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Thread: The Late John Louisiana

  1. #1
    Just watched "The Late John Lousiana", which is a great episode, and is often overlooked on "favorite" lists.

    This early season 3 episode featured the caucasian Alfred Ryder playing "Harry Quon", an Asian gangster in control of parts of Oahu. They did a decent enough job making up Ryder to look somewhat Asian, so this wasn't as offensively bad as we saw in some other episodes where non-Asian actors played Asians.

    One of Quon's men, Tigner, was found murdered on Maui. McGarrett has a tough time making sense of this, especially when it appears Quon was unaware of the killing, and that there doesn't seem to be a rival gang after Quon.

    It turns out that the killing was done by Quon's hitman named Nick, who had been assigned to kill a female witness to a murder committed by Quon two years prior. Rather than kill the witness (Julie Grant, played my Marianne McAndrew), Nick fell in love with her, and feigned being a businessman who just happened to meet her and fall in love.

    Only later in the episode does Nick reveal to Julie that he was really a hitman originally sent to kill her, and that he killed another girl in order to fake Julie's death. While Julie is understandably shocked and seemingly disturbed by this, she surprisingly regains composure and decides to stay with Nick anyway.

    Another hitman working for Quon, Charlie, eventually comes to learn that Nick faked the hit on Julie, and she's still alive. At this point, Nick is forced by Quon to "finish the hit" and all will supposedly be forgiven. Charlie was played by Al Harrington, which becomes confusing to watch given Harrington's role as Ben later in the series.

    It is unclear why they don't simply kill Nick for his betrayal, and then let Charlie (who is clearly fully loyal to Quon) attempt to kill Julie, who is now in police custody. I had a hard time believing that Quon would have forgiven Nick for everything, even if Nick performed the hit the second time around.

    After Nick shoots Charlie instead of Julie, and gets shot himself, it's unclear what he thinks his plans are. Clearly he is bleeding profusely, and he drives them toward a "radar station", which has neither a means of escape or any kind of medical supplies.

    It's also unclear why, while giving chase, McGarrett takes Quon along (probably to provide his presence for the dramatic ending, where Julie agrees to testify against him!)

    The title of the show refers to the gangster Quon knocked off, who Julie originally witnessed being killed. We only briefly see him in a weird flashback scene, taking place in a dream of Julie's.

    When Nick has Julie sublet an apartment next door to his, it's unclear what his plans are. The manager says she can only have the place for six weeks, yet Nick and Julie do not have an escape planned out during that timeframe.

    The show ends how you'd expect. Nick is killed (so the viewer doesn't need to feel torn as to whether to be happy or unhappy about his arrest or escape), and Julie finally agrees to testify against Quon.

    McAndrew, who is now 77 (just 28 when on Five-O), experienced some resurgence in notoriety in 2008, when a clip of her from "Hello Dolly!" appeared in the movie WALL-E.




    I give this episode 4 out of 4 stars, which is also Mike's rating.

  2. #2
    Five-O Home Page Author Mr. Mike's Avatar
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    I recently re-viewed this episode which I had originally given 3½ stars to, but it should have been given 4 all along. There are two things about this show which I particularly like. First, the fact that the two leads played by Stroud and McAndrew are probably the "most in love" characters of any on all of Classic Five-O ... real "slobbering in their mouths" kind of love, LOL. Second is the outstanding color photography which exceeds even that which we normally expect on the show, like in the shot below.

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  3. #3
    I actually just watched this episode over the 4th of July weekend as well. I too agree that it's a top episode. Todd, I'd add to your comments something I thought a bit odd watching it this last time - after Nick is shot by Charlie, he's clearly quite injured by the gunshot, yet rather than have Julie drive the getaway car, somehow Nick still winds up in the driver's seat. Overall I thought Don Stroud was really awesome in this episode.
    Also - a weird idea I had while watching this (not sure why this was in my head - maybe the Holiday time period over which I watched it?) but I thought this would be a good drinking game episode - whereby participants would be required to do a shot every time Nick refers to Julie as "baby" during the episode.

  4. #4
    Five-O Home Page Author Mr. Mike's Avatar
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    You will get pretty sloshed, because the word "baby" is heard 23 times during this show, 20 of which are spoken by Don Stroud's character.

  5. #5
    Five-O Home Page Author Mr. Mike's Avatar
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    I was wondering whether Marianne McAndrew's vocals were hers or someone else's in Hello Dolly (clip above). I found the following on a WWW page:

    https://www.broadwayworld.com/articl...DOLLY-20170529

    Marianne McAndrew auditioned for the role at the urging of her agent. Despite not being a singer or dancer, she had played the role of Irene in a production of The Matchmaker. McAndrew was flown out to LA and put through multiple screen tests and table reads before being placed on retainer while the casting team searched in London. Unable to find someone else, McAndrew won the part. She was the only cast member whose singing was dubbed. Gilda Maiken, lead singer of the 1940's band The Skylarks sang Irene's ensemble vocals. The solo vocals were recorded by Melissa Stafford, who was one of the longest running performers on Dean Martin's television show - 1966-74 - and was known as one of Dean's Girls.

  6. #6
    Five-O Home Page Author Mr. Mike's Avatar
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    My review of The Late John is here, by the way...

    http://fiveohomepage.com/5-0log3.htm#57

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