‘Hawaii Five-0’ Season 8 Spoilers: Premiere Synopsis, Episode 1 Trailer Released

Sure there have been some shake-ups on the cast of CBS’s long-running “Hawaii Five-0” remake, but there are still crimes to be solves and people to be saved. Which means the series is back on Friday with Season 8 to get it all done.

In the Season 8 premiere, “‘A’ole e ‘ōlelo mai ana ke ahi ua ana ia,” which is Hawaiian for “Fire Will Never Say That It Has Had Enough,” Commander Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Laughlin), Detective Danny Williams (Scott Caan) and the rest of the Hawaii Five-0 task force square off against a new villain.

“McGarrett and Danny recruit Tani Rey (Meaghan Rath) to join the task force when diabolical hacker Aaron Wright (Joey Lawrence) releases a dangerous arsonist from prison,” the official synopsis says.

This new addition to the Five-0 team comes as Kono (Grace Park) and Detective Lieutenant Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) exit the group. The news about long-time series regulars Park and Kim’s departure from the series came back in June and, shortly after, it was announced that the show would be getting a few new series regulars, including Rath, who’s working as a lifeguard and was kicked out of the police academy before the team recruits her.

Besides dealing with how this new member will affect their team chemistry, they have the crew has the more important matter of the hacker and arsonist to deal with. While the hacker, Wright, is a new opponent, the arsonist he broke out of prison is not. The team has faced off against and even worked with the arsonist, Jason Duclair (Randy Couture), before. Nonetheless, he’s not to be trusted and especially not when he’s paired up with a ruthless hacker who’s responsible for breaking him out of prison.

While the team has no reason to recognize Wright, fans might recognize the actor who plays him.

Joey’s brother Andrew has been a recurring character on the series as the nephew of Detective Williams and a technician in the Hawaii Police Department crime lab where he assists the Five-0 task force on cases. This episode will pit the real-life brothers against each other.

This will be the first time Joey and Andrew, who goes by Andy, have acted together since the last time Andy guest-starred Joey’s now-canceled ABC Family/Freeform series “Melissa & Joey” in 2014.

If only Matthew Lawrence were in the episode, too, it would be a full Lawrence brothers affair. (All of the brothers starred in the series “Brotherly Love” together from 1995-97, as well in a couple of Disney Channel movies.) Perhaps Matthew will find his way to the series later on, but for now, Joey has arrived on the series.

According to the Season 8 premiere trailer, his character is going to be causing major trouble.

“You have any idea what you’ve done,” Commander Steve McGarrett asks Wright while video chatting with him from a monitor screen situated in the Five-0 control room.

“I’ve unleashed hell,” Wright responds. “Good luck.”

It seems like they’ll need all the luck they can get, as Williams is heard saying, “Do me a favor and stay alive,” to someone later in the trailer. One can only assume he’s speaking with McGarrett since that’s normally who he’s talking to when he says something like this.

Fans will have to tune in to the “Hawaii Five-0” Season 8 premiere episode, which was directed by Bryan Spicer and written by Peter M. Lenkov, Eric Guggenheim and Rob Hanning, on Friday on CBS at 9 p.m. EDT to find out if they had enough luck, and skill, to come out on top. CBS will also have the episode available to watch online after it airs.