‘Hawaii Five-O’ Loses Daniel Dae Kim & Grace Park Before Season 8
The more I read about ‘Hawaii Five-O‘, the more convinced I am that Season 8 is going to be it’s last. News has dropped today that Daniel Dae Kim, who played Chin Ho Kelly, and Grace Park, who played his cousin Kono Kalakaua, will not be back next season.
Apparently, the two stars had been seeking pay equality with co-stars Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan, who are currently believed to earn 10-15% more, but they couldn’t come to a deal with CBS.
“I will never forget meeting Daniel while still writing the pilot and being certain there was no other actor who I’d want to play Chin Ho Kelly,” commented executive producer Peter Lenkov. “Needless to say, Daniel has been an instrumental part of the success of ‘Hawaii Five-0’ over the past 7 seasons and it has personally been a privilege to know him. Grace’s presence gave ‘Hawaii Five-0’ a beauty and serenity to each episode. She was the consummate collaborator, helping build her character from day 1. They will always be ohana to us, we will miss them and we wish them both all the best.”
CBS added in a statement “We are so appreciative of Daniel and Grace’s enormous talents, professional excellence, and the aloha spirit they brought to each and every one of our 168 episodes. They’ve helped us build an exciting new ‘Hawaii Five-0’, and we wish them all the best and much success in their next chapters. Mahalo and a hui hou…”
When we left both the characters in Season 7, Kono was leaving to investigate a child sex trafficking ring, and Chin Ho had been offered a job heading up a San Francisco Five-O task force, so I expect that’s how they’ll explain the absence.
That does beg the question, “where do they go from here?”…
Alex O’Loughlin has already stated his intention to leave at the end of the 8th Season. Scott Caan has been reducing his episodes to spend more time with his family in LA (which is why Danny was missing so much this season.) If you take out Chin Ho & Kono too, that leaves a part time Danny, Grover & Jerry… So either CBS are going to have a massive amount of recasting to do, or Season 8 is going to be Hawaii Five-O‘s last.
We shall see what happens when ‘Hawaii Five-O‘ returns to Sky 1 in early 2018.
