This was what I posted on Mike's forum in May 2017, regarding "A Lion in The Streets":

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I was surprised to see Mike gave it 4 stars. I don't believe it deserved anywhere near that. Not a bad episode, but flawed in several ways.

Alika was indeed a great villain, but his henchmen were astoundingly inept. How could a powerful mob boss (who was even able to run his operation from jail) be surrounded by such terrible "help"? His main bodyguard Billy Swan was especially pathetic, and tended to go down for the count after just one punch. Even Alika was exasperated by him after Kimo Carew knocked Swan out on the beach, yet Alika continued to trust him as his main bodyguard!

The end scene where Andy Komoku beat up all three bodyguards was comical and unrealistic. Alika's two goons were following him and told Alika that they planned to "waste him as soon as he comes out of the house", making it obvious they must have guns. Yet when they followed him to Alika's house, they chased him down and took him on with no weapons?

We did not get any kind of resolution regarding Johnny Mio, and in fact we didn't see him at all in most of the second half of the episode. There was a quick mention by Kimo that he "didn't know anything" regarding the third man responsible for murdering his family, but that was it. We also heard that the union election was delayed for 6 months. But what of Mio? Where did he go? What happened to Kimo's offer to become an eyewitness that Alika and Mio were connected? I found the lack of closure here to be unsatisfying.

In fact, the whole episode lacked closure. Alika wasn't arrested. The union election was simply delayed, but we never find out if it ended up with a positive result. None of the main bad guys were ever arrested (aside from Wo Fat episodes, has that ever happened?) In fact, aside from those two henchmen brought in by Komoku as part of a "citizen's arrest", no one was arrested at all.

Paul L. Smith (who passed away in 2012, at age 75) did a good job playing Komoku, but he was miscast, as the role called for a Hawaiian. Smith did not look Hawaiian, and you would think they would have chosen a more Hawaiian-looking actor to play a role of a direct descendant of Kamehameha (and that being a big plot point!)

The whole "kapu" curse on McGarrett was a little ridiculous, especially to the point where Duke, Truck, and other Five-O staff refused to talk to him. In general, McGarrett came off weak and befuddled throughout the entire episode, at one point remarking that he never had such difficulty in all of his professional career. That was odd to hear, as this case was rather easy to deal with compared to some of the others McGarrett dealt with, kapu or not!

William Smith's acting was uneven throughout this episode, especially the dramatic scenes.

This episode served as an introduction to two new characters to the Five-O team -- Truck and Kimo. With Danny's departure, Five-O was down to just McGarrett and Duke, coming into Season 12.

Despite Smith's questionable acting, the two new characters were likable. Still, it felt like a whole new show was being invented. Five-O without Danno and Chin just didn't feel like Five-O.

I'll be honest. I loved the premise of "A Lion in the Streets". It had a lot of potential.

The Andy Komoku character was particularly interesting, being a flawed good guy who was overly macho and temperamental, but at the same time meant well.

The secondary story of Kimo being in Hawaii to find the murderer of his wife and kid was also interesting.

It just wasn't executed well. They had almost 100 minutes of screen time to get it done (about the length of a feature film), yet the episode dragged in the second half and never provided us with much resolution or closure. The Mio character faded into the background. Andy just kept doing the same vigilante act over and over, while his wife begged him to stop. The union election became secondary.

I was also waiting for Andy to kick ass -- perhaps baiting those thugs from the beginning to attack him, and him beating them down. Didn't happen. All Andy did was wreck property associated with Alika, until finally at the end he had that laughable fight with the inept henchmen at Alika's beach house.

Kimo's story was interesting, yet went nowhere. All we got at the end was a lame quip about how Mio "didn't know anything" about his family's killer. Presumably this was left as an ongoing story for Season 12, but it wasn't really utilized.

Also, that judge was also horrible, and they never explained it. Why was he so sympathetic to Alika, given the horrific crimes he was accused of? Even McGarrett looked shocked at every one of the judge's rulings.

Was the judge on Alika's payroll? That was never stated, but it probably should have been. This was yet another loose end which didn't make much sense.

Why was McGarrett so confident that the second hearing would go so well, when the first was such a disaster?

Overall, it wasn't a bad episode, because the story itself was compelling, and I liked a lot of the characters. It was just poorly written and directed.

I think it deserved 2.5 stars.