‘Hawaii Five-O’ Recap: ‘Kupouli `Ia’

I’m normally not a fan of holiday-themed TV episodes, as their storylines are usually irrelevant to the overall arc and characters act out of character for the sake of shoehorned holiday elements. Fortunately, last night’s Halloween-themed episode of “Hawaii Five-0” kept the eeriness to a minimum and stayed faithful to the show. Combine that with some welcome guest stars and a smart plot, and this Halloween episode of “Hawaii Five-0” was almost spook-tacular.

Here’s this week’s look at The Good, The Bad and The Weird.

The Good

• I haven’t been a fan of Max playing dress-up in past seasons and upon first glance at his Halloween costume, I thought he was dressed up as Cleopatra. But when he revealed he was dressing up as a Keanu Reeves character each year, and that this year’s costume was from “Little Buddha,” I had to give mad props. I want to see him dressed as Johnny Utah next year.
• Always a welcome sight to see Dennis Chun as Sgt. Duke Lukela. Can we just make him a regular already?
• No dialogue in that scene of McG and Danno in the party limo van, but it was still the funniest scene of the show.
• Hey, it’s Roger Dorn! (Corbin Bernsen)
• “No way dude. That’s all you.” – Hospital worker to Chin when he was too scared to open up the drawer in the morgue. His line delivery was hilarious.
• It’s nice to see Max hooking up. His character works best in small doses, but I was glad to see him have love in his life (Rumer Willis). Good to see even the geeks can score.
• “Maybe you don’t pay such close attention to me.” – Danno to McG, sounding a little sad that McG doesn’t know he’s claustrophobic.
• Hey, it’s the Drift King! (Brian Tee) I wouldn’t mind if his role as a Yakuza boss became a recurring one.
• DJ Qualls also made a memorable guest appearance (there were a lot this episode). He did a great job, although I still remember him best for this:

 The Bad

• Was Max’s girlfriend supposed to be in a costume? If she was, I couldn’t recognize it. It looks like she was just wearing a red dress.
• Why are there high school kids trick-or-treating?
• So the supposed zombie doctor attacks people at a midnight showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The attack gets called in, 5-0 arrives at the crime scene, the doctor and his victims get taken to the hospital, and then 5-0 discovers that he was at a party earlier. It must be around 3 a.m. at this point, and the Halloween party is still going strong when 5-0 gets there. I give those guests lots of credit for their energy. At that time I’d either be passed out in the bushes or taking a slightly drunk girl home, but she’d only let me take her to her door and not actually into her apartment.
• I miss Kono. Please let her rejoin the team already.

The Weird

• Oh, so leaving phone messages with just heavy breathing is not cool? Noted.
• Speaking of heavy breathing, I too suffer from claustrophobia. Tight spaces spook me. I once even had a hard time breathing on a hike when the foliage was too dense and I couldn’t see the sky for about an hour. Or maybe it was just because I was fat and out of shape.
• What is going on with Max’s hair? He’s looks like Toshiro Takashi from “Revenge of the Nerds.”