Last night I was pretty much toast, so I watched my weekly The Following episode (did the directors of The Blair Witch Project take over this show...?) and kept the TV on while I read my book. The next show that was on -- I turned the channel so I didn't have to watch the repetitive coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings that was coming on Fox -- was Hawaii Five 0, a show typically that I don't watch at all. I kept the television on for background noise, to be honest, and when it came on I remembered the theme song which, in my opinion, is one of the best and most recognizable theme songs in television history.
What I watched for the next hour almost defies description. Prepare to suspend disbelief....
The episode, entitled Olelo Pa'a, involves the main character, McGarrett, and his trusty and quite watchable love interest Catherine Rollins, who go to Korea to retrieve the remains of one of McGarrett's former comrades and best friend who was killed in a covert op to kidnap an international trafficker in arms and drugs in North Korea. First of all, the exchange takes place at a location that looks like nothing I've ever seen of Korea. Most of the pictures I've seen aren't nearly as lush as this supposed checkpoint. What's more, the exchange would almost have to be somewhere along the DMZ which is only one of the most fortified places in the world. The idiots who produced this episode made it look like a border checkpoint at a remote location in a desolate place in South America. I've seen better obstacles crossing the road at Thanksgiving Day parades. Just to make it seem more real, though, the actors playing the North Koreans scowled really, really hard.
Before we go any further in this unbelievably bad show, let's stop and ask this question: Why is McGarrett tasked with bringing home the remains of his fallen comrade? Isn't he with the Hawaii police now? Even assuming that he was once a SEAL (which the flashbacks tell us to provide background), he's no longer a SEAL. I have a hard time believing that State is going to pluck some policeman -- no matter how good-looking he is -- to send on what's essentially a diplomatic mission just because he knew the guy who died. What's more, they send along his hot love interest because she's in naval intelligence and happens to be stationed in Hawaii with Mr. Love Muffin? Is someone trying to tell us that there are no professional diplomats capable of handling what's essentially a glorified gofer job? Seriously?
To introduce the players, let's get the visuals out of the way. Here are our protagonists:
Because after all, all covert ops people are unbelievably gorgeous in addition to being competent, experienced and skillful.
Anyway, back to our ludicrous story.
They take the remains back to a hanger somewhere in South Korea and McGarrett has an odd idea to look inside to verify the remains as his friend. I don't remember how he pried the simple pine casket open (at this point I wasn't really paying attention), but he does and there in the box are the quite dessicated remains of...someone else. Well, of course it can't be his friend because, in another flashback, you learn that just before they did their HALO jump into North Korea, the now-dead friend revealed he'd (a) gotten a tattoo, (b) gotten married and (c) was now expecting a baby girl. Cue the pathos.
At this point, I might have been able to overlook the fatuous border crossing, the unnaturally good-looking policemen cum diplomats and the unexpectedly verdant terrain, but the show was about to go one better than jumping a mere shark. It was about to jump Moby Dick.
McGarrett gets on the phone to his father (at least I think it's his father) and asks him to put him in touch with someone local who knows the terrain. Just as happened regularly in the show 24, McGarrett has no difficulty whatsoever reaching on a cellphone his father who's on a horse in Montana -- from South Korea!!!! My cellphone won't work from one US state to the other, let alone internationally. But the father puts him in touch with this guy.
Hold onto your seats, folks. You might fall out of them.
The next scene starts with some Asian bartender holding a snake on the bar and taking a cleaver to behead it, then squeezes the blood into a glass that already has some milky substance in it. As if this isn't unhygienic enough, he stirs it with his finger for good measure and, but of course, slides it down the bar (that looks like it was built with rough pieces of wood by studio workmen a few minutes before the scene was shot ) to the wizened man who catches it. Who is that man, you ask? Well it's none other than Jimmy Buffett. Was Buddy Hackett unavailable? Yes, I know he's portraying someone else, but who better to portray a retired covert operator in what looks more like Margaritaville than South Korea than Jimmy Buffett. All he was missing was a Cubs' cap.
Fast-forwarding to the next inanity -- because we're barely a third of the way through them -- Buffett gives them some castoff communist weapons and takes them to an old smugglers' trail that, miraculously, wends its way through minefields. This through the most defended border in the world, where electronic listening devices, fixed emplacements and roving patrols exist. Again, Buffett's character points them through terrain that has to be a remote section of some Hawaiian isle, but it's far too much to expect verisimilitude at this point. Gamely, McGarrett and Rollins begin their trek into North Korea.
At this point, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here's a shot from the episode roughly from this point in the story:
Well. Notice a couple of things: First, they look like they were dressed by L.L. Bean. When they went to retrieve the remains at the exchange, they were in camis. So if I understand this correctly, when they decide to violate international law and trespass, they get decked out for a photo shoot? And for someone who's allegedly in naval intelligence, how smart was it for the hottie love interest to go through the bush with her hair loose and flowing? This wasn't a shampoo commercial, for crying out loud. I mean, won't that get caught up in the bushes and branches of this most inhospitable landscape? It was as if Ken and Barbie were on a field trip.
Somehow, they come upon the target location and are able to spy on them undetected. Just to add to the authenticity of the scene the producers, who dressed these two up like wayward models, made sure to camouflage the binoculars. Amazing. That they can do. McGarrett recognizes the guy who's the leader of this group who met with the guy McGarrett kidnapped when his friend was killed. The leader jumps in a car -- not just any car but this car, in fact:
and drives away. Look at that car for a second. Does that look like the kind of car that is going to (a) be in an impoverished nation like North Korea, (b) kept by smugglers and (c) be in that condition? But of course it is! This is realism at its finest.
I've gone a little bit ahead of myself. What you seen in the photo above is the result of McGarratt and his girl getting around the smugglers' camp without being noticed, running through the rough terrain and being able to intercept the car on a desolate road -- and the smuggler, instead of flooring it, acquiesces and stops the car, at which point Ken and Barbie hop in.
The photo shows the moment when Mr. Smuggler jumps out of the car, which proceeds to crash into a tree. The girl is hurt -- we learn later she broke a rib; more on that anon -- but McGarrett, though momentarily shaken up, races to tackle the smuggler. A guard from a nearby bridge -- remember, McGarrett and the girl were able to bypass the camp and now presumably the bridge guard -- hears the scuffle and comes to investigate. He gets to within fifteen feet of where McGarrett is holding Mr. Smuggler's face in the ground and then leaves, unable to see anything. Mr. Smuggler, for his part, not only cooperates and doesn't try to struggle but also doesn't suffocate from having his face pressed into mother earth.
McGarrett then impresses upon the smuggler that he only wants his dead friend's remains and the guy guides him to a nondescript location without a marker of any kind and tells McGarrett this is the place. McGarrett tells him to start digging while girlfriend stands guard, her long locks blowing in the slight breeze. After only a minute of digging, the body is revealed in a shallow grave. Apparently, standards have lessened over the years because the body is shown in gruesome detail. Leg bones are broken, the eye socket has been caved in. Neither of those have any skin on them. But miracle of miracles, McGarrett is able to pull back the sleeves on the body and brush away some dust on the arm to reveal the identifying tattoo. First of all...huh? No skin on the leg bones but the tattooed arm survived? Second, wouldn't the elements have gotten to the body in such a shallow grave? Third, there is no way I'm touching that skin no matter how close I was to the man.
I am admittedly a little confuddled on how we get to the next sequence. Mr. Smuggler is tied up next to the gravesite and a grenade with the pin pulled is put underneath him. McGarrett and the walking shampoo ad then get back to the bridge somehow and take out two of the guards in hand-to-hand combat and McGarrett expertly kills a third by throwing a knife in his chest (remember, she has a broken rib). So far, not too bad...even though it's hard to believe the guards never once shot their AK 47s. But we're about to venture into Keystone Kops territory. From both ends of the bridge more brigands wielding AK's attack, and they're not just carrying them, they're shooting them. Badly, as it turns out, but this appears to be a contest to see who can shoot worse, because neither Ken nor Barbie is hitting any of the twenty men coming at them with no cover. The AK is not a particularly accurate gun -- at distance. But these shooters are no more than forty yards away, and there are at least twenty smugglers. Not one person goes down.
McGarrett and the girl are hustled back to camp where they meet the capo de capo. He snarls at McGarrett and threatens him with imminent death. McGarrett and the love interest are taken back a few feet to prepare to meet their Makers when the scene cuts back to Mr. Smuggler who's been found by one of those roving North Korean border patrols that our intrepid duo skirted getting into the country. Because McGarrett had the foresight to bind and gag him, he's unable to warn the do-gooders about the grenade and as they hurry to release him from his bondage, the scene returns to the equally trussed pair of Americans when the blast of the grenade goes off, startling the smugglers. The pair guarding Ken and Barbie turn to the sound of the blast giving them the opportunity to execute a perfect drop-and-kick maneuver that allows them to kill their captors and seize their weapons (remember she has a broken rib; it must be adrenalin working), setting off a furious gun battle in which, finally, people are shot. But then, of course, there's the flashback in homage to his fallen comrade, when they kidnapped the trafficker. An equally furious but even more stupidly bad gun battle erupts, with the soon-to-be fallen comrade fending off the smugglers. Now, I've never been in combat, but I've read plenty of books on military history, and one thing I know is that SEALs are expert shooters. They know weapons. The dead comrade is firing what seems to be a variation of a SAW, a Squad Automatic Weapon, that has a rate of fire anywhere from fifty to 100 rounds per minute and an effective range of 870 yards. This trained SEAL is laying down fire at no more than thirty yards -- and is hitting absolutely nothing! Well, not people, anyway. Not one smuggler dies. What's more, he's firing this thing like he's got rigor mortis of the finger. That's a surefire way to overheat the gun barrel. Any SEAL would know that. But for the producers, he has to act like Rambo and fire away, hitting vehicles and empty oil drums, the bullets ricocheting off (not through) with bright sparks to heighten the realism. Meanwhile, the smugglers, none of whom can have the weapons proficiency of a SEAL, hit him twice, despite the fact he's partially behind an obstacle. These are some of the same fools who later can't hit Ken and Barbie when they're on the bridge without any cover. Remarkably, they never try to disable the truck that McGarrett is guiding the trafficker to, nor do they ever try to flank the pair. Instead, they come directly at the SAW operator in I can only describe as a sleepwalking banzai charge. Only after the guy's dead do they turn their attention on the vehicle that McGarrett has backed up to rescue his fallen comrade. Random bullets ricochet off the chassis, but McGarrett gets away unscathed.
The next scene thankfully brings us to the only realistic part of this wasted hour: The repatriation of the fallen comrade's remains and their burial. It's hard to screw up military burials and not even Hawaii Five O could do that. McGarrett and his squeeze were in their military dress uniforms and the rest of the Five 0 crew attended off to the side, suitably dressed. Scott Caan is a one trick pony -- he's there to look good and act snarky -- but in reality he's just a smaller and less talented version of his father.
Mercifully, the show ended without any more stupidity. Why, one might ask, did I stick with it? It was so horribly bad, so laughably wrong, that it was like watching a slow motion train wreck and being unable to turn away. Every time I thought it couldn't get worse it did. I realize that it's only supposed to be entertainment and that realism is too much to be expected, but when they go to the extent of showing the supposed remains of the fallen comrade, is it too much to ask that they go to a military surplus store instead of L.L. Bean to outfit the trespassing pair? Furthermore, someone who's supposed to be in military intelligence should know how to put her hair up in a bun, right? Jimmy Buffett is the local contact? Really?
What I can't imagine is how stuff like this gets greenlighted. There are actually people that get paid gobsmacking amounts of money to write, direct and produce this stuff. Amazing....
Karen always kids about me picking apart shows for their shortcomings. There are obvious mistakes that everyone catches. But sometimes, stuff like this just gets glossed over. At least it provided me some fun in ripping it apart this morning.
But come to think of it, I can't believe I actually watched Happy Days....
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
"McGarrett, and his trusty and quite watchable love interest Catherine Rollins"
ReplyDeleteOh my...she's no Jennifer Nettles or Padma Lakshmi but she's not bad.