A politically powerful Big Island rancher learns that his son was killed by a blow to the head. The son was involved in a fight outside a barroom with a local. The local is arrested and, over the rancher's strenuous objections, charged only with manslaughter. The rancher plots to break into the jail and kidnap the suspect, hide him on the huge ranch and ceremoniously hang him from a tree. While Five-O frantically searches for the unlucky suspect, McGarrett finds a rock at the crime scene with blood on it. "This wasn't manslaughter, Danno ... this was murder one!" He means that after the local shoved the rancher's son to the ground, knocking him unconscious, and then fled, someone else -- the rancher's other son, in fact -- finished the job. Five-O scours the ranch to capture the rancher before he can murder an innocent man.
—Peter Harris