This is an interesting episode because it marks some major transitions on "Hawaii Five-O". Zulu was fired from the show after four seasons and was replaced by Al Harrington as 'Ben' and Herman Wedemeyer ('Duke') was finally taken off active police duty and made a member of Five-O. Though he had been in a few episodes here and there, he was a uniformed cop--just like he was at the beginning of this episode. In addition, Glenn Cannon finally became a regular starting in this show as District Attorney Manicote. There all very significant changes in the show and it's a bit surprising that so much was done at the beginning of season five.
At the beginning of the show, one mobster murders another. In an interesting twist, the dead man has arranged to have a letter sent to McGarrett if he were to disappear. This letter implicated his murderer in another killing some time back and gave three different ways that the police could convict the guy. Yet, following a meeting in which Five-O and representatives of the District Attorney's office discussed the specifics of the letter, all three rock-solid leads just vanished! A safe was burglarized, a home with incriminating information in it was burned and a witness killed! Obviously someone in the meeting was an informer and told the mobster about the letter. As a result, much of the show consists of trying to determine who the leak was and capture them. Early on, the evidence appears to point to Duke--and the evidence against him is pretty damning. However, like an early episode of the show where THE EXACT SAME THING OCCURRED TO CHIN (yet, oddly, no one mentions this during the show)! It's pretty cool how he was framed, but also pretty sad that the same plot element was reused almost exactly the same way. But, I will cut the show some slack--it was entertaining and not everyone is as nutty as me as to have watched every episode through season four! Tune in to see how this is all resolved.
Let's first talk about the good in this particular show. First, the plot was interesting and people who watched it originally did not know that Duke was innocent--after all, he was NOT a regular yet on the show. Despite being a recycled idea, how and why it was done is pretty cool. Also, I loved one of the minor characters in the show--the lady accountant. She was so cold and cool---and scary. Despite being a very quiet character and only appearing in a few scenes, she managed to even upstage the main villain, Michael Ansara, who, as usual, was great as a baddie. Also, while I am not a huge fan of Ben or Duke, adding two new cast members to replace the one who was fired was a pretty good move.
As for the bad, the show really piqued my interest throughout BUT dropped the ball at the very end. Having McGarret and Danno shoot down a helicopter seemed really silly--but was made a lot worse by inserting stock footage of what clearly was NOT the copter made an otherwise good episode seem a bit cheesy. I took off a point for this, though my wife said she didn't think it was THAT bad. I bet she'd be surprised to see that I wrote that!
At the beginning of the show, one mobster murders another. In an interesting twist, the dead man has arranged to have a letter sent to McGarrett if he were to disappear. This letter implicated his murderer in another killing some time back and gave three different ways that the police could convict the guy. Yet, following a meeting in which Five-O and representatives of the District Attorney's office discussed the specifics of the letter, all three rock-solid leads just vanished! A safe was burglarized, a home with incriminating information in it was burned and a witness killed! Obviously someone in the meeting was an informer and told the mobster about the letter. As a result, much of the show consists of trying to determine who the leak was and capture them. Early on, the evidence appears to point to Duke--and the evidence against him is pretty damning. However, like an early episode of the show where THE EXACT SAME THING OCCURRED TO CHIN (yet, oddly, no one mentions this during the show)! It's pretty cool how he was framed, but also pretty sad that the same plot element was reused almost exactly the same way. But, I will cut the show some slack--it was entertaining and not everyone is as nutty as me as to have watched every episode through season four! Tune in to see how this is all resolved.
Let's first talk about the good in this particular show. First, the plot was interesting and people who watched it originally did not know that Duke was innocent--after all, he was NOT a regular yet on the show. Despite being a recycled idea, how and why it was done is pretty cool. Also, I loved one of the minor characters in the show--the lady accountant. She was so cold and cool---and scary. Despite being a very quiet character and only appearing in a few scenes, she managed to even upstage the main villain, Michael Ansara, who, as usual, was great as a baddie. Also, while I am not a huge fan of Ben or Duke, adding two new cast members to replace the one who was fired was a pretty good move.
As for the bad, the show really piqued my interest throughout BUT dropped the ball at the very end. Having McGarret and Danno shoot down a helicopter seemed really silly--but was made a lot worse by inserting stock footage of what clearly was NOT the copter made an otherwise good episode seem a bit cheesy. I took off a point for this, though my wife said she didn't think it was THAT bad. I bet she'd be surprised to see that I wrote that!
