‘Hawaii Five-0’ 8: Chin Ho, Kono’s Departure To Be Addressed In Premiere

“Hawaii Five-0” Season 8, episode 1 will briefly address Chin Ho Kelly’s (Daniel Dae Kim) and Kono Kalakaua’s departure from the team, but not in the way that fans might home.

While speaking with TV Line, showrunner Peter M. Lenkov shed light on how the team will react to the two characters’ departure. “I don’t think anybody has accepted it; I think they’re still sort of in that period of trying to accept the fact that the team has changed. They dynamic has changed. There are a couple scenes where they do reference them and how much they’re missed, but they are happy for where they are in their lives and stuff,” he explained.

Lenkov also confirmed that the two characters wouldn’t leave the team at the same time. Instead, Chin Ho will accept another job offer days or even weeks after Kono left. “I would imagine that in our world, the cousins probably had many conversations about it while she was on the mainland and he was in Hawaii,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chin Ho’s and Kono’s departure will pave the way for new characters to be introduced in the CBS TV series. One such character is Tani (Meaghan Rath). The hotel lifeguard who was just kicked out of the police academy. Tani is described as the female version of McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) because she doesn’t necessarily follow the rules.

And when it comes to Junior (Beulah Koale), the character is just two hours fresh of leaving the military when he shows up at McGarrett’s doorstep and asks if he could be part of his team. He heard about McGarrett through his friends in the NAVY Seal. McGarrett will say yes to Junior, but he would have to go through training first.

“He says, ‘If you graduate, I’ll find you a spot.’ But it’s not that easy because Junior has brought back some stuff from serving that doesn’t make it an easy transition,” Lenkov said.

In other news, the case of the week in the premiere episode will center on Duclair (Randy Couture) escaping prison and attempting to burn down the entire island.

“Hawaii Five-0” Season 8 will premiere on CBS on Friday at 9 p.m. EDT.