacon, age 42.

Larry Toba (Tom Fujiwara) shows up at Schuster's hotel room just as he is about ready to return to the mainland, offering to sell him "blackmail insurance" which costs $1,000 a month because Schuster has been surreptitiously photographed fooling around with a couple of hookers he met while lounging beside his hotel's pool.

Toba works for an über-organization called Veritex which identifies rich and powerful men coming to Hawaii through personal and financial reports, then blackmails them with the help of local prostitutes, some of whom are very hot-looking.

Schuster agrees to pay this blackmail and and returns to Dallas, where he talks to his army buddy Sam Tolliver (William Shatner), who is now a private detective. "Indebted" to Schuster, Tolliver assumes the persona of Arthur Jackson, another rich guy who Veritex can identify as coming to the islands through their complicated network which includes offices on the mainland.

This episode features a lot of technology, including telex machines in combination with satellites (the terms Telstar and Intelsat 4 are thrown around) as well as fax machines. You have to wonder if these outfits can tap into airline databases — shades of current-day computers ... or at least computers on TV cop shows like the reboot of Five-O.

Just around this time, Five-O is investigating two suicides by businessmen in recent months, one locally and one in Atlanta, both of whom are tied to Karen Bell, 24, a hooker from Miami, recently of Honolulu, who disappeared. She is eventually found drowned 30 fathoms down at the bottom of the channel between Maui and Lanai. Both men had pictures of Bell in their possession when they died, which included one of her naked, seen from behind.

At a brainstorming session in the Five-O office, Ben suggests whatever local outfit Bell was working for is "a big operation, huge [with] operatives all over the country." Bell, with her connection to these two men and the fact the police would likely make this connection, would be considered a "liability" and that's why she was murdered.

Saying "we're dealing with murder and blackmail on a massive scale," McGarrett gets his team to check out over a thousand companies which use telexes, narrowing that down to only five where "the nature of their business is vague." Slave telex machines which duplicate what is actually being sent and received by these companies are set up at an downtown office in addition to the telex machine at Five-O headquarters.

It doesn't take long for Danno to determine that the one for Veritex is full of information like "personal and financial report on dozens and dozens of incoming tourists ... all rich, respectable..." McGarrett adds, "And sitting ducks," saying he will get a court order via John Manicote's office for blanket phone taps on "every employee, board member, contact" at the company.

Tolliver soon shows up in Honolulu and he gets a visit from the laid-back "insurance" salesman Toba. However, the tables are turned, because Tolliver not only has a gun but a video tape machine which he uses to record Toba's sales pitch, threatening to send the resulting tape to either the cops or Toba's boss.

The two of them go to Veritex's office. This outfit is powerful to the point of unbelievability, yet their Hawaiian "board of directors," consisting of five people, is a pretty dull bunch, headed by William Speer (Ric Marlow, who sports a hideous haircut and lacks a certain omnipresence).

Tolliver tells Speer and the directors that he wants 25 percent of the company's action, adding "I aim to work for it. Never been the kind of man to take something for nothing. Always deliver. And I got an idea there's quite a great deal of inefficiency around here … I got a feeling I could raise the performance level around here, oh, half again as much. So my asking for 25 percent of the profit ain't so bad now, is it?"

Tolliver really wants to get his hand on the negatives of the blackmail pictures, which is "the whole works." Having mailed the videotape of Toba's spiel to himself, he tells Speer, "That videotape's my insurance. You got the negatives, I got the videotape. We got ourselves a system of checks and balances."

However, Veritex's all-encompassing power is what defeats Tolliver. After he leaves, Speer gets someone to send the prints which Tolliver left on an ashtray to the mainland to figure out who he really is, which is quickly done. Danno is monitoring the telex Veritex uses, and sees details revealing Tolliver's true identity and where "Jackson" is staying locally.

Speer calls Tolliver to confirm that they want to do business with him, and a meeting is set up for Speer's oceanfront house. Five-O is monitoring "Jackson's" telephone at the Hawaiian Regent Hotel where he is staying, and overhear a call to Chicago asking for a "doctor" (hitman). The person recommends Don Makala at 589-0589, but when Tolliver goes to Makala's place, it is Ben who will be accompanying him to Speer's place, both armed.

At Speer's waterfront mansion, the tables are turned on Tolliver, because some thugs from Veritex are in Dallas, threatening to kill Tolliver's wife Inez and two sons unless Tolliver immediately gives up his plan to join Veritex. Ben is recognized by Speer's servant Philip and also put out of action.

As Speer walks to the beach with Tolliver, Ben and Philip to leave the country on his launch, saying "After that I'll take my chances with the Coast Guard," the rest of Five-O who are nearby spring into action, including Duke who is commandeering the motorboat coming ashore to pick up Speer.

The script wraps up things kind of quickly at the end. Once the bad guys are busted, McGarrett merely throws the matter of Tolliver's family being held hostage over to the Texas cops to deal with and the show ends! Tolliver, who got too greedy, is also booked by Ben.

McGarrett and Tolliver meet only at the end and are never seen in the same shot. I wonder if the fact that Jack Lord was under consideration for the role of Captain Kirk in Star Trek until he asked for too much control and money resulted in some kind of ill feelings between himself and Shatner?

Nevertheless, Shatner, who smart-asses his way through his role as Tolliver, is definitely having a good time, overpronouncing words like "bid-ness," "po-lice," "dee-liver" and "dee-vorce" with a Texas drawl, though Speer says that his character “has or affects [a] Western accent”!

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

This is a good question!

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: Karen Bell murdered (drowned) after her pictures are found among effects of two businessmen who committed suicide. Takes place before the show, but her body is seen underwater.

MORE TRIVIA:

• When we first see Speer at the very beginning of the show, he takes an orange pill which some leggy woman in a yellow miniskirt hands him with a glass of water. No idea what the significance of this is.
• The jury is out on whether the video tape machine Tolliver uses actually is a video machine, or just a reel-to-reel tape recorder disguised as one. The Scotch reel in the foreground looks like a reel-to-reel tape, but the take-up reel above seems thicker, like you would expect to be used for video tape. When Tolliver cuts above the Scotch tape which he is going to send to himself, the reel is almost full, suggesting there is a lot of material on it, not just a short interview with Toba.
• At the "Dallas airport" near the beginning of the show, there are mountains seen in the background through the large plate glass windows. I don't think so!
• A "real" phone number — 808-589-0599 — is seen.
• Get a load of the wind chimes hairpieces on character actress Jorie Remus, playing a madam!
• The score by Ray uses some stock themes: violin, marimba and trombone interval. There is also some stereotypical Hawaiian music heard in the background.
• This episode has a very high "babe quotient." Here are some pictures: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6.

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100. (S05E04) “Pig In A Blanket” ★★★★

QUICK PLOT:

After Danno shoots a teenager suspected to be connected with a drugstore robbery, there is a public outcry.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

This episode has an outstanding performance by James MacArthur. It has similarities to S01E05, "....And They Painted Daisies On His Coffin," another show which has a great performance by him, in which Danno is also accused of murdering someone suspected of a crime.

This episode begins with Danno finishing a bowling game with his HPD pal Chinough (pronounced "Chinook") Olena (Frank Atienza, previously seen in S02E05, "Savage Sunday," giving abuse to Kono over his weight). Olena once saved Danno's life when the latter was being menaced by a criminal with a knife (played by stuntman Chuck Couch), who was put out of action by a shot from Olena's rifle; news of this made the local papers.

Olena says he can't stick around for a steak dinner, the result of a bet during the game, saying he has to eat at home "tonight." In the bowling alley locker room, he changes from casual clothes into his uniform, then gets into his car outside, which is not a typical HPD patrol car, but a Chevrolet Impala with a light on the roof. As he gets in the car, he calls Central Dispatch to say that he is "off duty." But I don't think he was "on duty" while he was bowling. Was this bowling in the morning or afternoon and Olena was coming off the night shift?

When Olena sees a guy going full speed through a stop sign nearby, despite the fact that he is "off duty," he pursues the guy. When he pulls up behind the car, which finally stops after a lengthy chase, there are the sounds of two different sirens. (The car is a Lotus Europa — thanks to Colby May.) Olena asks the driver (Dennis Redfield) for his license and registration, but instead he pulls out a gun and shoots Olena, who manages to get off a couple of shots of his own at the driver, hitting him in the arm as he drives away. The Lotus driver's name is Culpepper, ID'd only in the end credits.

How anyone knows to call an ambulance to pick up Olena and HPD to bust the driver of the Lotus is a good question, because the location seems to be on a hill in the middle of nowhere.

After Olena is taken to the hospital, Danno shows up there and watches his friend die after doctors and nurses spend a lot of time trying to revive him, including with a defibrillator

Culpepper, who is determined to have been "a doper with a load" is in another room down the hall. Danno goes to see the guy and has a few words with him while having to seriously restrain himself when the guy starts spouting off a bunch of garbage like "I chopped a cop. I put a pig in a blanket … Pigsticking is worth a few points up at Stoney Lonesome [a slang term for prison] … The pig's gone. I win. I get to stay and make license plates … [W]hy don't you stuff his uniform with bratwurst and teach it to blow a whistle?"

Danno goes to a bar with Ben, who provides some emotional support, though Danno almost gets into a fight after people in the bar start complaining when a news bulletin about Olena's death breaks into a football game between the Baltimore Colts and Oakland Raiders which is nearly finished. When Danno leaves the bar, he witnesses a robbery in a nearby drugstore, and after a brown Mustang leaves the parking lot quickly, he follows the car. When he sees it going in the opposite direction from him, he pursues it to a house six blocks from the drugstore. The driver gets out of the car and Danno shoots and seriously wounds him when he thinks he has a gun. But it turns out to be a soldering gun, and the driver is a young kid named Ricky Klein (James Simpson). The boy's mother (Louise Latham) is horrified to find her son shot in the driveway, and Ricky's brother Harold (John Rubinstein) appears shortly after, and calls Danno storm trooper and saying, "Don't you just get a bonus for the amount of people you kill?"

Ricky is transported to the hospital, where Doctor Natanoa (Seth Sakai) tells Danno, "Having quite a night, aren't you?" Ricky is determined to be in very serious condition. A bullet is lodged against his spine, and he may be paralyzed. During surgery, half of his liver has been removed.

McGarrett shows up at the hospital, where Danno is totally traumatized, saying the newspapers will play this up with stories like "Detective gets revenge." He gives his gun to McGarrett, who refuses to accept it, saying, "You're a cop with ten years' proven instincts. Ten years of discipline. You couldn't squeeze a trigger in revenge. No matter what happened."

When Danno tries to talk to Ricky's mother and brother, who are also at the hospital, Harold tells him, "Is there a law that says we gotta be stuck in the same room with this trigger-happy pig? … Ricky went to the store to get a soldering iron and he gets zapped by the Gestapo … Why don't you just go carve another notch in your gun? How many does that make, sharpshooter?"

Olena's funeral is held shortly after, where McGarrett and Danno are swarmed by the local press. When Danno is asked if there will be an arraignment, he replies, "I think there's no reason to speculate. There is every chance that I will plead guilty because as nearly as I can tell I am." McGarrett is disturbed by this outburst, and hustles Danno away. Later, despite Danno saying trying to exonerate him is a lost cause, McGarrett exhorts the team to "Try again. Cover the streets in which the car originally headed." When Chin Ho does this, almost by a fluke, he finds a Goodwill box, in which there is a brassiere. Some kid asks him, "What's the matter, can't you find your size?" This kid is played by Joel Berliner, uncredited; he was in the notorious banned episode S02E16, "Bored She Hung Herself." Interestingly, when we first see Berliner in both shows, he is riding a bicycle. When a woman from the neighborhood, who looks like she is stealing a shopping cart from a grocery store, threatens to call the police, Chin whips out his badge and says, "Lady, I am the police." Berliner's character says, "You're sure not Robin Hood!"

After this, Chin finds not only the clothes that the drugstore robber wore, but also the gun he used and some cash. Unfortunately, Che Fong can't find anything conclusive from any of this evidence. McGarrett is frustrated. He tells the Five-O team, "We've cracked crime syndicates and dope rings. We've nailed double agents, rapists and murderers, and here we are with a lousy little drugstore heist on our hands with Danno's life on the line and we can't crack it. I mean... Somebody ought to call a cop."

Things aren't looking good for Danno; there is word that the Attorney General is bringing charges against him, which could be first degree murder if Ricky dies. However, at the hospital, Ricky is making progress; Natanoa predicts that he is going to have a full recovery.

McGarrett gets to talk to Ricky, asking him if he robbed the drugstore, telling him they found the things in the Goodwill box. Ricky says "We…" and then says, "I didn't do it." Spotting Ricky's brother in the hospital hallway, McGarrett approaches him and pretends that they got a thumbprint from one of the shells that was in the gun found in the box. Then he mentions that Ricky said "We," which causes Harold to freak out and run away.

When caught, Harold confesses to robbing the store and dumping everything in the Goodwill box after his brother dropped him off there, worried that Danno, who was pursuing them, "had our number," and then ran home. McGarrett says, "Why don't you go and tell your mother and get your kid brother off the hook completely?" Harold first says, "Isn't it bad enough that I almost got him killed?" but then, escorted by Ben, goes back to his brother's room.

Danno is very relieved, saying he feels "better … suddenly very much better … I'm just glad that one of us didn't give up on me."

Some of the topographic information from this story is difficult to follow. Ricky dropped his brother off at the Goodwill box, and Danno then followed Ricky home when he saw the car heading back towards the Klein house. But Harold appears almost immediately after Ricky is shot, so how did Harold get home (supposedly at least six blocks) so quickly?

There is some potential confusion in the hospital during the scene where a "red blanket" code is initiated as Olena's condition deteriorates and he starts to flatline as Danno is watching through a window. The term "red blanket" is only used in critical situations where a person is barely clinging to life.

We see a device like a clock in the emergency room at 12:20, 12:50 and 1:12. This is actually a timer on the crash cart, a mobile unit of trays, drawers and shelves on wheels used in hospitals for dispensing emergency medication and equipment to provide life support protocols. You can see the timer on the cart in the upper right hand corner of this picture. When Doctor Natanoa pronounces Olena dead after "20 minutes of no activity" at the 1:12 mark on the timer, one of the nurses (Tuulikki Gottschalk) notes the time of death as 7:15 (PM). (Thanks to Bobbi for this info.)

Presumably Danny and Ben go to the bar after this. Outside it is after dark, so the football game on TV in the bar, which is between the Baltimore Colts and the Oakland Raiders, must have been on a delay, not live. If it was 8:00 PM in Hawaii when the game was ending, it would have had to be at least 10:00 or 11:00 PM on the mainland. (More details about this game are in the trivia section below.)

Danny goes outside after almost having a fight in the bar, and witnesses the robbery. After Ricky is shot and taken to the hospital, Danno returns there, and Natanoa tells him, "Having quite a night, aren't you?"

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

According to Wikipedia, in the United States, the term "pig in a blanket" typically refers to hot dogs in croissant dough, but may include Vienna sausages, cocktail or breakfast/link sausages baked inside biscuit dough or croissant dough. In the show, it refers to a dead cop with a blanket drawn over him.

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: Officer Chinough Olena shot twice by “doper” during traffic stop.
Injury: “Doper” shot in the arm by Olena.
Death: Thug fighting with Danno, sniped by Olena – seen in flashback.
Death: Olena dies of his wounds.
Injury: Ricky Klein shot once by Danno.

MORE TRIVIA:

• When Olena pulls up behind the car he is pursuing at the beginning (a Lotus Europa — thanks to Colby May), there are the sounds of two different sirens. In the episodic promo there is a different sequence of events after the driver of the car mortally shoots Olena, and Olena, lying on the ground, shoots back at the fleeing car, flattening its tire and causing the hubcap to fly off.
• The TV in the bar where Ben consoles Danno is showing some of the football game in slow motion. Long-time H50 fan Inglewolf did some research regarding this game, here is his report: The Colts and the Raiders never played on Monday Night Football. The Colts and Raiders only played each other one time before 1972: Sunday, November 28th 1971. The visiting Colts won big, 37 to 14. It was a Sunday afternoon game, with kick-off at 4PM, no specs on whether this is the local time zone or EST. By 4PM Pacific time most Sunday games are usually over and there was no Sunday Night Football back then. All the names mentioned in the subtitles are are accurate of players in the game with the exception of Jack Mildren, it should be Jack Tatum. Jim O'Brien kicked three field goals, the last one a 45-yarder that put the Colts up 30 to nothing! The score was never close to Baltimore taking the lead 31 to 30, or Oakland ever having the lead at all! I had thought the Colts and Raiders would have been a more regular match-up considering they were, and are, AFC teams.
• Inglewolf had some later thoughts about the above: I have to correct myself on one point: the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts were NOT always an AFC team. I forgot that before the merger of 1970, Baltimore was an NFL team and with Oakland in the AFL these two teams wouldn't have met before 1970 as NFL and AFL teams would not have played each other in the regular season until after the merger. The exception was the Super Bowl, but Baltimore and Oakland never met in the Super Bowl. Baltimore, along with Cleveland and Pittsburgh joined the AFL teams in the newly titled AFC upon the merger. With all this, now I'm wondering why they had a football game being shown in the bar, instead of say a baseball game from the West Coast. Maybe they needed the "Did they get the first down line?" which they thought would work better than "Was he safe at home?" — if they gave it any thought at all. Then there's the issue about interrupting a sporting event with a local news special report. The killing of a police officer is big news, but couldn't it wait for the commercial?
• Bernard Ching, who plays one of the cops who is investigating the drugstore robbery and is forced with his partner into the back room with the pharmacist, was an actual HPD officer. You can see his nameplate which has his real name on it, but later McGarrett refers to him as "Officer Martin."
• When a reporter suggests that Danno was drunk on duty when he shot the kid, Ben says "Bull!"
• In the episode promo there is a different sequence of events after Culpepper mortally shoots Olena, and Olena, lying on the ground, shoots back at the fleeing car, flattening its tire and causing the hubcap to fly off.
• Lynne Kimoto appears very briefly as Nurse Tofu [sic!].
• At the beginning of the episode, Chinough tells Danny that he must pass on the hamburger because "My kids are starting to call me 'Uncle Daddy'." Then, when Danno and Ben are in the bar, Danno tells Ben that Rona [Chinough's wife] will need to find someone to watch the kids while she works. Yet only a few seconds later, on the "news flash" we hear that Chinough leaves a wife and one son. At the funeral we see only one son, though the widow appears to be pregnant. (Thanks to Teresa.)

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101. (S05E05) “The Jinn Who Clears The Way” ★★★

QUICK PLOT:

Five-O has to stop a secret ballistic device stolen by associates of Wo Fat from leaving the islands.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

Wo Fat is b-a-a-a-a-a-ck! This time he gets a couple of hirelings to break into some top-secret building and steal "a prototype for an ICBM guidance system" from a safe. On the way out of the place, after climbing over some barbed wire which looks very painful, Carl Tu (Danny Kamekona), the first of these guys, knocks off the second, leaving him hanging on the fence.

These two look pretty good at what they do for a living, since there are at least 8 seemingly dead bodies in the building, shot at point-blank range (and a dog, drugged by darts!). However, one of the shot men is not dead and able to set off an alarm. As Tu hands over the device to Wo, who is waiting outside in a limo, the alarm's blaring is heard and Wo is disturbed: "You were to kill all the guards." When Tu responds "We shot them all," Wo yells at him, "But you didn't kill them all!" The two of them are driven away.

Jonathan Kaye (Joe Sirola), chief of Pentagon special operations who wants the island sealed off, is quick to arrive. In the underground facility at Diamond Head which we have seen in S04E16 & 17, "The 90-Second War," Kaye tells McGarrett, "That device must be recovered, and quickly. No matter the cost."

Wo is even more upset when he gets back to his hideout, because the submarine waiting to pick him up with the device says its presence has been detected and they are returning to the "homeland" without him. Tu is subject to yet more abuse: "Thanks to your bungling, we must now put contingency plan B into operation." Wo tells his number one man, Chow Lee Chong (identified in the credits as Assassin #1 — played by Robert Nelson), "I must talk to that young American. Tom ... Tom Wong."

Tom Wong, played by Soon-Teck Oh, later identified as a "rabid Maoist," is related to Chin Ho. He is the son of Wo Sun Wong (C.K. Huang), who is Chin's uncle, therefore Tom is Chin's cousin. Wo meets with Tom, outlining a plan where they need his co-operation which will result in "a heroic chance for a dedicated young man like yourself."

After investigating the deaths at the defense facility, Five-O does not have a lot to go on. The man Tu knocked off the beginning of the show is named Connor, though how they arrive at his name is not mentioned in the show. Meeting with Kaye as well as Parker from the FBI and Sims from the CIA, McGarrett tells them to check on Connor's movements for the last several months. When they report back, they have virtually no information to share. McGarrett senses that there is something much bigger going on here than the involvement of Connor — who is not particularly bright or well-connected — would suggest, and he immediately figures out that Wo Fat has his fingers in the pie.

Wo's diabolical plan connected with Tom is soon put into play. George Wong (Andy Ichiki), who is Tom's brother, is killed by Tu running him over with a car on the street. However, Tu smashes into another car and flees on foot, all witnessed by numerous people. This also does not endear him to Wo after hearing "news" of George's death from Tom. Wo and his men pay a visit to the "bungling" Tu, saying that their entire operation will be jeopardized if he is identified by witnesses who saw him after the accident. Tu blurts out, "I can be on a plane to Australia in an hour," but Wo tells him, "You could be, Carl, but you'll not be." Tu is shot dead.

There is nothing said about how the cops and Five-O find out about Tu's death, but they are soon at his house. Che Fong is there, and he finds some African violet plants which Tu raised, along with orchids. Earlier, Che had found traces of a hard-to-find African violet on clothes worn by Tu's former associate Connor, which is very far-fetched from more than one angle, in my opinion.

Step two of Wo's plan follows when Chow Lee sneaks into Mr. Wong's house and smothers him with a pillow as he lays sleeping in bed. The idea of killing the old man and Tom's brother is to change the order of succession in the family, since now Tom is the "oldest son" who is in charge of things, including funeral arrangements for his brother and father.

At a meeting of Kaye and others, including Parker and Sims plus Army and Military Intelligence big shots, McGarrett is brought up to date on Wo Fat's whereabouts ... and the chances are very good he is on Oahu. Carl Tu is identified as a "Taiwan-Chinese national [who] worked the smuggling rackets, became a contract killer. He was being hunted for two murders on Taiwan when he disappeared."

Doc performs an autopsy on Mr. Wong and determines that "There were traces of fiber in his throat and mouth. [I]t looks like his pillow was held over his face. Also there was some epidermal tissue under his nails … My guess: Mr. Wong struggled, scratched his murderer."

Despite McGarrett getting so burned out he passes out on the couch in his office, he can still figure out what the heck is going on with Tom. He arranges for Tom to come to his office so they can ask him "a couple of questions" to determine if he was involved with the deaths of his brother and father. When Tom arrives there, McGarrett basically lays out the whole scenario and Tom says that it is "preposterous" that murder is what happened. Instead, he thinks that his brother was the victim of a random accident and his father just died of old age.

Of course, McGarrett is far too clever! He tells Tom, "You're being used. Whether you like it or not, you're being used. Your father wanted to be buried in Taiwan. Wo Fat knew that. He needs something smuggled out of this country. What better way to do it than in a coffin bound for Taiwan? He could easily get it from Taiwan to mainland China. Now, do you understand? But first, he needed someone he could trust to put the object in the coffin. Your father had to die so that he could be buried in Taiwan. George had to die so the responsibility would fall to you, as the eldest son, to carry out your father's instructions. Now, it's obvious George would not cooperate with Wo Fat, but a dedicated young Maoist would." After hearing this speech, compounded with his recall of meeting Mr. Chong only a day or so ago who had scratches on his hands from when he strangled the old man, Tom looks like he is having a seizure.

Tom contacts Wo, saying he wants to speak to him at the funeral of his father the next day, threatening to have his father buried in Hawaii rather than Taiwan. Wo shows up, wearing a peculiar disguise like some Chinese devil character that may be connected with the ceremony. Tom tells Wo, "You used me," and just as Wo is about to strangle Tom with a garotte-like rope, McGarrett appears in the background in a very coolly-staged scene and Wo is taken into custody.

However, the story isn't over yet! Taken to Five-O headquarters, Wo exchanges quips with McGarrett in his office. Jonathan Kaye shows up and says that Wo is being taken to Hong Kong to be exchanged for an American U-2 pilot who was captured by the Chinese three years ago and has been in an isolation cell ever since. Kaye says this is "irrevocable." McGarrett is livid, telling Kaye, "What do you mean, it's irrevocable? He committed crimes in this state, capital crimes. This is my jurisdiction. Why is it irrevocable?" Wo really rubs it in McGarrett's face prior to leaving for the airport, including a Chinese-sounding proverb: "Every man's plans and designs are born of imperfect minds." McGarrett screams at Kaye, "You sold me out, Jonathan. You sold me out." After Kaye, with kind of a smug look on his face, says, "Captain Russel Kempton is on his way home, Steve, today. You made it possible" and leaves, McGarrett, who has probably never yelled as loudly in the show in the past and will never again, picks up a book and smashes it on his desk. Click here to see this scene.

A long time ago, it was speculated that McGarrett threw Wo Fat's phony U.S. passport on the desk. Unfortunately (especially since I perpetuated this idea for many years in my review of this show), this is not correct. If you freeze-frame the sequence of events very carefully, you can see that McGarrett actually throws a small black book which was on the right side of the desk. The passport stays where McGarrett dropped it on his desk prior to Jonathan Kaye entering the room. Thanks to John Seeder who pointed this out (a very long time ago!).

While this episode has its share of classic scenes like the last one, it tends to be kind of convoluted. I don't understand why Wo would prefer to go back to China, because he had received a message from some bigwig named General Hong Sue, who said, "Considering excessive trail of devastation left in your wake, your failure is inexcusable. We are displeased. Holding you personally responsible for delivery of the device." And the device is not being delivered!

I also think it very odd that Wo wants to put the guidance system device in the old man's coffin which is going to Taiwan. Would it really be so easy to then get the device from Taiwan to China? I thought that China and Taiwan had a major mutual hate for each other. Presumably Wo wouldn't be going to Taiwan to take care of this! It would have made a lot more sense if the old man's body just went back to a hometown somewhere in China itself.

The score is by Ray. There is some gentle "Asian-sounding" music as Chin Ho visits his uncle. There are numerous instances of the "bonging bell" sound. At the beginning of the show we hear the crescendo/diminuendo trumpets motif.

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

According to Wikipedia, jinn (anglicized as "genies) are supernatural creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian and later Islamic mythology and theology, created with fitra (a state of purity and innocence), neither born as believers nor as unbelievers, but their attitude depends on whether or not they accept God's guidance. Since jinn are neither innately evil nor innately good, Islam was able to adapt spirits from other religions during its expansion. Jinn are not a strictly Islamic concept; rather, they may represent several pagan beliefs integrated into Islam. In an Islamic context, the term jinn is used for both a collective designation for any supernatural creature and also to refer to a specific type of supernatural creature. Therefore, jinn are often mentioned together with devils/demons. But how does this relate to Five-O? Does it have anything to do with the peculiar creature Wo disguises himself as near the end of the show?

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death (x7): Guards at military installation holding small guidance device shot to death by Carl Tu.
Injury (x2): One guard shot by Tu, wound is not fatal (that we see); dog is knocked out with a drugged dart gun.
Death: Connor shot twice by Carl Tu, left hanging on chain link fence.
Death: George Wong run over by Carl Tu in hit and run.
Death: Carl Tu shot by Chow Lee Chong.
Death: Wo Sun Wong suffocated by Chow Lee.

MORE TRIVIA:

• When McGarrett departs from the Diamond Head military base, they are too cheap to film the helicopter taking off — instead, they just run its arrival sequence backwards.
• The sequence with the car that kills Chin's cousin George (an interesting stunt, with the actor rolling over the hood of the car and on to the street) looks like it is sped up.
• When Danno wakes up McGarrett who is sleeping in his office, he tells Danno he is going to take a shower. Where is this located in the building?
• McGarrett uses a magnifying glass to examine a fragment of a burned document at one point. Found at Tu's place, this later connects him to Chin's uncle when it's revealed this was letterhead for "The Wo Sun Wong Company" at 1120 Pauai Street, Honolulu.
• Tom Wong meets Wo Fat and Chow Lee in a cemetery about 33:30 in to the show. This is a Japanese cemetery, based on some of the names on tombstones: Mori, Shibasaki, Yogi, Uyeoka, Furuno, Sukita, Kaya, Kikuchi, Arakaki, Yoshida, etc.
• The autopsy report for the uncle (Wo Sun Wong) is dated May 25, 1972. His address was 1037 Kalea Avenue, the phone number there was 589-0599. The uncle's doctor was Dr. Charles Lee of 1056 Muhakai St., Honolulu, phone 768-2300. The uncle's height was 5′6″, weight 135. Present on arrival of the doctor were his wife Laura and [daughter?] Alma. His past medical history included arthritis and glaucoma. In addition to his body, his pillow was brought to the morgue. The reason for his death: homicide. The report was delivered to 799 No. Hotel St., Honolulu by Samuel Dexter at 8:55 A.M.
• The score is by Ray. There is some gentle "Asian-sounding" music as Chin Ho visits his uncle. There are numerous instances of the "bonging bell" sound. At the beginning of the show we hear the crescendo/diminuendo trumpets motif.
• When Che Fong is test-firing a gun, smoke can be seen coming out of Harry Endo's nose and mouth. I asked Harry Endo about this at the Five-O Convention in 1996. He said that he never smoked and he doubted that the room was that cold!
• When Wo Fat and Tom Wong are walking on the beach, Wo says, "Isn't the Hawaiian view beautiful?" But the following shot of some rocks is taken from above, not from beach level. This shot is the same as the beginning of S01E14, "Up Tight." It may appear in other shows as well.
• It is mentioned in this show that Wo Fat has two doubles.
• Chin Ho and his uncle speak Chinese to each other. The uncle tells Chin (in English) "There was a time when the Tangs preserved our ancient justice," according to the subtitles, but I think he means "tongs."

GALLERY:

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102. (S05E06) “Fools Die Twice” ★★★

QUICK PLOT:

An Army officer devises a scheme to kidnap a top government scientist and collect a ransom of one million dollars in diamonds.

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REVIEW:

At the beginning, we meet Jack Gulley (Clu Gulager), who is telling Lana Trotter (Anita Alberts) to get out of his apartment because he's "got some business people coming in here." She is heavily made up and looks like a hooker. He tells her, "You're nothing. You're zip. You're zero," but then changes his tune, saying "You don't have to believe this, but I really do like you. Yeah, I like you, I really do." We find out later she is not a hooker, but his live-in companion, and he is just being an abusive jerk. The character of Gulley is very "twitchy" and Gulager plays him well.

Gulley is an army computer maintenance man who was jerked around by the military. He was forced to resign his commission and take a lesser job and was given to understand that this was "for his own good." A clever, scheming guy, he is out for revenge. He is planning a heist of payroll money being delivered to the base where he works, and the "business people" coming to his place for a "last run through" are three crooks he has "employed" to help him: Kira Johnson (Michael Conrad), Johnny Arnett (Sam Edwards) and Mac Mozu (John Farias). Each of them has a specific role to play in the robbery, which Gulley has planned down to the last detail. It is not mentioned anywhere how Gulley originally met these three.

Gulley contacts McGarrett, saying with a disguised voice that there is going to be a "hit" at 3:00 in the afternoon on a specific date. Based on a location mentioned in this phone call, Five-O and HPD hasten to "the old battery on Route 7" which looks like a place we have seen before in "To Hell With Babe Ruth" and "The Ransom." After seeing a helicopter fly overhead which Danno says is heading to army Camp Keverly to deliver payroll (no idea how Danno knows this), at 3:00 McGarrett gets a call saying that it doesn't make sense that the Army payroll will be robbed because "they haven't paid in cash for years." The caller (Gulley) says that Kira Johnson, who McGarrett put away twice, is involved with the heist.

Realizing they have been had, the three cars rush to Camp Keverly, arriving there before the helicopter with the payroll, which seems very fast (or else this camp is very close). Meanwhile, the three crooks including Johnson have already arrived at the camp paymaster's office, having stolen an MDS (Merchants Delivery Service) truck and using passes that Gulley gave them earlier to easily enter the camp. When the two men from the helicopter, who have two huge bags which the crooks think contain money, come into the office, they are overcome by the robbers.

Mozu wants to see the money and cuts one of the bags open, but all they contain is paperwork that looks like dot-matrix printer pages perhaps connected with the payments. Meanwhile, outside, not only the men from Five-O and HPD are assembled, but several cars of armed military police. Two of the crooks produce machine guns – perhaps that were stolen from the camp a month ago — and a terrific firefight ensues. There are a couple of problems with this, though. None of the cars seem to suffer any damage during the fight (you would expect a stereotypical shot of the light on top of one of the police cars getting destroyed, for example), and in the background there is some woman walking, totally oblivious to what is going on. As well, close by on the sidewalk is a small crowd of people watching the filming.

Johnson comes out from the office with three hostages (it looked like Mozu was shot or killed) after Arnett, who is a pilot, says he will fly the helicopter. Perhaps realizing that this copter, which only holds two people, will not accommodate five, Arnett starts to take off and is shot dead by Johnson. Johnson in turn is shot and falls to the ground.

While all this is going on, Gulley goes to the camp office of Dr. Frank Clapton (Albert Harris). Clapton is civilian chief, computer-code programming, for the Pacific and Asian theaters who has "top secret, crypto clearance." The robbery has all been a setup created by Gulley to distract attention from him kidnapping Clapton, who he intends to sell to the highest international bidder – someone from Russia or China – or ransom him back to the USA in a move vaguely similar to Wo Fat kidnapping Professor Harold Lochner in "Forty Feet High And It Kills," also during a distraction. Gulley chloroforms Clapton and stuffs him in the back of his Ford Country Sedan, leaves the base and takes him to a Navy surplus minesweeper on Sand Island. According to IMDb as well as a friend who is an expert on these cars, it is very unlikely that Clapton could have been put into the trunk space in the back of a car like this, and when Gulley arrives at the minesweeper, Clapton's body is now in a bag which Gulley hoists over his shoulder.

Gulley is ranting to Clapton when he ties the doctor up, but he is really revealing things about his past history: "What if somebody, doc, says, "You're a little too gung ho. You take the rules a little too seriously. You endangered lives. There's no room at all, there's no room at all for guys in the Army who want to win wars? So they ease you out. Just promise you a big, fat, lousy, civilian desk job. You know, so you won't raise a stink. You take it out on your wife and your kids. You take it out on your little children. The wife that loves you. Until they leave you. They fly away. They just take off. They run. What about that, Dr. Clapton? Think about it. Forget your codes, Dr. Clapton. Forget your codes. Look for the shifting wind."

Gulley calls McGarrett again, saying he wants a million dollars in diamonds before 9 a.m. the following morning, or Clapton "goes to a not-so-friendly government." McGarrett calls Jonathan Kaye in Washington (Bill Edwards in his first appearance in the role), who says to pay the ransom no matter what it takes. Edwards is seen in sort of a silhouette profile, perhaps to disguise (not very well) the fact that in the previous episode, his character was played by Joseph Sirola!

Fortunately, there is a diamond merchant in Honolulu called Vandervort's, and the cash to pay for the jewels will be generated through some trading on the Honolulu Stock Exchange which opens at 4 a.m. local time. Kaye tells McGarrett, "Nothing takes precedence over getting Clapton back, at any price. Nothing." The boss of Vandervort, named Vandervort strangely enough, is played by Wright Esser, who has had half a dozen roles in the series so far.

Johnson, who was taken to the hospital earlier, has incredibly managed to survive. A surgeon (Ted Nobriga) tells McGarrett, "I don't know how. The man's a sieve. We counted four bullet entries, front and back." McGarrett talks to Johnson, who is heavily sedated, telling him, "You were set up, all three of you, just like clay pigeons, all the way down the line. Let us help you get him … Who played Judas? Your friend called us twice. Led us right to you. That's why we were there. And that's just for openers. Your hit was a diversion. While you were supposed to be dying for some worthless paper, your friend got himself a prize. He made a snatch. Somebody very important to the Pentagon. Worth a million dollars, in fact, in diamonds. And that's what we're gonna have to pay and he's gonna get away … I wanna tell you one more thing. He enjoyed it. He laughed at you. When he called to tell us about the payroll hit, he bragged how smart he was and how stupid you all were."

Although he is awake, Johnson does not respond, but he has heard everything that was said. At the end, he clutches his fist. After McGarrett leaves, Johnson disconnects himself from all the equipment in his room and leaves the hospital. Johnson looks like Frankenstein's monster and his zombie-like makeup is ghastly. As he walks, the camera takes on weird angles, as it does when he unsuccessfully attempted to escape from the army base earlier in the show.

Meanwhile, Danno is trying to analyze the background noises in Gulley's phone calls where there is a constant thumping noise, similar to the "pile driver" sound in S02E22, Nightmare Road, as well as the sound of sea birds. Finding his investigation stumped, Danno locates a "suppressor," which will help to determine what the thumping is. Only problem – the suppressor has to be flown in from Los Angeles, arriving at 6:30 in the morning, two and a half hours before Gulley's deadline.

Around this time, people who left the base after the robbery attempt are rounded up and interviewed at Five-O headquarters. Gulley, who talks to Chin Ho, says he is "a civilian contract worker … what they call a computer colonel," and gives kind of smart-alecky responses to Chin's questions.

While this is happening, Johnson goes to Gulley's place, only to find Lana there. He wants to see "Jack Brown" (the name by which he knows Gulley). He attempts to strangle Anita, but suddenly drops dead. She calls the cops. When shown a picture of Gulley which was taken at Five-O headquarters, Anita IDs him.

Gulley calls McGarrett again, but now McGarrett knows his name, which doesn't freak Gulley out as we might expect: "I like that. I like that fine. It's okay. It's out in the open now, man-to-man." He directs McGarrett to go to Warrior Ridge with the diamonds, which McGarrett now has. The suppressor has arrived, and Danno calls to say that the thumping noise has been identified as a heavy-duty compressor pump. McGarrett tells Danno: "Check with the board of Public Works. Find out where any flooding or construction or repair is going on near or on the waterfront. Then feed it all into the computer. Gulley's name, along with any of the sites where they're using those big pumps. See if he ties into anything like a beach house or a mooring, boats. Anything like that."

When McGarrett, Ben and Chin Ho arrive at the ridge, they find that Gulley has a clever way to get the diamonds, in a pouch on the back of a German shepherd dog which Gulley calls from far away using a high-frequency whistle. Danno contacts McGarrett to say that he had a "brainstorm" (obviously inspired by his boss), that Gulley is hanging out on the minesweeper. When Gulley returns there with the dog, McGarrett has already arrived and freed Clapton. Gulley attempts to escape (I don't know to where), but ends up running into McGarrett who is sitting with a big grin on his face as he tells Gulley he was captured because of the sounds of the pump and "a bird … an ordinary, free-flying bird."

Gulley's crime and the distraction he created are kind of clever, but the way that Danno makes a connection between Gulley and his hideout near the show's end is highly improbable. They feed Gulley's name into a computer (presumably the one at HPD) along with the sites where compressor pumps are being used, based on information obtained from the Board of Public Works. Since Gulley's name produces no results, Danno enters "anyone with the same initials — J.G. — located anywhere near one of those pumps," which produces two results, including a "J. Grover on a navy surplus minesweeper on Sand Island." What does this mean? That Gulley lives on the minesweeper or owns it?

The speed with which Danno obtained these results extended to other parts of the show where events transpired like people had a stick of dynamite up their ass.

For example, McGarrett and others can get from the battery to the army base so quickly, even quicker than the helicopter that just passed overhead, and then McGarrett has time to join all the other HPD and military cops in front of the paymaster's office, which would also take time. At the end of the show, McGarrett and the others can get from some out-of-the-way location on the ridge to Gulley's minesweeper even quicker than Gulley and his dog. Not only that, but McGarrett can figure out where Clapton is being held and free him, and then sit around waiting for Gulley to show up.

The whole business with the part being shipped from Los Angeles also caused me some concern, but I worked backwards with the times and I think it is OK. If the part is to arrive by 6:30 a.m. in Honolulu, and a typical flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu would take somewhere between 5 and 6 hours (these days, anyway), and you have to add in the time to bring the part to the airport in L.A., that would probably add another hour or two, and then someone has to pick it up at the Honolulu airport and take it to wherever Danno is doing his "anal-ysis," that would add more time. (Che Fong is not seen in this show, I guess he had the day off.) The time structure of the show is not too specific, though it all happens between 2:30 p.m. on one day and 9 a.m. the next morning.

Don't forget when McGarrett shows Lana a picture of Gulley when they are called regarding Johnson's demise at Gulley's place! Did McGarrett sense ahead of time that Gulley was going to be involved and made sure he had this picture in his pocket?

The bottom line with this show, though, is that Gulley, though a well-organized and meticulous planner, was a stupid criminal. His downfall was using the pay phone near the minesweeper to call McGarrett which had the big sound clues in the background. (I'm amazed that there was a pay phone that close to the ship in the first place.) In this regard, Gulley is like those people who commit crimes today, totally oblivious of surveillance and cel phone cameras which are recording their every move — also stupid criminals!

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

Perhaps this refers to Kira Johnson, referred to as "stupid" during the show (though by McGarrett), who almost died once and finally did die when he was trying to track down Gulley.

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: Dr. Frank Clapton chloroformed and kidnapped by Jack Gulley.
Injury: Johnny Arnett shot in hand during shootout with Five-O and MPs.
Death: Mac Mozu falls to floor, shot by someone from forces outside; does not appear during march with hostages, likely dead.
Death: Arnett shot in helicopter by Kira Johnson.
Injury: Johnson sniped twice by Danno, then shot again by McGarrett ; Johnson survives.
Death: Johnson collapses and dies in Lana Trotter’s apartment.

MORE TRIVIA:

• At the beginning of the show, we see Johnson on the phone with someone, asking them to look up Lana's license plate number. This doesn't make sense. If Johnson had seen Lana at Gulley's place previously, he likely knew who she was. If he hadn't seen her, how would he know that she was connected with Gulley?
• We get a close peek at the phone on McGarrett's desk which has the number 311-555-2368, where "311" was sometimes used as a fictitious area code in former times, according to Wikipedia. The pushbuttons range from 2368 to 2379, with 2373 being red in color. Gulley phones on local 2371. This phone is also seen in S12E14, "The Golden Noose" where it has a "real" number.
• Outside Gulley's office at the military base, we see behind him a Coke machine where "Things go better with Coke" has a sign kind of crudely pasted over it which says "Aim for a bigger job with higher pay." Perhaps unintended irony?
• Several stock music cues are used — the military theme, violin themes (two of them), and "trombone interval" theme. There's also a stock shot of a City and County ambulance driving on the freeway from S01E13, "King Of The Hill," and one of the blue light on the back of the motorcycle from the first season end credits.
• When Gulley phones some Russian guy on the SS Mitlovski, six miles offshore, with whom he hopes to negotiate for Clapton, he says "WZ-6789, ship-to-shore operator, 495-8372.
• The Honolulu Stock Exchange existed at the time of the show, but closed in 1977.
• Lana's phone number is 589-0599.
• The episode promo for this show almost gives away the finale!

GALLERY:

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103. (S05E07) “Chain Of Events” ★★★  BOOK HIM   BOOK HER 

QUICK PLOT:

The slaying of a public health official while conducting an investigation into venereal disease has connections into the world of politics.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

This is a pretty rank "contemporary issues show," though these days it would probably be PG-rated. Up to a point, the characters seem to be talking much quieter than normal, like they were walking on eggshells!

At the beginning we are kept in the dark as to what Jacob Kalema (William Valentine) does until he is murdered with "two gunshot wounds, frontal cranium." Danno and Ben are assigned to investigate. They determine that Kalema worked for "Department of Health, State of Hawaii" and that he was a "pleasant guy" who "led a quiet life" and "everybody liked him."

Back at the office, when Danno says that "we figure the murder had to be linked in some way to his line of work," and McGarrett asks what that might be, Danno finally reveals Kalema's occupation about 7 minutes into the show as the camera moves in for a closeup: "He had a specialty … he tracked down venereal disease."

McGarrett and Danno go to meet with Kalema's boss Brandt (Robert Gleason) shortly after. The clinic where Kalema's office is and you can get tested is open 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. (I wonder if the extras sitting in the hall there knew what kind of a part they were playing.)

Brandt tells the two from Five-O that there is a "raging epidemic" of VD, "as bad in Hawaii as it is on the mainland, and we fight it any way we can." Accompanied by stock shots of medical labs and testing, he says that if someone's blood test at a lab reveals they have VD, this gets reported by law to the department of health who have to track down who else they might have infected or vice versa.

I don't know about this procedure when the show was broadcast, but it is quite likely the same now. A recent US government health site says that "Reportable diseases [like VD] are diseases considered to be of great public health importance. In the United States, local, state, and national agencies … require that these diseases be reported when they are diagnosed by doctors or laboratories … In the case of sexually-transmitted diseases [STDs], the county or state will try to locate sexual contacts of infected people to make sure they are disease-free or are treated if they are already infected." The same goes for Canadian VD clinics these days.

At the beginning of the show, Kalema met with Linda Rynak (Gaye Nelson), supposedly an 18-year-old high school student, but she looked more like 14. Kalema already knew that Linda got syphilis from her clean-cut boyfriend Walter Clyman (Dirk Benedict), but Kalema found out that she passed the disease on to upcoming politician James Trevor Warren (Linden Chiles).

Described as "one man in a generation," Warren spouts Kennedy-like rhetoric with a Kennedy-like accent. We find out later that Linda – who was into things like "rap sessions [and] ecology protests" — met Warren while working as a volunteer on his senatorial campaign and when he was "lonely" because his wife had left him.

Warren looked very disturbed when he got a phone call from Kalema based on what Linda said and the two of them were supposed to meet at Wailupe Beach Park. However, Kalema got knocked off there. Soon after this, Linda was also found murdered, and Che Fong was quick to figure out that a car involved in both killings was the same, as was the gun that was used to kill both of them.

With info from the lab, Danno and Ben go to visit a guy named Boardman (Robert Witthans). He is one of the clinic's clients who, after overcoming paranoia about showing up "on the 6:00 news," sends them to see Sophie Norris (Ellen Blake), the next person in the chain of disease, a buyer for Miss Polynesia Shops. At her company, Danno and Ben have difficulty keeping the proceedings confidential, which is not helped by one of Norris's co-workers who is very snoopy.

Norris tells them that she got VD from Walter, who is "a student at Oahu Junior College … [who] used to work in our shipping room part-time." She tells them, "Look, I don't go around cruising universities looking for college boys. I needed some help moving furniture into my new apartment. And there we were."

When Linda's father (Lou Frizzell) IDs Linda's body at the morgue, he says a "crazy, doped-up hippie" must have killed her. He insists on knowing exactly what Five-O's interest in the case is, and McGarrett breaks the news to the father with difficulty, telling him that Linda had VD, which just makes Rynak more irate. Frizzell gives an excellent performance as another "father out for revenge" like the one in the first season's "Up Tight."

Based on what he knows of Linda's friends, Rynak puts two and two together, not making four, and beats Walter to a pulp with the help of a friend. When Rynak returns home, his wife (Electra Gailas Fair) tells him she found some photos in a scrapbook Linda kept with pictures of her and Warren together on which Linda had written love-struck messages that suggest Walter was not responsible for Linda's death. (Aside from this, Walter also has an air-tight alibi for the time of both murders.)

After seeing this book, the father goes to Warren's campaign headquarters with a gun. Saying, "I'm just a big, hardhat slob," he tells Warren that he and Linda were "Animals … No rules, no God, no right and wrong. Just sex like animals. You're dirty, Mr. Warren." McGarrett arrives in the nick of time to bust Rynak and save Warren ... but hold on, it's only the end of Act Three!

Amazingly, before taking him away to be interrogated, McGarrett asks Warren if he wants a lawyer, which Warren declines. (I thought Warren was a lawyer.) At the Five-O office, Warren is evasive, and any alibi he has does not hold up. The car which left tracks at both murder scenes has been traced to Warren's campaign, though any one of several people could have signed it out to use. He tells McGarrett that his wife Paula (Judi Meredith) has left him again. The wife is the only one who can establish an alibi for Warren, though she will have to lie to do this (he obviously does not tell McGarrett this).

Earlier in the show, Warren and his wife seemed to be reconciling from her leaving him some time ago, with the two of them cuddling and him saying "We have a lot of time to make up for, Paula. It's been a very lonely year … I can tell you one thing, I'm never gonna let you leave me again." However, after the murders of Kalema and Linda, his wife is seen packing her bags. It sounds like Paula just discovered she had some kind of "infection." Accusing her of "overreacting," Warren tells her, "The doctor just wants you to go in for some tests. I mean, it's nothing. They may turn out to be negative. If not, we'll both take the shots, and that'll be the end of it. I could've lied about this whole thing. Dr. Crowley suggested that I tell you it was some kidney infection. I had too much respect for your intelligence. Don't forget, Paula, you walked out on me. It got very Ionely around here. It was not as if I was cheating on the ideal marriage, you know that? I never kidded myself that it was ideal."

People from Warren's campaign are freaking out that he has been taken away to be grilled by Five-O. They already had to endure McGarrett and Danno snooping around earlier while Warren was giving a campaign speech. Billy Gunwald (Ray Buktenika), head of the Youth for Warren Committee, is delegated to find Paula, and he tracks her down to San Francisco. He tells her, "We have a little problem," which he quickly amends to "real trouble … the police are involved … we're talking about a major crime." With one of the great lines from the entire series, Paula tells him, "I gave him everything I had. My help, my love, and he gave me [pause] syphilis." Disgusted by what he has heard, Billy leaves the campaign, followed closely by Warren's chirpy manager Marty (Jay Stewart), who says "I think the precincts have just been heard from."

Perhaps having suspicions, McGarrett phones Warren's office and gets Jean Holland (Mary Frann), Warren's secretary who was in charge of the sign-out sheets for the campaign cars, asking her to bring them to Five-O. When she arrives, the sheets say that the car connected with the murders was taken by Anthony Carter, who Holland describes as "a tall man [with] a swarthy complexion [who] was heavy-set." Warren, who is still in the office and supposedly knows everyone working with him, does not recognize this person either from his name or the description.

McGarrett then asks Holland to sign Carter's name, which is an obvious trick to see if his signature on the forms is similar to her writing, duh! It's strange that she doesn't try to make this signature different. McGarrett suggests that Holland letting Carter, a virtual stranger, borrow the car is not typical, because she is known to have a penchant for detail. Holland starts to get edgy and tells McGarrett that, as Warren's secretary, she had access to his personal files, private correspondence and the keys to his house. When McGarrett says, "You know where he kept his gun," Holland has a total meltdown, which is kind of a disappointing ending to the show:

"He had a right to protect himself. He's one man. One man in a generation. He could be anything. He could be the governor, he could be the president. Only they're trying to destroy you, don't you see that? Hatreds and jealousies. Yes, even your wife. Oh, so... So perfect. So I see. She drove you to... To Linda. Sweet, angelic Linda. And beneath all that innocence, filth and disease. And she had to go and tell that government man. Two insignificant people who could destroy you. Destroy James Trevor Warren. So I had to do something. I had to... I had to stop them. I had to protect you. Don't you see? I had to protect you."

Holland is booked and taken away. There are some questions, though, as to how Holland knew about Warren and Linda, especially that their relationship was sexual. When Kalema called Warren in the morning after talking to Linda, Holland took the call and passed it to him, saying "A Mr. Jacob Kalema for you. Says he got your name from Linda Rynak." But when he is talking to Five-O later, Warren says he was told Kalema had called back and cancelled the meeting. (He doesn't say that Holland was involved with this call, though it is quite likely she was.) I doubt that Kalema would go into detail that he was investigating a case of VD! I don't know if Holland would have done a reverse lookup of some kind on Kalema's phone number. In any case, how would the near-psychotically devoted Holland have gotten to the state that she was so worked up over this that she went to Warren's house, got the gun, and then murdered Kalema and Linda?

The score by Ray is kind of minimal. The "violin" theme is heard four times, as well as a "tinkly" theme like a music box which suggests Linda's innocence. There are several instances of outstanding use of color in this show: McGarrett stands in front of a colored print while interviewing Linda's mother, the color of the cover of Linda's scrapbook, the wardrobe of Warren's wife prior to her leaving him, among others.

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

"Chain" refers to the connections the health department establishes between the various characters who are infected with VD to help stop the spread of the disease. While McGarrett and Danno are at Brandt's office, he shows them a chart on the wall illustrating "persons under age 20 involved in a syphilis epidemic."

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Disease: Various people are infected with syphilis: Linda Rynak, James Trevor Warren, Boardman, Sophie Norris, Walter Clyman and Paula Warren.
Death: Jacob Kalema shot twice in his car by Jean Holland
Death: Linda shot by Jean Holland
Injury: Walter Clyman beaten by Phil Rynak and Frank.

MORE TRIVIA:

• In the newspaper with the story about Kalima's death, only the headline — Public Health Officer Found Shot to Death — and the first paragraph are actually about the events that took place. The rest of the article is a mish-mash of various things. The large headline at the top of the page is Maritime Talks Begin. There are other headlines on the page: Building-Loan Men To Hold Banquet For Jubilee Date, Youth Council Divides Job and Oratorical Contest Winner To Compete Again Sunday.
• A Physicians Ambulance takes away Kalima's body from the crime scene. A crowd is seen watching as Five-O is investigating.
• Watch Linda's hairdo in the opening shots. When she is seen in closeup, it is very different than the previous view, aside from the fact you can see her ears sticking through her hair!
• In the episodic promo on the Season 5 DVD, there is a shot of the student audience responding to Warren which has spotlights in front of it which is not seen in the show itself. This shot is repeated, and the spotlights move slightly before the scene changes, suggesting that they were filmed separately, and the two shots combined.
• When Linda's father is freaking out at the morgue, McGarrett tells him to "calm down," and it sounds like instead of "Mr. Rynak," he says "Mr. Regan."
• Holland is seen smoking.
• There are two "bookems." The first is for Rynak, the second for Holland.

GALLERY:

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104. (S05E08) “Journey Out Of Limbo” ★★

QUICK PLOT:

After Danno stumbles on a plot to assassinate a Chinese diplomat, he suffers a memory loss and the Five-O team has to try and help him reconstruct the details.

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REVIEW:

This is a two-part story, perhaps inspiration to the Five-O reboot, where such plots were quite commonplace. The two parts of this one sort of come together by the end, though not as well as might be expected.

At the beginning of the show, Danno on his day off is dumped out of the sand-filled bed of a truck at a construction site. He is barely conscious and rushed to the hospital where he cannot remember anything which has happened to hm for the last several hours. Doc says Danno is suffering from commotio cerebri, a fancy name for a brain concussion.

Che Fong determines that Danno was somewhere that had horses because there are traces of horse dander on Danno's clothes, so Ben takes Danno to the Koko Head Stables which is approximately in the area where the truck came from. The owner of the place, Cal Chambers, remembers Danno from the day before, but Danno does not remember him. Chambers gives Danno a very peculiar look. Danno is freaked out by the sound of a backfiring car, and when Ben touches Danno's arm, Danno recoils. Danno's forehead is suddenly all sweaty when he crouches down after the backfire, whereas in the previous shot it was not. Danno is at a loss to determine what happened the previous day.

Later, at his apartment and looking at a map which Ben left with him, Danno flashes on a compass rose, a multi-pointed star indicating the directions of a compass. He returns to trails near the stables and finds a metal version of this star which is near what looks like a bunker on the side of a hill. The bunker is currently empty, but Danno flashes back to yesterday, when he noticed a couple of men moving stuff in there. Foolishly announcing himself as a police officer motivated the men to shoot at him and then chase him in a jeep as Danno fled on horseback, accompanied by goopy music by Richard Shores featuring wind chimes.

Danno today is later joined by the Five-O team when he recalls seeing a boat in the bunker, much to the skepticism of Chin Ho and Ben. They retrace the route of the chase, and find Danno's horse dead. Going down a hill, they find a place where Danno jumped off a hill right above a highway below into the dump truck. This whole business is very far-fetched, especially if we are to consider Danno jumping from standing still rather than taking a run first. Even if one of the Five-O stuntmen tried this, they would ask for premium pay because this would require split-second timing! When he fell into the truck, Danno hit his head on the side of the truck bed which explains his lack of memory.

Back at the Five-O office, Danno is grilled about his improving memory in relation to what was in the bunker. There was a boat with a cockpit, a sailboat with the mast removed. One man was carrying boxes labelled with dynamite, and the other carrying what looked like a body wrapped in a blanket. A fingerprint which Che found in the bunker has been traced to a guy named Harvey Durko, accused in the past of industrial espionage. Durko is tracked to a beach cottage in Honolulu. Ben and Chin corner him, but when he tries to escape, he is shot dead, which is not going to help the case. Another guy with Durko escapes.

While all this business with Danno has been going on, McGarrett has been assigned by the Governor to provide security for Lin Mau-Li (Philip Au), Chinese Minister of Commerce. He is visiting Hawaii to hang out with an old friend of his from World War II, Warren Hummel (Keenan Wynn), with the possibility of some diplomatic talks being held at the same time. As such, the show has a look at improving American-Chinese relations of the period. When Duke says only twenty years before the Chinese were regarded as enemies, McGarrett tells him, "The world turns."

However, there is a sinister side to these events. Hummel, who lives in a palatial estate, is the brains behind an assassination attempt on Lin, motivated by the death of his 19-year-old soldier son Warren on November 11, 1950 in Korea. Durko was in charge of rigging up an elaborate electronic scheme to knock off the Chinese minister which was completed before Durko was killed.

As Danno is being driven to McGarrett's place where he is supposed to hide out until Lin leaves town, he suddenly flashes as to what the "body" that he saw at the bunker was when he looks at the display window in a department store: a mannequin. Having a massive brainstorm, Danno suddenly realizes that the boat, the dynamite and the mannequins are going to be used to kill Lin, which is ridiculous, because how does Danno make all these connections? It's not like there was any discussion about this in the Five-O offices earlier!

Danno is soon seen on a Harbor Police boat heading out into the waters off Honolulu, where Hummel is giving Lin a tour, accompanied by McGarrett and one of Lin's own guards. First, Danno knows exactly where McGarrett is, and second, this boat with Hummel and Lin is having some momentary technical difficulties and is stopped, though there is nothing to suggest that is part of Hummel's plan.

Leaping on to the tour boat, Danno points out another boat nearby, the one that was in the bunker, which seems to have two sailors on it (the mannequins): "That boat is on a collision course. It's the one I saw in the bunker, Steve. They're not sailors, Steve. They're dummies. That boat is loaded with dynamite, guided by an automatic pilot. A system installed by Durko. [This device is in a cigarette case controlled by Hummel.]" McGarrett shoots at the boat, at least 12 shots, as does Danno, causing the boat to explode, and everyone to be knocked to the deck. There are weird camera angles as this happens. Hummel tries to shoot Lin himself, but he is shot by McGarrett.

This ending does not make sense, aside from the Danno brainstorm angle. Was the intention to blow up or seriously injure Hummel as well, thus resulting in bad publicity for the Chinese government?

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

According to m-w.com, one of the definitions of "limbo" is "a state of uncertainty."

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: The horse Danno was riding is shot multiple times.
Injury: Pursued by the bad guys, Danno jumps from a cliff into a moving dump truck and hits his head on the side of the bed, resulting in a brain concussion and memory loss.
Injury: Duke shot by Harvey Durko, hit in the shoulder.
Death: Durko shot by Ben.
Death: Asian guard for Lin Mai-Lu shot by Norton Hummel after explosion, fate unknown.
Death: Hummel shot by McGarrett, fate unknown, fate unknown.

MORE TRIVIA:

• The episode promo gives away the ending of the show! There are also instances of the "bonging bell" noise in the promo which are not heard in the show itself.
• The driver of the dump truck Art Bellak (Sam Peters) says he picked up the sand at Makapuu Point, but on the map which Chin Ho shows to McGarrett, the starting point of Bellak's trip, marked with an "X," is considerably to the west of Makapuu, which is the easternmost point on Oahu.
• As Danno attempts to flee on horseback from outside the bunker, one of the bad guys is shooting directly at him and the horse, but seemingly doesn't hit either of them.
• Before Danno goes to where the compass rose is, he dials the Five-O office, but he dials 8 numbers, instead of 7.
• As the police motorcade with Lin in a limousine turns a corner, it looks like the sleeve of someone like a crew member is seen on the left side of the screen.
• Fred Ball plays an uncredited reporter named Brent Bronston who asks questions of Lin when he arrives at Hummel's place.
• When Danno sees the mannequins in the show, he is on the same street as seen in "Secret Witness" where there are the Kamuki Inn, Kaimuki Theater and Ideal Pet & Garden.
• There is reference to "CNC" making a match for a fingerprint found during the investigation — referring to the CIA Crime and Narcotics Center.
• When McGarrett meets the Governor at the airport prior to the two of them welcoming Lin Mai-Lu, Walter Omori, the "mysterious actor," is standing behind the Governor. This is exactly the same footage seen in S04E02, "No Bottles...No Cans...No People." As in the previous show, Walter's status is unknown, probably a bodyguard for the Governor.
• In the Five-O office when the men are trying to figure out what are in the boxes containing the dynamite, Chin says, "Oranges." Ben tells him, "Oh, come on, bruddah. A hood wouldn't shoot a cop over a box of oranges." When Chin suggests, "Drugs?", Ben says "In boxes that big? That's dumber than oranges." Chin looks annoyed.
• There are various stock shots of McGarrett driving (near the "balcony," passing Dillingham fountain), a United Airlines plane landing. A Physicians Ambulance is seen.
• The "military theme" is heard when Hummel is looking at pictures of his son.
• In a scene at the airport, the shot where the camera completely turns upside down is taken from S02E11, "Leopard on the Rock."

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105. (S05E09) PART ONE: “‘V’ For Vashon: The Son” ★★★★

QUICK PLOT:

Chris, son of Honoré, the head of the Vashon crime family, pulls off robberies to make his ineffectual father "flip his wig."

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

It's so nice to watch an episode which, for the most part, avoids the nitpicky stuff that has annoyed me during my re-viewing of shows, now approaching its end. This one has an excellent script, superior direction and acting, above-average photography and this is only the first of the Vashon Trilogy … which is actually a 4-part series when you consider S08E06, "The Case Against McGarrett." It uses several members of the Five-O stock company, all of whom, even in the smallest parts, perform flawlessly.

Chris Vashon (Robert Drivas), son of crime kingpin Honoré Vashon (Harold Gould) and grandson of crime patriarch Dominick Vashon, a.k.a. "Old Nick" (Luther Adler) has some major "growing up" issues. As the show starts, Chris, with the help of two pals, Lance (Rick Kelman) and Stu (Christopher Harris), robs the Hawaiian Regent Hotel, which his father has an interest in, for nickel and dime stuff from the hotel's safe. He leaves a family trademark on the cheek of the desk clerk (Dick Fair), who he punches in the face. The letter "V" from his ring recalls the "past and violent history" of the Vashon crime family, which is quickly rehashed by the local press. (How this ring can cut the letter into someone's face is a good question – is the "V" on the ring like a razor blade? The result almost looks like a stamp.)

When McGarrett goes to talk to Honoré about what Chris was doing at the time of the robbery, he has to go through the servants' entrance to avoid Vashon's wife and daughters, though the ensuing conversation takes place as the rest of the family is sitting eating breakfast only a short distance away. When asked about his whereabouts a couple of hours before during the early-morning theft, Chris is smart-alecky. He lets McGarrett examine his ring, asking if he's checking for blood stains, to which McGarrett replies, "Why should I be looking for bloodstains?" Having said too much, Chris replies, "Don't cops always look for bloodstains?" Honoré already did a double-take when McGarrett mentioned the ring before interrogating Chris, and after the Five-O boss leaves, Honoré is concerned that his son's criminal activities could interfere with his reputation as a now-sort-of-legitimate businessman in the local community, as well as meetings he is having with a trade commission from Argentina the next day "on a matter that could mean millions."

Back at the office, McGarrett and Danno have a discussion about how these petty thefts don't make sense: "Somebody's putting us on. Or putting the Vashons on the spot … Old Nick is retired and living like an emperor, his son Honoré skims his fat percentage off the top of every illegal operation around here … By the time Nick finished cornering crime in these islands, there must have been at least a hundred corpses hanging upside down in back rooms all over town with a V burned into them." During this conversation, the camera focus switches between the two men.

Five-O starts an investigation to track down the items which were stolen and ended up in places like local pawn shops. Danno finds Lo Wu Sing (Galen Kam), the tailor who made the "expensive sport coat" that Chris wore during the Regent robbery which was recognized by Mrs. Fennaday (Elsie DeMello), housekeeper from the hotel, who told Five-O, "I know good clothes, I handle them all the time here." They also snoop in the apartment which Chris has downtown under the name of "N. Douglas," which is the monniker Chris used when he purchased the coat. But simultaneously with Five-O's search, Honoré instructs his slimy lawyer Tosaki (Kwan Hi Lim) to start "fixing" things. You may recall that Tosaki made an equally oily appearance in S04E18, "Skinhead," where he harassed a rape victim over her past sex life, suggesting she was promiscuous.

Later, as Chris shares money from the robbery with his two pals, he tells them "I want my old man to flip his wig." Honoré does this when Chris pulls off another chicken feed heist a couple of days later. As he tries to have a serious talk with his son, Chris gives his old man a lot of mouth, which reaches a boiling point after Honoré tells Chris, "You have everything. Money, cars…" In the first of several classic lines in the Vashon shows, Chris gives his dad a blast: "…And the hypocrite of all time as a father. Who made his money smuggling and blackmail and protection and prostitution and kidnapping and heroin and murder, who thinks he's got a reserved seat in heaven because now he only cheats on his income tax, and he contributes to the March of Dimes."

Honoré is fit to be tied, and goes to visit his father, Nick, who says that Chris is having "an adventure, what more? The boy is growing up. He wants some excitement before it's too late." When Honoré says, "He'll have the excitement of going to jail," Nick tells him, "Vashons do not go to jail. [Another classic line.] Are you telling me you cannot handle this with two telephone calls? I can remember I had three deputy district attorneys on my payroll … What has been stolen? You said yourself, nickels and dimes. So give everyone a dollar who lost a dime and they'll say thank you, merci beaucoup, and forget about it."

However, when Honoré mentions what happened with the ring, Nick suddenly gets very serious: "That wasn't very smart." Nick suggests that Honoré should just "strike" (i.e., slap) Chris, but Honoré says the issue is a lack of respect. "Children today, they look their parents in the eye, and they spit in their faces. They lie without shame. And when you catch the lie, they laugh at you. They defy you, they disobey you. And when you threaten them with punishment, they call you a hypocrite." Honoré wants Nick to talk to Chris, saying that Chris still respects him, but Nick says, "I will tell him nothing. And you will degrade yourself no further. If Chris has lost his respect for you, make him find it again. Teach him. I had to teach all Hawaii to respect me, you should be able to teach your own son."

Five-O's search at Chris's place yields evidence: the jacket made by Wu Sing which contained a lighter from the list of items stolen that had a fingerprint on it. When this print was checked at the Hawaii Department of Motor Vehicles, it ID'd it as that of Chris. (But seriously, when Ben removed the lighter from the jacket pocket, he totally touched it!) As well, aside from Wu Sing, two people can ID Chris: Suriyami, his apartment manager (Arthur Hee) and Kwan (Wesley Sakai), owner of a pawn shop where Chris dumped some of the stolen goods. McGarrett says to Chin this is "The first solid evidence anyone's had on a Vashon in almost 20 years" as the camera swoops around McGarrett's head, ending in an extreme closeup.

When Chris is soon busted on suspicion of armed robbery and assault, his father is disgusted and calls him "big shot." Chris greets Danno at his front door, saying, "How you doing, piggy? Find any missing hubcaps lately?" He is quickly released from jail with his bail reduced to a mere $25,000 thanks to another lawyer, Harvey Mathieson Drew (John Stalker), who is running for United States Senate next year. The case goes to trial, but Tosaki, who is like the Rudy Giuliani of his time, does yet more "fixing," getting the tailor to suddenly return to Taiwan to look after his ailing father and convincing other witnesses against Chris like Mrs. Fennaday and Suriyami to change their tune about identifying him. As a result, the case against Chris totally collapses and the judge acquits Chris because "the prosecution has failed to make out a prima facie case against him."

Manicote is fed up, but McGarrett especially is, telling Honoré in the courtroom that what has happened isn't a matter of being "not guilty, there just wasn't anyone around with enough guts to testify against him … Next time we'll be smarter." Chris tells Nick, "So much for the pigs, huh, Grandpa," for which Nick belts him in the face, saying, "Pigs? There are pigs worth ten times your brain. You are a fool. Money was spent and lives disarranged to save you from your own foolishness. Did you hear McGarrett say next time he will be smarter? Take it to heart. He will be smarter and you had better be smarter. Because no more money will be spent on you, you stupid boy. You listen to your father. He has never been arrested by these pigs you are so contemptuous of." Chris sheds a tear.

Thanks to a federal court order obtained with some difficulty, bugs were planted in Chris's car, telephone, apartment and house, none of which paid off. Some of the results go directly to the speaker phone on McGarrett's desk where he suddenly overhears Chris telling his two pals, who have returned to town, even though they were paid off by Tosaki to take a vacation to the mainland, that he wants to do one more heist, this time "the big one" at the Kalakaua Hotel (note the same name as the departed Zulu's character) where there is an upcoming medical convention. On the evening of the heist, when the three seem to be able to get into rooms at the hotel and steal stuff relatively easily, Five-O and HPD arrive there. McGarrett confronts Chris in a hallway and shots are exchanged. As Vashon's son tries to escape down a fire escape, McGarrett drills him in the lower chest. McGarrett mouths the word "Halt" twice, but the sound of the gunfire and then the sound of the music covers these up. Bleeding badly, Chris escapes from the building and makes it home, but expires in front of his house after he breaks through the gate and passes out on the horn in his car, which prompts his family to come running outside. The first "act" of the trilogy ends with an outburst of classic lines, as McGarrett and Danno, who have been tailing Chris, arrive on the scene:

Honoré: (holding his son, who has fallen out of his car door, in his arms): Do you want something here, McGarrett?

McGarrett: Yeah, I wanted to arrest your son for attempted homicide and armed robbery, but maybe I'd better call in for an ambulance first.

Honoré: An ambulance won't help. He's dead. My son is dead, McGarrett. Dead, and you killed him.

McGarrett: No, Vashon, no. I shot him, you killed him. (Ominous music starts.) You and his grandfather, a long time ago. (Leaving) Chin will take over. [He actually says "Kimo, take over."]

Honoré: (after a pause of 17 seconds, the camera moves in on his face): McGarrett dies.

The music is by Ray, and sounds kind of "stock," though some of the cues like the trombone interval and marimba themes seem more expanded than usual.

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: The night clerk has "V" imprinted on cheek after Chris Vashon hits him.
Injury: Another desk clerk gets same injury as first clerk from Chris.
Injury: Chris slapped by Dominick Vashon.
Injury: Chris shot by McGarrett in stairwell but escapes from building.
Death: Chris dies in station wagon after he crashes through gate at his house.

MORE TRIVIA:

• McGarrett is seen examining a Criminal Package Reference Record, or file on the hotel robberies. There is writing on the folder containing this document: "Case No. D-7171" and "Case No. 313 G.L."
• Terry Plunkett, a janitor in the Hotel Regent during the robbery there, suggests that the three robbers were "kids, eighteen, nineteen." Chris Vashon is 21 years old, according to his father. Actor Drivas was around 34. Honoré is 50, according to Nick, close to Harold Gould's actual age (49).
• The end credits are incorrect for the owner of Besseridez & Sons Jewelry, spelling the name as "Besseride" and saying the part is played by Jack Morris. The actor is Moki Palacio; Jack Morris is Heller, the owner of the first pawn shop who Ben goes to see, an older guy with grey hair and a moustache. The subtitles also spell Besseridez as "Besseride."
• The search warrant for the Besseridez store presented by Danno is dated July 4, 1972 and signed by Judge William Finnegan, same name as the producer of the episode. This store is at the corner of Nuuanu and Hotel Streets.
• Chin is seen smoking a pipe as he goes into the Nights of Old antique store.
• Up the street from Lo Wu Sing's shop is the Rendezvous Theater. The marquee mentions "The Stunt Nu Mouse."
• When Chris is out on bail, he is floating in his swimming pool wearing a goofy hat and reading Honolulu Magazine.
• On May 10, 1974, CBS (at least the two CBS stations near me) ran all three parts of the Vashon trilogy in one time slot from 8:30 to 11:00 p.m. I presume they removed "previously on" stuff to fit it all in.

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106. (S05E10) PART TWO: “‘V’ For Vashon: The Father” ★★★★

QUICK PLOT:

Crime boss Honoré Vashon imports a hit man to knock off McGarrett to avenge the top cop's killing of his son.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

The Vashon godfather Dominick, a.k.a. Nick (Luther Adler), who lambasted his grandson Chris as "stupid" after he was acquitted in court of robbery charges, has had a serious change of attitude now that the kid is dead as per the end of the previous episode.

The family's slimy lawyer Tosaki (Kwan Hi Lim) takes a picture in the cemetery after Chris's funeral is concluded of a fake gravestone with McGarrett's name and the date – 1972 — on it. Honoré Vashon (Harold Gould) denounces this gimmick as "idiocy." He tells Nick, "McGarrett murdered Chris, and he dies for it. Let's kill him and be done with it. At best, it won't be easy. But putting him on his guard like this is madness." The patriarch replies, "This man killed a Vashon. For that, first, he must wonder, then he must know, then he must die. That is the way we do things."

After a photo of the gravestone is sent to McGarrett, he goes to check out this threat, and then drops in on Honoré, who finds McGarrett's presence at his house repugnant: "I'd just as soon not be in the same room with my son's murderer." McGarrett expounds on what he said at the finale of part one: "I am not your son's murderer. He was apprehended in the act of trying to rob a hotel. He attempted to kill me with three shots at point-blank range, and was wounded. Now, he'd be alive today if he'd surrendered when ordered instead of trying to escape. No, Vashon, I am not your son's murderer. I say you are."

Before leaving, McGarrett tells Honoré: "I'm putting out a contract on you. A legal contract. Watertight. It expires the day I hear a judge sentence you to life imprisonment." After McGarrett is gone, Honoré phones his father and asks, "Is it now acceptable to you that I finish this matter and be done with it?" The old man replies, "Avec plaisir ["with pleasure" in French, not translated in the subtitles]."

Tosaki arranges for a local guy named Makros (uncredited actor) to plant a bomb in McGarrett's car, but the Five-O chief is very careful and notices things about the Park Lane aren't right, so he calls in the bomb squad, one of whose members disarms the bomb, including three blocks of TNT. However, when a tow truck guy (Chuck Couch) opens the car door prior to moving it to a "vacant lot behind the lab," the car explodes, killing him. Because of his shoddy workmanship, Makros is knocked off.

Figuring that Vashon won't turn to local talent again for a repeat of this failed assassination attempt, a list of hit men is obtained from Interpol. Meanwhile, Honoré is becoming more and more paranoid about bugs on his phone as well as in his house (though you have to wonder how anyone could install bugs in his house) and a parabolic dish aimed in his property's direction from far away to listen in on conversations.

Honoré meets with his father on a beach where the sound of the surf masks their discussion from being picked up by the cops. During their walk, the old man refers to McGarrett as "Cochon!" ("Pig!"). Nick tells his son to contact Philidor, an old friend from the past who owes him some favors. Fearing that communication with this guy will be somehow intercepted, Nick tells his son to pass messages through the sexton at the church, something Honoré finds objectionable, saying the church is "a sacred place." His father tells him, "There is nothing more sacred than killing McGarrett."

In due course, an Australian hit man named Dylan Heyward (Don Knight) is contracted and he arrives in Honolulu. To confound the cops' surveillance, Honoré is picked up by a helicopter and ferried to some isolated location where he discusses terms with Heyward. After they conclude their conversation, Heyward bids Honoré farewell, because he works alone. He starts to track McGarrett's moves, seeing if there are any patterns to his daily life. McGarrett, who is aware of Heyward's presence, doesn't change anything with his routine, because that will tip off Heyward that he knows he is being watched.

McGarrett figures that Heyward will try and make a hit on him from a building across the street from his office, which is exactly what happens. After Heyward is seen taking a suitcase and a package into the building, a policewoman named Phyllis (Elithe Aguiar) pretending to be a hooker from Dial-A-Girl distracts him while McGarrett sets up a mannequin in his office. Heyward fires a shot at the dummy, but seconds later, McGarrett bursts into the surprised Heyward's room. It's time to play "Let's Make A Deal," and McGarrett suggests "Maximum-security prison, mainland, under a phony name," rather than a stay in Oahu State Prison where, thanks to Vashon, Heyward will likely get "a shiv in the back some night when you're quietly reading a book in the prison library."

Heyward wisely chooses the first option, and the scene switches to a courtroom where he ID's the man who hired him to kill McGarrett – Honoré. As Nick hugs his son for the last time before he goes to serve a 10-year sentence for conspiracy, he whispers in his ear, "My turn!"

This show is mainly a transitional episode linking to the big finale, though it retains the quality of part one. The music is again by Ray and there is an extended version of the trombone interval theme as Heyward and Honoré plan McGarrett's murder on the beach.

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: Tow truck driver killed by exploding Park Lane.

MORE TRIVIA:

• In December 2011, Canadian fan Dave Watson visited the location of McGarrett's apartment in this episode, which is 2085 Ala Wai Boulevard (this is the actual address). Click here to see some pictures.
• Chris Vashon's tombstone says "1951-1972 'Murdered ... but Avenged'." The Vashon family memorial already has one name on it already — Anna, "Beloved Wife and Mother," presumably Dominick's wife. It looks like she died in 1964 or 1967.
• McGarrett goes to karate every Tuesday and Thursday.
• When the surveillance team are following Honoré with binoculars on one occasion, the results are at the wrong angle; when Honoré is looking at the cops across the water from his house, again with binoculars, the results are much too close.
• More Five-O stock players appear in this episode: Yankee Chang (Judge) and Robert Costa (Building Manager).
• Danno refers to Honoré as the "big daddy of all organized crime in these islands"; McGarrett calls the Vashon empire a "family cesspool."
• The stock shots of Hayward's United Airlines plane arriving at the Honolulu Airport are the same as in S05E03, "You Don't Have To Kill To Get Rich, But It Helps."
• Peter Makros' Social Security number is 547-10-8522 and his card was issued on 2/14/62.
• Hayward smokes a cigarette.
• There is some Canadian content among the list of hitmen obtained from Interpol: "Emil Kalamay: 32, Montreal, Caucasian. Indicted for murder of a foreign-office official. Witnesses disappeared. Charges dropped."
• Nick is seen reading a copy of The Honolulu Advertiser with a massive headline: "Bomb Destroys Five-O Car."
• The priest conducting Chris's funeral at the beginning of the show has a thick book called Rite of Funerals, which is published by the Catholic church.

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107. (S05E11) PART THREE: “‘V’ for Vashon: The Patriarch” ★★★★

QUICK PLOT:

McGarrett finds himself the victim of an almost perfect frame orchestrated by Dominick, the now-retired head of the Vashons.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

This episode begins with a lengthy rehash, almost seven minutes long, of the first two Vashon episodes, something which was missing from the beginning of the second show. In this flashback, McGarrett says "Halt" three times when he is shooting at Chris Vashon, unlike in the first show, where he only said it twice.

With Chris Vashon dead and his father Honoré in jail, it's up to the paterfamilias of the crime dynasty, Dominick a.k.a. "Nick" (Luther Adler), to deal with McGarrett, who can't buy the fact that things seem to have calmed down, instead saying, "That old fox is up to something."

Nick enlists the help of Freddy Sullivan (Robert Luck), a recently-released con who was friendly with Honoré in jail. McGarrett put Sullivan in the slammer three times for "pushing junk to high school kids" and then tried to prevent his parole. After Sullivan balks at killing a cop, Nick gets his co-operation by telling him there are 15 grams of heroin in his apartment put there "on McGarrett's orders," suggesting the narcotics squad of HPD will soon pay Sullivan a visit. In gratitude for this warning, Sullivan changes his tune.

Sullivan's job is to assassinate McGarrett, which he attempts in the basement parking lot of the Ilikai Hotel (Ulaki in the subtitles). Sullivan is holding open the door of an elevator, waiting to push the button to go back upstairs and fires at McGarrett, emerging from the next elevator, who shoots back as the door closes, killing Sullivan. McGarrett is not able to get there in time to force the door open — one wonders how Nick and his henchmen could have anticipated that this would happen.

Unfortunately, the gun which Nick's slimy lawyer Tosaki gave to Sullivan for his task contained blanks, and when the elevator arrives on the hotel's main floor, there is the usual screaming woman after the doors open.

McGarrett had a witness to what happened in the parking garage, Harvey Matheson Drew (John Stalker), who was coming with him in the elevator down to his own car. Drew, "the most respected attorney in Honolulu" who was rumored to be soon running for the U.S. Senate, ironically was the attorney who got Chris Vashon freed during his earlier trial. Despite this, McGarrett and Drew seem very chummy prior to the shooting. Drew can testify that there were a certain number of shots, but because his back was to the elevator, he cannot confirm who was actually firing the gun.

Although Sullivan is very dead, there is no gun found in the elevator, so McGarrett becomes tarred with having "murdered an unarmed man." In other words, an almost perfect crime thanks to Nick, who rubs it in by paying Sullivan's widow (Patricia Herman) $5,000 to go to the press and tell them that "that cop had it in for Fred." McGarrett is indicted and charged with second-degree murder.

In court, Drew is the only witness who can back up McGarrett's report of what happened, and Manicote as district attorney demolishes Drew's testimony, suggesting that what Drew thought was the sound of a gun might have been the noise from a backfiring car. The surprised members of the jury suddenly all start chatting about this astounding turn of events, which should not happen.

McGarrett is found guilty but he is released on bail waiting for his appeal. The first thing he does is go to see Nick, who had been in the courtroom during the trial. This seems like a highly unusual move, in my opinion. Nick tells McGarrett that justice has been done "to my complete satisfaction." He says his only regret is "that my grandson, Christopher Vashon, will never know that his murder has at last been avenged" and that McGarrett's sentence in prison will be "until they find you dead one morning in your cell."

To avoid the limelight, McGarrett gets moved into a house seemingly owned by Doc. He is wearing a ridiculous white suit and wide-brimmed hat. Al Eben as Doc seems to be having difficulty not to laugh at this; Glen Cannon as Manicote also looks like he is snickering. In the context of the episode this costume makes no sense. McGarrett should be wearing jeans and a sweat shirt when he goes into hiding, not some obvious outfit which is like wearing a sign saying "I'm McGarrett — shoot me!" I don't think McGarrett is spending a lot of time outside the house, though at one point he seems to be near the water, like at a marina. I am sure this silly outfit was the creation of Jack Lord's fashion designer wife Marie.

McGarrett asks the Five-O team to investigate again and dig deeper to help exonerate him.

With the help of Beau Van Den Ecker playing Chuck Price, an agile cop, they figure out that someone hiding in the ceiling of the elevator could have removed Sullivan's gun during the time it took to come up from the parking garage to the first floor. Doc does the autopsy for Sullivan again, and discovers that he was completely silenced by driving a needle "six inches into [his] brain through his left ear." This must have been done very quickly because Price said there was only about 8 to 10 seconds to spare during the elevator's ascent.

Ben, through one of his informants Joe Akkuda (Lippy Espinda), hears that a cat burglar named Spider Brown, likely the guy who was in the ceiling of the elevator, suddenly got very rich, but soon disappeared after he started bragging about his caper.

Chin Ho and Danno go to Drew's office where, using a court order, they snoop in Drew's appointment books, phone messages, bills and cancelled checks. (According to a lawyer friend, none of this violates lawyer-client confidentiality. He comments: "What is subject to the privilege is the lawyer's working file itself and any notes or records of communications between the client to the lawyer and lawyer to the client.")

From Drew's files, they find reference to someone named Bobby Raisbeck (John Beatty), who doesn't appear to be a client. Raisbeck's current address is the same Oahu State Prison cellblock as Honoré Vashon. Drew has suddenly taken a powder and is "out of town," which Drew's secretary (Sandy Kernell) was told to tell Raisbeck when he called multiple times recently, eventually making him very angry. When a message is left by Manicote for Drew via his wife to call Five-O regarding Raisbeck, he suddenly shows up at Manicote's office.

Drew gets a huge surprise there, because Raisbeck and McGarrett are present. We find out that although Raisbeck has been in jail, serving one to five for "possession [and] sale of marijuana," prior to this he was living in a ritzy $500 a month apartment where Drew had paid the rent for a year in advance, because the two of them were having a homosexual affair.

When Drew freaks out over being exposed, realizing his career and life are in ruins, Raisbeck tells him, "You're getting what's coming to you, you old queen." Bobby says continually getting brushed off by Drew made him turn to people in jail, who told him "to talk to Vashon and after that I'd have all the friends I needed. And I need friends." With information from Honoré, Nick blackmailed Drew to make his testimony concerning the shooting to be wishy-washy so McGarrett would be convicted.

The episode's final scene is a shocker. McGarrett with the Five-O team go to Nick's house, which is up for sale along with all of Nick's interests like "gambling, protection, prostitution, loan sharking, the works." The elder Vashon pulls out a gun and taunts McGarrett, saying "It may only have blanks in it again. You wouldn't want to kill another unarmed man?" But then Nick shoots himself in the head as McGarrett looks on, horrified.

Why McGarrett and the team were going to Nick's in the first place is a head-scratcher, and so is the question of how everything is going to be resolved. Drew is the only one who can get McGarrett off the hook, and he still didn't see who was shooting at the two of them. Doc's autopsy report about the needle in the brain might help, I guess. It is unlikely the loyal-to-the-Vashons Tosaki will blab and what happened to Spider Brown, the disappeared cat burglar — he may be dead! Another mess for Manicote to sort out with the judge!

The score is by Ray, and is kind of stock, containing the trombone interval and marimba themes. There are some effective uses of close-ups during the show. The cast includes yet more members of the Five-O stock company, in addition to those mentioned above: Don Over (Judge), Norman Dupont (Jim Berman, McGarrett's lawyer) and Robert Harker (Hotel Security Guard).

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: Fred Sullivan shot by McGarrett, then needle stuck into Sullivan's brain through his ear by cat burglar Spider Brown.
Death: Dominick Vashon shoots himself in head in front of Five-O to prevent his arrest.

MORE TRIVIA:

• Dominick Vashon's house located at 2550 Diamond Hill Road goes on the market at a price of $385,000. The phone number on the real estate sign for Hawaiian Properties, Ltd. is 939-802.
• After the incident with Sullivan in the elevator, the local paper has a front-page headline "Five-O Head Kills Parolee." After this, the Morning Telegraph newspaper is seen with another large headline: "Sullivan Case Still Unsolved." A second Telegraph headline is "Municipal Fund Reaches Goal, Building to Start Next Month."
• The sign in the lobby of Drew's building reads "Harvey Matheson Drew and Associates: Patrick Gleason, Jack T. Collis [same as the show's art director for seasons 4-6], Buck Henshaw [show's set decorator for its entire run], P.Y. Chong, Stanley Ito, Joseph Ahuna, Kenneth Sato – Attorneys at Law"
• McGarrett misprounounces the word "autopsy," with the emphasis on the second syllable.
• When he is told about the newspaper story based on Sullivan's wife's story referring to the planted heroin, McGarrett's response is "That's bull, John. That's plain bull." When the wife went to see Nick, she told him, "The fuzz all stick together."
• At Doc's beach house, there is a calendar for Hawaiian Airlines on the wall.
• When the Five-O team re-enact the shooting in the Ilikai elevator, there are a lot of people watching the filming.

GALLERY:

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108. (S05E12) “The Clock Struck Twelve” ★★½

QUICK PLOT:

Five-O is assigned to preserve security and ensure an orderly trial after a series of bomb threats follows the arrest of a band of Hawaiian vigilantes.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

This episode, based on a story by series creator Leonard Freeman, has a lot of potential, but as it goes along, it takes on a serious "don't think about it too hard" vibe.

A group of seven native Hawaiians are jailed, charged with arson, rape and murder after they attack a "damn hippie commune" of "longhaired freaks," saying "They wanna turn Hawaii into one big drug scene." A sensational trial for them is expected in the Judiciary Building, an older structure where it is difficult to provide proper security. A series of typed letters have been received, threatening violence during the trial with messages like "Free the seven. If you attempt to prosecute them, we will destroy the courthouse," ending with the Hawaiian state motto: Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono (the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness).

In response to the security issues, several HPD plainclothes officers with demolition training plant bogus bombs in various locations around the court building at the beginning of the show so McGarrett can demonstrate to the Governor the kind of problems Five-O and the police are up against. One of these cops is Walter Omori, the "mysterious actor" who is never credited.

This opening sequence is very cool — but one wonders why absolutely no one sees or makes a fuss about the cops planting the phony bombs! I especially like the simultaneously-happening "frozen tableau" in the Five-O office, which ends with McGarrett looking sternly at the camera and saying the word "Boom!" as the time on a clock rolls around to twelve noon. ("Boom!" does not appear in the subtitles.)

It is not clear whether the Governor himself ordered this demonstration. We soon see McGarrett and the Governor arriving at the Judiciary Building in the Governor's limousine with a police escort. McGarrett says, "There it is, governor, as ordered. Honolulu Judiciary Building. Pau. Finished, leveled, kaput."

The time is Friday, three days before the preliminary hearing for the seven which is set for 9 a.m. Monday. The Governor tells McGarrett, "The hearing must proceed and it must proceed on schedule. I want Five-O to immediately set up a maximum-security system to protect this building." McGarrett points out to him, "Buildings constructed before the turn of the century don't exactly lend themselves to maximum security. They have too many entrances, exits, too many mazes of corridors. Now, modern courthouses are designed for security. They have underground entrances for defendants, witnesses and judges. But this old building is virtually indefensible." The Governor says, "It has to be done, Steve. Now, use as much HPD manpower as required, but secure this building."

After this, McGarrett goes to the hospital where one of the people living on the commune who was badly beaten named Mary Ann (Cris Callow) has regained consciousness and asked to see him. She IDs two of the seven arrested men, Aiko and Billy Thomas. Her statement is recorded by a court reporter. Mary Ann closes her eyes, but doesn't look like she dies –- there isn't the usual shaking of the doctor's head. Part of the "memories" theme is heard and the doctor looks like he is going to give her an injection of some kind. A woman friend of hers who is in the room has a complete breakdown, saying all Mary Ann wanted was "a peaceful life" and to "raise her baby in peace." Out in the hallway, Manicote, who was also in Mary Ann's room, tells McGarrett, "Steve, that does it. Mary Ann names the sixth and seventh suspects in a deathbed statement and that gives us an airtight case."

McGarrett goes to see the seven defendants in their jail cells, telling them that the charges are going to be upgraded from arson and rape to also include murder one, based on what "a dying girl" told him. He says, "We've got enough to put all of you away for a long, long time." Aiko (Jaudon Kanealii) tells him, "Whoever did it, McGarrett, we ain't sorry it happened. These are our islands. Dig, McGarrett? Ours. Not theirs." When McGarrett wants to know the name of who is making the bomb threats, he is met with silence. He leaves, but not before telling the seven, "This attempt to blackmail justice is not gonna be allowed. With your help or without your help. Nobody is going to stop due process of law here … You understand that? No way. And bet on it."

Outside the court building there are several protestors with signs like "Justice for the Seven" demonstrating and a woman collecting signatures on a petition. A leader of the protesters (Chuck-Chuck Akamine, uncredited) says, "I say, justice for the seven. Justice for the saviors of Hawaii. They're gonna be judged before they even set foot in that courtroom. Look, all they're trying to do is defend our land from the freaks. Okay, okay. What we gotta do is show them that we're staying on back of them. We gotta let them know that we're staying right here. I wanna see a sea of bodies out here Monday morning that will cause the biggest traffic jam in the history of Hawaii. We gotta show them the will of the people. Passive resistance, that's the way. We're gonna fill up all the jails. All right, that's the way our bruddahs gonna know they no stay alone."

One of the people listening to this rant is Abraham Meleha (Manu Tupou), who goes to a shed at Benton Construction Company where he works and steals several sticks of dynamite. His brother David (Patrick Adiarte) buys two "cordless electric direct reading calendar alarm clocks" and other supplies like wire at Uptown Hardware. Another guy named Samuel (Henry Bal) helps Meleha with the bomb.

Meanwhile, Five-O finalize their strategy for securing the building. When finished, McGarrett goes to see the Governor to update him, but the Governor throws him for a loop, telling him, "You set up that security system, you penetrate it … if there is a flaw in that security system, plug it now." In other words, the Governor wants Five-O to break into the building to show this can still be done. McGarrett follows the Governor's orders; as he leaves, the Governor looks exasperated that McGarrett would give him any argument over this.

McGarrett enlists the help of a guy named Ellsworth (Beau Van Den Ecker) to create a distraction at the court building at 1:15 in the morning. (Is he an undercover cop too?) Ellsworth drives his car into the parking lot, running into a traffic control box, causing several cops, including guard dogs, to rush to investigate, especially since the car erupts in flames. Meanwhile, Danno and Ben manage to climb up a wall into the court building, which is ridiculous … they have already accomplished their goal! How they could do this without attracting the attention of the cops who are all over the place is puzzling. As well, they don't remove the grappling hook and rope they used to get to the upper floor of the building where there are no cops at all.

I don't understand what they are doing here, are they supposed to be pretending they are setting up bombs? Ben goes to a room where he almost gets discovered by a cop. Danno goes down to the basement and he avoids some officers on patrol. Both Danno and Ben knock boxes on to the floor while hiding, but the cops who are checking on things don't attribute any particular significance to this.

Danno doesn't seem to be setting up a bomb, he is just snooping around, and is horrified to find a real bomb in the ceiling. It is quite a coincidence that this is exactly the place where Meleha put his bomb … and at what time did the squad of cops surrounding the building take up their positions? Obviously Meleha placed the bombs when he still had access to the building; as well, with the clocks which he was using as timers, he could set up the bombs to detonate hours in advance.

McGarrett soon arrives and takes charge, telling the HPD cops to search the entire building for more bombs. There seem to be plenty of officers that he is giving orders to in the building. McGarrett tells them they have to find the bomb by 8:00 in the morning because that's the time it is supposedly set up to go off (how would he know this?).

Danno, who was already established as a bomb expert in S03E22, "The Bomber and Mrs. Moroney," has some very tense moments as he takes care of Meleha's creation, which has been configured in a "very professional" fashion. Che Fong puts in extra effort, talking to Danno via a radio link and taping their whole conversation.

Considering it is in the middle of the night, an awful lot of stuff suddenly gets done. Duke is asked to check with hardware stores and other suppliers for recent purchase of items which could be used to make a bomb. The HPD computer is enlisted to used to track down the manufacturer of the dynamite which contains the code "86 F 94." The results of this search produce two manufacturers. Chin has to determine if either of them had a recent shipment to Honolulu, who purchased the explosives and in what quantity. Further investigation reveals 11 companies on the islands which do demolition and construction work, employing maybe a hundred people who'd have the know-how to make a bomb. Ben is also assigned to check out hardware stores where the clock might have been purchased. When asked by McGarrett, "Did you wake the owners?" Ben replies, "Sure, when we can track them down." Remember – this is in the middle of the night!

The search for who manufactured the dynamite narrows down to Cramer Explosives Corporation in Camden, New Jersey, who shipped 22 cases of dynamite to Benton Construction Company in Honolulu the previous month. It's around 4:00 in the morning when they go to this company, having awakened some guy to let them into the explosives storage room. It's determined that some dynamite was stolen by Maleha, who is the company's "demolition man."

Danno finishes working on the bomb at 5:16 a.m., but almost immediately is told there is another bomb which has just been discovered in the building!

Meanwhile, Maleha has problems of his own. First, David tried to call the cops. Telling David he can't trust him any more, he ties the kid up and locks him in the garage of his parents' house, where they live. Maleha goes downtown and takes up a position on the roof of a building near the courthouse, with a high-powered rifle. From his vantage point, he watches cops and their efforts to deal with the bombs. No one can see him despite him being at the edge of the building in full view of the police not that far away.

Danno manages to disarm the second bomb, obviously having picked up a lot of confidence from dealing with the first one, which took a very long time. Maleha realizes that the bombs have been diffused, and when the cops bring them out of the building to the bomb squad truck, Meleha intends to shoot the bombs in the cops' hands, thus still causing a lot of damage. Maleha's associate Samuel suddenly gets cold feet and leaves him.

Having gone to Maleha's house where he found David in the garage, McGarrett drives to the Diamond Head Crater via a couple of stock shots and takes a helicopter from there to downtown Honolulu. Meleha meets a nasty end when McGarrett spots him from the helicopter, then pulls out a huge rifle which looks like a machine gun and shoots him dead.

The topography of the courthouse and the building next door where Meleha has positioned himself leaves a lot to be desired, much like most of the action for the last part of the show – in other words "don't think too hard about it." Unfortunately, the show ends with shots of Meleha's dead body followed by the bombs being removed from the courthouse and we don't find out what happened with the trial!

The music by Ray is a mish-mash of stock cues, but it works well in the context of the show.

CASUALTY LIST:

Death: Mary Ann dies of injuries received during raid on hippie compound.
Death: Abraham Meleha shot multiple times by McGarrett with an AR-15.

MORE TRIVIA:

• There is no promo for this episode on the fifth season DVD set. Whether one exists is not known.
• I don't understand why the "digital battery-operated clock" used as a trigger device for Meleha's bombs ticks.
• Danno determines that the typewriter with broken letters used to produce the threatening letters was an Underwood.
• McGarrett whips out a magnifying glass when he is looking at the first bomb.
• Meleha's parents are played by Lippy Espinda and Javer Bowden.
• McGarrett addresses Mary Ann as "honey."
• Meleha says to Samuel that the government will "hang our blood brothers," despite the fact that capital punishment in Hawaii was abolished in 1957.
• The house where Meleha lives with his parents is near the corner of 12th Avenue and Bethshan Road (thanks to Fred Helfing). It is at 3610 Bethshan Road, looking much different today.
• When McGarrett goes into the garage where Meleha has his workshop, it looks like the right rear shoulder of his jacket is damaged or dirty.

GALLERY:

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109. (S05E13) “I’m A Family Crook — Don’t Shoot!” ★★★★  BOOK HIM 

QUICK PLOT:

A family of con artists gets in big trouble when they rip off an attaché case from the bagman of a local mobster.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

This is my nomination for the funniest episode of Classic Five-O, which is pretty funny, because a lot of the humor results from people being murdered and blown up.

It is really different from (and much better than) another episode about con artists, S06E17, "One Born Every Minute." That show annoyed me because the scammers are so nasty and their victims are so stupid. As well, there are three stock players supporting guest stars Ed Flanders and Lynette Mettey, and it is difficult to accept these three – Jimmy Borges, Doug Mossman and Tommy Fujiwara, especially the last – as being really crooked. Michael Strong, one of the tourists who is seriously conned in the show, keeps looking at them as if to say "Are you people for real?", aside from the fact his character really wants to get into Mettey's pants.

"I'm A Family Crook" is priceless and should be in everyone's list of top shows. The script by Jerome Coopersmith, direction by Bob Sweeney and the score by Morton Stevens (right up there with the one he wrote for S03E11, about Lewis Avery Filer who drove McGarrett and Five-O crazy) are all outstanding. So is the acting by the family of scammers: Andy Griffith as Arnold Lovejoy, Joyce Van Patten as his wife Rhoda and Kimberly Louis as their precocious daughter Melissa.

Griffith, with a twinkle in his eye, almost exudes a certain innocence, and is the member of the team who keeps a cool head, even when his wife flies off the handle. The actress playing Melissa, who only has one other entry at IMDb, is such a scene-stealer.

After a relatively straightforward scam which opens the show where some money is found and the woman who found it with Rhoda will "share" it after certain legal fees are paid to Arnold, pretending to be a lawyer (and of course, she will never see the scammers again), things get more serious when the three steal an attaché case full of money (almost $100,000) from Frank Butrell (Bryan da Silva), the bagman for local gangster Charlie Walters (Bob Basso).

This happens at the same time as Five-O is watching Butrell with the intention of busting him and so is Shibata (Seth Sakai), another local gangster, who wants to steal the case containing the money and especially its "little black book" to muscle in and take over Walters' territory. Shibata is following Butrell around in a Lincoln Continental driven by Moe Keale; one of the thugs accompanying Shibata is played by Harold Sakata, who was "Oddjob" in the classic James Bond film Goldfinger.

There are some great sequences in this show:

• When Butrell returns to Walters' place without his case containing the money and starts snivelling about being conned, Walters shoots him dead. Walters' goon Willie (the menacing Elvis-like Nick Nickolas) asks, "Suppose he was telling us the truth?" and Walters says, "I made a terrible mistake"
• After Five-O's stakeout on Butrell is a flop, McGarrett arrives at Walters' place and just pushes Willie out of the way as he enters.
• Arnold puts the attaché case in a large suitcase and takes it to the hotel manager Roebling (H.F. Hap Kollmeyer), wanting to put the whole thing in the hotel safe. He says, "We're the Lovejoys, Suite 412 … That is, that's the name we're travelling under. Fashion design, one must take precautions. Industrial espionage. You know? Sneaky peeky … We have these darling Hawaiian designs for our new fall show. No one must see them before publication. You know what I mean?" Arnold, who is being just a tiny bit swishy, lays his hand on that of the manager, who looks like he is going to recoil in horror.
• Walters' thugs blast the door to Sakata's warehouse to pieces with their guns, and then Willie breaks it down anyway, dusting off his jacket after he is finished.
• After Sakata and his two men try to escape from Walters, his car is dynamited and pieces of it fly up in the air, including Sakata's pimp-like hat.
• The family goes to a waterfront bar where they encounter Mr. Quan, a sleazy ship captain, played by Kwan Hi Lim, trying to arrange passage out of the country by sea rather than by air. (Would Melissa have been allowed in such a place?)
• The way the whole family puts on sunglasses simultaneously, as if this somehow makes them invisible.
• Arnold and Rhoda go to see a priest (Grady Sutton), with Arnold pretending that he just got out of jail and has reformed. They borrow the priest's car to "to move some of our stuff out of storage," and sell it to finance their trip out of the country by ship.

The best part of the film is the end. After Melissa is kidnapped by Walters, the Lovejoys finally co-operate with Five-O, and they return the money, except some of it has been made radioactive, which Che Fong is able to identify, much to Walters' disgust, resulting in him being arrested. The Lovejoys are sent back to the mainland without any charges, as long as they promise never to come back to Hawaii. (Melissa is the one who first chirps up that they will indeed not come back.)

Without knowing that Ben is a cop, they are driven to the airport and try to pull a scam on the way, "finding" some money on the floor of his car, which they offer to share with him. Ben shows them his badge and turns around, smiling. This is probably one scene from the entire series where you will remember Ben, because he was even more of a "yes" man than the guy he replaced, Zulu!

CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: Mr. Frazier punched with brass knuckles by Frank Butrell.
Death: Butrell shot three times by Charlie Walters.
Injury: Shibata’s thug slapped by Walters.
Death (x3): Shibata and his two thugs are blown up in a spectacular manner after their vehicle is wired with dynamite.

MORE TRIVIA:

• There is no promo for this episode on the fifth season DVD set. Whether one exists is not known.
• It takes just over 5 and a half minutes after the beginning of the first act before the main titles finally appear.
• During the discussion on their operation to nab Butrell, McGarrett refers to him as Charlie Walters' bagman, but then says "Charlie Walker."
• When Lovejoy imitates a cop, his badge number is 795.
• A real street corner is shown — Waialae Ave. (3640 block) and Kokohead Avenue (1200 block). Several Honolulu businesses are nearby, including Far East Chop Suey, with phone numbers of 732-9216 and 734-3060. Butrell is shown coming out of the Rattan Art Gallery at 3638 Waialae Avenue, identified as a "furniture store." This building is still there, it's a branch of Goodwill.
• Near Shibata's office is the Mitsuwa Kamaboko (Japanese fishcake) Factory Ltd. at 151 Ahui Street. The latter's sign has 5-digit phone numbers, possibly because this building had not been used for several years. The sign from this company says that they make chikuwa, age, uzumaki, kushi, yokan and kanten in addition to kamaboko.
• After Butrell fruitlessly tries to go after Melissa, who stole his attaché case, Rhoda must really run like hell back around a corner to get picked up by Arnold, who is waiting in his car with his daughter. The topography of this area makes total sense.
• The Honolulu Advertiser has a headline "Mob Figure Slain" in huge World War II style headlines. The accompanying article is made up of random lines of text, though it has a byline of staff writer William Bailey. The sub-head on this story is "Gangland Victim Found Shot to Death In Mamala Bay." Other headlines on the page include "Planners Outline Zoning Purposes," "Eight Judges Selected For Brotherhood," and "Historical Contest Winner Will Compete Again Sunday." A caption under the picture says "Frank Butrell in happier days." Melissa buys this newspaper from their hotel gift shop where the clerk is Fred Ball (uncredited). John Alexis Howard (also uncredited) is a customer at the gift shop.
• When George Herman as "The Doctor" is testing the money that the Lovejoys return to Walters, it looks like he is using the same chemicals in bottles with blue caps that Norman Cargill used in S06E11, "The Finishing Touch."
• At one point Melissa says she wants to go to a "GP" movie. According to an explanation by Motion Picture Association of America boss Jack Valenti: "[O]n November 1, 1968, we announced the birth of the new voluntary film rating system of the motion picture industry.... The initial design called for four rating categories: G for General Audiences, all ages admitted; M for mature audiences — parental guidance suggested, but all ages admitted; R for Restricted, children under 16 would not be admitted without an accompanying parent or adult guardian; (later raised to under 17 years of age, (and varies in some jurisdictions)); X for no one under 17 admitted ... We found early on that the M category (M meaning "Mature") was regarded by most parents as a sterner rating than the R category. To remedy this misconception, we changed the name from M to GP (meaning General audiences, Parental guidance suggested). A year later we revised the name to its current label, 'PG: Parental Guidance Suggested.'"
• A slide projector used in the Five-O office at the beginning of the show has huge python-like hoses attached to the back of it, ostensibly for cooling purposes.
• A Honolulu transit bus seen during the show is going to "Navy – Main Gate."
• After they open the attaché case which is full of cash, Harold calls the hotel operator, wanting to speak to the airlines desk in the hotel lobby so they can make reservations to get back to the mainland fast. But Rhoda tells him "First place they're gonna look is the airlines. They're gonna figure we're gonna skip with the money" and then he hangs up! Surely the hotel operator would have heard all this.
• At the Hula Hotel, where the Lovejoys are staying, the Restaurant Paniolo is located off the lobby. A Honolulu newspaper ad from 1971 suggests a restaurant by this name was located at the corner of Hotel and Richards, but I don't think that is the location of this hotel in the show.
• Just before they are kidnapped by Shibata's people, the Lovejoys' room has been tossed. But after they avoid getting found by Walters at Shibata's warehouse and return to the room with the intention of leaving town (and Five-O shows up at the door), the room is back to normal.
• There is a reference to the "coconut wireless," meaning "the local grapevine."

GALLERY:

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110. (S05E14) “The Child Stealers” ★★★½  BOOK THEM 

QUICK PLOT:

After young children are abducted in Hawaii, Five-O tracks them to a child-adoption racket on the Mainland run by a crooked attorney.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

The first Five-O appearance by Richard Hatch ("Richard Lawrence Hatch" in the credits) is by far the best of his three in the series. He plays the peculiarly-named Gar who partners with Nina (Meg Foster) to kidnap children and sell them to the High View Children's Home, a California adoption agency run by sleazy lawyer Eugene Goodman (Richard Anderson). Their dream is to use the money they make to buy a boat and "be free."

Gar and Nina are living with no apparent means of support, other than the $5,000 they receive for each child they bring to Goodman. The first baby they brought was their own son Michael. They have brought two more since, one taken from the Orringer family on the Big Island six months ago and Andy, an eight-week old boy whose parents are Martin Empson (Jack Hogan) and his wife (Brooks Almy), stolen at the beginning of the show from in front of a Honolulu drugstore.

Gar and Nina pretend to be bringing children to Goodman from unwed mothers in Hawaii who are their friends. They are very selective, not choosing Asian children or those with some defect like "a withered arm." In other words, they only steal perfect white kids. They bring various paperwork like birth certificates with them that are filled out with bogus information. Goodman wonders about the "friends" who provide the children; he asks Gar, "Haven't you people ever heard of The Pill?"

Gar really doesn't like children. After they grab the Empson child and are on their way to the airport to Los Angeles, he tells Nina, "Can't you keep that kid quiet?" When they get to L.A. and are staying in a dumpy motel, Nina tells him to keep his voice down so maybe Andy will sleep. Gar says, "You see, just having a kid around for one night gets to be a drag."

The Empsons broadcast an emotional appeal on KGMB-TV several days later, and of course Gar and Nina, who have returned to Hawaii by then, are watching. Nina is very upset by the parents' pleas, and she has been acting antsy about Gar's plans for their future. Although she wants to run away on a boat with him, she also wants a child of their own which they will not give away for adoption.

McGarrett's way of dealing with the kidnapped child is extreme, prefacing his brainstorm with "Suppose, just suppose…" First, he wants Danno to check local hospitals for footprints and fingerprints of both missing children. Then he wants the Five-O team to "get in touch with every state adoption agency in the country" via a central computer in Washington, D.C. Finally, he wants them to "check the identities of every Hawaiian infant born within the last six months who have been adopted anywhere." He says, "I don't care how long it takes. I don't wanna hear anything about the needle in the haystack either."

All the appropriate information is duly obtained, and McGarrett and Ben jump on a plane to Los Angeles where some of the information collected points to Goodman's "home." Ben has fun with the Mills family trying to get finger and footprints from their screaming adopted child which is the one taken from the Orringers. When McGarrett shows up at High View, Goodman gives him all the right answers, though he pays attention when McGarrett accuses him of being involved in kidnapping. Asked to ID the couple who brought in the last two children, Goodman says he cannot do that without a court order. In a great scene, McGarrett pulls one out of his pocket and slaps it on Goodman's chest, saying "I gave you the chance to cooperate voluntarily," meaning that Goodman is now screwed. YES!

Che Fong determines that the forged birth certificates were printed by Alton Keale (Keala in the subtitles, played by Moe Keale) at Speedoprint in Honolulu. He does this by comparing some letters on the certificates to a business card for Gregory Ray, Insurance Agent at 3045 Pualei Circle, Honolulu (923-1256). This suggests that Che has a large database-like collection of local printing samples. When Chin Ho, smoking his pipe, and Danno go to Speedoprint, Keale tells them that Gar was just there the day before, which means he will soon be kidnapping another child and going back to Los Angeles.

This is exactly what happens. Gar and Nina want to purchase a sailboat, but they are about $5,000 short of the asked price. Despite Nina's objections, the two of them work a scam where Gar steals another child from a house while Nina distracts the mother pretending to be a charity worker for "The Woman's March Against Birth Defects."

Five-O is soon at the airport watching for suspicious activity, and Gar shows up and provides them with this, trying to get a ticket for L.A. with the sedated kid in a carry-on bag. Both Nina and Gar are busted, the latter after a chase outside the airport terminal building. The result: "Book them."

CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: Baby kidnapped by Gar and Nina is sedated and put into rattan bag.

MORE TRIVIA:

• There is no promo for this episode on the fifth season DVD set. Whether one exists is not known.
• When Che Fong comes to the Empsons' house to set up a phone tap, he is driving a van for Al Phillips Cleaner/Launderer, an actual business in Honolulu (which is still there in 2020).
• Fred Helfing tracked down the street where the Empsons live, Kaminaka Drive (the background was somewhat different before). Their house is at 1436 Kaminaka Drive.
• During their last kidnapping, the baby slobbers all over Meg Foster's arm. Gar is very frustrated because he figures Goodman is "in trouble," and rather than abandon their trip to the mainland, Gar tells Nina, "There's other cities. There's other Mr. Goodmans. All we have to do is pick a place, okay?"
• The score is stock, it uses the trombone interval theme several times.
• After the Empsons' son is kidnapped, Gar takes an Ernie's Cab to the airport after ditching his stolen car. His voice is looped with someone's other than Hatch's.
• There is a stock shot featuring an orange truck as the Park Lane goes over a bridge. This was originally driven by McGarrett in a previous episode, though in this one, the car contains Danno and Chin going to Speedoprint. You can see there is just a single person in the car.
• A plot synopsis at IMDb says that Gar and Nina are "a hippie couple." I don't think so. Hello, I grew up in the sixties, I know what a "hippie" is!

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111. (S05E15) “Thanks For The Honeymoon” ★★★  BOOK HIM 

QUICK PLOT:

A convicted woman agrees to turn state's evidence against a mobster if McGarrett releases her from prison and arranges her wedding to the father of her unborn child.

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REVIEW:

Anyone who felt Patty Duke was kind of a goody-goody based on her 1960s comedy show will get a shock from this episode, where she is Toni, a tough-talking broad who wants to make a deal with D.A. Manicote, who calls her a "monster."

When Manicote shows up with McGarrett in the jail (at HPD?) which is very dark and claustrophobic, she commends the D.A. for getting to the "mother-lovin' point" when he tells her to cut the crap. Toni wants "out" in exchange for nailing King Manola (Lane Bradford), later described as "king of narcotics and vice" (whose first name actually is "King"). Toni's testimony should result in a charge of first degree murder for Manola's recent killing of "a creep named Victor Delgado." She tells them she saw Manola commit the murder "with his own two hands ... with my own two eyes." For this she wants immunity and the charges against her and her boyfriend Marty Walker (Larry Kert) reduced to "simple robbery." And, considering she is pregnant, she wants to marry Marty in a "real church" (not the chapel in the jail), followed by "a weekend in a suite at a top hotel." The charges against her are not specified; McGarrett mentions "the guard with Marty's bullet in his chest," which sounds like they tried to pull off a bank robbery.

Toni figures that Manicote will go for her plan nailing Manola rather than putting away "a couple of small fries" like her and Marty, and she has Manicote convinced. But McGarrett totally doesn't like this deal. He strong-arms Manicote out into the hall, saying "The whole deal stinks," and calls Toni "a pathological liar" in a voice surely loud enough for her to hear in her nearby cell. When they return, she tells them "I want the kid to have a legit father. I want the wedding, the honeymoon, the works ... then I'll sit in solitary [to be protected from Manola]." McGarrett pushes buttons on a tape recorder they have brought and tells her to start talking "from the top."

Toni tells them that on Thursday, February 8, having recently arrived from Detroit with a letter of introduction to Manola from some "fat cat" named Emil St. Clair, she was the one who set up Delgado to meet with him. She says that Manola got her and Marty to do this because they were "new on the Island … no record, nothing … like virgins."

We jump to a location near the Diamond Head Tunnel, the area where James Hong got knocked off in S02E01 which is also seen in numerous other shows. Toni is giving McGarrett, Manicote, Ben and Duke a tour of where Delgado's killing took place. Toni says that Manola went "ape [shit]." Marty was the one who held Delgado while Manola punched him out, then Manola told the pair to "get lost." But after the two left and rounded a nearby corner with a loud squealing of brakes, which Manola surely would have heard, Toni went back and surreptitiously witnessed Manola putting Delgado in his car and pushing it over a nearby cliff.

There are a couple of problems with this sequence. There is no cliff near the Diamond Head Tunnel which goes down to the ocean as seen. In fact, the shot of the car falling down the cliff is taken from S03E15, "Paniolo," where sleazy real estate agent Lester Cronin is put in his car and pushed down a cliff on Maui. Toni says that she almost cracked up, because someone had painted above the place where she was spying on Manola "Down with pushers, legalize pot" which is to the left of what looks like a drain pipe. But in the flashback, this is not seen and the only thing painted on a wall is "Carrie & Bobby." There is also some metal thing which looks like a bunker door or exhaust seen on the right side of where Toni is standing in the flashback; when she is there later, this metal thing is not there and you can see parts of "Carrie & Bobby" behind her. With Toni finished spying in the flashback, the two of them split from the scene (again with a squealing of tires).

When Marty, who was also in jail somewhere, is later brought to meet Toni in what looks like Manicote's office, he doesn't want to go through with the ceremony and honeymoon, saying "McGarrett can protect us here." But Toni insists on realizing her plan, which takes place in a quaint Honolulu church with a large contingent of well-armed cops present. McGarrett gets a big surprise, because the maid of honor at the ceremony is Margo Cooper, a newspaperwoman who "does picture stories for all the big magazines," and who is a former flame of McGarrett's. McGarrett is the one who gives Toni away during the ceremony. The priest seems very perturbed by the number of cops inside the church.

McGarrett has ordered an HPD helicopter to ferry the newlyweds to the Turtle Bay Resort (known at the time as Del Webb's Kuilima Resort Hotel & Country Club). This is as far away from downtown Honolulu as you can get, over 40 miles. It will be seen again soon in S06E15, "The Flip Side Is Death." Security is very tight with a huge contingent of cops. If the couple violate any of McGarrett's rules, which are numerous, the honeymoon — which is only going to last for 24 hours — will be immediately over.

Although a decoy location for the honeymoon was set up in Kahala, word through the grapevine has obviously gotten out that the two lovebirds are at the Kuiliama Resort, because the nerdy Vincent (Richard Collier), using the name Charlie Culligan, shows up there. He is working for Manola and trying to figure out how to knock Toni and Marty off. In a loud-mouthed tourist voice, he tells the desk clerk that he left Waikiki because it was "crawling with hippies." After trying to unsuccessfully check out the sixth floor where the honeymooners are enjoying themselves, Vincent returns to Manola and reports the place is impossible to crack.

However, the hairy-chested non-Hawaiian-looking Manola has an ace up his sleeve in the form of Dr. Harlow (George Herman) who has come up with a gizmo which will generate and release cyanide gas, killing the honeymooning duo. It is shown having killed a mouse in a test run, which, if it was real, should have alerted the SPCA. Considering Vincent has distances in the hotel down to an exact science, even though he only had a brief look at the sixth floor when he pretended to have pushed the wrong elevator button, Harlow's gizmo is transferred to a food cart with dinner heading to the honeymoon suite when a "housemaid" who is obviously in on the deception distracts Chin Ho and the hotel employee bringing the food by pretending to faint.

While this is going on, McGarrett and his former love Margo are engaged in some smooching on a couch in a nearby room. Previously we have seen them holding hands and walking on the beach, reminiscing about their former relationship. She knows that they have been separated for "8 years, 2 months, [and] a couple of days." She had a chance to go to China, even interview Chairman Mao, but passed it up for this assignment.

Margo used to live in Honolulu. After she broke up with McGarrett, she tells him she "went through a long debate whether to kill myself or to kill you." Instead, she took a job with an underground newspaper in Chicago, after which she went to Vietnam, where she ended up staying a year. McGarrett says some of the things she filed from there that he read were "first class."

The "memories" theme has been heard a couple of times. Margo tells McGarrett, they are "a couple of uncommitted consenting adults." She wonders if they could "keep it going" because "we had something special going." McGarrett even wonders if she wants to get married. But she leaves him tearfully, realizing getting together again won't work out, and this is "the wrong time, the wrong place."

McGarrett is brought back to his job quickly when he hears a knocking noise as Marty tries to get rid of the device leaking cyanide. As McGarrett and Toni wait for news from the doctor as to whether Marty will survive, he realizes that she had no intention of testifying against Manola. But when the doctor (Morgan Sha'an) brings bad news, Toni lets out a loud scream and quickly changes her mind.

What happens is a repeat of the end of S01E11, "Deathwatch," where a protected witness also in a hotel was announced as having died, only to confront some über-criminal and seal his doom. Manola shows up at McGarrett's office, arriving in a white Cadillac, having been out of town for a few days, and the two of them engage in the usual pussyfooting banter. Then Toni, who the TV news said had died, is brought into the room, and you can see the blood run out of Manola's face as she tells him, "You shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't have killed Marty." Manola is booked and led away.

The premise for this show is kind of preposterous, but generally speaking it is OK, and gives us a look at McGarrett from the angle of "Does he have a life?"

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: Delgado kicks Manola.
Injury: Manola punches Delgado unconscious.
Death: Delgado placed in his car which is pushed off cliff by Manola.
Injury (x2): Toni and Marty poisoned via cyanide by Manola, Vincent and Dr. Harlow.
Death: Marty dies of cyanide poisoning.

MORE TRIVIA:

• When Toni and Marty are about to eat their fancy dinner, including duck à l'orange, Toni ironically comments, "Our last supper."
• On the TV news which Manola watches after the cyanide incident, the announcer says they have "remarkable pictures" of the death and near-death scene in the hotel room taken by Margo. But only one picture is shown. As well, Margo took that picture when standing up as she came into the room with McGarrett, before he kicked her out because of the "deadly poison" gas. The picture shown on the news was taken from floor level. In real life, Marty was on his stomach, but when seen on TV, he was lying on his right side facing the camera. (Thanks to Kurt Tappe for this last observation.)
• Larry Kert & Carol Lawrence, two of the stars of the show, originated the roles of Tony & Maria in West Side Story on Broadway in 1957. Interestingly, Kert played Tony, which is the same name as his wife in this show.
• Toni mentions Thursday, February 8 as the day Manola knocked off Delgado. This show was broadcast on January 9, 1973, and February 8 in the next month was a Thursday.
• Quote from McGarrett to Manola: "Death always bothers me."
• When Toni goes to take a shower in the honeymoon suite, she opens the locked door so Marty can join her, after he says "Come on, I mean, we're married now."
• Manola's belt buckle is a peace symbol.
• The "trombone interval" theme is heard. The score is by Ray.

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112. (S05E16) “The Listener” ★★★

QUICK PLOT:

A psychotic electronics wizard threatens a psychiatrist and his patients through a series of ingenious electronic bugs.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

A diabolical psycho who is an electronics genius with an IQ of 170 calling himself Cerberus (Greg Mullavey) bugs the office (suite #802), home and car (red Cadillac, license #28-402) of psychiatrist Eric Fowler (Robert Foxworth), who once turned him down as a poor treatment risk. The name Cerberus comes from Greek mythology, and is the name given to a three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hell.

In his heavy breathing voice, Cerberus tells Fowler, "I'm wired into you." He says he knows all about Fowler's patients' "secrets [and] dirty little perversions." Cerebrus says he wants $5,000, "or I'll finish you and your sickies," a figure that becomes inflated as the show goes on. Fowler tells him that he will not be threatened or blackmailed, a bad move.

Fowler contacts Five-O who brings Che Fong to his office to scope the place out for bugs. There are no issues with the phones, either Fowler's office phone or his private line, but when Che finds a microphone in the room, Cerebrus' voice is suddenly heard, telling McGarrett to get his hands off it.

McGarrett orders Che to remove all the devices from the room, which motivates Cerebrus to phone Bobby Martinelli (Radames Pera), a young patient of Fowler's. Cerberus plays back a tape where the doctor was talking to Bobby's mother Angela (Lisa Pera) about her son's condition — glioma, a fatal form of brain tumour. Bobby freaks out and is taken to the hospital where he is put under restraint. Fowler shows up and assures Bobby that his growth is benign – which is actually not true, Bobby is dying. Fowler tells McGarrett, "That's one lie I'll never regret."

McGarrett tells his men, "I want the names and addresses of painters, plumbers, any men working in [Fowler's] building." Ben finds there is a major lapse in security because the building manager's room is constantly open with access to keys for the offices. After a bug is found inside Fowler's jacket, McGarrett tells Chin Ho to track down every outlet on the island which sells these devices. Che Fong determines that these "body bugs" have a maximum transmitting range of 2.9 miles. McGarrett wants a "sound tracking room rigged right now, as close to the doctor's office as possible" where Che can monitor calls that are received.

Fowler offers help to Cerebrus, who laughs at him and ups the blackmail price to $10,000. The doctor is trying to keep his antagonist on the phone as long as possible, and Che is able to triangulate his possible location, but when the cops go there, it is a bust.

Five-O manages to talk to Fowler by getting him to come to the office while pretending to work out at his gym, but Cerebrus is later suspicious about this. Fowler tells McGarrett that when he and his wife Carol (Elissa Fontes ) came back from a holiday recently, they found evidence that their house – where Cerebrus can now carry on conversations through the stereo system – had been "cased."

When he returns home, Fowler and his wife are both harassed by Cerebrus, who threatens to play tapes of the doctor having sex with his girlfriend Sharon when he and his wife were separated: "I'll make her [his wife] listen to them in every corner of this house, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the hallway, morning, noon and night." Cerebrus is really a Class A dirtbag!

Fowler goes to the bank and gets the $10,000 blackmail money after Cerebrus mocks him, wondering how it feels "to be licking the boots of a full-blown psycho." Fowler is instructed via his car radio to drive on the freeway and throw the bag containing the money over the railing at a certain point so it lands far below. Che Fong uses a black box with an antenna on top and headphones, tracking a bug in the bag. When Danno and HPD cops, who are following Fowler, locate the bag with Che's help, the money is gone and Cerebrus is watching them from a hill nearby. This is the first time we actually see his face in full, at around 34:45 into the show.

Fowler phones some of his patients and tells them his practice is being put on hold, saying they should beware of anyone calling and playing tapes over the phone. Cerebrus phones Eva Haynes (Linda Ryan), one of the patients who Fowler called. She is a woman artist who is distraught over the fact she let her baby daughter accidentally die, even though the child died from status asthmaticus, "a physical weakness she was born with [which] would have happened no matter where she was," according to Fowler. Haynes just recently tried to commit suicide by swallowing a full bottle of sleeping pills, and is in a very fragile state. Cerebrus harasses her over the phone to the point where she leaps from her apartment balcony, committing suicide.

To try and get Cerebrus out of the 2.9-mile range near Fowler's office and home so he can be tracked and caught, Five-O concocts a psychiatric emergency at a hospital "out in the boondocks" (on Oahu – huh?). Cerebrus is too clever, though, and phones the hospital and confirms that the patient Fowler is supposedly going to see is a fake.

Five-O determines that the patient of Fowler's who Cerebrus will likely go after next is Mary Dalton (Patricia Herman), a hypochondriac. A trace is set up on Dalton's phone and Chin Ho is able to trace the call Cerebrus is making from a pay phone at the Kahala Mall in FIFTY-FOUR SECONDS, which is absolutely astounding. When Five-O and the cops arrive in the vicinity of this phone, Cerebrus tries to escape, but is cornered and McGarrett delivers a solid right hook to his face. Cerebrus is busted and taken away.

Most of this show consists of episodes of the far-too-clever Cerebrus outwitting people through his ingenious electrical wizardry to the point where Five-O and the cops constantly run up against a wall. It's sort of like the classical Greek myth of Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill. You must have major-league suspension of belief concerning all these things that Cerebrus is capable of doing. At the end, we find that the very clever Cerebrus works for the post office, and while he was supposedly very smart, was the mailman for Fowler's building!

I really don't understand much about the ending of the episode. After Fowler calls some of his patients to let them know he is stopping their treatment, another doctor named Paul (John Hunt) calls about Mary Dalton, but Fowler says he doesn't want to talk about this on the phone. Fowler then pretends to be taking a nap after making it "really obvious" he is tired by yawning loudly, something I'm sure that Cerebrus could see through immediately. Danno has left a suitcase containing a "Stenotape" which is presumably an endless loop tape which would sound like Fowler snoring or something, though a Stenotape in real life was a small reel-to-reel recorder. The one in the show that we see is just a normal portable cassette recorder, though endless loop tape cassettes were available for those machines.

Fowler changes clothes with some that Danno left along with the Stenotape, so that he can go see McGarrett downstairs. But wouldn't Cerebrus be able to hear noise when Fowler's clothes were being removed? There is presumably a gap of 30-40 minutes in the story here when Fowler is supposed to be "sleeping," because Ben goes to the hospital to set up the scam for the patient who is having an emergency (see above).

Fowler eventually heads in that direction, but after the scam doesn't work, McGarrett, Danno and Fowler have a postmortem outdoors somewhere, which seems like not a good idea, because if Cerebrus was within 2.9 miles of them, he would be able to hear the conversation via the bugs on Fowler's clothing or maybe from one in his car. Fowler leaves his car in the middle of nowhere and McGarrett and Danno drive him to Mary's place, which is also outside the 2.9 mile limit. Fowler changes his clothes again, this time with Danno, which doesn't make sense, the two are quite different in size and height (5′7½″ for McArthur vs. 5′10″ for Foxworth). Danno is told by McGarrett to "take a walk, go to a movie, whatever, but don't talk to anybody," but wouldn't this immediately make Cerebrus suspicious?

Cerebrus just happens to call Mary (who Fowler identified as someone that Cerebrus "indicated some hatred for" — he previously referred to her as "Crazy Mary" … "a screeching crow") and plays back a recording of a conversation with Fowler about her high blood pressure (Doctor Paul in his conversation earlier suggested that she was likely going to have a stroke). Fowler just happens to take the phone away from Mary when the "gory details" of the call are revealed.

I think the story kind of ran out of gas. They had all these scenarios where they are trying to catch Cerebrus, and something goes wrong, over and over. Finally they had to end this story, so the writer gave up!

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: Bobby Martinelli hospitalized after hearing taped conversation between Dr. Eric Fowler and his mother about his terminal condition.
Injury: Eva Haines attempts suicide by taking a bottle of sleeping pills but has second thoughts, later recovers at the hospital.
Death: Eva commits suicide by jumping from her apartment building after Cerebrus goads her into it over the phone.
Injury: Cerberus punched out by McGarrett in order to be subdued.

MORE TRIVIA:

• Fowler's phone number is 555-6321, a pay phone that Cerberus uses at the Kahala Mall is 768-3200. The Oahu Health Club has two phone numbers: 786-2300 and 589-0599.
• McGarrett uses his transparent map to try and determine the range of Cerberus's listening devices.
• Stock shots of cop cars are seen.
• Fowler withdraws the blackmail money from the Bank of Hawaii at 4634 Kilauea Avenue, which was still a location for this bank as of June 2019. Crappy rock music is heard on his car radio as he drives to deliver the cash.
• We get a look at Che Fong's lab, where there are several direct link "batphones" on the wall. One is for HPD Liaison, one for the phone company, another for the FCC and yet another for McGarrett's office.
• The villain's real name is never revealed; neither are details concerning whether he was someone that Fowler dealt with before.
• When Mary tells Fowler she thinks she has hepatitis, the doctor tells her she has "cutis ruber, suntan." But I can't find any reference to this term.
• The hospital involved in the scam emergency, "North Shore Valley Hospital in lettuce country," is actually Castle Memorial Hospital seen in S01E13, "King of the Hill," now known as Adventist Health Castle (thanks to Fred).

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113. (S05E17) “Here Today ... Gone Tonight” BOMB – NO STARS!  BOOK HER 

QUICK PLOT:

Five-O has to solve the riddle of how a suspected killer could appear to be in two places at the same time.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

Up to a certain point, this episode is interesting, but then it becomes totally stupid. I can't help but feeling something went seriously wrong between the show's conception and its broadcast. It was written by Jerome Coopersmith and directed by Michael O'Herlihy, who were together responsible for ten Five-O shows including my favorite episode, "Nine Dragons." (The others were "Death's Name Is Sam," "Murder: Eyes Only," "Murder Is A Taxing Affair," "Murder With A Golden Touch," "The Sunday Torch," "Wednesday, Ladies Free," "Why Wait Till Uncle Kevin Dies?" and "Will The Real Mr. Winkler Please Die?")

Monte Markham plays Barry Dean, vice-president of Fleming Industries, some über-organization which controls over two hundred corporations worldwide. Dean's boss, Peter Fleming (Douglas Kennedy), is paranoid in a manner similar to Howard Hughes, especially after surviving three murder attempts. His office is on the top of a building with elaborate security precautions for anyone who wants to visit. To see Fleming, you have to be frisked by one of two guards played by Clarence Garcia (Charlie) and Doug Mossman (Dave), go through a metal detector, have your photo taken and then insert your identity card into a reader. Fleming's attractive and younger-looking wife June (Madlyn Rhue) can reportedly come and go without these conditions at any time she pleases.

At her husband's request, Dean escorts June to a party hosted by the Governor, though he is not seen together with her there. Fleming told Dean he wanted him to "sound out the Governor on his plans for putting a highway through the Ewa Forest Preserve" and to "let the Governor know that I'm prepared to offer him a package deal: demolition, engineering, road construction. He won't have to deal with three separate companies." Dean approaches McGarrett and says he wants to reveal lots of "ugly facts" about his boss and Fleming Industries, including "embezzlement, stock fraud, tax evasion and bribery of public officials." But Dean wants to meet with McGarrett on his own terms, which involves going into hiding until Fleming is arrested.

Later, further conditions imposed on McGarrett via Whitelaw (Lawrence Montaigne), representing the now-in-hiding Dean, include him taking a trip alone and unarmed by a helicopter to a secret location where he will meet the whistleblower. McGarrett seems to feel he requires the Governor's approval to deal with this unusual case. The Governor gets all anal, saying "I'm not sending you out unarmed on a game of blind man's bluff." As well, the Governor says he wants McGarrett to personally be in charge of security for an upcoming visit by the President. The bottom line for McGarrett dealing with Dean — despite the potential for a huge scandal since Fleming Industries has 18 contracts with the state government — is "no." I totally don't get why McGarrett is so subservient to the Governor — this seems really out of character, at least this far along in the series.

With Dean's approval, Danno takes McGarrett's place. He is seemingly flown via helicopter to Dean's secret hideout on Maui. (The helicopter pilot is played by Dick Brady, uncredited, who was the villainous Victor in "The Singapore File.") While Danno is there, Dean has an attack of angina, similar to one he had when he met McGarrett at the party earlier, and is unavailable for around 25 minutes. During this time frame, Dean arrives at Fleming's office back in Honolulu, passes the security inspection, and once inside the place, taking a gun which Fleming's can-enter-with-no-conditions wife left for him in the office (more about this below), shoots his boss dead! Then he returns to the house on Maui (or so it seems) where he is interviewed by Danno.

McGarrett is totally puzzled after Fleming's murder is discovered, since there is seemingly incontrovertible proof that Dean was nowhere near the scene of the crime. He was in Danno's presence on Maui, aside from the 25-minute gap where he was being treated by his servant/bodyguard Nathaniel (George Oshiro) for his heart condition. There is no way that Dean could have gotten from Maui to Honolulu, shot and killed Fleming, and then returned to Maui in 25 minutes! A check with some web sites suggests it would take between 30 and 40 minutes for a helicopter trip one-way between Maui and Oahu.

Che Fong uses fingerprints to prove that Danno really was in the "Maui house" and analyzes Dean's voice via some computer-like gizmo to determine that the voice on a tape recording that Danno made there is Dean's.

It turns out that Dean has hot pants for Fleming's wife June (the feeling from her towards him is mutual), and the two of them plotted the murder, intending to get together after living apart for several months. Only with the help of investigator Bella Morgan (Sandra Smith) from Inter-Island Insurance, who is concerned about the $5 million settlement over the murdered Fleming, does Five-O manage to figure out what is going on by tricking Fleming's wife in what seems like a classic case of entrapment. (At the time of the killing, June was conveniently away in London.)

So why is this episode so dumb? Well, it turns out that Danno really didn't fly to Maui at all. He was really ferried around Oahu to a house where he met Dean (a house which was exactly duplicated on Maui that was later destroyed). Despite the fact that Danno took 51 minutes to get to "Maui," this house on Oahu was within 10 minutes of Fleming's office, otherwise how could Dean have flown there, committed the murder and returned within 25 minutes — and assuming he was taken there and back by helicopter (maybe the same one which brought Danno to the hideout), why didn't Danno hear the sound of the copter coming or going?

Though Danno says he recognized things on the ground while he was going to Maui, these were really lights that Dean had put on the ground in Oahu to deceive Danno into thinking he was above certain well-known locations between Oahu and Maui as well as Molokai, which the copter supposedly flew over. I'm not making this up!

To prove this could have happened, Danno goes into a device that looks like a flight simulator operated by Che Fong inside a pitch-black hangar with lights on the floor arranged like familiar landmarks. Considering this was presumably something that Che Fong created for demonstration purposes, it must have cost a pretty penny.

There might have been some credence to this wacky science-fiction-like scheme if it was dark when Danno was flown to Maui, but it was not. He took off at 8:00 p.m. which, by the way, was from the Ala Wai Heliport, located near the Ilikai Hotel, not on the Fort Ruger Military Reservation in Diamond Head Crater, a location indicated on a map which Dean provided to Five-O. (Danno later says "I took off from a field north of Diamond Head.") It was light at 8:00, and light later when Danno arrived in the "northwest corner" of Maui at 8:51, so there is no way that Danno could not have recognized what was on the ground, unless he was under the influence of something. Add to this the serious continuity blunder later when Danno has a flashback to his flight and it is pitch black outside! (As well, when June Fleming comes to the entrapment apartment near the end of the show around 8:30 p.m., it is also pitch black outside.)

What really drops this episode to its BOMB rating is the utter improbability of Dean's plan. Considering how very careful Dean is in planning this elaborate caper, even to the extent of creating a "double" persona at the beginning of the show (not very well — see below), there are far too many people involved in the scheme, people who might talk later: Whitelaw, who arranges for contact with Dean who is in hiding; Nathaniel, Dean's bodyguard/medical attendant; the helicopter pilot; the people who built and demolished the duplicate house; the people who very carefully took everything that Danno had touched in the Oahu house and moved it to the house on Maui; the people who created the light show on the ground, etc., etc. I am reminded of the remark by U.S. serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins in his autobiography, words to the effect: "If you don't want to get caught, don't tell people where the bodies are buried."

As well, where on Oahu could Dean construct a house near the beach which is only ten minutes from Fleming's place where a helicopter could land without attracting attention, not to mention the place where Dean could land near Fleming's office? (This is almost possible, because the office — based on its exterior elevator — is in the Sheraton Waikiki (thanks to Fred Helfing). This is actually quite close to the Ala Wai Heliport, duh! But you would have to run very quickly to get from one place to the other…)

When Danno says of the scheme, "I fell for it," I felt like yelling back at the TV, "I didn't!" James MacArthur doesn't look too enthusiastic during much of this show, incidentally — I wonder if he was annoyed by how stupid the script was?

There are more dumb things about this show, by the way:

Dean does various things to set up a "double" alibi at the beginning of the show. First, he takes an Ernie's Cab where the driver is Sam Peters, who is listening to a ball game where the California Angels are leading 4 to 3 at the top of the fifth. Peters' character says, "Matero's up." Dean, who is casually dressed and smoking, says he has "Twenty-three homers so far this season." (I can't find someone named Matero who played for this team around the time of the show.)

Then Dean is seen in a bar, not smoking, asking the bartender to mix a drink very precisely, but complaining about a sports broadcast on the TV, asking the bartender to turn it off because he says he is "a non-sports fan who's nursing a headache."

Wearing a blue shirt and smoking, Dean then asks a woman, probably at a smoke shop in the hotel, if she sells Sultans cigarettes from Turkey. She directs him to the bar, but he says "Can't go into bars. AA, you know." We see him again in the bar, not smoking, where a cigarette girl tries to sell him cigars or cigarettes, but he says "I haven't smoked in five years." Then we see him smoking, wearing a different outfit, registering for a room in the hotel, but declining one on the 14th floor because he says "I've got a bad thing about heights."

Later in the show, Five-O tries to track down a double for Dean after they see on the elevator surveillance video that Dean (impossibly) was the one who knocked off Fleming. Chin Ho reports, "A clerk at the Princess Kaiulani Hotel [wrong place, the logo on the Dean's bar glass was for the Sheraton] remembers a guy who looked like Dean checking in a few days before the murder. Says he was a heavy smoker, never enters a bar, and is afraid of heights. Also, a big sports fan." But these things were not all experienced by just one "clerk," but by multiple people. Chin IDs the double as "H.W. Straus from San Diego," which must be the name that Dean registered under.

There is a big continuity glitch connected with Danno's bogus flight to Maui mentioned by Karen Rhodes in her book about Five-O. When he boards the helicopter, Danno doesn't have the tape recorder with him that he later uses at Dean's place. Instead, the pilot gives this to him inside Dean's house after they arrive. When Danno arrives back in Honolulu, he gets out of the helicopter and goes to his car, but he doesn't have either the tape recorder or the box of paperwork and other goodies about Fleming Industries that he gets from Dean that he later brings to the Five-O office. The tape recorder that Danno used was a Uher 4000 Reporter, kind of a portable machine, with what look like 7" reels, but later at the Five-O office, the tape recorder playing back Dean's revelations is using 10" reels.

The helicopter which Danno uses to go to Maui, registration number N8585F, is the same one which McGarrett, Danno and Che Fong use later to go to the Maui house, which is later destroyed. For this second trip, there are white HPD and Police stickers on the sides of the helicopter (thanks to Charles for pointing this out).

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Injury (x2): Barry Dean has angina attacks: first at governor’s party then at his place on "Maui."
Death: Peter Fleming shot three times by Dean.

MORE TRIVIA:

• When Dean sticks his identity card in the reader at the entrance to his boss's office, it reveals he lives at 124 Kahala Avenue, is 6 feet tall, 35 years old, weighs 185 pounds, has blue eyes and blond hair. His identity number is 3153. The two machines in this area, including the one reader, are actually reel-to-reel tape recorders, probably made by TEAC. I don't know how they made the "special effect" of the ID card popping up out of the silver box on the end of the recorder where Dean inserts it.
• While Five-O is considering the possibility that Dean has a double, McGarrett mentions that Wo Fat has two doubles.
• When McGarrett introduces insurance investigator Bella to Chin Ho, he remarks, "She's very bright as you can see, so be careful." Tsk, tsk, Steve!
• McGarrett has a brainstorm about "doubles" when some guy mistakes McGarrett's car for his own in a parking lot. As well, he sees a building being demolished (one of Dean's hangouts, I guess), though whether McGarrett actually sees this or is just imagining it is difficult to determine.
• While the score for the episode is attributed to Don Ray, when Danno turns on Dean's hi-fi to listen to music while Dean is being attended to by Nathaniel upstairs (NOT), the music is from "Highest Castle, Deepest Grave" by Morton Stevens (thanks to Sylvia Gurinsky).
• The final act is only 5 minutes long.
• In an earlier version of the trivia section, Keith found Danno's behavior inappropriate: "[During] the sequence where Danno waits in the living room for the bad guy to 'get his heart checked,' he goes to the hi-fi, does a crossword ... and also has an alcoholic beverage at the bar. A policeman can't drink on duty [and Danno was there on an important police matter]." But I don't think Danno had any booze. If you look at this sequence carefully, you will see that he puts ice and what looks like tonic or seltzer water into the glass.
• When Dean comes to Fleming's office just before he kills his boss, Charlie the guard says that he is on a swing shift from 9 to 9, but the time is 9:10 p.m. Charlie's badge number is 180.
• June Fleming lives in the house at 3735 Diamond Head Road seen in "A Matter Of Mutual Concern" and other shows.

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114. (S05E18) “The Odd Lot Caper” ★★½

QUICK PLOT:

The owner of a Honolulu brokerage firm conceives a daring and seemingly foolproof scheme to finance a development venture.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

Donald Murdock (Richard Basehart) runs a Honolulu brokerage firm and has been trying for years to raise money for a development to be known as Kamani-Murdock, described as "the archipelago in the sun." As the show opens, he is making a pitch to a couple of investors who turn him down — and not for the first time — after he tells them he has met all their demands. The amount of financing he is asking from them is $25 million.

When these two men leave, Murdock, who is confined to an electric wheelchair, calls them "unclean mummies," saying they are "first generation, never went to Yale." He adds, "They better not come to this cripple when they're on their knees or they'll be walking on stumps ... I have no intention of quitting. Not gonna take up needlepoint. I'm not gonna join any basketball team for paraplegics."

Murdock has a scheme to raise money, even more than he asked for — a total of $40 million. This involves putting up collateral from stocks in his company's vault, which his son (Jack Hogan) points out is "illegal." A friend of his named Wilbur Sloan, who owes him some favors, is loaning him "the replacement stock" in the form of negotiable securities worth $25 million which are being shipped from Boston that day. (I don't understand this at all in light of what happens later.) There is a suggestion that this stock has something fishy about it, being connected with "associates" in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

To pull off this caper, Murdock has enlisted the services of Laughlin (Ron Hayes). Their relationship is not well defined. When Murdock goes to meet Laughlin on the docks, there is talk of Laughlin having been a private detective in the past and his license was pulled because of some industrial espionage job that Murdock hired him for.

Laughlin has assembled what Murdock describes as a "collection of smalltime hoods" comprised of three crooks — Linc (Daws Dawson), Jersey Frazer (Morgan Sha'an) and Yoko (Nephi Hanneman) — plus a computer geek named Martin Johnson (John Farias), whose job will be to meddle with the "iron brain" at the clearing house associated with the stock exchange.

Murdock is very annoyed that Laughlin already knocked off the clearing house's previous geek, a guy named Stan Cooper (Danny Kamekona), by shooting him dead in public. According to Andre Beaufort (Bill Bigelow), manager of the clearing house, Cooper was "an indiscriminate swinger." He also left $300,000 in safety deposit boxes.

Five-O, whose attention is drawn to Cooper's murder, discovers that he used knowledge that he gleaned from his job to swindle women out of money. McGarrett wants the team to check Cooper's "background, his friends, enemies, ex-wives, if any, irate husbands, and a list of his girlfriends," but all this is basically a red herring.

When Murdoch, who is very punctilious about how his plan should be pulled off, tells Laughlin, "Now you've got McGarrett and Five-O digging into the case," Laughlin replies, "While they're busy checking out Stan Cooper's dames and hunting for a husband with horns, we'll pull our rip-off." Later, Murdock is equally upset when Laughlin kills a security guard who interrupts him trying to mess around with an alarm connected with the clearing house. Laughlin tells him, "Why don't you just put your paranoia in cold storage while we make you $40 million?"

After synchronizing their watches, Laughlin and the three crooks go to four brokerages — Stone Fairchild, R.L. Walters Company, McPherson & Son, and Murdock & Son — at one in the afternoon and also the clearing house. At the last, they take recently received material connected with these four companies. They steal negotiable securities and, using blowtorches, burn the ledgers known as the daily receive and delivery blotter. At the clearing house, they tell their "inside man" Johnson to pull record-keeping microfilm out of the computer and Laughlin destroys the computer's core by plugging some bullets into it.

Five-O is very intrigued by this sudden outbreak of robbery activity and after it is over, Beaufort comes to the office and provides some answers to questions about what has just happened. According to him, the stolen securities are as interchangeable as dollar bills because they are in "street name ... made out to the names of brokerage houses, not individuals ... As they buy and sell, brokers swap street name stocks with each other — New York, Illinois, Maryland, anywhere."

McGarrett says, "You know, if you think about it, this was an ingenious scheme. Ordinarily, if they're gonna heist something that's identifiable, first, they heist and then they wipe out all the traces. Here, they did just the opposite. First, they wiped out all the traces, all the records, then they took the $40 million."

Danno goes to the clearing house and asks the employees if there is a chance someone could identify even one certificate that was stolen, but they tell him it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Meanwhile, the crooks put the stolen material in mailbags and send them to Sloan in Boston and there is no word about any problems. McGarrett had asked his men to "check all freight terminals and the post office department ... for large shipments of paper, anything that could be stocks or documents."

Danno manages to track down the model of blowtorch which was used, ironically identified by Murdock's son. When he is in their offices, Danno has to endure withering abuse from the old man: "You can go back and tell Mr. McGarrett, I want the protection I pay for. People murdered, hoodlums walking in, taking 40 million in broad daylight. Eight million of it mine … The police are sitting on their keisters. They haven't picked up a single suspect yet. My business won't survive these losses… [M]y records are in ashes. Police are very good when it comes to getting raises but when are you going to catch these criminals?"

Chin Ho finally manages to track down where the blowtorches were purchased, and that information leads to Jersey Frazer, wanted in Massachusetts, New York, Kansas for felonious assault, burglary and armed robbery, even though Frazer has vacated his Palm Garden Hotel room.

Laughlin comes to Murdock's office and announces that he doesn't want to get one-fifth of his gang's promised $100,000, which is chicken feed; instead, he wants one-third of the $40 million and a job as "head of security" for Murdock's company. Murdock's son overhears some of the conversation between the two men and finally realizes what his father is up to: "Forty million ... It didn't come from Sloan. That clearing house robbery."

While Murdock Senior is trying to manipulate his way out of his scheme and put all the blame on Laughlin, Mrs. Finley (Tuulikki Gottschalk), who works at the clearing house, comes to Five-O to tell them there was one certificate that she recalled. It was from a broker named Walt Lowen who died the month before. The people who dealt with his estate sold off everything he owned, including the very first stock he ever purchased, which he had framed and hung on his wall.

Danno and Ben, alerted by HPD who had an APB out for Frazer, follow him to a warehouse where Laughlin and his associates have gathered for the payoff. They are busted, but Laughlin wants to make a deal based on the microfilm from the computer, which he thinks "has all the stock and all the stock numbers on it." (But would it? Is this every stock that they got from the brokers as well as the exchange?) However, the microfilm is blank (pretty obviously, too) ... because Johnson was actually hired by Murdock and this was part of Murdock's plan.

The ending to me doesn't make sense. Ben and Chin do find the single stock they are looking for in Murdock's vaults, where it lies with all the paper which was shipped by Sloan by Merchant Air Express. But was this paperwork shipped to Sloan and then shipped back? If so, wouldn't there be a record of it going both ways, assuming that it managed to avoid McGarrett's edict?

Despite the fact that there is $40 million in stock in the vault, how many pieces of paper would there be? Of course, when this single certificate for "One Share, Knox Horseless Carriage Company, par value 5 cents, third of January, 1912" is located, the jig is up for Murdock. He is busted for "Fraud, criminal conspiracy and grand theft." Murdock's son denounces his father for "unspeakable arrogance." McGarrett has the last words: "I understand that you wanted police action, Mr. Murdock. I'd say you'd get about 20 years of it. Book him, Ben."

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

The "odd lot" of the title refers to less than 100 shares of a stock or less than 10 shares of a very thinly traded stock.

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: Stan Cooper shot twice by Laughlin.
Death: Night security guard killed by Laughlin.
Injury: Guard hit in the head by Jersey Frazer.
Injury: Guard (played by Walter Omori) hit in the head by Linc.
Death: Armored truck guard shot twice by Laughlin.

MORE TRIVIA:

• There actually was a Honolulu Stock Exchange founded around the turn of the 20th century which closed in 1977, a few years after the show was broadcast
• When we see Laughlin pacing at the docks waiting for Murdock to show up, the ground is completely dry. Murdock's chauffeur-driven Cadillac almost runs into the camera! After the chauffeur helps Murdock put his feet on the wheelchair's footrest (we can see Murdock is wearing alligator shoes), the ground is all wet. But when Murdock gets close to Laughlin, it is dry again.
• Murdoch's phone number, seen only in the episode promo, is 808-287-1299.
• A couple of shots near the beginning of the show are out of focus, surprising considering Five-O's usually crisp photography.
• At a meeting of the gang of crooks, Jersey Frazer uses the expression, "Will you knock off that Army chicken?" ... presumably meaning "chicken shit."
• When Frazer gets in a cab, the cab starts moving away before his foot is inside and the door is closed.
• The name of the HPD cop who tails Frazer on the street is C. Melim.
• There are stock shots of cop cars, including one taken from S02E13, "The Joker’s Wild, Man, Wild!"
• The music is by Ray. The trombone interval theme is heard.
• The name of Nephi Hanneman's character — Yoko — is usually a woman's name.
• The catalog that a guy at one of the brokerage firms is looking through to try and identify the blowtorches is for New Pushbutton BernzOMatic Jet Fire Extinguishers.
• The main titles don't show up until 3:40 in Act 1.

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115. (S05E19) “Will The Real Mr. Winkler Please Die” ★★★

QUICK PLOT:

An obscure shopkeeper becomes the catalyst in a plot to assassinate a high-level Iron Curtain defector.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

This episode is convoluted, similiar to the yet-to-be-seen S08E03, "Termination With Extreme Prejudice," another show about espionage. When I watched "Termination" prior to this one, it seemed like the lead character contradicted something he had already said whenever he appeared. Sort of like this one. But let's see if we can make sense of this one.

As the show begins, the title character, played by Nehemiah Persoff, freaks out when he is stopped by TV station KGMB who are doing a "man in the street" poll outside a shopping center regarding "the new proposed superhighway from Kahuku Point to Honolulu." He assaults the interviewer and runs away, but is captured by a beat cop who is nearby.

This behavior brings him to the attention of HPD and Five-O, though why he would be so paranoid, considering it is unlikely this broadcast would be for anything other than local consumption, is difficult to understand. He claims to be Peter Winkler, age 42, who lives at 1132 Auahi Street, though this is actually the address of his business. A computer search finds no records on him anywhere in Hawaii or in Washington, D.C. before 1966: no birth certificates, no Social Security, not even a library card. Winkler says he was brought up in Europe, and was born in a house in New York rather than a hospital, which explains the lack of information. "My parents, from the old country, they couldn't keep very good records."

Under questioning from Danno, Winkler finally says that his name is "Albert Hoffman" (same name as the guy who discovered LSD): "A naturalized citizen. I lived in Philadelphia 22 years. In 1966, I witnessed a murder by an underworld figure. I testified. The murderer was given a life sentence and I was warned that some of his associates would be coming after me. I was told to disappear for my own safety, change my name, find a new life." Danno says that McGarrett is currently in Washington, D.C. where he will check with the Justice Department on this story.

McGarrett does, and what comes back is "Albert Hoffman, Philadelphia, key witness against Big Willie Marine. Convicted, murder one." But some details are still missing: "Present identity of Albert Hoffman and identifying fingerprints will not be transmitted for protection of witness. However, such data may be delivered by courier upon authorized request." McGarrett is asked to look further into this.

Five-O offers Winkler (he is insistent on using this name) police protection, but he declines. He tells them, "I don't want to draw excessive attention to myself and my family." The suggestion of him having a "family" is interesting, because almost nothing is mentioned about his family in the show, except later on where Winkler expresses concerns for their safety and the finale (see below). His business is a small shop called W.W. Distributors, which sells souvenirs to tourists who are brought there while on guided tours of the island. He doesn't really seem like a "family man" or a "business man."

When Winkler returns to his store, despite the place having been locked with a "closed" sign on the door, there is some guy inside whose name is Reeves (Malachi Throne). He says he represents Winkler's "former employers," and wants to offer Winkler "employment now," which Winkler refuses. Winkler gets more interested after Reeves threatens his family, but after Reeves shows Winkler the task which he has been assigned, memorizing "data" about someone named Paul Helperin from a sheet of paper, Winkler again refuses and then just yells loudly at Reeves, saying this is America where people have choices about what they do.

Reeves pulls out a gun and gets some muscle-bound guy to come downstairs from the store's second floor. This guy looks like he is going to rearrange Winkler's face, but then Reeves shoots the guy dead! Reeves phones the cops and reports the killing. He offers Winkler a choice: "In a few days, one of two letters will arrive at police headquarters. Tell me which you prefer. A confession of a crazed assassin who killed this unfortunate fellow and threw himself into the sea? The letter, of course, will contain substantial reasons, giving exact details and so on. Or do they receive this one? Written by the dead man himself, naming you as his mortal enemy, expressing fear of your vengeance, spelling out a convincing motive for your wanting to kill him." Winkler takes the second option.

Reeves burns the paper with information about Helperin, figuring that Winkler, because of his "famous gifts," has already memorized the data. But there are unanswered questions. What happens to the gun? Does Reeves leave it with Winkler? Can't the gun be traced? And when the cops show up at the store, won't they notice the smell from the burning paper?

When Winkler is arrested shortly after, investigators find that the deceased thug left no clues: "No identification found on corpse, pockets empty, no labels in clothes. No prints on record in the United States, no record with Interpol." As to who he was and who shot him, Winkler doesn't know anything. Danno is mystified: "Two strangers walked into your shop and one shot the other. Just like that?" Things get more complicated, because Albert Hoffman's prints come from Washington, and they don't match Winkler's. As well, "Hoffman was given a different identity by the Justice Department. Different name, different job, different state." Winkler says he got information about Hoffman out of a newspaper story.

Winkler tells Five-O: "My name is Helperin. Paul Helperin. [The name from the paper Reeves wanted him to memorize.] Until 1966, I was a spy. Headquarters, East Berlin. Until I escaped and came to the West where I changed my identity, tried to live a normal life. I almost succeeded … I'm a wanted man. Wanted by at least four countries and several individuals. It's not above them to plant a corpse to implicate somebody. It's their favorite trick."

Winkler tells Five-O he can prove who he really says he is by reciting a list of things he has memorized from McGarrett's desk. But what does this prove? So far, no one knows that Helperin has a photographic memory, do they? Danno says, "You're a trained spy. And a good one," but "that still doesn't prove you didn't commit that murder." Winkler says he wants "protection for myself and my family. I want asylum. There is much that I can offer the United States."

McGarrett, who is still in Washington, is updated on what is going on and he goes to visit Bill Edwards, who is not Jonathan Kaye, which he played in S05E06, "Fools Die Twice," but some CIA employee named W.D. ("Bill") Druthers. His eyes light up when he hears that Halperin is in Hawaii, describing him as "a very important fish, the number one East German spy for the past ten years [who] stole the multiple warhead plans right out of a NATO meeting."

Unfortunately, according to Druthers, "We have no photographs of him, no fingerprints, nothing." The only person who Druthers thinks could positively identify Helperin is a "Soviet big shot" named Rogloff, "head of Soviet intelligence for all of East Europe" who defected to the States a couple of years before. But Rogloff is in "deep security hiding" in Denver. So McGarrett flies there and meets with Rogloff in the Colorado Supreme Court library.

Rogloff is with two men, one of whom (Peter Carew) pretends to be him, wondering why he should help McGarrett. McGarrett suggests that Helperin can get off "scot free" for murdering the guy in his shop. It would be much better if Helperin can be identified, because then he could be extradited to one of two countries who are after him. McGarrett throws some names at Rogloff, people that Halperin betrayed (I guess he got this list from Druthers): Kaminsky, Zurkoff, Mahlin and Krista Liebman, the last of whom was Rogloff's "closest assistant." The bogus Rogloff says that Helperin is "a monster." At this point, the real Rogloff, one of the other two men (Mark Lenard) reveals himself, and announces they will all go to Hawaii.

Back on Oahu, Winkler is taken to some top-secret location known as Security 3, "a place for material witnesses [and] special security cases." It is totally out of the way, located on top of some cliffs near the Makapuu Point lighthouse. Although there are cops all over the place, Winkler notices something fishy at the top of a hill where what looks like a mirror flashes. At this point, we don't know if Winkler is in cahoots with whoever this person is holding the mirror.

Rogloff and his two associates are brought to the location with maximum secrecy. Rogloff is not impressed by Winkler as Helperin, saying that he is parroting facts which he could have gotten from "others." As well, Winkler's recollections of what happened to Krista Liebman do not conform with what really happened. She was actually Rogloff's wife and she had told Helperin that she was married before she met him at some rendezvous where he betrayed her. She disappeared and was later horribly tortured. Rogloff tells Winkler, "I wish you were Helperin so I could kill you now."

Rogloff is just about to go out the door back to the airport, when Winkler, who has had a brainstorm about what is really going on, blurts out that "This whole charade, including the murder in my shop was designed to get him out of hiding. To kill him. To kill the great Rogloff." Winkler changes his name yet again, saying he is "Otto Steiner."

Winkler is made to take a lie detector test (is there a resident polygraph examiner at this secret place?) and is asked questions as to whether he was a vaudeville entertainer from Austria, a memory expert who became a spy and worked as a courier, transporting information about engineering plans in his head from country to country — all of which is true, but where did the facts behind the questions come from? From Rogloff?

To avoid being assassinated, Rogloff is smuggled out of the place in an ambulance, as if he had a fatal heart attack. Winkler returns to his shop, where it's business as usual with tourists. A limousine full of them pulls up and they start shopping, but the driver for this car is Reeves, who forces Winkler to drive away with him, leaving the tourists unattended in the store. McGarrett and Chin Ho are quickly in hot pursuit along with various cops from HPD (including stock shots) and a police helicopter.

Reeves and Winkler switch cars and go to a rifle range, where there are two of Reeves' associates and no one else. With Reeves holding a gun on Winkler, these two guys fire shots within inches of Winkler's feet to try and get him to crack and reveal things like what happened to Rogloff, why were the cops following them, and so forth.

Suddenly Five-O magically appears on top of a nearby hill along with several HPD sharpshooters. Rogloff, in a cool shot where the sun is behind him, approaches Reeves and addresses him as "Comrade Helperin." Rogloff says to the real Helperin, "I don't care if I have to kill him [Winkler] to kill you." The guys from Five-O appear closer, having somehow gotten down from the top of the hill in a few seconds. Helperin surrenders.

The show ends with McGarrett telling Winkler he will be taken care of because of the help he gave the locals in capturing Helperin: "A new business, a new address … for you and your family. All the necessary papers: birth certificates, social security, school records for the child, driver's license and so forth. Of course, a new identity."

Nehemiah Persoff is quite good in the show, taking on multiple personalities, and acting much less threatening than usual, though he still has a few moments of high stress. Mark Lenard makes up for his embarrassing performance in S02E02, "To Hell With Babe Ruth" with his role as the stern Rogloff.

My opinion of this show has declined over the years: "very good show" (1994 and 2008) and "a complicated but interesting show" (end of 2008, when the DVDs came out). But it makes more sense if the plot can just be written out in detail, as I have hopefully demonstrated. I feel better now. 😄

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: Winkler pushes KGMB interviewer (Philip Arnone) off the sidewalk.
Death: Reeves shoots thug to frame Winkler.
Death (faked): Rogloff's body is removed from secret meeting location in an ambulance.

MORE TRIVIA:

• The information about Paul Helperin which Reeves shows Winkler, aside from his name, includes his birth date (April 10, 1927), birth place (Munich, Germany), and the name of his father (Hans).
• Near the entrance to the secret hideout near the end of the show is a stern sign: "Speed Limit 10 MPH. Narrow, dangerous, one way road, high cliffs without guard rails, authorized visitors phone station (gate phone) prior to entering. Travel at own risk."
• The all-knowing HPD computer, which can even determine if people have a library card, is used to try and figure out who Winkler is. The IBM brand name is seen, it is quite possibly on an IBM 2401 magnetic tape unit.
• On the DVD, there is some print damage seen near the beginning of the show when Duke is on the phone. This does not appear on a syndicated TV print which I saw.
• At the secret meeting place, two guys who look like they work for valet parking, rather than cops, open the doors of the truck which transports Winkler. This vehicle is an International Harvester Travelall — sort of an early SUV. The same truck is used to go back to the airport and transport Rogloff and his crew to the secret place, which I am sure is quite far away. It is also used to take Winkler back to his shop later.
• The score is by Ray; the trombone interval theme is heard.
• When McGarrett visits Druthers, snow can be seen falling outside the window. But there is no snow in Denver when McGarrett goes there. McGarrett uses the expression "bailiwick," which he also uses in S06E06, "Murder Is A Taxing Affair."
• As McGarrett and Rogloff shoot questions at Winkler when he takes the lie detector test, the frequency of the questions seems highly unorthodox.
• When chasing the car containing the kidnapped Winkler, McGarrett's car has little flags on the radio antenna. This is because when Chin Ho and McGarrett were doing surveillance (kind of obviously) across the street from Winkler's store, they were parked in a car lot where all of the cars had these little flags on them (thanks to Colby May for clearing this up). Danno is nearby, high up on a tower. There is no way that James MacArthur would have really gone up there. There is no elevator, just a ladder! This broadcast tower was the KHON-2 Tower, according to Ron Hashiro, who has a website devoted to the History of Broadcasting in Hawaii.
• Fred Helfing investigated some locations for this show. The place where the interviews take place at the beginning of the show seem to be at the Koko Marina Center. In the episode, you can see the distinctive lava rock pillars, but whether this is the exact location in the show (things may have changed) is debatable. W.W. Distributors was owned by William Walter Robinson (1916-2012), who also owned the famous revolving restaurant, Windows of Hawaii. W.W. Distributors location was at 1132 Auahi Street, which Winkler referred to during the show as his "address." This place is also seen in S01E08, "No Blue Skies." The Winkler interrogation near the end with Malachi Throne is at a gun range near Koko Head. The safe house is above the Makapu'u Lighthouse. Here is the area, but the house is gone.
• There is a book available for sale in Winkler's shop called Captain Ben and the Flying Lighthouse.

GALLERY:

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116. (S05E20) “Little Girl Blue” ★★  DANNO ... BOOK HER 

QUICK PLOT:

Two amateur kidnappers flee to a hillside bunker with their young victim when their plans go awry, prompting a huge police presence to resolve the situation.

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REVIEW:

People who watch this show soon after S04E06, "...And I Want Some Candy and a Gun that Shoots," where a psychotic sniper endangers the lives of motorists as he fires at cars from an old bunker overlooking a highway, will blink twice at some of the footage.

Major sections of this episode about two kidnappers, Luther Shepp (Ron Feinberg) and Frank Denton (Jackie Coogan), who hold cops at bay from a bunker above the highway, are taken directly from the earlier show. The reason for this, told to me by star Feinberg at the 1996 Five-O Convention, was the previous episode was too violent to rebroadcast, but producer Leonard Freeman wanted to reuse some of the material, so this new show was virtually written around this previous footage for Feinberg. Ironically, this episode was also considered too violent to broadcast, according to another report I heard.

In "Candy," two cops come to the aid of a woman whose tires are shot out by a crazed marksman. One of the cops, Tom Ewa (Arte McCullough), who was shot in the earlier show, returns in this one and is shot again while climbing the hill to the bunker. He falls down the cliff to the road and stumbles to the side of the police car where he was lying in "Candy" with Beau van den Ecker, the other cop who was killed. (The second shot and killed cop in "Little Girl" is Asian.)

Other re-used footage includes:

• a cop car has its flashing light shot out
• a cop car has its tire flattened
• McGarrett drives to the scene beside backed-up traffic accompanied by an ambulance
• McGarrett gets out of his car
• in a scene which is not exactly the same (but almost like an outtake), McGarrett orders Danno to get a helicopter because "we're gonna need some eyes"
• cops getting dressed in protective gear
• cops move behind a moving car as a shield (the car has the same license number)
• cops in protective gear run across the road to help their injured buddies; they put the wounded cops in their car (seen through shot-out window)
• Danno says a chopper is on the way
• McGarrett speaks to the shot Tommy Ewa, Danno examines the dead second cop, same ambulance attendants as earlier show
• McGarrett speaks to Duke, takes bullhorn
• the helicopter arrives, McGarrett tells Danno to go up and look around but stay out of the range of the rifle
• shot from the helicopter of the bunker, Danno says the "roof juts out quite a ways"
• stock shots of the HPD computer
• a shot flying over cars backed up on the highway
• the HPD communications van arrives, McGarrett opens the door (in "Candy," Kono is seen inside, the editing in "Little Girl" cleverly replaces him with another cop)
• near the end of the show, the helicopter drops tear gas on the bunker (several shots)
• McGarrett, wearing a bulletproof vest, leads a squadron of cops to the foot of the hill
• a scene of the cops climbing the hillside (Kono is edited out of this scene again)

There's yet another reference to a different earlier show. In S01E12, "Pray Love Remember, Pray Love Remember," Ron ("Ronald" in "Little Girl") Feinberg, playing the developmentally challenged Benny Apa has a big secret not revealed until the show's end: he doesn't have a driver's license. Feinberg's character in "Little Girl," Luther, kills the Asian cop at the beginning because he also doesn't have a driver's license.

Aside from the recycled footage, this episode is much different. There are issues with the plot, mostly to do with time-compression.

The little girl of the title, Debbie Scott (Brook Graham) is kidnapped in the early morning by Luther and Frank. The house where she is grabbed is owned by Eadie Scott (Tisha Sterling), her mother. Eadie's mother Marian Scott (Nina Foch) later says that Debbie was "born out of wedlock" and Eadie was "no more ready to be a mother, to raise a child." Marian "offered to take the baby from her but no." Debbie is under the care of a "babysitter," Anna Kavenna ("Kawena" in the subtitles) played by Josie Over, who is in league with Luther and Frank, because she hears them taking Debbie, but makes no attempt to stop them. In fact, when she sees the two men leave with the kid, she smiles.

Eadie met Luther at Tripler, the veterans' hospital, where she was doing volunteer work. Luther was on "outpatient therapy" because of "brain damage, [the] result of war wounds." (It is not said anywhere in the show which war this was, Vietnam or Korea.) Eadie introduced Luther to her mother, who hired him to do "odd jobs around the house." Later Frank, a friend of Luther's and an orderly at the hospital, showed up, and there was trouble because "Things began to disappear: Garden hose, rakes, shears." Marian says, "I fired them both."

While Luther "loves children [and] wouldn't hurt a fly" according to Eadie, Frank, being the brainy one of the duo, who calls Luther "dummy" (three times) and "you stupid oaf," comes up with the idea of kidnapping Debbie and asking $2 million ransom –- or so it seems — after they find out that Marian is Mrs. Hubberd Scott, connected with "the Scott fortune"; in other words, she is loaded. However, Frank suffers from a heart condition.

When they are escaping with Debbie and confronted by an HPD cop because of Luther's lack of a driver's license, Luther kills the cop by strangling him. As they attempt to continue with their escape, their car's engine is flooded, so the two men with their hostage decide to take cover in a bunker up a nearby hill. Frank barely makes it to the top, because he is short of breath and nearly passing out.

Jimmy Borges, driving a sports car, is a witness to the two men going up to the bunker and alerts the cops who soon show up under the command of Duke Lukela. After McGarrett arrives at the scene, he takes charge. There are serious issues with time from this point on, because one event happens almost immediately after the other.

Anna phones the cops to report the kidnapping, which is very odd. Does she feel guilty about her participation in the scheme? (She later cannot be found.) She must give the cops Debbie's name as well as those of Eadie and Marian because Marian is picked up by helicopter and quickly flown to the site near the bunker.

As already noted above, there are family problems between the two women. Marian says that Eadie is "always doing something to shame me, to use me. She's forged my name on checks, on charge accounts." Marian gives McGarrett a copy of a ransom letter which she received at 11:30 that morning (thus actually establishing a time in the show). McGarrett thinks it is very fishy that this letter, which was delivered to Marian at her address — 1654 Palama Street, Kahuku 96731 (correct postal code) — was mailed in Waikiki the previous day.

When Eadie, who is currently on Maui, is picked up and flown to the site (in the same helicopter used for Marian), she freaks out after Marian accuses her of being involved with the kidnapping as part of a "crazy scheme" to get her money.

Meanwhile, Che Fong has rushed to the house where Debbie was kidnapped, but he quickly rushes back to the lab to check out the ransom note with typical ransom-note cut-out words which McGarrett got from Marian which was expressed to the forensics lab by a cop "with a bike." At the house, Che (and his team, I think) got fingerprints for Luther and Frank which have been used to ID them already, and also determined that Anna slipped a "mild barbiturate" into Debbie's pre-bedtime hot chocolate.

Che determines not only the kind of paper the magazine with the cut-out words was printed on –- "a European offset, coated [the subtitles say "coded," thanks to Kurt] stock" – but the exact name of the publication, London Fashions, printed in England … as well as who are the local subscribers to the magazine, one of whom is Eadie. This is just a little bit far-fetched.

Eadie doesn't appreciate it when McGarrett uses her connection to the magazine to accuse her of being complicit in her daughter's kidnapping. He finally trusts Eadie enough to let her go up the hill and try and negotiate with Luther, who appears, holding the kid up in the air, threatening to harm her, much to the horror of her anguished mother. After Luther and Debbie return to the bunker where Frank is fading fast, Debbie, still wearing her nightgown and slippers, escapes and runs to where McGarrett can grab her and return to the bottom where she is reunited with her mother, who Danno has helped down the hill. There is some pretty hairy acting as well as photography on the side of the hill as the characters deal with the threat posed by Luther.

As in the previous sniper show, the final assault on the bunker is total overkill. A helicopter drops several canisters of tear gas and squads of cops go up the hill in three different directions. Luther finally encounters McGarrett while having flashbacks to his war experiences. McGarrett, similar to how he defused a similar situation in S01E13, "King Of The Hill," pretends to be connected with Luther's army outfit and manages to get Luther to give up his weapon, telling him, "Captain, why don't you take it easy now? You've done your share, we'll mop up. Come on, come on back to the base with me."

Back at street level, the show winds to its conclusion, and you would think that everything has been logically dealt with: Frank was the mastermind behind the kidnapping with help from Anna who provided the magazine which was used for the ransom note, and so forth.

But suddenly there is a twist ending. As Luther sits morosely in a cop car, McGarrett asks him, "We know that you never meant to hurt Debbie … but somebody hired you to kidnap her, didn't they?" Luther tells him, "It was just we, me and Frank. She promised to give us money to take Debbie for a picnic." Asked who "she" is, Luther walks in a shell-shocked manner over to the two women. He tells Eadie, "I didn't mean it." But then he turns to her mother and says, "Lady, I told Frank I didn't wanna do it. But he said it'd be so easy. He said you'd give us lots of money. Lots of it. Frank said you wouldn't do nothing to hurt your own grandchild, would you?" Eadie is horrified: "Oh, God, Mother." Marian says, "For Debbie. I did it for Debbie."

Marian is busted: "Danno, give Mrs. Scott her rights and book her." Uh, yeah, should be another interesting case in court, a rich woman who can afford fancy lawyers versus a guy with brain damage and the only other witnesses to what happened, Frank being dead and Anna having disappeared! Talk about stupid.

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Injury: Debbie Scott drugged by Anna Cavenna.
Death: HPD officer Larry strangled by Luther.
Injury: Frank Denton suffers severe chest pains walking up hill to bunker.
Injury: Tommy Ewa shot in the shoulder by Luther.
Death: Frank is seen as unresponsive, likely died of heart attack. At the end, McGarrett says, "Send a stretcher up for Denton's body."

MORE TRIVIA:

• The music is by Ray. The trombone interval theme is heard; there are allusions to the military theme at the end.
• A flight from the airport on Maui to HNL by plane normally takes about 25 minutes. No idea how long it would take by helicopter; you would have to add the time to get Eadie to the takeoff location as well as to the foot of the hill near the bunker.
• McGarrett says that Luther killed two police officers, but there is only one dead cop — the one strangled by Luther at the beginning of the show. This is a reference to the previous show that wasn't checked for continuity. There is no indication that Officer Ewa (Artie McCollough), who is wounded trying to get to Luther and is taken to the hospital in a Physicians Ambulance, later dies.
• Anna the babysitter smokes.
• Luther's height in the show is stated to be 6′7″. When I met Feinberg at the 1996 convention, he was 6′8″.
• When McGarrett is grilling Debbie after she is brought down from the hill, her face is in sunshine, but in a second shot taken from a few feet away, her face is suddenly in a shadow.

GALLERY:

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117. (S05E21) “Percentage” ★★½  BEN, BOOK SAM 

QUICK PLOT:

A travel agent operating gambling junkets is slain as a warning to his partner to stop competing for similar business run by local gangsters.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

Sam Green (Milton Selzer), formerly a bookie working for "investment dealer"/gangster Yoshigo (Kwan Hi Lim, giving a typically oily performance) takes people from Hawaii on charter airline gambling junkets to places like Korea and Las Vegas. While Sam is away in the former, Yoshigo sends two of his thugs, the Wolfman Jack-like Nick Hansen (Edward Shonk) and Lepe Gordon (Derek Mau), to Sam's travel agency where they murder his partner James O'Hara (John Howard), beating him to death with brass knuckles.

Near the beginning of the show, we see people on one of these junkets in Seoul, even though the stock shot is of a Chinese city, presumably Hong Kong, and the exterior of the Heavenly Gate Casino building is the Chang Kang Woon Department Store. In the casino itself, a sign on the blackjack table, which has its name in an "Asian"-looking English font, has writing in English and Korean.

The crowd of Hawaiian gamblers is just about ready to return home, but Bill Howard, an arrogant and obsessive gambler (Mitch Mitchell), is running up a huge tab. (All further references to "Howard" refer to character Bill Howard.) Only after Sam personally vouches for him with the casino boss Kuang (Seth Sakai), saying that "Bill Howard's one of the richest men in America" and that his company, "Howard Equipment [is] listed on the exchange," is he allowed to place his bet. Unfortunately, he loses again, and Sam is now responsible for paying off Howard's debt of $120,000.

When Sam returns to Hawaii, he is met at the airport by Chin Ho and Ben. When they wonder why O'Hara was murdered, Sam says, "Yoshigo might be thinking of going in the junket business himself with me as a partner… He needs a bonded travel agency, same as I did. Yoshigo couldn't get a license to run a hot-dog stand." Not even having entered the airport terminal, Sam makes a phone call to Yoshigo, with his part of the conversation witnessed by the two from Five-O: "I'm just calling to let you know I'm quitting the travel-agent business. Junkets, gambling, the whole schmear."

Sam is followed back to Hawaii by Kuang and a couple of his stooges, who want to make sure that Sam fulfills his obligation. This sequence was confusing, because we don't find out that Kuang arrived and is staying in Howard's hotel until after this. I thought that Sam went back to Korea to talk to him! Sam asks for more time to get the money, and Kuang tells him, "I'm only one tiny cog in a very big syndicate. But personally, you know I love you like a brother … Get it [the money]." Sam tells him,"Play for the flush. More percentage."

Sam goes to see McGarrett, asking for police protection for Howard, but McGarrett says a request like this would have to come from Howard himself. He sends Danno over to the Hawaiian Towers where Howard lives in a Howard Hughes-like penthouse which has special security and only select people are admitted to see him.

Just before Danno arrives, we see Yoshigo also arriving, but we find out later that he was not allowed access to Howard. Danno picks up a phone near the building's door as if he is phoning someone to get into the place, but at this moment, Howard's body comes flying down from above; some woman who sees this screams, pretty loudly.

Five-O is all over Howard's apartment soon enough searching for clues as to what happened. The building manager, Mehala (Galen Kam) tells McGarrett that people wanting to see Howard had to use the "penthouse elevator" where they would be vetted by "the doorman." (So where was Yoshigo going?) Valerie Sinclair (Carole Kai) was a visitor about a half hour before Howard's death and she only stayed a few minutes. She was one of the tourists on the junket at the beginning of the show, and Howard seemed to have a certain interest in her at the blackjack table, much to the annoyance of her older husband Walter (Douglas Kennedy). According to Mehala, Kuang tried to see Howard three days ago and "was refused in a most uncomplimentary manner."

Later, at Yoshigo's office, he is told by his accountant Herman Stein (Leonard Stone) that his recent business is off by about $70,000. Yoshigo says that this is not "enough," he wants all of the business which was taken away from him by Sam's junkets. Stein brings up the matter of a partnership which Yoshigo promised him some time ago, threatening to go to the cops to tell them Yoshigo was in Howard's building around the same time he plunged to his death. Stein had tailed Yoshigo there. This is a very bad move, because Yoshigo tells Stein he can forget about the promotion, adding, "As of now, you're only my bookkeeper. Period."

Danno interviews Valerie Sinclair in an "interrogation room" which is right across the hall from Che Fong's forensic laboratory. In front of her husband, who is also there, she tells Danno she was having an affair with Howard and came to see him to break up with him. Sam was at Howard's at the time, but Howard" sent him into the next room." She was there only about five minutes. Valerie has already confessed everything about this affair to her husband. Sinclair tells Danno, "I happen to love my wife very much. I didn't wanna lose her. I didn't want to force her into some foolish action [like p]icking up and leaving me. I knew this thing would run its course." After the two of them leave Danno, Walter tells his wife she was missing one minor detail in her confession: "You didn't break off with Bill Howard, Bill Howard broke off with you."

Stein meets with Sam, who has a plan to take accounting books from Yoshigo's safe with Stein's help, since he has access to the office. Sam intends to turn over these books to the district attorney which will put Yoshigo away big time and then Sam will have control over the junket business, "a gold mine." Stein is pissed by his recent demotion, but also very antsy about Sam's idea, but finally agrees to it. He and Sam go into the office late at night. After the accounting books are removed from the safe, Sam plants a bomb on its door which explodes a few minutes later after they have left.

Che Fong is busy analyzing fibers from the carpet in Howard's apartment, suggesting that Howard was dragged across the floor prior to his death and that he was unconscious when he was shoved over the railing. Chin and Ben talk to Doc who says that a "deep but isolated fracture" on Howard's head, which did not hit the pavement first, means that he was not unconscious, but dead.

Search for a weapon in the apartment which could have killed Howard produces a wooden tiki god which Ben says is made of "wood that sinks in water, strong as iron." There is a large crack in the handle of this tiki which Che is able to extract blood from, suggesting that whoever handled this item may have put a mark or a cut on their palm if they struck really violently.

Ben has been watching Kuang, and when the Korean suddenly leaves his hotel in a big hurry, Ben tails him and his men in the usual obvious manner towards the airport. They are cornered by HPD and Ben, and it turns out (not revealed until later) that Kuang has a briefcase full of cash. (I don't know if there were restrictions on how money you could take out of the country when the show was broadcast, similar to the $10,000 limit which exists today.)

The show ends with an Agatha Christie-like denouement in McGarrett's office where the principal players are all rounded up: Sam, the Sinclairs, and Kuang. Neither of the Sinclairs have any cuts on their hands from clubbing Howard to death. McGarrett shakes Sam's hand, thanking him for the books he turned over, noticing an "abrasion" on his palm. When shown the tiki, McGarrett describes it to Sam as the "murder weapon," but Sam denies killing Howard.

Kuang is brought into the office, where it's revealed that Sam tried to scam him, keeping half of the $120,000 owing. As far as Howard paying Sam to give the money to Kuang is concerned, McGarrett says they checked with the supposedly rich Howard's company back on the mainland who told him "The only connection between Howard and the Howard Equipment Company is the family name. He's long since gambled away all his stock and all his interest. Howard couldn't raise $120, let alone $120,000."

So the big question is, where did the $120,000 come from? McGarrett continues his usual summary of what happened (all of it correct) when he says that Sinclair took $120,000 in cash out of the "National Mercantile Bank in Honolulu." Sinclair confirms this, saying he wanted to help out his "friend" Sam "with a loan." When Sam says there is no way that he was at Howard's when he fell off the balcony because he was in the Five-O office at the time, McGarrett continues:

"That's true, and very neatly arranged too. You were the only one Howard trusted, the only one who could get close. And you waited your time and bashed his skull in. Now, let me reconstruct it for you. Sinclair took the elevator to the floor below, then walked up a set of fire stairs. You let him in. Then you both dragged the body across the floor to the lanai. Then you propped it up so that Sinclair could hold it, while you rushed to my office to establish an alibi. You [addressing Sinclair] waited approximately 20 minutes, as arranged, and then you pushed the body over. Then you took the same fire stairs down, took the elevator to the lobby. I can tell you what you were wearing in Howard's apartment. You had a striped jacket, blue and white, and blue slacks. We picked them up in your closet. We applied for a search warrant as soon as we found out about your cash withdrawal. You see, we found a couple of different cloth fibers on the lanai. Now, I'll lay you a good price, as soon as the lab report comes in, they'll match your outfit."

McGarrett asks Sinclair if he wants to make a statement. Hello, are we reading people their rights? Nevertheless, Sinclair blabs away: "I paid Sam to get rid of him [Howard]. I'd pay ten times that amount to keep my wife." Valerie, looking disgusted, tells her husband: "You murdered him. And we both know why. Because he gave me what you never could, you old, old man." She leaves.

When McGarrett tells Kuang that he's keeping all the cash because "that was money paid for the commission of a felony," Kuang is naturally upset. Sam is booked for murder one, and McGarrett says to "Have Danno pick up Yoshigo for the murder of Jim O'Hara." (Huh, on what evidence? There is circumstantial evidence in the books specifying payment for "services rendered" on the day that O'Hara was killed.) As Sam is taken away, he says to McGarrett "I drew some rough cards. It was the only way I could play out the hand." McGarrett tells him, "You overplayed it, Sam. Murder? No percentage."

This complicated and talky show is definitely not one where you want to go to the bathroom or prepare a snack at times other than during the commercial breaks. The business with the fiber evidence and its as of yet unproven connection to Sinclair via clothes in his closet is even more far-fetched than the business with the blood in the crack on the tiki resulting from the blow to Howard's head. When we see Sam in a flashback hitting Howard, it does not seem to be that hard!

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

The term "percentage" is heard four times in the show: (1) Sam to Howard in casino: "Percentage calls for you to pay the insurance." Howard replies, "Always play the percentage, huh, Sam? Because you got no guts, I should borrow another 30 grand for insurance money?" (2) Sam to Kuang when told to get all of Howard's payment: "Play for the flush. More percentage." (3) Sam to Stein, trying to convince him to break into the safe: "Herman, there's no such thing as a deal without risk. The idea is to play the percentages." (4) McGarrett to Sam at the end: "Murder? No percentage."

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: James O'Hara beaten to death by Nick Hansen and Lepe Gordon.
Death: Bill Howard hit over the head by Sam Green and pushed off balcony by Walter Sinclair.
Injury: Green scratches his hand when he kills Howard.

MORE TRIVIA:

• When Howard's body falls, it looks like it comes from the top of the building, not the top floor that we can see (but then Howard's apartment was the penthouse). There is a shot cutting away from the falling body, but when the camera returns to the side of the building again the showing the body falling more, it has not dropped a couple of floors as one might expect, but it is in virtually the same position it was before the cut-away shot. When seen in a flashback during the big reveal at the end of the show, the body falling is seen in one continuous shot, but it seems to be broken up into three parts which look like animated footage rather than a dummy being thrown off the building like the other two.
• A couple of gambling terms: a "marker" means a promissory note or an IOU; "insurance" during blackjack means "a special side bet that lets the player stake half their original bet against the dealer hitting a natural blackjack (a hand containing an ace and a picture card for a total of 21). Insurance can only be taken if the dealer shows an ace."
• Sinclair says he didn't know McGarrett went in for palm reading when McGarrett wants to see his hands. McGarrett replies: "I have all sorts of interesting hobbies."
• At the beginning of the show, a Physician's [sic] Ambulance is seen, but it's identified by a magnetic stick-on sign on its rear door.
• The trombone interval theme is heard at the beginning of the show.
• Jack Lord's hairy hand is seen in a closeup when he grabs Sam's hand prior to examining it for a cut produced by the tiki.
• It seems odd to me that in the chalk outline of where Howard's body hit the street there is no blood.
• There is a stock shot of driving in downtown Honolulu.
• Howard is seen smoking at the beginning and at the end of the show in the flashback.
• The "bookem" is "Ben, book Sam, murder one."

GALLERY:

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118. (S05E22) “Engaged To Be Buried” ★★★★  BOOK HIM 

QUICK PLOT:

A hoodlum who acts as an enforcer for his father's vending machine business is dating the daughter of Chin Ho and intends to marry her.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

What's with this Five-O trope that has to do with people either in or connected to law enforcement consorting with dangerous criminal types? This was most obvious in the Five-O reboot where the feminized Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park) got hot pants for Adam Noshimuri, son of a local yakuza (Japanese Mafia) big shot. This resulted in a soap opera which went on for over five years and only ended when Park left the show between the seventh and eighth seasons because of a desire to be with her family more or racially-tinged issues surrounding her and Daniel Dae Kim not making enough money compared to series stars Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan.

In Classic Five-O there is a sort-of-similar connection in the to-come season 10 finale where Chin Ho's daughter Suzie returns to Hawaii for her father's funeral and she hangs out with Kini Pahoa, daughter of the local kumu (Hawaiian Mafia) boss and Kini's oily boyfriend Jimmy Rego, who was the guy who actually murdered Suzie's father. In the show, Suzie helps Five-O bring her father's killer to justice.

Then there is this episode! Chin Ho has to face the fact that his daughter Alia (Irene Tsu) is involved with Rono Vidalgo (Erik Estrada), a punk whose father is boss of a local vending machine racket, sort of legitimized as the Star Island Company. At least the writers got the total numbers of Chin's kids correct, because in the previous Chin-centric episode, S02E20, "Cry, Lie," he had eight in total, six of which were seen, which covers the unseen Suzie and Alia.

Alia and Rono are sickeningly in love. They intend to get married! Alia must be 18 (the current age to get legally married in Hawaii without parents' permission), because she attends the Punahou School. The actress playing Alia in real life was around 28 years old when the episode was broadcast. Erik Estrada, on the other hand, was 24.

Alia is often pretending to be studying with one of her classmates when she is really spending time with Rono, and they are probably "doing it." Rono's wheelchair-bound father Shako is played by Simon Oakland, who gives a particularly blustery performance. He calls his son "Mr. Big Shot, Mr. Jet Set," and says Rono only thinks about "his car, his plane and his broads."

Rono and his brother Koa (Richard Yniguez) spend time threatening local businesses where their father's coin-operated machines can replace equipment already in use. They have help from Bertie Paipo (Donald Roessler), who dons lame disguises, parks beater cars in front of these businesses and then sets off bombs inside the cars to show that the Vidalgos mean business.

At the beginning of the show, the two brothers are seen hassling Mr. Hanolo (Yankee Chang), the operator of Riverside Billiards. When McGarrett asks for the old man's help in shutting down the Vidalgos' enterprise, he just clams up. They have more difficulty, however, when they go after Stan Carson (Charles Quinlivan), the new owner of a bowling alley in Kalihi. He used to be a cop in Chicago and he tells Rono to take a hike. Paipo starts to park a car in front of Carson's business with a bomb in it, but a cop nearby doing surveillance goes after him, and the car inexplicably rolls down the hill and into a parked car where it explodes. Jerry Kapitu, the cop trying to stop the rolling car, is DOA and a woman in the parked vehicle, Pamela Simpson (Cris Callow), who just happens to be Alia's best friend, is horribly burned and soon dies in hospital.

When Shako finds out about his son hanging out with Chin's daughter, he is not happy. He recommends that Rono get rid of her, but Rono says that he and Alia are "engaged." Rono tells his old man, "Pa, I've done everything you've ever asked me to do. I've pushed people around for you. I've parked bombs for you. I've twisted arms for you, and more. But I'm not, I am not, giving up Alia for you. We're going to get married." Shako screams "Never!", and Rono clears off his father's desk with a couple of swipes.

Soon after, Rono and Alia go to Kauai to meet with Father Jack, a priest who Rono first encountered when he was younger. Father Jack's church is right beside an airport runway which is very convenient for Rono to land his plane. The Father is not happy to see Rono. He tells Alia, "Rono Vidalgo is not welcome in my church … He lies. To me. To God. To himself … All Rono wants is excuses … For not breaking with that father of his. And I've heard them all. And his promises too … His father won't let him make the break. Now, the day you can tell me, and believe it, that Rono wants to be his own man, what he can be, then come back and see me." The two of them return to Honolulu.

At Five-O headquarters, Chin is horrified to see his daughter in recent surveillance pictures that HPD has made of Rono. Obviously he has been completely unaware of her double life. Cops bring her to the office where he confronts her. She is shown particularly gruesome photos of a merchant who was brutally killed for not co-operating with the Vidalgos, but of Rono, she tells her father, "I love him. I'm gonna say it till I die."

The dynamite used in the bombings has been traced to a construction company, and Chin goes with Ben and Duke to Shako's office and starts hassling him, trying to find the explosives, similar to what McGarrett did earlier where all of the company's books, records and correspondence were confiscated. Calling Chin "Pork Chop," Shako offers to make a deal to get Alia to elope with "somebody, anybody else." Chin, who is super pissed, tells him, "You think this is personal? Wrong. This is Five-O. And we're going to put you and your family away for so long, nobody, nobody's ever counted that high. Because you got it coming. As for my daughter, she wants to see Rono? Okay. She can see him on visiting days, where he belongs, in a cage."

Chin goes to the hospital, where his daughter is visiting Pamela. But when he arrives, Alia is leaving and he later finds out that Pamela is dead. McGarrett orders Paipo to be picked up and charged with "second-degree murder, two counts." McGarrett has photos that show Rono and Paipo at the bowling alley before the explosion, perhaps ones that HPD cop Kapitu took before he was killed.

When Rono encounters Alia after Pamela's death, Chin's daughter is in shock. Rono swears he had nothing to do with what happened to Pamela. Instead, he tells Alia, "I went to see my old man, I had it out with him … I'm checking out. Dusting the whole scene: My dad, Star Island, the racket, everything. I called Father Jack. I said, 'Okay, I'm ready.' But I couldn't do it alone, Alia. I needed his help. And yours."

Rono and Alia fly again to Kauai, where they are married by Father Jack, and then spend time in a cabin near the church. Back in Honolulu, Paipo wants to make a deal, which McGarrett refuses. When Chin comes into the same room as Paipo, he attacks him. McGarrett has to tell Chin, "One more outburst like that and you're off the case."

Paipo must sing like a canary, because we see a helicopter arriving on Kauai, which not only includes the men from Five-O, but also HPD cops and Koa, who tries to convince his brother to give himself up, which is the best advice their lawyer can give. Rono emerges from their love nest, using Alia as a shield, heading for his plane. Father Jack suddenly starts yelling at Rono, "You rotten, lying punk. You used me, you used my church." Rono shoots him dead.

Unarmed, Chin Ho approaches the couple very closely, saying, "You'll have to kill me too." McGarrett distracts Rono for a few seconds, allowing sharpshooter Duke with a rifle nearby to knock Rono off. (I yelled "YES!" at the TV screen as this happened.) As he croaks, Rono tells Alia, "Well, I finally got to meet your old man."

This was one of the late Kam Fong's favorite episodes and is definitely his greatest performance of the series, but the level of acting is very high all around. Aside from a goof when an undercover cop takes pictures of Rono and Alia where the "frozen snapshot" of Rono's car is totally wrong, since the cop is parked to the left front of Rono's Cadillac, but the picture is from the left rear, several feet away, and the eternal question of why would Alia get involved with a character like Rono in the first place (and how they originally got together), this is an outstanding show.

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

Punnery on "engaged to be married."

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: HPD Officer Jerry Kapitu killed in explosion trying to stop car with bomb in it.
Injury: Pamela Simpson critically injured in explosion.
Injury: Bertie Paipo beaten by Shako after he screws up his last bombing assignment.
Death: Pamela dies of her injuries.
Injury: Rono punches Koa unconscious.
Death: Father Jack shot by Rono.
Death: Rono sniped by Duke.

MORE TRIVIA:

• It is interesting that one of the main characters in this episode is in a wheelchair, only four shows after S05E18, "The Odd Lot Caper," starring Richard Basehart as stockbroker Donald Murdock, also in a wheelchair. Shako refers to himself as "a poor crippled old man with a cop's bullet in his spine" and "a man with two dead legs."
• At the beginning of the show, a display of Lay's Potato Chips is seen in the pool hall.
• An invoice taken from Shako's Star Island Company is for an order of "boxes of dynamite fuse" for the Stonehurst Construction Company, 28000 Kilho Blvd., Honolulu 96816. The date and certain other information on this invoice is scribbled. Another dynamite-related invoice later in the show is for the Bellina Construction Company, 14321 Pali Highway, with the same ZIP code. Both of these addresses are bogus.
• During the raid on Shako's company, he tells Chin to "Go to hell." A calendar featuring Richard Nixon, seen in other episodes as well, is on the wall behind him.
• Bowling alley owner Stan Carson has an ID card showing that he is retired from the Chicago P.D. It is signed by J. Heinz, an in-joke referring to the show's associate producer James.
• When Alia gets into Rono's airplane after their first trip to visit Father Jack, the wind blows up her dress so you can see her underpants.
• Chin Ho smokes his pipe in the show.
• There is a stock shot of a cop car when Alia is brought to the Five-O office.

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119. (S05E23) “The Diamond That Nobody Stole” ★★  DANNO, BOOK HER 

QUICK PLOT:

A cat burglar strikes at the home of a socially prominent island family, setting off a series of fast-moving events that involve espionage.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

Eric Braeden, in his last Five-O appearance, plays Djebara, a mysterious character who has married Christina (Darrah Lau), the daughter of Madame Souvang (Beulah Quo), a member of "one of the last of the royal families of Indochina," who is in exile in Hawaii and who dreams of "the restoration of her family in her homeland." Djebara has a shady past, which, according to Navy Commander Hughes (Mitch Mitchell), includes being "a counterintelligence agent in Southeast Asia during the late 50s through early 60s, sometimes for the CIA, sometimes on loan to friendly governments."

During a party, the safe at Djebara's house is robbed by Sammy York (Frank Trott), "five-foot-five, 145 pounds, 47 years old," who has a geezer-like air about him. York gets a diamond pendant as well as some developed film which contains a schematic, the input network diagram for the Polaris Missile, which is "sensitive to a quarter-of-a-mile setting on a target 6000 miles away." Realizing he has found something very hot, York contacts Djebara, demanding $50,000 cash to return the film.

The pendant is subsequently uncovered during a routine inspection of a sleazy pawn shop run by Willard Allen (Melvin Cobb) where York dumped it, and it is traced back to Professor Kung (Herb Jeffries), a professor at the University of Hawaii, who makes jewellery using "the ancient Phoenician method" as a hobby. Kung made this pendant as a gift which Djebara then gave to his wife; it was selected by Madame Souvang. Kung describes Djebara as "an international trade broker," now retired.

While with his mother-in-law and daughter at a farm at what looks like the Honolulu Zoo, Djebara meets with a Russian operative, identified in the credits only as "Pale Man" (John Stalker). The Russian discusses the film, for which he has made a substantial down payment already. He is aware that Djebara went to his bank the day before to get a "very large loan," which we know was to pay off York.

McGarrett comes to Djebara's place at 2861 Manoa Road to ask questions about the pendant, which Danno brought back to the office after the investigation at the pawn shop. McGarrett calls Che Fong. who is in the credits, but not the show, to come to Djebara's and give the place a good going over. When Five-O goes to find Allen and charge him with receiving stolen merchandise, they instead find Allen's body. He has a bullet in the head and one of his hands shows signs of torture: "The nails of the first three fingers on the right hand were torn off."

Djebara is trailed by two stooges in the employ of the Russian, one of whom is Nick Nickolas, the other stuntman Chuck Couch (both uncredited). Djebara is annoyed that these guys have a stick of dynamite up their asses, because he said would have the film for their boss in three days. He takes care of both of them using some martial arts-like moves.

After Che Fong's team recovers a thread from a black glove left by York when he was breaking into the safe, Chin Ho tracks down where these gloves were sold locally, which seems very far-fetched. The clerk in the store identifies York as the likely purchaser, and Five-O goes to York's place, only to find him dead. Assuming he was killed by Djebara, you have to wonder how Djebara figured out who York was and where the flophouse where he lived was located. I think it very unlikely their meeting to exchange the film for the money would have taken place at York's room.

While Danno is trying to call the lab to get them and come to York's and give the place a good examination, he finds a contact print from the stolen microfilm in the mouthpiece of the phone, left as a clue in case York got knocked off, I guess (also far-fetched – about as much as York having the know-it-all to make prints in his home darkroom from the film to see what was on it).

The show ends with an interminable pursuit of Djebara (4:48 by cab and car, 1:52 by foot, a total of 6:40), who has become Five-O's number one suspect. It ends up at the Ala Moana Mall, where there are tons of people shopping as well as watching the filming. Djebara is waiting for his payoff from the Russians, which is delivered by Walter Omori, the "mysterious actor," but before he can hand over the money, Djebara is shot by an assassin with a rifle and falls over the mall balcony to the ground below. My earlier review of this show suggested that Djebara was now trying to deal with the Chinese (I don't think so), and misidentified actor Omori to boot!

Things get very murky from here, plot-wise. We see Madame Souvang meeting with the Russian. She turns over the film to him, and he makes the final payment with cash in a paper bag which also contains three pineapples. WHAT?!? Souvang somehow got the film after Djebara recovered it from York and switched it with blank film, which is totally stupid, because you would expect Djebara to check it before he turned it over.

Souvang then arranged to have Djebara knocked off because he betrayed her and was acting on his own like "a mercenary." She was under the impression that he was her pal and going to sell the film to raise the money to give to her as part of a plan to return her to her imperial glory in Indonesia: "The price of restoring my country to its rightful ruler. My family's palace is filled with peasants playing at government." Souvang knew about the film all along, and finally realized that Djebara was trying to line his own pockets with the proceeds — I guess.

McGarrett's explanation for why she is guilty is dumb: "The negatives weren't on your son-in-law. Where else could they have been? Nobody else could have known. It had to be you." The old lady has a short memory, by the way, because despite the fact that she met McGarrett — identified by Djebara as a "business associate" — at his house earlier, she does not recognize him at the end of the show when he arrests her, saying, "Do I know you?" She is busted, and the "bookem" is "Danno, book her, murder one and espionage."

WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN?

The title does not make any sense, because the diamond in the pendant was "stolen" by Sammy York.

CASUALTY LIST:

Death: Willard J. Allen tortured and shot with .38 in the head by Djebara.
Death: Sammy York strangled by Djebara.
Death: Djebara sniped at Ala Moana Shopping Center by professional hitman hired by Madame Souvang.

MORE TRIVIA:

• There is no promo for this episode on the fifth season DVD set. Whether one exists is not known.
• This show is the source of the shot of Ben jumping over the fence in the main titles (approximately 48:11 on the DVDs).
• When York is breaking into the safe, the lighting in the room is inconsistent. I don't know why he needs a flashlight, because the area around the safe is sometimes lit very brightly. York has a flashlight connected to one of his arms which often conflicts with the parts of the wall which are already brightly-lit. This reminds me of those scenes in movies and TV shows where someone lights a candle in a room and suddenly it is filled with blazing light.
• To bypass the alarm system connected to the safe, York injects C.P. Ballard's Triple Distilled Mercury, produced by Quicksilver Products Inc. of San Francisco and Los Angeles, into the lock.
• In York's room, there is what looks like a calendar with a picture of Richard Nixon as well as other presidents, plus a poster with flags of the world on it.
• After McGarrett and Danno find York's body, there is a very subtle change in focus between the two when Danno is on the phone trying to call the lab. McGarrett promptly whips out his magnifying glass for the second time in the show to check out the contact print hidden in the phone's mouthpiece.
• When McGarrett meets Djebara's young daughter Michi, he says "Hi, honey." The actress playing this part is Deborah Berger in the end credits, but a link at IMDb to this actress's entry there suggests she is white, whereas the actress playing the part is Asian.
• Pawnbroker Allen's house number is 4105 and although his shop looks like a dump on Hotel Street, his house is at 3735 Diamond Head Road, kind of a posh area. This is the same house seen in S04E11, "A Matter of Mutual Concern" and other episodes. The pawnshop is located near the Risque Theater which advertises on its marquee: "Naked — No Biz Like Show Biz." One of the items for sale in the pawnshop is the Somerset LP record Music to Strip By, performed by "Bald" Bill Hagan And His Trocaderons. Danno says to Allen: "I want to see receipts on everything you've got in here, including dust."
• There is a stock shot of driving in downtown Honolulu and the stock score contains the violin theme a couple of times as well as the fade-in/fade out trumpets motif and some of the music for "Hookman."
• Bernie's Cab has the ubiquitous 732-5577 phone number.
• When McGarrett and Chin Ho are on the radio in their cars, their lips sometimes don't match what they're saying.
• During the pursuit of Djebara, the revolving restaurant building is seen, as is Kapiolani Furniture. At the mall, a sign advertises a "Young People's Hula Show."
• Djebara's station wagon has an unusual license number — 3A-82.
• A good quote from McGarrett regarding a crook who has arthritis: "He couldn't open a can of cat food."
• McGarrett snaps his fingers eight times in one scene.
• A sign in Japanese in the Ala Moana Shopping Center at the end says, "Don't hesitate to speak casual Japanese" (it's hard to translate).

GALLERY:

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120. (S05E24) “Jury Of One” ★★★

QUICK PLOT:

Five-O has to find out the motive behind the consistent "not guilty" vote by a juror which may lead to a mistrial in a court case.

Click here to read Full Plot.

REVIEW:

This episode provides an interesting look into what goes on in the jury room during deliberations at the conclusion of a trial. It is much better than the mediocre S11E04, "The Case Against Philip Christie."

In that show, McGarrett, incredulously, is on the jury and is the one who holds out for the innocence of the accused. In this show, the young daughter of Clifford Sprague (Ray Butenika), one of the jurors, has been kidnapped to influence him to be the sole "not guilty" vote which will force the judge to declare a mistrial because the jury is deadlocked.

Curt Lucas (Paul Camen) is the defendant. He is a clean-cut, respectable-looking fellow whose lawyer Edward Binns (Evan Mills) can give district attorney Manicote a good run for the money. Lucas is accused of inflicting "fatal injuries" on one Harry Gifford who owed him money. It is never specifically said what Lucas's racket is, other than a suggestion that he is a lowlife who has employees – who appeared as character witnesses — similar to people who sold drugs to the son of one of the jury members.

At the beginning of the show, McGarrett gets a tip from a "petty thief and stool pigeon" named Artie Boland (Arthur Malet, a character actor born in England) who looks like a total bum and has a very peculiar English accent. He tips off McGarrett that one of the "guys" on the jury is "wired, made, fixed … that jury's gonna be hung so high, it's gonna go into orbit."

When McGarrett brings Artie's intel to Judge Phillips (Don "Lance" Over, who gives an excellent performance), it causes a screaming match between Manicote and Mills. To determine if the information has any credence, Five-O has to conduct an investigation with only a few days before the case will be turned over to the jury to decide.

There are five men on the jury whose lives are to be scrutinized: Turner Carr, retired Army colonel (Douglas Kennedy), Lee Chung, building contractor (Galen Kam), Grady Jenkins, car salesman (Terry Plunkett), Warren Purcell, stockbroker (Alfred Avallone), and Sprague, a gas station attendant and part-time student at the University of Hawaii.

Jenkins is the first to be a suspect, because a $5,000 cash deposit was recently made to his bank account. When Jenkins is grilled by the judge in his chambers, however, he suffers a heart attack and is replaced by another juror. In the hospital later, he tells McGarrett that he won the money in a poker game from a guy named Bernie Harris. It looks like there is also something fishy going on with Purcell, who has been shacking up locally with a blonde dame who is ID'd from a photo in the love nest he is renting for her in Honolulu. She is Sybil Fletcher, wife of state senator Jim. McGarrett goes all the way to Maui to talk to Sybil, who tells him frankly that she is in the process of getting an amicable divorce from her husband. Since this is public knowledge, why would someone be trying to blackmail Purcell?

Two other male jury members are eliminated, leaving only Sprague. Chin Ho goes to visit Sprague's wife Helen (Dale Morse), who is extremely nervous answering his questions. McGarrett immediately figures that Sprague's daughter has been kidnapped to coerce him into making his unshakeable "not guilty" verdict. Considering the jury has been tightly sequestered for the trial and was also closed to the public, suspicion falls on the bailiff George Watkins (Bill Bigelow) as being the intermediary between Sprague and the kidnappers.

A wiretap on Watkins' phone (which seems odd –- would this be a direct line to outside the courthouse, or wouldn't it have to go through the building's exchange?) reveals a call made to Lila Harkness (Susan Berger), who the HPD "Iron Brain" reveals was married six months before to Lew Foss. Foss co-owns Union Building Supply Company, described as "one of Lucas's fronts," with Lucas himself. Foss is played by Robert Sandla, who gives a shifty performance. We saw him earlier keeping an eye on Artie the stool pigeon, who ended up dead before he was able to give McGarrett a second batch of information supposedly related to the case.

Considering where Sprague's daughter is being held and various other factors, it is amazing that Five-O manages to resolve the investigation in record time. They arrive at Foss's place, which seems to be far from downtown and he and Lila, who is a harsh skank, are busted. Then McGarrett brings the kid to the courtroom just as jury foreman Carr is going to give the judge the bad news that they can't agree on the verdict. When Sprague sees his daughter is safe, he suddenly whispers his updated verdict of "guilty" to Carr and the case against Lucas is closed.

There are no featured players in the cast at the end; all the credits are in the smaller type usually used for secondary players. The parts are taken by members of the Five-O stock company, all of whom do an excellent job.

EPISODE PROMO:

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CASUALTY LIST:

Death: Arte Boland purposefully run over by a car that "swerved clear across to the wrong side of the street" (not seen by us).

MORE TRIVIA:

• When Sprague is confronted in the jury room by one of the female jury members who wants him to give reasons why he won't vote "guilty," he says to her, "Don't tell me a male chauvinist pig hater like you believes in women's intuition." According to a lawyer friend, if a juror like Sprague just keeps reiterating his verdict over and over and not discussing or co-operating with the other jury members, he could be replaced by the judge with one of the alternates. An Asian guy takes over for Jenkins after his heart attack; we can see him prior to this sitting in the courtroom with another alternate behind the prosecution table.
• As McGarrett is driving with Arte the informer slouched down behind his seat, I noticed this weird pattern seemingly on the car's rear window. When Artie is sitting up, you cannot see this. I asked Michael Timothy, an expert on this car, about this, and he told me, "It's an optical illusion. The windows are tinted because the car has factory air conditioning as an option. You’re seeing that tint which for some reason has a weird pattern effect. It's visible only in certain types of sunshine snd at a specific angle. It's apparent from looking through a single pane, any window as long as it is factory tinted."
• Che Fong, identified as working for the "Hawaii Five-O crime laboratory," testifies in court. Earlier, Che used chemical means — hydrochloric acid and potassium thiocynate to determine that an IOU for the $5,000 in Jenkins' possession was genuine. The latter chemical is actually spelled potassium thiocyanate; the way it reacts with iron to produce a red color is quite correct, according to information at Wikipedia.
• Five-O comes up with a list of phone numbers of potential suspects who are holding Sprague's child. Note they all have real-looking phone numbers. "Geller" looks like an in-joke referring to sometime Five-O composer Harry.

  Newton ............... 949-2320
  Barnes ............... 988-6041
  Hoshida .............. 247-3316
  McCulloch ............ 946-9454
  Geller ............... 537-8490
  Swanson .............. 247-3139
  Harkness ............. 946-6835

• As McGarrett meets Duke by the steps of the Iolani Palace, he puts his hand on Duke's shoulder as they walk and then pats him on the back as they part.
• There are stock shots of driving and ambulances.
• The place where Sybil Fletcher lives on Maui is actually the Anderson Estate on Oahu. McGarrett uses the expression "Maui nō ka ‘oi ['Maui is the best']" when speaking to her. It was heard in S03E09, "The Late John Louisiana," spoken by Hilo Hattie to McGarrett.
• Lee Chung is smoking in the jury room!
• The courthouse where the trial is held is the Kana‘ina Building, which is right next to the ‘Iolani Palace.  (Thanks to Fred Helfing)

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