Hawaii Five-O (TV Series) Steal Now - Pay Later (1974) User Reviews

One of the best endings

[VetteRanger · 7/10 · 20 March 2023]

I won't tell you WHAT the ending is, because then I'd have to claim a spoiler, but occasionally the writers have McGarrett gloat a bit in the final apprehension of the bad guy. This bad guy is particularly smarmy, cocky, and ... well ... bad.

He runs a criminal operation from the phone with a sequence of inside men who take kickbacks, criminals who commit robberies and aren't shy about killing anyone who gets in their way, and if a customer finds out they are buying stolen goods at "below wholesale" and want out, his threats are reprehensible.

Casey Kasum does a great job as the customer who gets made and decides to get even.

It's not particularly distinguished.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 14 August 2011]

The episode begins in California. A truck is hijacked and the driver is killed. Apparently, the hijackers wanted to steal a shipment of refrigerators. As for the corpse, they stuffed it into one of the refrigerators and tossed it in the water...in Hawaii. Now that was PRETTY STUPID--a hole in the episode because it drew attention to the stolen refrigerator and showed that their ultimate destination was Hawaii--so naturally, Five-O investigates.

As for the crime, Colby (frequent "Hawaii Five-O" baddie Ray Danton) is a wholesaler. He has no office, never gives his clients his number and is quite shadowy. In spite of this, he is very successful because his prices are so cheap--because ALL his merchandise is stolen. Not at all surprisingly, this is a relatively easy crime to trace back to him and by the end of the show he's caught.

The crime seemed pretty mundane and easy to solve. The only interesting aspect of this one was seeing Casey Kasem in a major supporting role--in which he was quite good.