All bets are off

If I were a betting woman, I would probably be completely broke. Regardless of my “day job” salary (all writer’s must have a day job—unless they write for a hit television show or have their latest tell-all-memoir made into a Lifetime movie of the week), my chances of hitting the Oprah Book Club lottery are a long shot. But I’ve bet on a few things this season, like finding out what Wo Fat really wants with McGarrett or that Danno’s brother would do the right thing—but both would be a loss for me in the “Hawaii Five-0” betting pool. Well, the odds are still with me on the Wo Fat bet, but I only have two more episodes to cash in. I wish I had placed a bet on this week’s guest star Rick Springfield that he was not going to sing any of his 80’s pop hits, because his departure in tonight’s episode of “Ho‘ohuli Na‘au” was quick and quite explosive.

So much for playing a photographer. Maybe he should stick to the guitar. It seems to have kept him alive a lot longer. Every time Rick plays someone who doesn’t play the guitar—he ends up dead. Rick has died in the first few minutes of a television show before—like his turn in the original “Battlestar Galactica,” as well as playing the undead in his role as vampire detective “Nick Knight.” Both roles, sans guitar. Perhaps I should have bet on how swift his demise would be in tonight’s episode. I’m sure we all knew it was coming, as we were told of his murder in the episode trailers. I guess I just hoped he would last a little longer. My teenage self wanted to see him at least hum a few bars of “Jessie’s Girl.” But all bets were off on that one.

While tonight’s episode seemed to circle around Rick Springfield’s murder, they also had one of the Five-0 team dealing with his own drama. Again the “Hawaii Five-0” writers want to remind us about the theme of ‘ohana with Chin making decisions that could have taken him away from his Five-0 family. The last thing we all want would be for the team to break-up, and I think that the writer’s have started to give us more conflict within the team in order to create a satisfying ending to the season. But Chin’s episode ending decision—which left me shocked and open-mouthed—helps to keep us glued to our sets for the next two weeks until the season finale. All good television, if you ask me. But really Chin? I mean, what the hell are you thinking?

But you can’t let me ask that question, because remember—my track record is pretty bad this season. I think I should stick to deconstructing theories instead of betting on them. But I will bet on the fact that “Hawaii Five-0” came a little closer to their Hawaiian translation of tonight’s episode title than their last venture in that department with the Sean Combs episode and “Ho‘opa‘i” which they translated as “Close to Heart.” Tonight’s episode was called “Ho‘ohuli Na‘au” and they also translated that to mean—wait for it—“Close to Heart.”

Now, I’m not a betting woman, but I think that it would be a safe bet that there may have been a bit of a mistake in posting the translation on the CBS press site, but I’ll give it my best shot. In Hawaiian, ho‘ohuli means to turn or to look for, and according to T. Ilihia Gionson, my Hawaiian language expert, it means, “to make a 180—to change your feelings about a person.” Hawaiians believe that your emotions and feelings come from your na‘au, or your gut. Na‘au is literally your intestines, but it also represents your mind, heart, and affections, because Hawaiians believe your heart is just a muscle, you hold your emotions not in a muscle, but where your true self is—within your core, in your na‘au. So if we look at “Ho‘ohuli Na‘au” it really means a change of heart. Perhaps that can be seen as something close to heart, as your emotional “heart” would be in your na‘au for a Hawaiian. Albeit a bit of a clunky translation, but it could work for this episode as it did in “Ho‘opa‘i.”

All in all, even though I’m still in a state of shock—I mean, I see my teenage heartthrob die in the first five minutes and then Chin ends the episode with me yelling at my television—this episode was by far one of the funniest we have seen in a long time. Kamekona and his inept betting style, as well as his hilarious marketing ploy with the shave-ice Muppet, left me laughing more than any of the usual bromantic banter could have done. And Kono and her new love interest, Charlie Fong, played by Brian Yang, took over from the usual McG/Danno carguments in this episode. The Twitter stream was alive with additional jokes about Fong and his Punahou lineage—fellow blogger H50 Undercover wanted to know where Fong’s birth certificate was to prove his forensic credentials.

But all bets aside, I’m ready to find out if our Fearless Four will answer all of my questions for this season, or leave me opened mouthed again at the end of the season finale on May 16. One wager I could make is that many of us will be there, faithfully waiting for their answers. How much you like bet?

Redux Side Note: Great to see Kala Alexander back as Kawika the leader of “The Hui” from the “Ko‘olauloa” episode. Tonight he played the same role, but was shown running a charity surf event for kids with cystic fibrosis. Kono is seen helping him with a young surfer, Suzie, played by Camryn Turner, at the start of the episode. The charity portrayed in the episode is the Mauli Ola Foundation that helps kids with cystic fibrosis breathe better through surfing and salt-water therapy. You can check out their real life foundation at http://mauliola.org/

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Wendie Burbridge is a published writer, playwright and a teacher of literature and fiction writing at Kamehameha Schools-Kapālama. Reach her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Five0Redux and Twitter @WendieJoy.