This early second season episode features some fine performers -- and performances -- but is weighed down by a script with too many lapses in logic. Familiar character actors John Randolph and Herb Vigran are two hardware salesmen at a convention in Honolulu, when Randolph decides to pick up an 18 year-old call girl played by Elaine Joyce (one of her two Five-O appearances -- both as prostitutes!) But he gets more than he bargained for when her pimp/pusher Charley Bombay (Albert Paulsen) decides to toss her off a balcony because she's holding out a kilo of heroin from him. Unfortunately, the show migrates uneasily between subplots that seem to have come from different episodes: Randolph as the witness who shouldn't have been there when a murder is committed, and Anne Helm as the policewoman recruited by McGarrett to play the sister of the murdered woman -- a retread of the main plot from the first season opener, "Full Fathom Five" (in which the policewoman was even named "Joyce" as in this episode).
The problems with this episode begin with Randolph's frequent denials that he saw or heard anything incriminating the night that he was in the apartment -- until McGarrett does everything short of physical abuse in the final scene to get him to change his mind -- while Paulsen's character watches the whole exchange! One can almost hear the defense attorney cross-examining him: "So, Mr. Sloane -- isn't it true that on at least four occasions you denied seeing anyone in the apartment? And that you only identified Mr. Bombay after relentlessly being badgered to do so by Five-O head Steve McGarrett?" McGarrett's speech at the end about "citizen involvement" rings a little hollow considering how much he had to browbeat Randolph's character to get a (reluctant) identification -- he's hardly more "involved" than a jail-house snitch.
One also has to question why McGarett needs the Randolph character as a witness so desperately anyway. First we're shown that Chin Ho has audio-taped policewoman Joyce making the deal to buy the heroin, and then she gives Bombay the drugs as McGarrett, Danny Williams, and at least two other police operatives have them under surveillance. And then Bombay tries to flee, first in a car and then on foot, which is itself fairly strong evidence of guilt. Even if Bombay managed to toss away the heroin before Williams and McGarrett got there, McGarrett would have had plenty to put him away for drug dealing -- and even kidnapping, because Bombay's assistant made her leave where she was sitting at gunpoint. But McGarrett claims that without Randolph's identification, he'll have to let Bombay go!
There are also problems with the subplot involving policewoman Joyce. Although McGarrett insists on schooling her in the minutest details of the person she's impersonating, Bombay seems to accept it almost without question -- he only checks on one phone call she makes -- and thereafter treats her with kid gloves. If he's willing to throw one woman off a balcony with almost no prompting, and he has the Joyce character alone in his office, why does he treat the Joyce character so respectfully?
What redeems the episode are the performances and the direction by Nicolas Colasanto. Colasanto keeps the story moving (and the audience off-balance) with a mixture of long, medium, and extreme close-ups, as well as some disorienting choices in placing his actors. For instance: Paulsen walks into the prostitute's apartment and sits down on a coffee table facing away from the camera, then addresses her by turning halfway around; Helm's first appearance has her at the far end of McGarrett's office, in a long-shot that goes on and on; and in the first meeting between Paulsen and Helm, we're treated to closeups of a glass of whiskey (because the woman Helm is pretending to be is an alcoholic) with Paulsen fingering the ice cubes, but virtually no dialogue.
The actors likewise are a saving grace: Paulsen, with his faintly European accent and bad comb-over, was always rewarding as a villain, and he does his usual competent job here, alternating between speaking softly and shouting. Randolph gives a painfully agonized performance as a "regular guy" who finds himself in deeper waters than he anticipated, and he has a particularly good scene with Herb Vigran that adds nothing to the plot but gives more depth to his character than any of his scenes with McGarrett. Anne Helm does some agonizing herself, both in her rehearsals for the part as the dead woman's sister and in her scenes playing mouse to Paulsen's cat; and even Elaine Joyce, in her few minutes on camera, manages to make her character more than just a cardboard pretty face.
All in all, this episode is a mixed bag -- if one ignores the odd choices made by the writer in advancing the plot, it's worthwhile for the direction and the acting.
The problems with this episode begin with Randolph's frequent denials that he saw or heard anything incriminating the night that he was in the apartment -- until McGarrett does everything short of physical abuse in the final scene to get him to change his mind -- while Paulsen's character watches the whole exchange! One can almost hear the defense attorney cross-examining him: "So, Mr. Sloane -- isn't it true that on at least four occasions you denied seeing anyone in the apartment? And that you only identified Mr. Bombay after relentlessly being badgered to do so by Five-O head Steve McGarrett?" McGarrett's speech at the end about "citizen involvement" rings a little hollow considering how much he had to browbeat Randolph's character to get a (reluctant) identification -- he's hardly more "involved" than a jail-house snitch.
One also has to question why McGarett needs the Randolph character as a witness so desperately anyway. First we're shown that Chin Ho has audio-taped policewoman Joyce making the deal to buy the heroin, and then she gives Bombay the drugs as McGarrett, Danny Williams, and at least two other police operatives have them under surveillance. And then Bombay tries to flee, first in a car and then on foot, which is itself fairly strong evidence of guilt. Even if Bombay managed to toss away the heroin before Williams and McGarrett got there, McGarrett would have had plenty to put him away for drug dealing -- and even kidnapping, because Bombay's assistant made her leave where she was sitting at gunpoint. But McGarrett claims that without Randolph's identification, he'll have to let Bombay go!
There are also problems with the subplot involving policewoman Joyce. Although McGarrett insists on schooling her in the minutest details of the person she's impersonating, Bombay seems to accept it almost without question -- he only checks on one phone call she makes -- and thereafter treats her with kid gloves. If he's willing to throw one woman off a balcony with almost no prompting, and he has the Joyce character alone in his office, why does he treat the Joyce character so respectfully?
What redeems the episode are the performances and the direction by Nicolas Colasanto. Colasanto keeps the story moving (and the audience off-balance) with a mixture of long, medium, and extreme close-ups, as well as some disorienting choices in placing his actors. For instance: Paulsen walks into the prostitute's apartment and sits down on a coffee table facing away from the camera, then addresses her by turning halfway around; Helm's first appearance has her at the far end of McGarrett's office, in a long-shot that goes on and on; and in the first meeting between Paulsen and Helm, we're treated to closeups of a glass of whiskey (because the woman Helm is pretending to be is an alcoholic) with Paulsen fingering the ice cubes, but virtually no dialogue.
The actors likewise are a saving grace: Paulsen, with his faintly European accent and bad comb-over, was always rewarding as a villain, and he does his usual competent job here, alternating between speaking softly and shouting. Randolph gives a painfully agonized performance as a "regular guy" who finds himself in deeper waters than he anticipated, and he has a particularly good scene with Herb Vigran that adds nothing to the plot but gives more depth to his character than any of his scenes with McGarrett. Anne Helm does some agonizing herself, both in her rehearsals for the part as the dead woman's sister and in her scenes playing mouse to Paulsen's cat; and even Elaine Joyce, in her few minutes on camera, manages to make her character more than just a cardboard pretty face.
All in all, this episode is a mixed bag -- if one ignores the odd choices made by the writer in advancing the plot, it's worthwhile for the direction and the acting.
