S06.E16: Ka Pōhaku Kihi Paʻa (The Solid Cornerstone)

[BW Manilowe]

When Five-0's sketchy confidential informant is accused of murder, McGarrett asks his old friend Odell Martin to defend him. Michael Imperioli returns as Odell Martin and Ziggy Marley guest stars as his friend, Bones.

Original Airdate: February 26, 2016

SOURCE: http://cbspressexpress.com/cbs-entertainment/shows/hawaii-five-0/releases/view?id=44578

[jtb34]

Well, that was an hour I won't get back.  What a pointless episode.

[blackwing]

I enjoyed the shootout at the shipyard. The shipping container falling into the ocean and the underwater rescue seemed very "old school 5-0" to me. (Although I swear they have had a scene in a shipyard with a hanging shipping container in a previous episode.)

The rest of the episode sucked. I've never cared for Sang Min and his schtick. I also don't care about Odell and his issues with his father. If it wasn't Michael Imperioli (who is looking fairly old these days) we wouldn't have gotten this character back. That trial was just painful to watch.

Bright spot was Max being all animated when on the stand. I love Max and I wish he was used as much as he was used in the earlier seasons. Also liked that we didn't have to see San Francisco Police Lady or McGarrett's bimbette.

So we get a throwaway line to explain Danny's absence. But are they EVER going to address the "Chicago incident"? I presume that Grover's friend is in jail for whatever he did to hide the money in that car. But surely he would have made allegations against Grover. Not to mention that the innocent girlfriend surely would have told somebody in Chicago about what happened to her. This is getting a bit ridick.

[dwmarch]

So that's how 5-0 thinks a courtroom works! A murder one trial, start to finish in a single day. The entirety of 5-0 taking the day off since apparently there's no crime in Hawaii on Mondays. Well, except that guy they were chasing and shooting at earlier and that gangster that's been dropping personal vendettas on the team for a couple-few years now. But it wouldn't be fair to chase Gabriel while he's injured and has less chance of running away.

 

I have to admire that strategy of Steve's. Let's draft a guy into service who has a license to practice law but hasn't practiced a day in his life. And let's throw him in the deep end with no time to prepare and a questionable client. After all, determination and the truth will prevail! But it seems to me that if Sang Min couldn't find a lawyer that might have been good grounds to delay the case.

 

But maybe since the public defender was available, Sang Min had no choice except to go ahead on Monday. Now I am not a lawyer but I believe if you put this ridiculous scenario in front of a judge (lawyer who never was is stepping up to bat!) you could also ask for a delay so the new guy could get up to speed. Furthermore, my general understanding of the law is that while there are very few ways to make legal proceedings go faster there are all kinds of ways to slow them down. Odell is going to be a terrible lawyer if he never figures out how to generate reams of delay-causing billable paperwork!

 

All in all, I feel like the legal aspects of this episode were written by someone who saw an episode of Boston Legal... a long time ago... while high.

 

I'm half glad and half disappointed that they didn't do the obvious with Ziggy Marley and have him drop off a big bag of weed to Odell. I'm also disappointed that when Grover was playing his fake Jamaican and was asked what part of Jamaica he was from did not come back with "Right near da beach... boyeeeeee!" (That's from Half Baked for those of you who don't appreciate stoner comedies).

 

Grover has fully embraced the 5-0 philosophy, pooping directly on someone's rights and proudly declaring "I'm not a cop, I'm 5-0!" And the team holding Sang Min down while someone cuts his hair off at the end is an assault.

[preeya]

My Cousin "Odell"

All we needed was Mona Lisa Vito. (Would you Like me to explain?)

Edited February 27, 2016 by preeya

[biakbiak]

I only have two things to say about this episode: Ziggy looks just like his dad and Ziggy looks GOOD!

[Trey]

Why do they keep trying to make Sang Min into a lovable character when he sold young girls into sexual slavery?  That is irredeemable no matter how much he helps out 5-0 now.  But I do love the actor, just hate the character.

 

As for the rest of it, what everyone else has already said.

[Raja]

Thanks for the warning. Read a recap instead.

 

No Danny.

No hunting Gabriel down when he's at his weakest and putting a fork in him AND this horrible story line.

No movement with a huge investigation they set up last week. 

 

No need to watch.

It may have been the time for a clip show, they can do a time jump while Gabriel recovers from his wounds, Certainly Chin Ho recovered from the beating he took. What it reminded me of was the Kobe Bryant retirement tour, as one of the original characters and doing flashbacks to his first appearances the pimp and human trafficker that we hated ourselves for liking gets his goodbye should CBS not renew the show and he doesn't have to appear in the finale

 

So that's how 5-0 thinks a courtroom works! A murder one trial, start to finish in a single day. The entirety of 5-0 taking the day off since apparently there's no crime in Hawaii on Mondays. Well, except that guy they were chasing and shooting at earlier and that gangster that's been dropping personal vendettas on the team for a couple-few years now. But it wouldn't be fair to chase Gabriel while he's injured and has less chance of running away.

 

I have to admire that strategy of Steve's. Let's draft a guy into service who has a license to practice law but hasn't practiced a day in his life. And let's throw him in the deep end with no time to prepare and a questionable client. After all, determination and the truth will prevail! But it seems to me that if Sang Min couldn't find a lawyer that might have been good grounds to delay the case.

 

But maybe since the public defender was available, Sang Min had no choice except to go ahead on Monday. Now I am not a lawyer but I believe if you put this ridiculous scenario in front of a judge (lawyer who never was is stepping up to bat!) you could also ask for a delay so the new guy could get up to speed. Furthermore, my general understanding of the law is that while there are very few ways to make legal proceedings go faster there are all kinds of ways to slow them down. Odell is going to be a terrible lawyer if he never figures out how to generate reams of delay-causing billable paperwork!

 

All in all, I feel like the legal aspects of this episode were written by someone who saw an episode of Boston Legal... a long time ago... while high.

 

I'm half glad and half disappointed that they didn't do the obvious with Ziggy Marley and have him drop off a big bag of weed to Odell. I'm also disappointed that when Grover was playing his fake Jamaican and was asked what part of Jamaica he was from did not come back with "Right near da beach... boyeeeeee!" (That's from Half Baked for those of you who don't appreciate stoner comedies).

 

Grover has fully embraced the 5-0 philosophy, pooping directly on someone's rights and proudly declaring "I'm not a cop, I'm 5-0!" And the team holding Sang Min down while someone cuts his hair off at the end is an assault.

True law on 5-0? Even on Law & Order things move to fast. The Grim Sleeper real life case which was the inspiration for the 2010 episode of Law & Order Los Angeles Ballonia Creek just went to trial more than five years after the arrest of the serial killer made and an episode  ripped from the headlines was written shot and aired was made. While I think Jack Lord's 5-O, as an islands FBI would have had the pull to get an illegal alien legal status we were just shown the FBI investigating the 5-0 task force. I fear Ziggy is on his way back to Jamaica

[laserlady]

Grover has fully embraced the 5-0 philosophy, pooping directly on someone's rights and proudly declaring "I'm not a cop, I'm 5-0!"

 

The funny thing is that this is one of those rare instances where 5-0 wasn't actually violating the Constitution or anybody's civil rights.  The guy accused Grover of entrapment, but it really wasn't.  Entrapment is when a government agent uses overbearing conduct such as threats, coercion, badgering, etc., to induce someone to commit a crime that the person really didn't want to commit and had no prior propensity to commit.  Being offered a big pile of cash by a guy with a fake Jamaican accent is not even questionably anywhere close to entrapment.

 

Of course, it figures that Grover--- and the scriptwriters---have so little idea of the limitations of police officers' legal authority that they didn't realize that this was actually perfectly acceptable and well within the bounds of legal, appropriate police work.

 

 

But maybe since the public defender was available, Sang Min had no choice except to go ahead on Monday. Now I am not a lawyer but I believe if you put this ridiculous scenario in front of a judge (lawyer who never was is stepping up to bat!) you could also ask for a delay so the new guy could get up to speed.

 

Yeah, as I see it, there were two possible outcomes to their request to change Sang Min's lawyer at the last minute.  Either the judge would have denied the request and made him proceed with the public defender representing him (the most likely scenario), or the judge would have granted the request for a new attorney and granted him an extension of time in which to prepare.  What a judge is not at all likely to do is what we saw here -- having a new, inexperienced lawyer with no prior knowledge of the case jumping in to take over a murder trial at the last minute.  A judge wouldn't want to allow that, because it would make it very easy for a convicted defendant to come back to court and win a habeas challenge on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel, forcing them to go through all the hassle of another trial, with stale evidence this time.

[Artsda]

This was really boring compared to the episode before. They should have named the episode "filler."

[sabretooth]

I thought the 'mock trial' scene was a nice bit of comedy during the episode. You could tell that the cast was having fun with it. But other than that, meh. 

[blackwing]

I forgot to mention the line that made me really laugh... during the mock trial after Odette blundered his way through it, Kamekona mutters to his cousin, "McGarrett should have called Saul".  I don't know if there is any connection between anyone working on H50 and anyone working on "Better Call Saul", but I found it hilarious.  I actually laughed, and it's sadly been a really long time since this show made me laugh.

[BW Manilowe]

Since nobody seems to have noticed, the character (& actor) prosecuting Sang Min, Prosecutor Chen, originally appeared in Ep 118, Loa Aloha, where Danny's brother Matt was introduced & the COTW was about the guy whose son was murdered in Halawa during a tougher than usual DUI sentence (he was a young first offender being made an example of), so the guy was going around murdering the children of those responsible for putting his son in prison in Hawaii while he, himself, was also in prison in Wyoming & not able to say a proper goodbye to him. The Prosecutor's son was 1 of that ep's victim's--I think the guy who was murdered by car bomb after having lunch with his Dad & being told to either call his Mother or come by for a meal with both his parents soon.

I think the Abby/FBI story picks up again in the next new ep, Waiwai (Assets), which airs on March 11th. And then the show's apparently supposed to be off on at least the 2 Fridays after that, March 18th & 25th, for CBS' annual coverage of "March Madness", the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Tournament.

Next Friday, the 4th, they're repeating Lehu a Lehu (Ashes to Ashes), the ep from the beginning of the season involving the return of the serial arsonist Jason Duclair, played by UFC Champion Randy Couture (his 2nd ep as the character, who was introduced last season); various murders/attacks are occurring on Oahu, including on members of HPD's Bomb Squad, & the perpetrators won't stop unless he's released from prison.

Edited February 28, 2016 by BW Manilowe

[ChelseaNH]

I muted a lot of the parts that I didn't fast-forward, but I did enjoy Grover's Jamaican accent and Max's stint as trial judge, so there's that.

[fishcakes]

My Cousin "Odell"

All we needed was Mona Lisa Vito. (Would you Like me to explain?)

 

Max was playing the part of Mona Lisa Vito, sans biological clock.

[jhlipton]

Also liked that we didn't have to see San Francisco Police Lady or McGarrett's bimbette.

But are they EVER going to address the "Chicago incident"? I presume that Grover's friend is in jail for whatever he did to hide the money in that car. But surely he would have made allegations against Grover. Not to mention that the innocent girlfriend surely would have told somebody in Chicago about what happened to her. This is getting a bit ridick.

 

Steve's lady friends pile up like cord-wood, but didn't he have one who wasn't a girlfriend, but was a lawyer?

Grover is 5-0, so he can do what he damn pleases, even in Chicago. The woman he kidnapped is probably grateful she didn't eand up in the Blue Room of Torture. 

 

I forgot to mention the line that made me really laugh... during the mock trial after Odette blundered his way through it, Kamekona mutters to his cousin, "McGarrett should have called Saul".  I don't know if there is any connection between anyone working on H50 and anyone working on "Better Call Saul", but I found it hilarious.  I actually laughed, and it's sadly been a really long time since this show made me laugh.

 

I hate Kamekona with a passion and his cousin is even worse, but even if I liked them, the "mock trial" has been done to death (and better). The "I object -- I always wanted to say that" bit... ugh.

Sang Min is working for 5-0 now, so of course all his previous crimes are forgotten, Blech.

[seacliffsal]

As noted above, just a pale imitation of My Cousin Vinnie.

[Clanstarling]

Well, that was an hour I won't get back.  What a pointless episode.

Which is why it's on my "watch while exercising" list. That way, it's never a waste.

 

I also don't care about Odell and his issues with his father. If it wasn't Michael Imperioli (who is looking fairly old these days) we wouldn't have gotten this character back.

Funny, and I was thinking he's looking better than ever. Of course, I'm fairly old myself.

[jtb34]

Which is why it's on my "watch while exercising" list. That way, it's never a waste.

Also why I knit while watching!  It never engrosses my attention enough to make me lose count.