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.
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