Death is a Company Policy is the 1st episode of Season 5 in the original version of Hawaii Five-0.
Synopsis[]
Al Harrington's first episode as Ben also introduces Duke Lukela and John Manicote as semi-regulars. Manicote launches an investigation of Five-O when Duke, an HPD sergeant who sometimes joins Five-O on investigations, is accused of being on the take. McGarrett does what would be now called an intensive database search, with numerous records on all Five-O team members transferred to projection slides and put up on the screen (if you can freeze-frame or slow your player to catch all of them, there is a wealth of information on the characters -- including McGarrett's ...
Plot[]
After a local crime boss is double-crossed and killed by his old partner and rival; McGarrett receives a letter in which the dead man -fearing a double cross-had left instructions on how to find evidence of a killing in order to put his rival away for life-the gun used in an unsolved murder years before; a tape recording of the victim being killed and a eyewitness. When McGarrett tries to retrieve the evidence it is destroyed and the witness turns up dead. McGarrett suspects a leak; checking personnel records of both Hawaii Five-O and the District Attorney office the evidence seams to point to Duke! However McGarrett is too smart to fall for such "evidence" and realizes that Duke was framed. Going over the records once again, McGarrett realizes that one of the assistant District Attorney-a Sum Cum laude graduate from Harvard University Christopher Lahini-had refused to enter the University of Hawaii, University of Princeton and University of Wisconsin-but without any financial support had gone to the expensive Harvard! Believing that international Crime had bankrolled him, McGarrett puts him to a test-by letting him know that a girlfriend of another "vanished" witness is in police custody; Lahini seems the witness both personally and via a photograph--and heads off to meet the criminal boss-thus proving he is the leak! Before they can be arrested, a helicopter with a gunman appears and shots Lahini, the boss and his bodyguards down-before it is shot down by Steve McGarrett. {The crime bosses backing Manoa decided he was a liability} Duke gets his badge back.
Cast[]
- Jack Lord as Detective Captain Steve McGarrett
- James MacArthur as Detective Danny Williams
- Al Harrington as Ben Kokua
- Kam Fong as Detective Chin Ho Kelly
- Gilbert Lani Kauhi as Kono Kalakaua
Villains:
- Michael Ansara as Crime boss Piro Manoa
- George Chakiris as Christopher Lahini
Trivia[]
- This is the first episode of Ben Kokua as a Good guy
- The Scenes of the oil drum with victims body disposed of at sea are just only repeated twice but its an empty drum gong in the sea! Coincidentally, in real life a mainland crime boss Johnny Roselli was killed by person or persons unknown and his remains were found at sea in a oil drum in 1976!
- The shot of the helicopter exploding is a stock shot.
- The carbine guns used by McGarrett and Williams to shoot down the Helicopter are obviously cheap movie props!