Occasionally, I’d like to touch on something a little more serious. Countless critics provide quality artistic and socio-political analysis of today’s high quality dramas: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Top Chef. But I’m afraid that this particular focus has led us to ignore the important lessons we can learn from America’s Top New Drama: Hawaii Five-O. Here are some important lessons from this week’s episode.
1) Summits are more important than you thought!: All you really need to know about the plot is that a bad dictator was landing in Hawaii and our heroes had to protect him. (Moral dilemma!) Fortunately, they determined early on that there was a plot to assassinate him in Hawaii. Obvious solution: don’t come. But he had to come. It was very important that he be at a summit! I thought summits were just a chance to sit in dated chairs at an awkward angle. Apparently not! I still don’t know what happens, but it is apparently very important.
2) Assassins are sexy: Very, very sexy. That’s how they get you to let them kill you.
3) “No foreign dignitary has ever been killed on American soil”: Did you know that? I bet you didn’t.
4) Pearl Harbor was very important: I don’t think that actually came up this week, but it comes up every week, so I may have just missed it.
5) BOOMER and JIN!: How long will it take me to not think of Boomer and Jin every time I see Boomer and Jin. Forever? Probably.
6) General Pak is from Sandimar: Koreanesque name. Burmaesque country. Covered their bases there. But “Sandimar”? Sounds like Sandy Mar. Which sounds like a ritzy town near Big Sur. So watch out for ritzy Californians. They may be evil dictators!
7) New Jersey looks like New York City: Our hero Dan-O has a postcard in the car to remind him of home. It is labeled New Jersey in Comic Sans. But it’s a picture of the New York City skyline. This seems understandable to me. He also seems to hate Hawaii. Must be related to Mr. Echo.
8) Harley-Davidson is a new sponsor: They join every company in existence, especially Chevy – the only car you can find in Hawaii!) But this was the first Harley I’d noticed, when Jin thoughtfully wiped his hand over the logo in cased I missed it. (Also, 8 + ) is apparently a happy face. Deal with it.)
9) Hawaii is really dangerous: Apparently international terrorists can wander in and out of there all the time. Like weekly they do this. From all over the world. They should move Interpol’s headquarters to Oahu or something.
10) Room staging matters: If you are going to tell a sad story, arrange your entire family along one couch in the living room, except your mom. Give her her own chair and stand behind her. This is very effective for describing human rights abuses at the hand of the person the cops are trying to protect. It makes cops almost cry. (Also call them out on it. They will almost cry harder!)
11) If you are an assassin and shooting at cops, look both ways before you cross the street: This one is self-explanatory I think. (Hint: If you don’t, you will be killed by a tourist bus.)
12) Dictators are just misunderstood!: This one was really important. Pak was really moved by the cops saving his life all the time. Plus, it turned out he was in Hawaii to get Asylum so he could turn himself into the Hague and testify against the rest of the junta. Of course! This happens all the time. (Personally, I think he was just trying to get someone to fix his horrible plastic surgery. I hope he executed the plastic surgeons in Sandimar.)
13) Hawaii is on the way to the Hague from Sandimar: Apparently, since he wasn’t actually going to the important summit after all, but actually to testify at the World Court. But, still, Hawaii was probably the natural refueling stop. Oh, and he had to get asylum first. I forgot about that.
14) Serving God and Country isn’t Enough: A direct quote and another very important lesson. Turns out, the plot was an inside job, led by Pak’s security detail, a bunch of former Special Ops mercenaries who decided it was time to finally get something for their trouble. This makes me think that we train assassins to take out assassins who then become the assassins that we have to train assassins to take out. We should stop this cycle of violence.
15) It’s good that we know dictators are just misunderstood: Because otherwise we would have a real moral dilemma. If you had the opportunity to kill an evil dictator when you were supposed to protect him, would you do it? What if you had to kill his wife and child too? A random innocent? You could save thousands or millions of people! This is hard.
Fortunately, he was just misunderstood, so our heroes didn’t have to decide this.
16) Hawaii has a lot, lot, lot of hot people: Hmmm. Maybe I should have led off with this one.
4 thoughts on “International Security and Local Law Enforcement”