S06.E20: Ka Haunaele (Rampage)

[BW Manilowe]

Five-0 investigates the theft of a high-tech, indestructible suit built for the U.S. military. NFL players and brothers Michael Bennett (Seattle Seahawks) and Martellus Bennett (New England Patriots) guest star as themselves.

Original Airdate: April 15, 2016

SOURCE: http://cbspressexpress.com/cbs-entertainment/shows/hawaii-five-0/releases/view?id=44889

[Uke]

You may be interested to know that there really was an elephant that ran loose through the streets of, not Waikiki, but from Blaisdell into Kakaako.  The elephant was named Tyke and his rampage and death inspired better legislation and safeguards for circus animals.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyke_(elephant)

http://archives.starbulletin.com/2004/08/16/news/story2.html

[dwmarch]

Oh man, that sucked. It was like the writers ran out of ideas and asked their kids to come up with an episode. I think the best part of this was the NFL players in the taxi, the only bit that didn't feel totally contrived.

 

That Iron Man suit was awful. It's invulnerable? Really? Drop it into a volcano and it's just fine? I think even some thick mud would have made it pretty impossible to move around in. And a military suit like that would definitely have the ability to scan for hostiles! Hiding behind tall grass wouldn't do a damn thing. And it can take an IED but not a hit from a vehicle? That kind of makes sense because no matter how tough the suit is, the soft squishy human inside will still be turned into chunky salsa with a good enough impact. But that's a vulnerability and this suit isn't supposed to have any of those!

 

It's also good to know that if you are working on a top-secret military project and you get fired and prosecuted for shopping it around to the competition your credentials will still get you into the building a year later.

 

I'm pretty sure threatening to throw a lawyer in jail unless she spills the dirt on her client will result in said lawyer saying bring it on. Also in the misunderstandings of how the actual law works we once again have the plot in which evidence is brazenly stolen and the case is dismissed because of this. The police still have pictures and documentation of the gun and the fact that someone stole it the day before trial would look worse for the defendant.

 

The Hollywood gas tank appears! Let no cliche escape this episode untouched!

 

We also had the sitcom conversation in which a character has something really important to say but doesn't get a chance to say it and misunderstanding follows. However, Jerry did ask his sister what she wanted to talk about and she changed her mind so at least he tried.

 

And in case we were wondering if 5-0's corruption is a bug and not a feature we have Jerry announcing that he thought means and immunity covered his actions. That should have earned him a badge right there. At 5-0 we don't enforce the law, we make it! We also have Kono finding out that there's (another!) guard on the take at Halawa and instead of hauling him in she just wants to know if her shmoopy lied to her.

[UncleChuck]

That band of Keystone Kops "hiding" in the tall grass was one of the funniest things I have seen in a while.  About a dozen folks in black clothing lurking in golden tan grass...and with head AND shoulders poking up out of the grass, there is NO WAY they were hidden.  Honestly, my first thought when I saw them was they looked like a bunch of meerkats or ground squirrels.

 

 

[Mittengirl]

I was hoping that the elephant would come strolling through the tall grass and squish robocop.

For an elephant that was abused, traumatized and ailing, she sure was calm with strangers approaching her. And I guess there was absolutely no chance that anyone would wander around the park and stumble across said elephant. Or that she would wander off while unattended.

Call me crazy, but if I was going to steal an elephant, I would have a back-up with me. Preferably someone who has experience working with pachyderms.

[BooksRule]

I totally agreed with everything that others have said.  I know that the suit was supposed to be made of 'liquid armor' (whatever that is supposed to be), but it looked like lightweight plastic (even with the heavy footfall sounds).  And, when the guy lowered his gun at the police station, you could see one of the breast plates move out of place and then move back.  I kept thinking that they should just pick it up with a helicopter and dump it a little ways offshore.  The guy couldn't get back to shore before he drowned. Did the taxpayers waste $80 million on that 'invulnerable' suit?  One question about the evidence that had been stolen:  Even if they got the gun back, could it still have been used as evidence?  Would it now have been tainted?

 

What about the footage of the sister?  Steve obviously knew who was involved.  Did he see that it magically disappeared?

[Raja]

Mrs Raja keep calling him Robo Cop no matter how much they were pushing Iron Man. It didn't help that that we turned away from Iron Man 2 for new content. Mistake on our part. Is this the first time we have had an HPD SWAT helicopter, complete with a sniper hanging out the door flying around? But then Commander McGarrett calls in a satellite to track a car I guess the CIA gave him tasking codes to compensate for taking Catherine away.

 

Gabriel again, at this point if I want to see Wo Fat then I am watching Mr Giyera on Agents of SHIELD

[dwmarch]

Even if they got the gun back, could it still have been used as evidence?  Would it now have been tainted?

 

I looked it up. Just on Wiki but my five seconds of research is more than the producers have done on this issue. According to wiki, spoliation of evidence "is a negative evidentiary inference that a finder of fact can draw from a party's destruction of a document or thing that is relevant to an ongoing or reasonably foreseeable civil or criminal proceeding: the finder of fact can review all evidence uncovered in as strong a light as possible against the spoliator and in favor of the opposing party." That's legalese for "it makes things worse for the person the evidence was against".

[BooksRule]

When they mentioned Universal Exports and Jerry got all excited, I fully expected a James Bond reference.  In the books and some of the films, Bond's cover was that he worked for Universal Exports. I'm not up on my conspiracy stuff--is UE a common topic, like Area 51, or was this made up for the episode?

[kili]

I'm pretty sure threatening to throw a lawyer in jail unless she spills the dirt on her client will result in said lawyer saying bring it on.

I found that to be one of the more realistic things about the episode - they were threatening the lawyer to spill on her own crime. If she is ethical, she wouldn't want to be involved in the crime of receiving stolen property to derail a case she is working on. Lawyers aren't allowed to commit crimes to get their clients off. She was the one who was contacted and would be the one making the pay-off. She can't claim she didn't know the gun had been stolen from the police. 5-O knows she has control of the $10M and would only have to follow her.

 

The guy just stole an $80M suit and he's going to earn money robbing the police and shaking down mobsters? Why doesn't he just sell it to the some foreign government for some huge amount? Clearly the ports in Hawaii have no security unlike all the other ports around the world. One can easily drive a random truck onto the port facility so you can load your stolen elephant onto a ship that can remain at berth an extra day because there isn't a stack of other cargo ships waiting at anchor for the berth. Nobody will think that is at all suspicious.

 

Getting hit by a truck will cause the guy in the suit to be stunned enough so 5-0 can catch him, but jumping out of a moving vehicle and down a cliff-side won't effect him at all. He can leap up and disappear into the wind in an instant.  How does the guy even drive when he's wearing the suit? He moves like a robot and the suit is at least twice his size. 5-0 should have just sprayed foam all over the ground (like the fire department uses when fighting chemical fires). Then the guy would slip and fall and then Danno can tell him that he's all washed up as he puts the cuffs on him. Stupid yes, but no more than them sitting in their black outfits in the golden grass. 

 

The elephant ran away from Isabelle and rampaged down the streets. How did Isabelle get through the traffic jam in her truck to catch up with her? And nobody sees her? Okay.  The citizens of Hawaii must be very unobservant - that's why the didn't notice Iron Man crash rolling down the hill into their backyards. 

 

How old is Jerry? He went to high school with Chin so I'm thinking he's at least in his 30s. Jerry's sister has to be at least 25 and she looks much younger than him. Are we really supposed to believe that Jerry at age 10 bought the tsunami warning story with no suspicion? Jerry? That he didn't read the newspaper or watch the news that day and see the thing about the elephant? Even if his parents managed a news blackout (which would have made Jerry even more suspicious) that every single kid in school wasn't talking about the crazy story of the escaped elephant? Jerry is the conspiracy theory nut, but his 4 year old sister is the one who dug deeper to get that story? Jerry bought it hook-line-and-sinker for the last 22 years?

 

Remember when Danno had to bury all that money his brother stole and we learned how millions of dollars actually takes up a fair amount of volume?  The largest US currency is $100. There are about 100 bills in one of those standard money bands - $10K. There would be 1000 of those money bands in $10M. How did they all fit in the little duffle bag the lawyer gave Iron Man? The guy is tech savvy - he should have just had them wire the money to his off-shore account and tossed the gun in the ocean. Half now - half after the video of him destroying the evidence. He doesn't even have to actually destroy the evidence - just make sure the police don't get it until the trial is won. 

[Raja]

Chin Ho was a rookie cop before Steve's mother went away so that makes him and Jerry mid to late 40s at least

[kili]

The incident with Tyke happened in 1994. If Jerry is 40, he would have been born in 1976. He would have been 18 when his parents didn't take him to the circus and told him a lie why. They should have just had Isabelle say "Remember when that elephant..."

[MissLucas]

Oh show! That was hilarious on so many levels. Of course Jerry's sister is drop-dead gorgeous and even when she's on a stealth mission to steal an elephant her make-up is on fleck. Because flawless make-up is always on top of your list of priorities when you're a crazy animal rights warrior. I know we were supposed to take her side but girl recklessly endangered human lives (incl. her own) without even trying to get the elephant away from its abusers by legal means first.

 

When Kamekona was musing about the miracles of DNA I just rolled my eyes. That's not DNA, dude, that's Hollywood casting.

[SoapDoc]

 

Chin Ho was a rookie cop before Steve's mother went away so that makes him and Jerry mid to late 40s at least

 

Also Jerry and Chin went to their 25th high school reunion a couple of years ago. So unless Jerry was a prodigy in high school, he should be in his mid-forties by now.

 

I had to watch this again today because I fell asleep the first time. After really enjoying last week's episode, this week was kind of blah. I too turned from Iron Man 2 to see the new episode. Oh well!

 

Next week looks interesting to me.

[Clanstarling]

That band of Keystone Kops "hiding" in the tall grass was one of the funniest things I have seen in a while.  About a dozen folks in black clothing lurking in golden tan grass...and with head AND shoulders poking up out of the grass, there is NO WAY they were hidden.  Honestly, my first thought when I saw them was they looked like a bunch of meerkats or ground squirrels.

This! I went to Meerkat Manor in my head. It's a happy place. Well, until the predator birds come. 

 

I was hoping that the elephant would come strolling through the tall grass and squish robocop.

For a hot second, I thought that would be the punchline - invulnerable suit* (*pachyderms and T-bone car crashes excluded)

I also expected it to tie into Gabriel, you know to make him even more of a supervillain. But sadly, all that led to in this episode was Kono asking a corrupt guard what her husband was up to. Kind of agree with the guard - ask him yourself. (now that you know he's lied to you for months)

I kind of liked the dialogue with Steve and Danny, where Steve was basically saying "this 'you're gonna get me killed' schtick is getting old." Because it is. It really is. Destruction of Danny's automobile, however, is for some reason always amusing to me.

Edited April 17, 2016 by clanstarling

[Kel Varnsen]

So i guess no one in this show, even Jerry, has seen the opening of The Empire Strikes Back. Tie some cables around that off brand iron man's legs and you're done.

Also Max is willing to risk his medical license and what ever else prescribing a crap load of narcotics to a woman he never met?

[MissLucas]

Let's rather not go into the details for elephant sedation - which AFAIK is extremely tricky. It's a bit more complicated than crunching a couple of Xanax into a banana. I highly doubt Max - a human pathologist - had the necessary sedatives at hand and knew how to administer them.  I have no idea how long the trip from Hawaii to Thailand lasts so there's the additional problem of keeping the elephant calm once the initial dosage wears off.

 

*over-thinking alert*

 

At least McGarrett was willing to look the other way about the whole elephantnapping. You never know maybe after all the torture and two members of his team committing murder this might have been the moment he decided to draw a line in the sand *phew*

[VegetasMom]

When everyone was wondering how they were going to stop War Machine, I was just thinking that all they had to do was track him to wherever and then wait.  Unless this suit has a food replicator and one hell of a waste disposal system, dude's going to have to come out for a snack and a dump at some point.  

[jhlipton]

But she's REALLY Pretty, and she asked so nicely.

 

If she flashed a boob, they'd be dying to help her.  They were half out already (not that I'm complaining!)

[seacliffsal]

Usually I can just watch the episodes and kind of ignore the storyline and just enjoy the scenery, the humor, etc. This episode just bothered me so much. How was the elephant going to survive the trip to Thailand? Who was going to open the cargo container so the elephant could breathe, have water, eat, and exercise? Also, did the sister even know how elephants are treated in Thailand? I was there many years ago and saw many working elephants. The conditions are not kind and the elephants really work a lot. I guess maybe she was sending it to a sanctuary? As much as robo-cop was far-fetched, I actually thought that the elephant story was harmful to elephants. However, the ending when just a 'trunk' came out the cargo container's doors just cracked me up.

[Mittengirl]

I would think that robocop would sink like a stone in that suit, and they are on an island, so... Or shoot him with one of those net-cannon thingies they use on wildlife. He didn't look very agile.

I still think the show screwed up big time by not having the elephant squish robocop. Then they could give him/her a Five-0 badge. Think of the possibilities - stomping on getaway cars, amphibious maneuvers, knocking Gabriel off a cliff with its trunk. Steve's house looks like it has a big yard, not to mention water access. Hijinks galore.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Mittengirl

[blackwing]

Wow, this was such a terrible episode.  

 

The good:  Max made an appearance!  Danny was less irritating than usual, mostly because his part seemed reduced, which is good in my book.  Best part was the complete absence of San Francisco Police Lady.  Not even a mention.  I hope she has gone the way of Steve's deserted island girlfriend and wherever it is that Danny's girlfriend goes to.  I'd be happy if San Francisco Police Lady never shows up again.

 

Unfortunately, there wasn't much to enjoy about this episode.  I thought this episode had promise after seeing the commercials.  I was looking forward to a huge battle against Robocop, and it was a huge letdown.  That suit is indestructible, and he gets taken out because Steve rammed his truck?  Why didn't he just get out and stomp away?  Also, I'm not sure how he was driving that truck while in the suit.  It made him 8 feet tall.  Moreover, I've tried driving a car before while wearing ski boots... you just can't feel anything at all and would have no feeling of how hard you are pushing the pedal.  I suppose it was an advanced suit, but still.  I also echo the comments about the ridiculousness of the team crouching in the tall grass.  Wouldn't Robocop have seen them immediately?  I would have thought his suit has heat sensors.

 

Robocop was overshadowed by a silly elephant.  What was the point of this elephant storyline?  Was it to highlight the poor treatment of elephants in captivity?  If so, the show sent a poor message.  The message was, elephants don't belong in captivity.  Let's stick it in a completely enclosed box and pretend that it's cargo and hope that it doesn't die during the week long (?) journey across the Pacific.

 

There was way too much Jerry Garcia during this episode.  His schtick about wanting a badge got old months ago the second time he said it.  I agree with others that the age gap between him and his sister has to be at least 15 years.  He's at least 40 and she looks 25.  There's no way they'd be remembering mutual visits to that beach that dad took them to, or her remembering the story of Jerry Garcia with the metal detector when he was a kid.

 

The business with Adam in prison is also ridiculous.  I still don't understand why he didn't offer a defence of self-defence, and the only explanation is "because the actor needs time away so he can be on another show".  And of course, the overprevalence of Gabriel Wainwright, and that crooked guard who answers to him.  Why didn't Kono arrest that guard?  Clearly she knew he was dirty.  At least Gabriel Wainwright didn't turn out to be the guy in the Robocop suit.

 

As it was, this entire episode was a mishmash of poor writing.  It was like they had obsessed and overly invested fans send in a Hawaii Five-0 script as part of some kind of fan contest.  Then they picked and chose what parts they liked.  It's the only plausible explanation for the jumble of 1) bizarre and pointless brief appearance of two real life football players, 2) Robocop, and 3) hot girl and her elephant.

[Clanstarling]

I like Jorge Garcia, and enjoy his character (as long as they keep him in the character's wheelhouse). But it is pretty ludicrous to cast someone who is 12 years younger as his sister, and is portrayed as his more or less contemporary. There are women closer to his age who could be completely believable as a passionate activist, as well as be sexy enough to manipulate men to her will.

[JessDVD]

The good news is, you can apparently roll your eyes about 350 times in an hour, and they won't get stuck.

 

The bad news is, this entire episode.

 

Pretty much everything has already been canvassed, from the horrific CGI elephant that served no purpose (I am willing to give a pass to less than perfect CGI when it's a situation on a screen that really needs CGI, which is was not) to every moment anything with Gabriel or Adam is discussed (Good grief, END this subplot already) to the completely nonsensical and anticlimactic Iron Man bit.

 

Danny being involved in a case seemed weird, which shows how much he's either not been in an episode or been in a separate plot away from the team. His absences didn't bother me initially but I'm pretty much over him now. Go to wherever it is that Scott Caan wants to be, let Grover take Danny's place, move on.

[Kel Varnsen]

Danny being involved in a case seemed weird, which shows how much he's either not been in an episode or been in a separate plot away from the team. His absences didn't bother me initially but I'm pretty much over him now. Go to wherever it is that Scott Caan wants to be, let Grover take Danny's place, move on.

Yea it is hard for me to have any sympathy at all for Scott Caan. I mean I get that he doesn't want to live in Hawaii, but the freaking show is called Hawaii Five-O where the hell else do you think they would film it. Plus he only has to live there for what 7 months of the year, and is paid handsomely to do so. If he can't handle that he should just quit.

[BW Manilowe]

Yea it is hard for me to have any sympathy at all for Scott Caan. I mean I get that he doesn't want to live in Hawaii, but the freaking show is called Hawaii Five-O where the hell else do you think they would film it. Plus he only has to live there for what 7 months of the year, and is paid handsomely to do so. If he can't handle that he should just quit.

Filming actually takes more like 9-10 months a year. They usually start soon after the 4th of July, & they usually wrap at the beginning of April. S6's set blessing was July 8th of last year & filming either started that day or the next, July 9th (which, since you're talking about Scott, was Scott's daughter's first birthday), & they wrapped filming on April 6th this year (they had a wrap party in Honolulu on the 7th & 1 in LA this past weekend... Or at least that's when pics from the LA wrap party started showing up on Social Media). Personally, I sympathize with Scott... But that's just me.

Edited April 20, 2016 by BW Manilowe

[blackwing]

Filming actually takes more like 9-10 months a year. They usually start soon after the 4th of July, & they usually wrap at the beginning of April. S6's set blessing was July 8th of last year & filming either started that day or the next, July 9th (which, since you're talking about Scott, was Scott's daughter's first birthday), & they wrapped filming on April 6th this year (they had a wrap party in Honolulu on the 7th & 1 in LA this past weekend... Or at least that's when pics from the LA wrap party started showing up on Social Media). Personally, I sympathize with Scott... But that's just me.

Boo hoo hoo.  I find it hard to feel any sympathy for an actor who earns millions to work 9 months of the year.  And honestly, I see little difference between whether it is 7 or 9 months of filming, the takeaway to me is that he doesn't work the entire year and he still is whining and complaining about having to be there.  Is there a reason why his wife and baby don't just move to Hawaii?  I can't imagine that she needs to work if she is married to an actor who makes millions.  Moreover, I know more than a few people whose jobs are in another state.  They fly out on Sunday night or Monday morning, and return home on Thursday or Friday evening.  Family can't move because the spouse also works, and they only see each other on weekends.  And they don't earn millions.

 

I'm not too familiar with shooting schedules on TV shows, but I can't imagine that the actors have to be there on set every single day.  The production team announces what scenes they are shooting that day and who needs to be there.  I imagine there have to be plenty of weeks when he is only on call two or three days.  In which case, what's stopping him from flying to L.A. on Tuesday and returning on Sunday?  Surely he can afford the last minute plane tickets.

 

To me, it is all about choices.  Money shouldn't be a factor for him, so that indicates to me that he asked for a reduced schedule simply because he doesn't want to be there.  Or his wife doesn't want to be there.  In any event, you are talking like he is a long suffering slave to the filming schedule who is being forced by the mean producers to choose between his wife and daughter and being on the show.  

 

It's very evident that he would rather not be on the show.  Actors have been fired for less, so I'm not sure why he's still around.  Because of the legacy of the original show and the need for a "Danno"?  I disagree.  The show wisely did away with the "book em, Danno" catchphrase early on.  This show is its own show.  And it is one that certainly doesn't need Danny Williams.  Fire his ass and make Grover Steve's regular partner.  He could probably get a job on another TV show that is based in L.A.

 

This episode, it seemed like he was barely part of the team.  It seemed like he had three scenes.  Which was perfectly fine with me.  But the problem is that the show continues to bill him as one of the leads, and they always have to bend over backwards to explain why he isn't there.  Why give him this special treatment?  Treat him just like San Francisco Police Lady.  I didn't hear Steve asking Chin where she was that day.  Maybe it's because nobody cares, but more likely it's because if they don't make such a big deal about an absence, it's a non-event.

 

Scott Cann is behaving like a spoiled and selfish actor.  Many actors have quit shows when the situation no longer works for them and they want to move on.  The show kills or otherwise writes off the character, and new ones are introduced.  He really should just quit.

[Clanstarling]

I have no particular interest in Scott Caan's personal life. And the showrunners have bent over backwards for others (well, at least Alex, when he was in rehab). But it does seem if his absence for most of the season is not a short-term thing, then he should be relegated to recurring guest star, or something like that. He must have an amazing agent.

To be fair though, Caan's presence or absence isn't going to fix what's wrong with this show.

[blackwing]

Also, the thing is, that if he was an integral part of the team on the shows he IS on, then it wouldn't be so glaring that it's Danno...and the rest of the team. 

 

I mean, how many shows can they have where he's just sitting there enjoying his day with a member of his family, when, OH NOES! A crime is laid at his feet? I'm serious. How many shows can they have like that?

 

When you make a commitment, you suck it up. Or you decide it's all not worth it. I think a few of us, maybe, have had jobs we didn't like that took us away from those we love only it wasn't in Hawaii, we weren't paid millions, and we had to work the job five days a week, morning until night, all year long, whether we liked it or not. 

 

Yes the show has been on a rapid decline, with or without Scott's weird schedule, but it certainly doesn't help matters. One of the biggest selling points of this show was the chemistry between the two "leads."

I 100% agree.  I've never liked the character of Danny, but this show was always billed as a "buddy cop" show, and the interaction between the two leads was supposedly something that many people enjoyed.  It's hard to do that when one of the two leads is always seemingly gone, or when he's there, he's doing his own thing.

 

I guess I just don't understand Scott Cann's mentality.  I wonder what would happen to me at my job if I told my boss. "You know what?  The office is too far from my house.  I'd rather just not come in this week.  See you when I feel like coming in next.  By the way, please keep paying me, because I do still want this job, kthanksbye."  He has this golden opportunity and he's taking advantage of them.  I bet the actors who play Jerry Garcia or San Francisco Police Lady would love to step into his shoes and become the lead.

[John Potts]

I sometimes give shows too much credit: when I saw Robocop swatting aside police officers I thought they were going to do something clever and have Steve reveal he had put a tracker on it. As Iron Man pointed out, even with comic book science and an acclaimed genius, no power pack is infinite and a suit like that would be (even if it existed, which would require super science) a total power hog. Our heroes look on annoyed as the bad guy stomps away Steve calmly declares, "Don't worry, they'll need to recharge for the next 12 hours!" and do their usual smashing down doors and torturing random thugs. Order is restored and our jackbooted thugs - sorry, forces of law & order - are once more revealed to be right. All is good once more in the state of Hawaii.

On ‎18‎/‎04‎/‎2016 at 11:00 PM, blackwing said:

 Let's stick it in a completely enclosed box and pretend that it's cargo and hope that it doesn't die during the week long (?) journey across the Pacific.

Don't be silly - you can cross the Pacific in the course of a commercial break!

But while I thought that whole plotline was stupid, I did like Max asking, "So, how big is your 'friend'?" "Errr... about 7000lbs?" Though that brings up a whole other plothole - while I can buy that a coroner HAS access to sedatives (not exactly something he's likely to need in his line of work, but not beyond the bounds of possibility), even if you could just scale up the amount required to sedate a human to that required for an elephant (a dubious and possibly fatal assumption), he's never going to have the amount needed on hand. That's approximately the equivalent in weight of 30-40 people - that sort of volume of sedatives going missing is going to be noticed!

Edited October 3, 2016 by John Potts