The Guarnerius Caper

Third Season. Oct. 14 1970.


In this odd-ball episode, a Russian violinist loses his priceless Guarnerius violin, setting off a kind of government showdown over the interests inherent in the priceless instrument. The guys who stole the violin, however, are really strange low-lifes who seem modeled after the Manson family.

Highlight: when the goofy thieves are about to play baseball with the violin.

Once Upon A Time Pts 1 & 2

Once Upon A Time. Pts 1 & 2. Episodes 20 & 21. Originally aired Feb. 19 & 26, 1969. One of the most compelling performances Jack Lord gives in the entire series and crucial to understanding McGarrett before the hard veil of his POV sets in.
He even cries in this one! The scene starts stateside where McGarrett's sister is told her son has terminal cancer but she falls under the spell of a quack doctor who soaks her of her money for bogus electronic treatments. McGarrett relentlessly pursues the quack, even though she tries to seduce him with a very Tennessee Williams like banter. "I'd rather sleep with a viper." Part two focusses mostly on the court case. How old is McGarrett here?

Highlight: in the 2nd part where the sexy librarian does everything she can to seduce McGarrett.

Face of the Dragon

Face of the Dragon. Episode #15, Season One. Originally aired January 22, 1969. A rare case of bubonic plague stumbles onto the islands and what sems like a simple med drama turns into a case of Red Chinese treachery, refuge smuggling and random hippie-shooting. McGarrett flirts confidently with a very sexy doctor (who looks a lot like Julie Newmar) and who hilariously gives injections to scared 5-Oers.

Highlight: When asked if he's "looked in a mirror," McGarrett says "Only when I shave and I do that on the run!"

The Ways of Love

The Ways of Love. Episode 7, Season One. Originally aired Nov. 21, 1968. Trying to uncover a heist of royal jewels, McGarrett goes undercover as a convict and talks his cellmate into leading him to the real villian (same actor who goes on to play the Opal thief in season six). McGarrett's alter ego character is a lot different than he is: same cool, but always joking and laughing--McGarrett's noble commission is his constant misery. Mostly a tight acting play-off with McGarrett and the crooks, not so much the Five-O gang. Great perf. by the great Jack Lord.

Highlight: McGarrett's acting drunk while wearing a turtle neck sweater.

Twenty-Four Karat Kill

Twenty-Four Karat Kill. Episode 6, Season One. Originally aired Novemeber 14, 1968. A gold-smuggling operation takes out a pregnant woman who accidentally buys a big fish (too big for a single family!) stuffed with ingot. When Chin-Ho gets close to the operation, he lands in the hospital which really gets McGarrett on his high horse, ready to go after the whole "gambling syndicate" headed by local smartass Johnny Fargo who is running between other crime heads Denison and Wong Tu. The Governor helps shape Steve's plan with an undercover hottie (the statuesque Marj Dusay) Fargo can't resist even though McGarrett shouts "No dames!" This episode is the first time McGarret ever says "Book 'em Dan-o" which is a good enough occasion to briefly explain that while most Five-O sites and literature note Dan's nicknmae as "Danno" I think (fussy I am) the proper manner of notation is "Dan-o." Not only is this consistent with "Five-O" and with Pee Wee Hermann's dictum about adding an O to every one's names, it captures more of the spirit with which it is coined. Amazing film sequences of the cars driving through the streets of Honolulu, culminating in a gun fight between McGarrett and Fargo.

Highlight: When McGarrett visits Chin Ho in the hospital, ever the sentimentalist, he says "You okay, fatso?"

. . . And They Painted Daisies On His Coffin

. . . And They Painted Daisies On His Coffin. Episode 5, Season One. Originally aired November 7, 1968. Another incredible episode which sets the Five-O imprint in a memorable way. The plot starts with a great chase which ends with Dan-o gunning down a hippie. The media picks up on this story, suspecting Dan-o of shooting an innocent hippie. The only one who can clear him is a strung-out junkie who is in the service of local chieftan "Big Chicken." Played by a much fatter and incredibly sweaty Gavin McLoed, The Big Chicken has one of the better Cop vs, Hippie confrontations with McGarrett. "You'll never catch the Chicken!" In the course of tracking down the junkie, Steve stares down some repulsive fuzz-hating peaceniks ("Unless you want to eat that chain, you better sit down"), beats up some nickel and dime low lifes by the beach, and gives Dan-o an unforgetabble course in tough love when Dan-o is broken with the shame of shooting a perp. Kono and Chin Ho use their ethnicity to advantage: Kono talking to a massage parlor madame, Chin Ho at a Chinese pool hall. From beginning-to-end, a classic.

Highlight: the second appearance of Big Chicken and his "you won't find a single leaf of grass" soliloquy. The sweatiest performance ever?

Sumurai

Samurai. Episode 4, Season One. Originally aired October 17, 1968. Ricardo Montalban (who has the pleasure of playing both Asian and Italian characters in Five-O) is a crime leader under indictment in Honolulu and being gunned for by a Japanese triad. There's great action sequences (three assassination attempts) and maybe the most amazing use of plummeria in any Five-O backdrop. An almost Scorcese-like tracking shot is used of McGarrett walking into Takura's palatial home where he describes the Samurai code as "fanatic principles of honor." As Steve uncovers (with "beautiful snooker") Takura's scheme, and its involvement with his beautiful daughter, there's a couple of really nice character-building moments: one where McGarrett's displays subordinate respect for the Governor (it is one thing to expect respect when you're the Big Kahuna but McGarrett's moral code is best displayed in his relationships with his superiors) and the other where McGarrett visists an old naval officer who treats Steve with collegial respect even referring to McGarrett as "Commander." Less lofty, but no less noteworthy is Kono's story of how he met a girl from Cleveland who wants him to "teach her the hula." An incredible versatile score, absolutely classic Five-O.

Highlight: Steve's "Aloha, Baby!" is classic and the freeze-frame of the crazy-face made by the failed assassin is amazing but Steve's sad plucking of a guitar at his desk is one of those memorable harkenings of "Jack Lord, Renaissance Man".

Aloha

Aloha

“Our form is as rigid as a sonnet,"
Jack Lord said about Hawaii Five-O;
"I'm as popular as a new spinnet"
I said to a hostile poetry crowd.
Jack Lords' paintings are post-impressionist
the leeward palm trees red in sunrise;
I like old pictures of Ruth St. Denis
and I like sushi when it’s chicken fried.
Steve McGarrett had a little helipad
and I’ve always done well in some events:
The Go-To-Hell-A-Thon, the Eat-Itiad,
the Tournament of I’ll piss on your head,
the I’m dying (and soon) Super Bowl:
Super Bowl, Horatio, Super Bowl!

Tiger by the Tail

Tiger by the Tail. Episode 3, Season One. Originally aired October 10, 1968. Sal Mineo stars as a Frank Sinatra Jr. type, belting out that kind of 60s discotheque music in the "Swingers Club" when he puts together a kidnapping hoax to bilk money out of his father--an Aristotle Onassis type. Except, in the course of the hoax, it becomes real for Mineo's hippie friends and while his father makes life difficult for Steve and Five-o, his life is in danger. The very first rumblings of McGarrett's hostility to psychiatry?

Highlight: McGarrett's questioning of Mineo's groupies.

Strangers in Our Own Land

Strangers in Our Own Land. Episode 2. Season One. Originally aired Oct. 3, 1968. A Hawaiian official is blown up in a taxi at the airport which sets forth an intriguing poltical plot which involves Hawaiian nativism. Five-O, does not frequently address this matter with explicit energy, however a graduate student might fit McGarrett as a latter day Cpt. Cook in the colonial push to make Hawaiians "Strangers in Our Own Land." Kono is even beneath Chin Ho (the Chinese) in the Five-O chain of command. The grieved best friend of Commissioner Mano riffs on "the land" in a way which would strongly echo the Hawaiian nationalist anthem "Hawaii 78" which would later be popularized by the great Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and is, I think, the fround note for the movement for Hawaiian Independence. Looking out over the Honolulu skyline with disgust, the best friend reminisces in a meaty speech about the days when Hawaiians lived in Waikiki, saying when the Comissioner was sympathetic to highways and buildings he was no longer Hawaiian and deserved to be popped. The plot turns on a construction deals when the daughter of the best friend, "Leilani" of course, reveals her Dad knew the first prime suspect and he, with his crazy nativist theories, becomes the main suspect. "Crawl in your boxes, Hawaiians!" McGarrett's secretary, who always seem to be wearing the same polyester dress, is more of a character presence in early Season One.

Highlight: The luau show in the Tiki-themed bar--maybe the only time in the series such a setting was used.

Full Fathom Five

Full Fathom Five. Episode 1. Season One. Originally aired September 26 1968. It really amazing how well produced the concept of the show is straight out of the box. The first episode does much to establish the basic demeanour of the show, particularly its relationship with Hawaiian locals and tourists. In this episode, McGarrett and Dan-o set up a sting to catch a serial killing / serial defrauding couple with an attractive fem. agent who the Five-O agents constantly worry about putting into danger. It's amazing in some ways that the wack-job played by Kevin McCarthy has had so much success (as often in Five-O, the killers tend to spree before being caught) considering how slimy and crazy he looks. The show backstories Chin-Ho a bit (his uncle works a laundry) and Kono. It also introduces The Governor as a character / friend of McGarrett. McGarrett is seen, for the first time, in his long-sleeved aloha shirt, which Dan-o complains is "blinding him." Awesome!

Highlight: When Kono is told by McGarrett to imagine what a haole woman would do, Kono laconically relies "that'll take a lot of imagining."

Chin-Ho: Last Night in Waikiki

Chin-Ho: Last Night in Waikiki

I avoided the camera
knowing fairly well I was too fat;
but I avoided it more when I lost weight
knowing even better what was coming next.

In the barefoot bars I wasn't shy
around the gin fizzes or double mai-tais;
I knew every hooker in Chinatown
and each one was a bottle of scotch to me.

I even took Topsy to Islanders' games
and I don't think she knew a bit of baseball.
I, however, loved each ridiculous stat
and am not one to doubt predictabilities.

The shot heard around my desk:
Merkle's brilliant method,
Snodgrass's certitude,
Buckner's bona fides.

Pilot: Cocoon

Pilot: Cocoon. Episode 0. Originally aired September 20 1968. At the very end of the pilot for Five-O, McGarrett toasts his adorable love interest (a first Asian love interest for a white character in TV?) by declaring "Peace." Peace between the hippies and the cops. It's a wonderful note as the whole series would play out nothing really dominated its subtext as much as stateside anxiety about Vietnam and drug-dipping campuses. The Pilot is amazing, introducing both Kono and Chin Ho but having a different actor play Dan-o. More importantly it introduces us to Wo Fat, Steve McGarrett's archvillan. In this movie, McGarrett is lured to an abandoned ship, the Arcturus, where he is forced into a Manchurian-candidate like brain-washing experiment. Lesie Neilson also co-stars as one of the straight-heavies he played with such aplomb that he was able to turn that gesture-acting into a comedy career.