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Great review, I enjoyed this one a lot, a very different type of episode for this show. AOL has grown into the role and made it his own these last ten years, displaying a seasoned maturity with the character. This episode didn’t have the usual slap-dash editing and pulsing music and stupid b-stories. The problems that you noted with the story’s geography and other issues didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the show. I’d go with the 4-stars.
I rewrote the entire review, same address as above...
Thank you Mr. Mike for the revision. Somehow you managed to have the episode make a little more sense to me even though I didn't watch it. :)
I have been slow watching this season, so I just saw this one tonight. That's why I hadn't commented on it yet.
The episode was strange, to say the least. It was also somewhat confusing.
I didn't understand why those two SEALs were brought in. First off, I had forgotten who they were, and only realized they were in the Joe White episode after reading Mike's review. While watching the episode, I had not clue who they were supposed to be, and thought they were likely "Star Trek red shirt" types who were basically there to get killed without affecting the show's main cast.
But no. Both survived, even though one of them did get shot in the arm (but presumably will be ok). This begs the question, "Why were these guys the ones coming along with Junior?" Why didn't he bring along two of the Five-Zero team instead -- perhaps Grover and Danny?
Yes, I'm sure the SEALs were supposed to be more qualified for such a mission, but I found that the presence of these two strangers made the mission and the firefight much less interesting than if it was four members of the Five-Zero squad. The only good these characters brought was that you truly had no idea if they were going to live or die, whereas you know the main cast isn't going to get killed off. In the Joe White episode, their presence made more sense.
Speaking of Joe White, as Mike noted, this was the second time in two seasons where McGarrett went on a mission involving an older person close to him, and lost them. Last year Joe White was killed in Montana, and this year he lost his mother.
However, I found the Joe White episode to be the better of the two. I felt the final scene with Joe was very touching, and I felt real sadness watching him die, even though I hadn't even become all that attached to his character in the past. In this episode, I didn't get the same sadness from watching McGarrett's mother die. Part of this had to do with the way the whole thing was set up. We were led to believe that his mom had gone rogue and literally slept with the devil (cartel head Perez) in order to financially set herself up and then disappear for good. It also seemed she was responsible -- or at least partially responsible -- for innocent/semi-innocent people's deaths while there. When McGarrett confronted her about it, she didn't deny it, leading us to believe that was true. Even when she died, I felt his mom was a bad person doing bad things, and it just wasn't too sad.
Only at the end did we learn that his mom was doing her CIA job honestly AND skimming from the cartel in order to set herself and her two kids up for the future. (It's unclear why she felt she had to take care of Steve, who clearly makes a good salary and lives in an expensive-looking place on the beach!)
By then it was too late to feel things. Just wasn't a very emotionally powerful episode, whereas the Joe White episode was done quite well in that respect.
In general, the McGarrett mother character was never very likable. She abandoned her family early on, was never particularly warm to Steve, and just seemed dishonest and shady from the start. It was hard to grow attached to her, even if you do feel bad for Steve as he finally loses her. Indeed, she never even says, "I love you" during her last dying words to him.
I also had a problem with the mom finding her way into the cartel by becoming the lesbian lover of the cartel head. Huh?? Onahoua Rodriguez, the actress playing Lucia Perez, is 44 years old (this was difficult to find, but I uncovered during a public records database search). Christine Lahti, who played McGarrett's mother, is 69 -- and the character is supposed to be around that age, as well. Are we really to believe that a woman almost 70 years old came to Mexico and seduced an attractive, powerful lesbian in her 40s? Come on! In fact, the file photos of Perez show her with young, attractive women, which would again indicate than an old woman like Mrs. McGarrett wouldn't have a shot! Surely they could have found a better writing angle than this.
Anyway, I didn't dislike this episode overall. It had some good things, too. There was zero time wasting. The firefight at the end was well staged and full of action.
Overall, it was just okay, albeit unusual.
I give it 2.5 stars.
Also, did you guys notice the different in photography in the "Mexico/Colombia" segments versus those taking place in Hawaii?
The segments in Mexico and Colombia were filmed with a filter greatly muting color, thus making the surroundings seem drab. The Hawaii segments were filmed with the unusual enhanced color, making the landscape look eye-poppingly stunning.
This was probably done in order to cover up the fact that this was all filmed in Hawaii. I always laugh at the scenes depicted in cold states during the winter, where there's snow on the ground. If you look closely, you can see that you're actually seeing Hawaii with snow inserted via CGI. It's done pretty well, though.