Hope Summers is a woman most who grew up during my time would recognize but whose name escapes everyone. She played the annoying recurring character Clara on "The Andy Griffith Show" and I remember hating her--even as a kid. But, after seeing her on this episode, I have new respect for her. Given good material, she was quite entertaining. More about her in a moment.
The episode begins with the warden congratulating an inmate on turning his life around and earning parole. However, in the very next scene, he's at Five-O headquarters--taking a room of four people hostage and demanding Danny Williams come there NOW! The guy is obviously some sort of psycho but why he did this is a mystery until later in the show. I was so proud of myself, because I remembered an episode involving Danny and a shooting in season 1 and thought the crazy guy must be the brother of the guy Danny shot two years earlier.
Unfortunately, the guy, while crazy, was also very intelligent. He obviously must have thought about this for a very long time--as he worked out all the details and wired the place with explosives--preventing the police from coming to the rescue.
During all this time, most of the hostages were pretty quiet. However, Summers played a very stroppy old lady who was simply too grouchy and too old to put up with the psycho! Again and again she gave the guy a lot of lip and distracted him repeatedly.
Ultimately, the episode ended on a very, very tense note. I am glad though that the show did NOT go too far in realism at the end. It the final scene where the psycho is taken out, it COULD have been very bloody and grotesque--thank goodness TV wasn't allowed to go there, as it would not have improved the show--just made it repulsive.
Overall, very, very tense and a good show. Try to see it if you can.
The episode begins with the warden congratulating an inmate on turning his life around and earning parole. However, in the very next scene, he's at Five-O headquarters--taking a room of four people hostage and demanding Danny Williams come there NOW! The guy is obviously some sort of psycho but why he did this is a mystery until later in the show. I was so proud of myself, because I remembered an episode involving Danny and a shooting in season 1 and thought the crazy guy must be the brother of the guy Danny shot two years earlier.
Unfortunately, the guy, while crazy, was also very intelligent. He obviously must have thought about this for a very long time--as he worked out all the details and wired the place with explosives--preventing the police from coming to the rescue.
During all this time, most of the hostages were pretty quiet. However, Summers played a very stroppy old lady who was simply too grouchy and too old to put up with the psycho! Again and again she gave the guy a lot of lip and distracted him repeatedly.
Ultimately, the episode ended on a very, very tense note. I am glad though that the show did NOT go too far in realism at the end. It the final scene where the psycho is taken out, it COULD have been very bloody and grotesque--thank goodness TV wasn't allowed to go there, as it would not have improved the show--just made it repulsive.
Overall, very, very tense and a good show. Try to see it if you can.
