Hawaii Five-0 – Mea culpa (now let’s mess it up again)

Sometimes, when I’m thinking about how best to describe a show, or my relationship to a show, or my feelings about a show, I find it easiest to think of the show as being a person. I’m aware this makes me sound like a crazy person who has relationships with television instead of actual people, which is probably true but not actually the point. The actual point is that when you’re thinking about a show as a body of work, it is best to personify it. For example, if were talking about Parks and Recreation, I could attempt to describe all the detailed plot nuances and delights and why you watch it, or I could explain that the show is your class president over-achiever best friend. You know the one. The one who always organizes every party with amazing baked goods. And they kind of make you feel bad because you’re the kind of person who signs up to bring napkins knowing that you’re going to forget to bring anything, and napkins are okay to forget because either everyone will use paper towels (or, more likely, your friend will remember them and tell you not to worry about it), and have you tried the cream cheese brownies? And you will love this friend, because this friend loves you even though you are a slacker douche and that friend is so perky and awesome and with it. And that is Parks and Recreation. Didn’t I just make the show ten times clearer? I thought so.

I was reminded of this technique while I was wrangling with how, exactly, to explain the season 2 premiere of Hawaii Five-0 in a cohesive manner and coming up empty. It was just so big. And so much happened in so many directions. I could easily write a column on about five different things and still feel dissatisfied with the result because I had left out something really, really important. And then I thought about Parks and Recreation, and my tendency to anthropomorphize everything, including television shows, and then it hit me — Hawaii Five-0 is another friend everyone knows and has had before: the friend who tries too damn hard.

The Hawaii Five-0 friend is your friend who is full of so many good qualities. They’re endearing, they’re funny, they’re warm and friendly and make you feel great just by hanging around them, and they are really, really good-looking. Which is, of course, not the reason you hang out with them, but it certainly doesn’t hurt that they’re so easy on the eyes. But the Hawaii Five-0 friend has two flaws: first of all, they are insecure. Second of all, they’re not that bright.

Of course, if you are friends with Hawaii Five-0, this probably doesn’t matter to you. You have plenty of other friends who are urbane and witty (I call that friend Community). What matters to you is that your Hawaii Five-0 friend makes you unabashedly happy to be around. Your Hawaii Five-0 friend likes to blow things up and makes you laugh, and I’m sure there’s some analogous human characteristic that equates roughly with Steve and Danny’s ongoing and magnificent Bert and Ernie-esque relationship, but I’m getting over a cold and am still too tired to take the metaphor that far.

But, as last season’s final episodes proved to us, your Hawaii Five-0 friend really, really wants to be the smart one. They’re not satisfied with however popular they are, they want more! They want to do it all! New cast members? Convoluted series-long plot arcs mixed with interpersonal dramas that leave the audience deeply emotionally invested in the characters as well as the cases? Hawaii Five-0 friend is on it and in way, way over their head!

And, to the show’s credit, I think they realized that over the summer, because if there was a Hawaiian word that roughly translated to “mea culpa”, I’m pretty sure that would have been the title of the episode. That awkward Rachel is pregnant with Danny’s lovechild storyline? Handwaved away! Jenna, who clearly did not work out as the love interest they had hoped? Secretly evil! (Though considering this show’s propensity for soap opera-esque twists, it is entirely possible that she’s a pulling one on Wo Fat.) No possible way for McGarrett to prove his innocence? Deus ex machina planted camera! If the show did take risks, they were calculated ones — add fan magnet Masi Oka to the regular cast (approved!), add Lost alum Terry O’Quinn as McGarrett’s all-seeing do-no-wrong Obi Wan type (ten bucks says he’s secretly evil too). Other than that, it was a return to the tried and true team dynamics that, despite Chin’s seeming betrayal, settled back into place nicely, with perhaps the only difference being that instead of keeping Steve and Danny’s relationship in a purely plausible (though highly suggestive) bromantic deniability place, they’re really, really venturing into “I think that prison visit was initially of a conjugal nature, and can you show that on a primetime cop drama?” territory. (For the record, CBS executives I like to pretend read this column, three out of four CliqueClackers who watch this show approve of this relationship development.) And this was a pretty good episode. Not logically solid (is a legal drama ever?), but good.

Unfortunately, between the preview and casting calls I’ve read and spoilers I’ve heard, I really, really don’t trust things to stay this way. I don’t trust the show isn’t going to go reaching way out of its skill set and back into super-uncomfortable territory again. And I’m begging you, show, don’t. I don’t care what handwaving you have to do to make it go back away, but stick to your core. You’re fun, you’re light, you’ve got great characters with a great dynamic already. There’s no need to tinker with or add to that. And, most importantly, you’re pretty. You’re so, so pretty. That’s really all I, or anyone else, ever need from you.

Clacked by Julia Hass
on Sep 20, 2011 @ 21:07 EST5EDT