Happy Valentine's Day, Five-0ers! Our favorite on-screen couple — McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) and Danno (Scott Caan) — sparred beautifully while sharing screen time with real-life couple Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo and taking down a rogue band of (what are assumed to be) Tongan pirates who kidnapped several Mainland kids on spring break. What can we say? Our boys got skills. Let's fly:
Lava from Kilauea's east-zone rift hits the ocean on the Big Island. Photo: Bill Sodeman/Creative Commons.
Soaring over Waikiki, we fly to — first outer island film shot! — lava hitting the ocean at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Likely stock footage obtained elsewhere, but bravo to the show's producers for a glimpse of Kilauea's good stuff. We fly from there to a spot out on the ocean where the Makani catamaran (sails out of Kewalo Harbor) is hosting a spring break party for a dozen or more spring breakers (not quite here yet, but good enough, we're always down for the party). Pirates kill the captain and kidnap the students for ransom. Puu Ualakaa State Wayside Park, aka Tantalus.
Pan to McDanno pushing Steve's car up Round Top Drive toward Tantalus, which makes about as much sense as it sounds — just turn it around, put it in neutral and ride it down, boys. But it set the stage for an adorable squabble, so we'll let it be. They get a call about the kidnapping and take the tow truck straight to the assignment. The Five-0 unit boats out to the Makani — the kids are gone, the captain is dead, a pirate is dead and the first mate, Susan (Vanessa Minnillo), is hiding in the cabin.
Photo: Waikiki Natatorium.
Back from commercial break, we get quick hits of the Ala Wai Boat Harbor, downtown Honolulu over the Capitol building to Aliiolani Hale, aka Five-0 HQ. They set the scene at Queens Beach to meet Kamekona (Taylor Wily) for some 411 on the Tongans, after a fly-over of the Waikiki Natatorium (pictured) and the Waikiki Shell behind.
The intel leads them to a pawn shop in Kalihi and another exchange of poignant sarcasm between McDanno when McGarrett blows up the security door with a grenade. (The smile on Danno's face when the pawn shop owner said to McGarrett "I can tell you're the rational one" — priceless.) Evidence there leads to a home filled with Tongans in Mililani. But no kidnapped kids.
Suddenly we pan to a scene with the real kidnappers guarding a fenced-off area with scared kids, bloodied and sweating, piled atop one another — it's the old Honolulu Advertiser building, in the printing facility in the back. (Former 'Tiser employees, feel free to insert your wry comments.)
We come back from commercial with quick shots of Nimitz Highway past Aloha Tower Marketplace to a shot of the real Honolulu Police Department exterior on Beretania Street, followed by an interior of the Advertiser building which plays the HPD office, where McDanno interrogate a Tongan who proudly proclaims to rob the rich, but wouldn't ever harm anyone. The dead Tongan pirate on the Makani? Planted there. (Turns out, ballistics proves that to be true.) Now there's no doubt in McGarrett's mind: Someone else is behind this.
The Hilton Hawaiian Village.
Off to the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which is housing the parents of the kidnapped kids. Five-0 meets with them in the Honolulu Suite (where the Pro Bowl presser was last month) — they urge calm. Back to Five-0 HQ, they learn some of the kids' credit cards are being used in town. Quick shots of Diamond Head, Waikiki with the Royal Hawaiian foreground and we end up at Tiki's Bar and Grill at the Aston Waikiki, where yet more spring breakers are starting to make us look like Fort Lauderdale and South Padre Island. Cams at the bar reveal a possible kidnapper/stalker. Then the kidnappers call and leave a signal that leads them to Sand Island (pictured, right, Forest & Kim Starr/Creative Commons) — and a dead hostage. The kidnappers demand all the money, delivered by Susan, whose photo they saw in the newspaper.
Whoops, Susan's name wasn't published. McGarrett's got you now, perps.
The drop is set at an old warehouse on Sand Island — the kidnappers don't know it yet, but it's now a sting. Susan is sent in with a bag full of phone books and a smoke bomb. The ensuing chaos lets Five-0 and HPD nail down Susan and the kidnappers except the lead perp (Susan's boyfriend, the ski-masked Nick Lachey), who bails out a window and suddenly ends up in Liliha, a neighborhood to the north, where he commandeers a Waikiki Trolley — not a typical route. But McGarrett handily dispatches him with two slugs to the chest and it's another check in the "W" column for Five-0. We round out with golden Waikiki at night and the parent/child reunion at the Hilton.
Until next week, when Dane Cook guests as Danno's brother. Get ready for some heavy-duty wisecracking among our Scene Spotting!
The Quotable Danno
"This is a car. It's not temperamental, when it doesn't work you just get a new one."
"He needs help. I just need a lift." — to the tow-truck driver who rescues McDanno on Round Top Drive
"Unlike having lunch with you, they don't care how the check is split, they just want the money." — to McGarrett, referring to the kidnappers
"You wanna know why my back hurts? Because I spent the morning pushing a car up the Pali." (Um, wrong road, Danno.)
"Tienes llaves!" — means "I've got the keys"... just cracked me up.
"C'mon, what is the matter with you? You need help! I will pay for it!" — to McGarrett after he used the grenade to pop open the pawn shop.
Whoops, Susan's name wasn't published. McGarrett's got you now, perps.
