Nice surprises with this episode. D.L. Hughley makes an appearance as a con, and Balthazar Getty was the criminal (Dawkins) who busted out of prison to get to a pile of cash. I'm not strong on recognizing the local actors, but couldn't mistake Q (stage name) as the guard who let Getty get away; he blew audiences away as Mark Antony in "Julius Caesar" at this summer's Shakespeare Festival at the
ARTS at Marks Garage. And local comedian Augie Tulba got to play helicopter pilot.
And ladies everywhere thank the writers for McGarrett's (Alex O'Loughlin's) pick-up basketball scene — white men can reverse dunk! But let's get to the geotagging and start flying around the island.
Love the quick-cut segue scenes almost as much as the story line. The city scapes make
Honolulu look positively delicious. We enter with
Diamond Head sweeping down from the Koolau Mountains, with shots of Kuhio Beach surf breaks in
Waikiki (pictured, above) and the
Ala Wai Boat Harbor with the
Hilton Hawaiian Village in the background. After the prison break from the Oahu Community Correctional Facility (looked like it was filmed in part there, in part in the old printing facility behind the Honolulu Advertiser building), we're treated to a nice view of the city from
Tantalus, below.
McGarrett picks up his sister, Mary (Taryn Manning) from the Hawaiian Airlines terminal at Honolulu International Airport. Segue to Ala Moana Boulevard next to the
beach park, shifting to a doctor's office where Danno (Scott Caan) was seeing the doctor about a bum knee. (The doctor's office looked like it was filmed inside of the Advertiser building, too. They're getting a lot of use out of the old girl.)
Photo: Mario Perez, CBS.Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) and Kono (Grace Park), pictured above, go after Dawkins at
Kakaako Waterfront Park, where they find the discarded tools of a dye job. Panning to scenes from Waikiki, including one of the twin towers of the
Hyatt Regency Waikiki. I couldn't tell if the shooting-kidnapping happened in a suite there or not, but I assume so. Nice digs!
Rushing the woman who was shot to the hospital, we pass the
State Capitol Building on Beretania Street, below.
The restaurant where McDanno interrogated the waitress was Monterey Bay Canners in
Pearlridge Shopping Center. They used an actual bank with its actual name for the heist: Pacific Rim Bank in the
Restaurant Row complex on Ala Moana Boulevard.
This one was a doozy: Dawkins is getting away on the H-1 Freeway. He successfully hits the airport off-ramp. Suddenly he's on the North-South Road way over on the Leeward side, where a police sting is awaiting him. He turns around and is suddenly traveling the H-3 freeway toward the Windward side near the tunnels. Hello, location scouts? You're killing us!
Photo: Eric Guinther via Creative Commons.Dawkins hijacks a helicopter with a family aboard. They take off and are seen flying over Diamond Head and Kahala, east toward "Molokai." McGarrett spots the chopper through binoculars flying next to
Chinaman's Hat, above, over on the Windward side.
Photo: CBS.The place they name as
Waikolu Valley on Molokai is actually verdant valley terrain on Oahu's Windward side (Dawkins, above, in his standoff with McGarrett). This wasn't the hoped-for outer island shoot we've been waiting for. Waikolu, just east of
Kalaupapa Peninsula on Molokai, is very remote and difficult to traverse. It's best seen from above, from the center of Molokai in the
Kamakou Preserve.
Photo: CBS.
The Hilton Hawaiian Village got another parting shot, along with
Aloha Tower. We end the show at the
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, above, where McGarrett's father is buried and he reaches out to his sister.
The Quotable Danno
- "Hey, guess what? I've done this before. Thank you." (To McGarrett.)
- "You should change your shirt. You look like an animal."
(To McGarrett.)
- "You seem more like a napalm in the morning kind of guy."
(To McGarrett, again, when he insists he likes pancakes. Ah, feeling the love between those two. It's very sweet.)
Expanding fictional Hawaii
The local geek brigade created quite a movement with
Kukui High School, the alma mater for Chin Ho and McGarrett mentioned in the pilot. The site's popularity has exploded, their
Facebook page is past 3,300 fans and they're selling "Fighting Nuts" and "Kukui High" tees and bumper stickers – with a Winter Ball to come.
Now our friends at the Hilton Hawaiian Village are in the game. This week's episode featured the fictional "Kahiko Hotel." Well guess where
http://www.kahikohotel.com leads you? Nicely played, Hilton.
Hawaii Five-0 map mashup
The latest locations are added in. Have a look around!
