Hawaii Five-0 – The new girl in town

I will admit it — when I first heard Larisa Oleynik was going to be joining the cast of Hawaii Five-0, I was super concerned. I have been burned many times in the past by a show that starts off with excellent team interplay centered around a bromance that may or may not require the b, only to have the show writers freak out and add an obligatory female character/heterosexual romance which eventually murders the original dynamic that drew me to the show in the first place. And, unlike most of my friends, I didn’t have cable growing up, so I couldn’t even muster up the excitement that Alex Mack was joining the Five-0 task force. Instead, I knew her as “that girl who was totally mean to Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 10 Things I Hate About You even though he was way too good for her”. (I mean, he learned French for her, damn, have a heart, Bianca.)

Not to mention a lot of the hype around her joining seemed entirely focused on making her Steve’s love interest. Which bothered me for several reasons. One, that’s ridiculously sexist, to reduce a female role to that. And two, that felt like a betrayal on a personal level. To me, Steve and Danny are like an old married couple, like the ridiculously old kind you see walking in the park and maybe they’re holding hands, but they’re also arguing over which orthopedic shoes are the best. Those are my favorite kinds of relationships on television, regardless of if they evolve into romantic ones or not. Maybe Steve and Danny’s isn’t romantic, but it would have to change or be stepped back from if either of their personal arcs suddenly became all about  making googly eyes at a new girl.

After this episode, though, I’m feeling about 95% assured. I’m not totally ready to eat crow, but I am willing to concede that the writing team behind Hawaii Five-0 sure know how to have a girl make a favorable impression. First of all, if Jenna is honestly there to be a love interest for Steve, I’ll be shocked. And not just because her resemblance to Rachel Maddow is uncanny enough that I have issues picturing her  with any dude, period. Plus, between the general poo-pooing of the idea of Jenna and Steve together (no matter how much breathless speculation people keep engaging in) and the fact that the first significant non-professional conversation the two of them had was Steve yelling at her about her method of gum disposal (ah, the romance), the writers don’t seem  to be headed in that direction any time soon, if ever.

The team dynamic is what draws me back to this show week after week. This episode was full of moments filled with exactly that – stuff like Steve’s obsession with what Danny packed for lunch, to Danny’s referral to Steve as “Pac Man in cargo pants” to Danny and Kono’s fake sexting. I think there’s a place for Jenna in that mix, because she doesn’t overlap with any of the characters personality-wise at all. She might be green behind the ears, like Kono, or tech-savvy, like Chin, or by-the-book, like Danny, or focused on Wo Fat, like Steve, but she’s something none of the rest of them are, which is a desk jockey. In a team of four rough-and-ready action types, I can easily picture her fitting in as the designated administrative tech support badass, and that’s exactly where I want her.

Getting two actors with great chemistry and rapport is hard. Getting four actors who can literally be combined into any permultation and still sparkle with chemistry is a near impossible feat that Hawaii Five-0 managed to pull off. And if they continue on the path they’re on of folding in yet another team member into the ensemble? Well, consider me deeply impressed.

Clacked by Julia Hass
on Mar 23, 2011 @ 14:33 EST5EDT