Once upon a time, I recapped the weekly insanity that is Hawaii Five-O for this esteemed site. There is something so refreshing about a show with literally no rules and no laws. And by no rules and no laws, I mean domestic and international law. I also mean rules of storytelling and laws of physics. Continue reading
5-0
4 posts
I know you missed my updates from the 50th (and 3rd-Awesomest) state.
I’m sorry! The holidays and whatnot. I’d like to say that you didn’t miss much on Hawaii 5-0, but you did. You missed so much!
But, we can’t go back in time, so we are just going to have to pick up with this week’s lessons about National Security, Fashion, and Shaved Ice. Don’t worry. You don’t have to have seen the episode. This is all about what we can learn about the world around us. 5-0 Style!
Recap!
Fake pirates kidnap rich kids off of a boat and ask for ransom. 5-0 saves the day!
Pirates are Everywhere!
One of the main things I learned this week? Pirates are everywhere. (It was right there in the header.) Apparently, they are a huge problem in Hawaii. So huge, in fact, that if you want to kidnap somebody, you should totally just pretend to be a pirate. Because then you will just blend in with all the other pirates.
(Note: Apparently it helps if you dump a dead pirate on the deck. This is very convincing.)
Other things we learn later about real Hawaiian pirates:
- They don’t kill people, just rob them.
- People who kill people are fake pirates.
- HOOYAH is apparently the name for the pirate code of silence. (A real pirate said it during interrogation. This one in particular might come in handy.)
- If you have a specific engraving on your watch, the pirate will not pawn your watch, but wear it, just in case he needs an alibi for a kidnapping that occurred at the same time he stole your watch.
(Note: These things may only apply to Hawaiian pirates. I make no promises that they will work on other pirates. If you are near Somalia, you are on your own.)
Nick Lachey’s Lover is Trapped in the Closet!
I hate love hate love! obvious examples of Chekhov’s gun. You know the old saying “If there is a Nick Lachey in the scene, somebody is going to get shot by the end of the episode.” Well, at the beginning of this episode:
The only person left on the boat when 5-0 shows up is a super-cute girl that hides in a closet on the main deck. Sorry, do I hear bells ringing in my head?
Her boyfriend who meets her at the dock is Nick Lachey, and they leave together “never to be seen again.” HOLY SHIT THOSE BELLS ARE LOUD!
(Note: If at this point you predict that she will be the one who has to bring the ransom to the head bad guy at the end, who turns out to be…Nick Lachey (WHAT?!), you have seen television before.)
Technology Rules!
5-0 has a Surface, or whatever those table computers are called that can take an excel spreadsheet and magically turn all the matching squares into neon green blocks with “MATCH!” written in comic sans. It’s like the world’s most powerful “My First Matching Game!” But that wasn’t the cool part.
They also take “biometric” mug shots of your eyeballs so they can match your face to people in ski masks that have eyes that look exactly like NICK LACHEY! But that is not the cool part either.
They also have a button on all police computers that you touch and it “Transfers call to 5-0.” I’m sorry. Did I say computer? I meant computer screen! That was even cooler, but still not the cool part.
McGuffin or McGarble or Tall Guy has an iPhone App that just shows every kind of gun to a witness for identification purposes. I call it “Gunphone.”
“This one? *swipe* This one? *swipe* This one? *swipe* THIS ONE?! IT WAS AN AK-47!”
(Note: She is in on it! Why is she correctly identifying the gun?! Also, why do bad guys always use the same gun? “We matched ballistics to 400 other crimes on that island over there.” Also, couldn’t they have just figured out the type of gun by those exact same ballistics? Also, what does it matter?!)
*****
Break 1: Subtle Product Placement Edition: The families of the missing kids are all staying “at the Hilton.” Very smooth MacGuffin!
Break 2: Grace Park walks in wearing a red/pink top and green pants. My wife says “Why does she look like a watermelon?” I do not say: “Honey, Grace Park never looks like a watermelon.”
Break 3: Have I mentioned that their primary “man on the street” is a sumo-wrestler trainee who runs a shaved ice stand and gets his “intel” from “what I read in the paper.” 5-0 style!
*****
Pawn Shops Suck. Explode them!
At some point in the episode they needed information from a guy that runs a pawn shop. I don’t know why. I don’t care. Something to do with a single golden money clip that tied the entire case together. Here is what I do know. Pawn shops are always shady. Always. Is there a not shady pawn shop anywhere in the world? I think that if the guy at the pawn shop won’t help you out you should strap a grenade to the door of his office and then run out the front door. Fortunately for me, McGrudel agrees. BOOM! Maybe you’ll speak to 5-0 now Mr. Shady Pawn Shop Guy.
Sexy Time!
There is always some unnecessarily “sexy” element to 5-0. This week it was how all the young kidnap victims were being held in a hot cage all half-naked. They looked like a commercial for Skins or something. It was totally inappropriate. Also, hot. Later in the episode they are trapped in a sweaty school bus. That was just creepy.
5-0 Don’t Care!
Armed kidnapping in international waters! Forget the FBI! Fuck the Coast Guard! 5-0 Don’t Care! State Police Task Force in the HOUSE!
Paying ransom to kidnappers like everybody says you are supposed to? No fucking way! 5-0 Don’t Care! We are going in armed and strong. Paying them will just lead to disaster! One kid’s dad ignored 5-0 and paid their family’s share of the ransom anyway. When the kidnappers killed a hostage for only paying part of the ransom, guess who they killed? That’s right punk. Listen to 5-0 next time! Because 5-0 don’t care! Paying = disaster!
After the kid died, 5-0 decided to pay up after all. Changing plans for no reason!? 5-0 Don’t Care!
*****
Break 4: Fight scene in a bar! (Doesn’t matter why.) (a) Grace Park can jump from the middle of one escalator to another and kick somebody in the face. (b) A guy named Bobby ran really fast. His hair looked like it was in a Flock of Seagulls cover band (he did not), and when he ran it started flapping like wings.
Break 5: Survivor Commercial. A former marine says that the best part of Survivor is no one is shooting at you. No Mr. Marine, that is the worst part about Survivor.
*****
How Did It End?!
According to the kidnappers, cute-girl-from-the-closet (remember her?) was the only one who could take the ransom to some dirty, sticky, warehouse or dock or whatever, filled with naked-kidnapped-teenagers, BECAUSE SHE IS IN ON IT! Who else knew that? That’s right 5-0 did! The money was just phone books! Thank goodness we don’t use phone books anymore, so they could just waste them all like that. “What are we going to fill the bags with?” “I don’t know. How about all those phone books over there?”
Anyway, BOOM! POW! Some disco lights go off or something. Nick Lachey runs and jumps into a trolley! McGrawhillber shoots him! Everybody lives except the kid of the punk-ass dude that did not listen to 5-0.
Moral!
Listen to 5-0! If you don’t, your kid will die! 5-0 don’t care!
Verdict!
Not enough Scott Caan.
…or should that be our 5-0th state?
There really weren’t too many lessons to be learned from Hawaii Five-0 this week. I hope you aren’t disappointed. But I’ll still share what I learned from the episode where four very, very evil people used Triathlons as cover for their crimes.
1) Snow cone guys are a lot more important than I realized. Apparently they hang out with high-level law enforcement all the time. Even when they are just working around the house. (Either that or I’m just missing the cues that “our hero” has very, very broad tastes.)
2) If you are the highest ranking law enforcement official in the state, with complete immunity and a direct line to the governor, you can totally just give your phone away to other people, no problem. Like “Oh, you sat on my phone, that’s gross. You keep it.” levels of no problem.
3) Being a Rookie Cop sucks. And you should always wear your bathing suit instead of underwear in case you have to strip down and jump in the water all the time.
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. Continue reading