This was the first episode of Hawaii Five-0 I ever saw. I was a teenager at the time and I watched what my parents watched, which didn't include H5-0. For whatever reason, I had control of the TV set that night and caught the opening scene of this, probably while flipping channels. Seeing John Randolph hiding, watching Albert Paulsen pushing Elaine Joyce off that balcony was a grabber. The famous opening credit sequence did the rest.
The show is most famous for its pacing and its all-business demeanor, (no humorous sub-plots here). But it was also a show with some remarkable character studies by guest stars like John Randolph, a former black-list victim who was just getting his career going again in the late 60's. Here he plays a conservative businessman who saw an opportunity to break out of his shell and winds up in the middle of a terrible mess. Does he testify against a dangerous racketeer and risk retribution and the shattering of his image back home? Or does he put the bad guy in jail and avenge the death of the young woman? He's terrific in this role.
And the whole this is capped off by McGarrett quoting John Donne. Here is the whole 'meditation' by Donne: "All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." There may have been some logical gaps in the episode, (there usually are), but I found this episode very affecting and having seen it again for the first time in nearly 40 years as part of the Season II DVD release, I found it had the same impact on me that it did then.
It's one of Hawaii Five-0's all time best episodes.