"The Finishing Touch" review

Very confusing episode.

The plot hits the viewer with all kinds of intricate details of the scheme of Norman Cargill (George Voskovec), who is an esteemed forgery expert who has hatched a plan to forge bearer bonds, given that his career is about to be over due to impending blindness.

Cargill has a girlfriend named Maxine Taylor (Lynn Carlin), who looks late 40s but the actress was only 35 at the time of filming. Later in the episode, Maxine impersonates a pretty young bank employee (played by Linda Ryan), and actually looks a lot better, so perhaps it was just her hairstyle making her look old.

There are some aspects of the plot which are hard to swallow. Cargill (correctly) realizes that the cops cannot make a connection between him and Taylor, or the plot will be ruined. However, he's dumb enough to both take and make calls from her while examining bonds for Five-O. The latter (him calling Maxine) ended up being his undoing, and yet he was shocked that his otherwise brilliant plan was derailed by this boneheaded move!

Cargill's attempt to flee with Taylor also didn't make sense, given that McGarrett already told him that he was suspected of the forgeries and murders he committed. McGarrett conceded that a lack of link between Cargill ad Taylor was the only thing preventing an arrest, so why would Cargill go right to Taylor's house?

Cargill's "examination" of the bonds was an incredibly long sequence (Mike timed it at almost 5 minutes), and was unnecessary. It seems that sequence was more there to eat up time than anything else.

I would have preferred this episode being of the non-violent caper type, rather than creating a murderer out of Cargill. Cargill claimed he committed the crimes because his career was about to end, and he never made much money despite being the top in his field (why?) That would explain his willingness to counterfeit, but doesn't explain how he was willing to murder. The character otherwise did not seem violent, and would have been a lot more charming if the murders hadn't taken place.

It still wasn't a bad episode. I enjoyed it, but felt it was flawed enough to where it was about average overall.

I give it 2.5 stars.

Lynn Carlin, who played Maxine Taylor, is still alive and is 80 years old. George Voskovec died just 8 years after making this episode.