Hawaii Five-0 fans were thrown for a loop in the Season 9 finale, where things ended on a particularly bad note for one or more characters, thanks to an angry wife's vengeful plan. Viewers were left in the dark about how devastating things got, but a recently revealed Season 10 logline struck alarm bells by saying the Hawaii Five-0 crew would be "saying goodbye to one of their own," possibly putting McGarrett or Jerry on the cutting block. It may not be a worst-case scenario, however.
Showrunner Peter M. Lenkov attempted to clear up Hawaii Five-0 fans' murky worries, while also confirming that the last-minute shooting wasn't just a fluke that's being swept under the rug. In Lenkov's words:
Somebody definitely took a bullet. Every year we have added to the cast, we've had cast leave, come back... [The goodbye is] not as ominous as it sounds.
Phew! Based on what Peter M. Lenkov said to TVLine, along with some other things he mentioned, I think fans can start making some confident assumptions about what will go down when Season 10 kicks off later in September.
Unless a completely unpredictable wrench gets thrown in the works, it sounds like the gunshot victim will be heading to the hospital, and that they might not return to the 5-0 life right away, if at all. Which is obviously better than a character being killed off altogether, even if that character is still leaving.
And that character will almost definitely be Jorge Garcia's Jerry Ortega, who was the only other potential victim beyond Alex O'Loughlin's Steve McGarrett. We'll get into why the latter is presumably safe in a second, although him being one of the core characters of this franchise is a big clue. Jerry, on the other hand, was a creation for the CBS reboot, and there were rumors floating around during Season 9 that Garcia might be making an exit ahead of Season 10.
Alex O'Loughlin wrote and directed the seventh episode of Hawaii Five-0's tenth season, which will apparently be a "powerful and emotional" installment for Scott Caan's Danny. That doesn't necessarily mean that McGarrett is alive and well, of course, but the showrunner didn't bring up any Season 10 details for Jerry or Jorge Garcia. But the way Lenkov talked, it seems like the team is already set to welcome Jerry back into the fold at some point in the future.
To Peter M. Lenkov's point, Hawaii Five-0 has definitely had stars coming and going through the years, though not always with the most positive or reaffirming reasonings. Fans no doubt recall the controversial exits from stars Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim, who left Hawaii Five-0 ahead of Season 8 reportedly due to contractual disputes stemming from pay parity. Longtime star Masa Oki also vacated the series ahead of Season 8, though probably not for the same reasons as his co-stars.
Possibly to make up for its cast exit(s) for Season 10, Hawaii Five-0 brought in some new blood in the form of Arrow vet Katrina Law. Her arrival as former Staff Sergeant Quinn Liu, which will occur during a case involving military veterans, will reflect the first time McGarrett and Danny met. Don't expect everything to be hunky dory, of course, as she was removed from her Army CID post due to insubordination, so she might have a hot streak that'll keep the others on their toes.
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Are you guys still super-worried about Jerry, or have the showrunner's words put you at ease? Let us know in the comments, and don't forget to tune into Hawaii Five-0's Season 10 premiere when it hits CBS on Friday, September 27, at 8 p.m. ET.
