Book ‘Em: Stranger danger

Guest actor Peter Greene makes Danno sweat, and quite well, too. (Courtesy CBS)

BY BURL BURLINGAME / bburlingame@staradvertiser.com

OK, how long has it been since we saw a new episode? Seems like years. Particularly since the last one tied up some loose ends regarding Old Joe.

Here we are in the air, with some lovely shots of Hawaiian Airlines’ Airbus A330-200 cruising the skies, way too low near Na Pali. As all the passengers are blissfully watching the Hawaiian Airlines logo recycling on their seatback videos, some sort of sky marshall in the back is antsy, turns to the guy shackled next to him and hisses he’s going to hide in the bathroom and make a cell call. Hey, no operating cell phones in flight, pal.

The stew collecting the Agricultural forms notices that both the sky cop and the shackled perp are missing when she gets to the back of the plane. She assumes they’re in the bathroom together, doing who knows what, and so she jimmies the door open (did you know the release is hidden under the Occupied sign?) and there’s the sky cop, deader than a mackerel, blood splashed everywhere. She shrieks. They’re serious about this no cell phones business!

Credits. We’re into “Mai Ka Wa Kahiko,” H50.2.2.15. Supposedly means “Out Of The Past,” but I doubt Robert Mitchum or Jane Greer are going to show up.

Officer Supermodel is out-macho-ing McG on the Koko Head Crater trolley steps. He make some comment about “tiny balls.” Code for steroid use? She darts ahead and girlishly trips, twisting her dainty little ankle. Eeek! McG sweeps her up in his massive, sweaty, tattooed arms and carries her to safety. Officer Supermodel swoons at such gallantry.

Airport ramp. More shots of Hawaiian logo and Airbus signage. The real Hawaiian Prez and CEO Mark Dunkerley is there to assure McG that bloody murder rarely occurs on his airline. (And don’t miss the close-up of the Chevy logo as the camera pulls away!)

Danno knows the vic, says he’s a sky marshall from his old stomping grounds in Joisey. “We kept in touch. Got three kids,” sighs Danno.

The passengers are sequestered in a hangar. Where’s TSA?

Another passenger is missing. He left his bag behind right over his seat. At least, they assume it’s his bag. When was the last time you actually were able to place your bag in the overhead and it was literally over your head?

McG, in a flash of Sherlockian insight, expositories that the missing perp and the other missing passenger likely didn’t deplane while in flight. Just in case you needed the obvious explained.

Magic Table reveals that the perps exited the aircraft by jumping out the landing gear well, which is apparently open to the galley. Remember that if your in-flight meal tastes like hydraulic fluid. The bag on the plane was useless for ID (so why involve it?) and they determine the other guy is so-and-so, except that it can’t be him because the video of the perps running away shows him to be too tall. Or something like that. Officer Supermodel limps in on crutches and resists McG’s efforts at gentlemanly behavior. There’s a subtext brewing here.

The perps have something to do with gambling. Up atop Pioneer Plaza at the Plaza Club, there’s a “charity gambling event” going on. I guess state law has been changed. The heavily made-up lady with the waiver permit rats out a perp’s best friend and Danno and McG race there, an opportunity for Car Talk?

No. Turns out the Associate Perp who helped Escaped Perp get away stole an identity from a dead guy in New York, and then rented a Crown Vic, giving as his home address a vacant lot. “Not your average idiot criminal,” grumps Danno. “Can’t wait to meet him.” Dum dum Da DUMMM! Foreshadowing!

At a hotel, it seems that Escaped Perp has registered under his real name. Now THERE’S your average idiot criminal. When Danno and McG bust down the door (what, no pass key?) Escaped Perp tries to escape again, giggling oddly. Danno pushes him into the hotel pool and tries a waterboarding variation to shake info out about Associate Perp. Escaped Perp doesn’t have a clue. McG is unusually reticent about the torture.

In the Green Room, Escaped Perp actually provides a clue. Associate Perp, whom he doesn’t know, accidentally dropped a key into the plane’s cargo hold. Potential fingerprints!

Seems the Sky Marshall recognized Associate Perp on the plane, got nervous, and whilst trying to make an advance warning via cell phone, got sliced up.

Officer Supermodel valiantly pimps for Bing while searching Magic Table, which tells her that the key belongs to a lockbox near Diamond Head. Danno helps Officer Supermodel gimp away, and she simpers at McG, “See! Chivalry isn’t dead.”

“I carried you down a mountain!” whines McG.

At the lab, Scientist Nerd descrambles Sky Marshall’s phone and discovers that the number he was trying to call was Danno’s. “Why would he call Danno’s number?” Kono wonders out loud, just in case you missed the entire point of the scene.

Danno opens the P.O. box and tampers with the mail, a Federal offense. When a P.O. worker calls him on it, Danno tells him to go help the pretty blonde lady over there. It works, too. Anyway, Danno opens Associate Perp’s utility bills and discovers that even criminals on the lam need their HBO.

In their gigantic Chevy truck, McG and Chin Ho screech up to a woefully underfurnished Kahala manse. Although Associate Perp isn’t there, he thoughtfully left his laptop running with surveillance photos of Grace and and Rachel, Danno’s kid and ex-wife. McG and Chin Ho go slackjawed in gibbering horror.

Associate Perp is in a police uniform, picking up Grace under the rubric that Danno is injured!

McG warns Danno, too late. Danno warns Rachel. Then Associate Perp warns Danno, using Grace’s cell phone. It seems that Danno knows Associate Perp from Joisey, calls him “Rick.” Grace calls her father “Danno.” Rick/Associate Perp says he’s “cloned” Danno’s cell phone and can log his calls. (That’s not how phone-cloning works, but whatever.)

Scott Caan — certainly the best actor on the show — makes us feel how rattled Danno becomes in just seconds.

Frantic whinnying at H50 HQ. Danno’s off-air, McG’s sweating bullets, Officer Supermodel announces there’s an Amber Alert out for Grace. Does she know that in Hawaii it’s a Maile Alert?

Kono bursts in with the news that Associate Perp is really Rick, and that Danno knows him. Just in case you missed that, one minute before.

For the first time in the history of the series, slow traffic is encountered. Danno, panicked, drive the wrong way down a one-way, his Chevy logo blazing a trail through the traffic. Seriously. The Chevy logo gets pride of place nine times.

This Rick guy looks like Peter Coyote skinned and stuffed by a taxidermist. An ex-cop gone sour, he’s mad at Danno for putting him in a Joisey jail.

“This is revenge! He’s after Danno!” mutters Officer Supermodel. You know, just in case you missed that.

They figure out that Danno has already been contacted by Rick. At least McG rightly calls the all-points a Maile/Amber Alert.

One of the most beautiful shots of Diamond Head I’ve ever seen. Alas, it’s taken at sunset, and the action is taking place in mid-afternoon.

Lots of car and truck zooming with shiny Chevy logos. Doesn’t anyone in Honolulu drive a Kia?

Rick and Danno play Who’s Got The Gun? Rick disables the car’s transponder, so they can talk about their emotions in private. (Actually, it looks like he unplugs the car’s stereo amplifier in the trunk. I think transponders are supposed to be well hidden.) Rick is mad at Danno for telling a grand jury the truth about his petty thievery, which earned him ten years in slam. His life was ruined, and he “wants it back,” and they edgily reminisce about their former police partnership, and the parallel and diverging tracks of their family lives. A very effective scene between two good actors.

Rachel gets a text from Danno’s cell phone. Rick “must have cloned it!” exclaims Chin Ho. You know, just in case you missed that.

Rick is devising some sort of planted evidence deal involving Stan, Rachel’s current husband, and forces Danno to play along. The rendezvous is in Ala Moana Beach Park, an isolated place where no one ever goes. Right?

They park. Chevy logo! If you chugged every time you see a Chevy logo in this episode, you’d be pickled by now.

Nope, no planted evidence. Rick wants Danno simply to gun down Stan, so’s Rachel will be annoyed. Given the sheer genius of Rick’s actions earlier, this is not a well-considered plan.

Danno pops Stan in a fleshy part of the shoulder and then puts two in the grass whilst the rest of the H50 squad converge on Rick. Rachel shows up, apparently having run in high heels all the way from downtown.

Danno shoots Rick in the leg to coerce Grace’s location. But they wait until after dark to go get her. Maybe this is a tough-love lesson for the girl’s brush with Stranger Danger.

Meaningful Looks all around as Danno, Rachel and Grace embrace, a cohesive family unit. You know, just in case you missed that.

So, out of the past. Body count: One, and amazingly bloody. Officer Supermodel’s lithe, athletic body is hobbled: why? Danno reemerges as the show’s real star, after spending most of the season stumping along as comedy-relief bathos, or as McG’s hobbity sidekick. Most amazingly, the villain actually has a personality, an understandable motive, and some screen time, even if he is finally revealed as, you know, your average idiot criminal.
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Burl Burlingame is a features reporter at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Email him at bburlingame@staradvertiser.com and follow him on Twitter.