Thoughts on Tonight's Hawaii 5-0.
1. This episode went by way too fast. Everything felt too rushed and too extreme. Victor Hesse isn't just the bad guy who killed McGarrett's father- he's the bad guy that McGarrett has been chasing obsessively for five years AND he supplies weapons to terrorists AND he associates with gangsters who traffic people and prostitute them AND he himself traffics people out of Malaysia. There are too many car crashes, explosions, guns going off, people being shot, partial nudity for 60 minutes. Sweet Christ, both Danno and McGarrett get bloody shot in this episode. Starting off at such a "high" point intensity-wise doesn't bode well.
2. The bad guy is non-existent in the episode. James got just as much screentime as the main villain of the episode as he did as Dudley Payne on Saving Grace and as ADA Pollack on Lie to Me. We see Victor Hesse for less than five minutes, and two of those minutes are a hasty fight scene between Victor and McGarrett where you can't even tell who is hitting whom because they are similarly dressed and the editing was so hack-and-slash. Everything about why Victor and his brother are so dangerous has to be told to us. There's no flashbacks or interludes where we see Victor stick his hand in the evil cookie jar. We see him kill McGarret's father at the beginning, and that's it (okay, that's pretty evil but still it's one thing and he's supposed to be an evil mastermind). He hides out on a ship until the last five minutes of the episode.
3. Danno is a pretty likable character. He's sorta the sweet guy with the gruff exterior. Also, his ringtone for his ex-wife is the e-e-e-e-e! from Psycho. XD McGarrett is just... weird and a liability for the department, just going around making promises and threatening to deport innocent children for information... Yeah.
4. At the beginning of the episode, the Governor is so adamant about getting Victor Hesse out of Hawaii that she gives a renegade like McGarrett free reign to go on a revenge mission and do as he pleases, offering him full immunity for anything he has to do to complete the task at hand. However, going onto a Chinese ship in the harbor makes her balk about an international incident? Victor Hesse is described as being wanted by Interpol, the FBI, the CIA, and every other acronym association in the world; I don't think anyone would be mad at the Governor for allowing McGarrett to go aboard a single ship.
5. James's Irish accent was really sexy though it creeped me out that he sounded like my cousins. Welcome to the McTeagan clan, my friend. XD Oh, one day, he will have a role that will allow him to utilize a French accent, and I will be so pleased. Also, leave it to James to allow Victor to show that teeny flicker of real pain and mourning for his poor dead terrorist baby brother just as he's shooting McGarrett Sr. in the fucking face. Awesome. Also, is this the first James Marsters character to actually have a sibling? Oh, no, Buzz Aldrin had a sister. First fictional character to have a sibling?