‘Hawaii Five-O’ Recap: ‘Kanalua’

In “Kanalua,” Ed Asner returns as August March, the former criminal who always has an ace up his sleeve. The 5-0 team seeks his help in solving an art museum robbery since he’s the only one on the island with the connections to find out who the thieves are. Of course viewers who remember his appearance in Season 2 will realize that March is not the helpless old man he pretends to be. So did the guest star appearance from Ed Asner make this episode a memorable one? Let’s recap The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The Good

• Okay, that getaway in the car chase from Aloha Tower was pretty cool. I was impressed by the ingenuity of the getaway driver driving in reverse along a tour bus to escape the cops. Well done.

• “Our marriage has become predictable” – Danno to McGarrett when asking for a bulletproof vest because he knows that McGarrett will lead him into a shootout.

• Danno calling Max “peg leg.”

• The scene with the core four characters at the 5-0 headquarters was great. It started off with Kono consoling her cousin on his wife’s death and then McG and Danno entering to also give their condolences. That scene really showed the closeness of the 5-0 family, and there really needs to be more scenes where just the four of them bond.

• Every scene with TV veteran Ed Asner was a winner. His grumpy old man routine was hilarious, and I loved how he matched Danno zinger for zinger. Asner’s line delivery was just classic. It’s too bad we won’t be seeing him in the show anymore.

• Everyone’s favorite lab geek Fong is back!

The Bad

• What’s with the repeat of the ocean funeral? The show did the exact same thing in Season 1 in the episode based around Kono’s surfer boyfriend. Is the show really already rehashing its own material from just two years ago? And it’s not like Chin’s wife was known to be a surfer, so why all the hoopla from their surfing buddies? The writing on this show has become seriously lazy.

• Speaking of lazy writing, I take back what I said about the car chase escape being cool. It’s no longer cool when a fact revealed later in the show renders the method of escape senseless. According to their investigation, the getaway car was actually a souped-up race car with 763 horsepower. “HPD had no chance,” said one of the 5-0 team. That would have made sense if the thieves escaped by speeding away from the cops. But instead, the writers thought it would look cooler (and it did, momentarily) if they pulled that driving in reverse trick. But now it doesn’t fit in with the fact that the car was really fast, which was really just a convenient method of introducing a former race car driver as the getaway man. This type of haphazard writing is unfortunately becoming a pattern on the show.

The Weird

• Before the true intent of the crime was revealed, I was wondering why the robbers would be stealing from a shop at Aloha Tower. No one shops there. How much money could there possibly be in those registers?

• You know you’ve run out of ideas for a character when you start giving them props. Sorry, Max. I’m afraid your end is near.

Tune in next week when McG and Danno are stranded in the ocean with hungry sharks surrounding them. Wait, didn’t we already see that in the movie “Open Water?” Yep, and apparently so did the 5-0 writers.