Hawaii Five-0: A Thank You for the Fans!
Hawaii Five-0: Daniel Dae Kim on Extra
Video: Extra, courtesy of Skylar.
Daniel’s appearance on Extra finally aired… Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen the finale yet, you might not want to watch as he shares the gender of the character who is killed! 
Thanks to Skylar for the video!
Hawaii Five-0 Finale: If It Doesn’t Kill Us, It Will Make Us Stronger
If you were already apprehensive about watching tonight’s finale, then reading this post may discourage you from viewing it altogether! It’s one thing when the executive producers tell us the epi will blow our minds (after all, they’re supposed to), but when a reviewer warns you that you’ll be on tenterhooks the entire way and that the action never lets up, then you’d better believe it!
Here’s what Peter Lenkov and Elwood Reid, who co-wrote the season closer together with Paul Zbyszewski, shared with Rick Porter:
So where does that leave us for the season finale next week? Well, the thing McGarrett didn’t get in Japan was Shelburne, but Lenkov says the identity of the mysterious figure is “absolutely resolved” in the final moments of the finale. That doesn’t, however, mean that McGarrett will have all the answers about his father’s death, because Lenkov and writer/co-executive producer Elwood Reid also promise a cliffhanger ending.
“You’re going to be pissed it ends where it ends,” Reid says, noting that next season will most likely pick up immediately after the finale.
The finale is titled “Ua Hala,” which translates to “Death in the Family,” and Lenkov and Reid say the episode will deliver on that ominous promise.
“We thought we did a good job on the [Season 1] finale. We wrote this big episode with a lot stakes; every character had something they could lose,” Lenkov says. “So we sat down and said, how do we top that? … It ends, I think, with bigger stakes this time.” The cliffhanger story will resolve fairly quickly next season, he adds, but “character-wise, it will carry on” for a while into Season 3.
“We think of it as building fires,” Reid says. “There’s a lot of wood on the fire now, and it’s going to give us a lot of stuff to play next season. … The hardest thing as writers is to set stuff up so we have somewhere to go in the next season. This finale — we’re not manufacturing a finale here. Everyone is sort of thrown.”
Lenkov’s one-word description of the finale is “jaw-dropping.”
Taking it a step further in the striking-fear-in-the-hearts-of-fans stakes is Michelle Carlbert, who watched the screener last night (minus the final two minutes, which were deliberately left out):
Last week Hawaii Five-0 Executive Producer Peter Lenkov and Co-Executive Producer Elwood Reid sat down to talk about this year’s season finale. Though they were understandably reluctant to give too much away, they still gave us a good idea of what you can expect tonight.
- Joe is back and will play an integral part in the finale. He brings Steve the information that he has been seeking and fans will finally find out the identity of the mysterious Shelburne.
- Tonight’s episode will have very emotional repercussions for a couple of the team members, including Chin. With these incidents, they will be breaking Chin down so that they can explore building him back up again next season.
- Fans should be ready to say goodbye to somebody on the show and the finale will end in a huge cliffhanger. The stakes at the end of this season are even bigger for the team than they were last season.
- Asked to describe the finale, they both said it was “jaw-dropping,” that the episode has a “compelling case,” and that there will be a “lot of action.”
Now that you’ve heard from the creators, here are a few of my own thoughts about the finale.The hits start right from the beginning and they don’t stop.
There’s a moment that happens less than five minutes in to the show that has such ramifications that I could easily see a scene like that happening at the end and yet it basically starts the episode. After that, things go from bad to worse for the team. The amount of near-misses, injuries and life-threatening incidents is off the charts. If you are looking for a nice relaxing episode, you will not find it here.A lot of familiar faces return
As the EP’s said above, Joe is back in this episode. But what you may not know is that he’s not the only character to return. I think it’s more fun seeing these people come up in the storyline without knowing so I’m not going to mention any names but I will say that ever familiar face that returns is vital to the overall story.Never let your guard down
Just when you think things are quiet, or that the case is resolved, or that all the bad stuff is over – it’s not. Like never. I’m not going to say how many times new surprises come up to bite our favorite characters in the ass, but I will say it’s more than once and less than ten. My advice: don’t leave your couch during this entire episode. If you need a snack or a potty break, go during a commercial. If you go any other time, even if you think all is well, you’ll be sorry. Consider yourself warned.So there you have it, vital information about tonight’s Hawaii Five-0 finale from the Executive Producer and Co-Executive Producer themselves, as well as my personal thoughts. Still thinking about skipping this one or leaving it on your DVR for another night?…..Yeah, I didn’t think so.
AOLR Weekly Wrap-up #141
Hawaii Five-0 and Alex Updates
- TV Tonight reported on May 9 that due to disappointing ratings, Australia’s Channel Ten has taken Hawaii Five-0 off its schedule. After fans protested via Twitter and Facebook, Ten tweeted “Hawaii Five-O will be returning soon. We’ll make an announcement when we hear more.” The last episode to air last Monday was the crossover with NCIS: LA. It looks like they will at least broadcast the remaining Season 2 episodes. Note that it’s not just Hawaii Five-0 that’s suffering; ratings have dropped considerably across the board for Channel Ten, causing advertising revenue to shrink and the network is struggling to keep its head above water. Also, Five-0 has been shuffled around on the broadcast schedule several times, with little promotion to support it, which certainly hasn’t helped it build an audience.
- Thanks to John McMahon (@jmx1aus) for the heads-up about GQ Australia’s efforts to find out who their readers want to see on the cover of upcoming issues! The poll was up for only a short while and has now ended. Mahalo to all who voted for Alex — hopefully we made a difference!
- In the light of CBS’s recent cancellations (among others, CSI: Miami, Unforgettable and A Gifted Man), it will be interesting to see what the network’s schedule will look like next season and if Five-0 keeps its 10 PM slot on Mondays. We should know more on Wednesday, when the upfront takes place!
Hawaii Five-0 Articles
- Interviews with Grace Park are rare, so it’s great to see Canadian health magazine Vista feature her on the cover of their March/April issue! Check out what the Vancouver beauty has to say about Five-0:
A Not-so-Leisurely Life in Hawaii
“A lot of people think that a little sunshine makes your entire life better, but it’s not as easy as people might think — the entire industry is about creating an illusion. It’s story telling. There are long hours and it’s a tough job. However, there are a lot of things that I feel very fortunate for; it’s a great job and you meet a lot of amazing people. There is a different culture here that I really appreciate. A lot of people here aren’t originally from Hawaii, so there’s a feeling of expanded family. People are really kind — in Vancouver we’re very polite, but in Hawaii people are warm. It’s a very different default and I’m still getting used to it. I’m sure people wonder what’s up with that Canadian girl!
“Having the show set in Hawaii definitely gives it its own flavour. We have a Hawaiian cultural advisor who gives us pronunciation advice for every episode. The chemistry between the actors is amazing. The action is incredible and the special effects are spectacular — we take our cues from action films. In the pilot, we had exploding helicopters and army trucks, and it wasn’t CGI — we were really blowing them up! The amount of talent that goes into car chases blows my mind the margin for error is tiny, and they go so fast.”
You can read the full article in their digital issue or sign up to download the magazine in PDF format.
- A thought-provoking article from Zap2it’s Rick Porter about the possible direction Michelle Borth’s character Catherine Rollins is taking in Season 3:
The good news for “Hawaii Five-0″ fans is that Michelle Borth will be a full-time part of the show next season. The bad news is that her character, Catherine Rollins, and McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) may be headed for some rough sailing in their relationship.
Showrunner Peter Lenkov says Catherine will join the Five-0 team next season, which means that her active duty in the Navy is likely at an end. Lenkov declined in an interview to say how she joins the squad, only that her addition “is very organic” to the show.
On the downside, though, McGarrett and Catherine may not handle that much togetherness all that well. In the five episodes Borth has appeared in previously, Catherine and McGarrett seemed pretty content together — but that could be partly because they don’t see one another very often, since she’s usually at sea.
Continuing their relationship is “going to prove to be difficult,” Lenkov says. “When she originally joins [the team], they are still dating, but it’s going to be difficult — just like any relationship is with [a co-worker].”
The McGarrett-dating-a-colleague scenario wasn’t a favorite of mine the last time it came up, but we’ll just have to wait and see. Given the recent past, the less advance information we’re given about this topic, the better. Especially with an entire summer ahead to angst over it…
- Guess which show came out on top in Hawai’i magazine’s poll of Top 5 Favorite Filmed-in-Hawaii TV Series Ever?
New or old? Many Facebook ohana voters simply could not decide. Consequently, they voted for both the original series and the currently airing re-imagined police procedural drama. Another batch of voters, however, decisively opted for the new version, which is our Facebook ohana’s top pick among filmed-in-Hawaii TV shows.
Now booked for a third season, we’ll surely be seeing more Hawaii Five-0 filming around Oahu in months ahead featuring the rule-bending Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) and the rest of the Five-0 team — Danny “Danno” Williams (Scott Caan), Kona “Kono” Kalakaua (Grace Park) and Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim). In addition to the show’s primary cast (pictured, above) and regulars, such as Dr. Max Bergman (Masi Oka), the sophomore season has featured cameo roles for some well known actors, such as Ed Asner, who reprised a role he played more than 30 years ago on the original series, and James Caan, whose son plays “Danno” in the new series.
- Modern Luxury Hawaii featured Five-0′s costume supervisors in their Spring Best of the Islands’ issue (page 86; a scan is also available in the gallery):
Everyone from Alex O’Loughlin to the hobby store clerk with just two lines gets styled by Hawaii Five-0 costume supervisors Michelle Moder and Anthony Scarano.
“Anyone with a speaking role, even it it’s just, ‘Aloha,’ gets fitted, photographed and approved by the executive producer,” Moder says. And it’s not as glamorous as it may seem. Since Hawaii Five-0 is an hour-long, episodic drma — known throughout the biz as the most challenging type of show to work on, according to Moder — it’s a continuous revolving door of new characters and situations that call for new bodies to be dressed.
But these pros — Moder started 22 years ago on In Living Color; Scarano’s first gig was 27 years ago on The New Leave It to Beaver — pull it off week after week. “A lot of times we start before the sun is up and end long after it is down,” Moder says. “We lug around tons of clothes and wipe dirty shoes. Far, far from glamorous!” OK, maybe just a tad glam…
- Nike recently launched their new Free Trainer 5.0 and created an exclusive version of the shoe for the cast; you can read about it at SoleCollector.com!
Gallery, Picture and Video Updates
- There have been a few more recent sightings of Alex, who is now mohawk-less, in Hawaii and pics have been added to the 2012 album in the gallery. A photo taken with a fan in Sydney last November has also been added. Thanks to Allyson, Allyssa Marie, Kayla, Julie and Danielle for posting their photos!
- There’s also a photo shared by @AlohaSD of Peter Lenkov trying out Chin Ho’s Harley — thanks, Julie!
- Screencaps of 2.22 are now up — God bless Peter Lenkov, Larry Teng and the DOP for giving us so many McGarrett closeups!
- Five-0 Undercover has posted some behind-the-scenes photos from 2.22!
- More Moonlight screencaps have been completed; you can feast your eyes on our stylish vampire here.
- Grace got to meet President Obama at a dinner organized by the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies on May 8; you can view the article scan here.
- CBS posted assorted behind-the-scenes photos from the season finale, courtesy of E-PR, on various sites; you can view them all here. There’s a great one of Alex and Scott as well as a group shot of our Fab Four!
- Daniel appeared on The Talk on Thursday; you can watch the interview — his best yet, in my opinion — on YouTube: part 1 – part 2. Thanks to Skylar for the videos! He was also with Extra at The Grove, but as far as I can tell, that hasn’t aired (yet). Some photos shared by CBS can be viewed here.
- On May 7, DDK was at Citizens Bank Park to throw the symbolic first pitch for the Phillies vs. the Mets game. Enjoy the photos in the gallery and a video posted by KTLA!
- Joint season finale interviews were given last week for Hawaii Five-0, Criminal Minds and NCIS, and CBS posted some BTS photos on Tumblr!
Finale night tonight — bring it on, Five-0! 
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