“I think you have the whole ass kicking thing down.” -Chin
S01E16: Let’s get right down to it, shall we? This week’s episode of Hawaii Five-0 was not a good episode. (Oh, by the way, I had been writing the title incorrectly this entire time; thanks for noticing. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, our current reboot is spelled with a 0 while the original is a capital O, FYI.)
According to our handy-dandy grading scale, this episode tried but failed miserably. We had a little product placement with a shot of Danno’s phone but no painful dialogue about it. Just a quick glimpse. HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YOUR CAPITALISM PILLS H50? We were treated to a little car advertising, courtesy of your neighborhood Chevy dealer, but it was fairly tame considering the car porn we’ve had before.
Side note: one thing I have enjoyed noticing is how all the “bad guy” cars are never Chevys. It’s kinda like how all the Autobots in Transformers are GM models and Decipticons are others. (NEEEEEEEEERD!)
Anyway, there was no Grace Park in a bikini or a recognizable guest star. We did get a decent bit of stunts that made absolutely no sense, but whatever. Grace Park can totally kick a lady through a door. McGarrett can totally create a log ram from stuff he finds on the jungle floor. Riiiiight. And there was not a single riff between McGarrett and Danno, but more on that later.
“I don’t know anything about you.” -Chin
Since H50 failed on all accounts by our grading system, how was the plot? Fairly straightforward actually. A girl is a witness to a murder and the dude she is testifying against puts a hit out on her. She manages to escape her would-be assassins and flees to the jungle. So, it’s up to McGarrett and Chin to track the girl down. Now, I’ll give H50 credit for actually attempting to explain how these guys are tracking the girl — something Lost never did. Not that I’m a hunter or anything, but their techniques seemed decent enough.
Things then get a little ridiculous. McGarrett dons some mud camo out of nowhere. Chin stumbles upon a shack that happens to have a dirt bike. Whilst escaping, Chin and McGarrett happen to lock eyes and devise a plan (all while driving on a dirt bike through the jungle). Then once they deliver the girl to the court house, the other assassin is disguised as a lawyer. You know, she plans to kill two people IN A BUILDING FULL OF COPS, LAWYERS, AND JUDGES. No wonder she got kicked through the door.
“Some guys, they’re just born without a fear gene.” -Chin
You may be asking yourself, “Where was Danno during all of this?” and to that I commend you for thinking with your head and having basic comprehension skills. Danno gets taken out of the group early on to deal with his ex-wife’s carjacking. Now, for a second I thought the writers were going to do something interesting by removing an integral part of the group dynamic and see how it effects the rest of the group. I guess the lesson of “we all need each other to function properly” has been done before, but it was still interesting to imagine.
The 5-0 gang is the classic case of the four temperaments (oh yeah, WE’RE GOING DEEP). McGarrett is the Earth: strong and focused — a little too focused maybe. Danno is the Fire: he’s passionate and his riffs with Danno aren’t for nothing. Chin is the Water: calm, cool, and collected. Kono is therefore the air: light, but not insignificant. Each brings their own personality to the group that allows them to work together better than by themselves. They need each other to reign each other in when they all get too crazy. It’s a classic group dynamic that has been tested on film and TV for years (okay, truth be told, the four temperaments is hallmark of classic medicine so this has been around for a looooooooooong time).
Removing Danno removes the passion from the group. He’s usually the lone voice of reason to McGarrett’s STORM THE BEACHES, but can also be the loudest. It would’ve been interesting to see how he would’ve been missed, but the writers split up the rest of the group anyway. If they weren’t going to explore the group dynamic when one of the pieces go missing, then why bother having him gone? My only guess is that they couldn’t figure out what to do with him in the jungle considering they kicked Grace Park back to HQ. They have a really interesting dynamic going on with H50, I think its about time the writers started exploring that and the best way to do that is by changing it up a little.
Come on, H50 writers. You can do better. Wait. Dane Cook’s guest spot is coming up. Never mind.
