User Reviews

A few seasons back, "Hawaii Five-O" ran three episodes concerning a mob family--the Vashons. In the first, the punk grandson commits crimes for thrills and taunts the police into catching him. Ultimately, he's killed by McGarrett in self-defense while committing one of the robberies. In the next, the young man's father (Harold Gould) tries an destroy McGarrett in revenge--and in the end it's this man, Henri Vashon, that goes to prison. In the third, Henri's father takes his stab at McGarrett and when his interesting plan fails, he commits suicide. Now, three seasons later, Henri appears for one final stab at McGarrett.

The show begins with McGarrett taking a special trip out to the state prison to speak at Henri Vashon's parole hearing. Due to McGarrett's efforts, Vashon is denied parole--and he's determined to get his revenge...again. He orchestrates a kidnapping of a group of dignitaries who are visiting the prison--all to try to lure McGarrett into a bizarre trap. But, unfortunately for the other members of the kidnapping team, they don't realize that Vashon has no intention of escaping--just killing McGarrett.

If you suspend disbelief, this is a very good episode--but not as good as the previous Vashon episodes. Most of this is because it is hard to believe and because Vashon's character is a bit one-dimensional. Still, it is quite interesting and worth seeing.

I loved the Vashon trilogy that took place in season 5. This is a solid episode but it's not quite at the quality of the earlier entries.

Without giving away too much, the point of this is that the remaining Vashon, Honore, gets his paroled scotched by McGarrett and takes the opportunity for revenge by putting him on "trial" for his son's "murder" using a hastily-arranged escape plan as cover to get Steve in the room. As you might guess, it doesn't end well for Honore.

It's not a bad episode, as Harold Gould is as solid as can be as a TV character actor. However, the plot has some areas that strain credulity. For instance, this escape/revenge plot seems to get put together in about a day or two, quite an undertaking even for someone with Vashon's juice. Also, Honore always seemed to be the rational one but this whole plot seemed to be irrational. His main thing is to be paroled but when McGarrett puts the kibosh on it Vashon pivots toward a plan that at best puts him in the can for the rest of his life. It just seemed against the character's previous thought process.