This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the Hawaii 5-0 (2010) reboot.
Chapter 3:
2000 to 2010
C.2000:
1, Probably mid-Spring, about April 2000, Rachel and Danny marry.
2, Rick Peterson's drug abuse and thievery are exposed and he is arrested, probably about November 2000.
3, Steve attends BUD/S Class 234 of 2000* at Coronado, Los Angeles, CA.
* Happily for the fan fic writer who craves detailed accuracy, there was a 6 episode mini-series documentary on the C/234 on Discovery Channel. If you go to cosmolearning dot com forward slash documentaries forward slash us-navy-seals-class-234-training-656 you can watch the episodes and a brief description online. In real life there were 1500 applicants, 83 classmen, and 32 graduated as SEALs.
In canon, the Class of 234 training Commanding Officer was Lt. Cmdr. Joe White**, and includes as successful graduates: Steven J. McGarrett, his swim buddy Frederick "Freddie" Hart, Nicholas "Bullfrog" Taylor and William "Billy" Harrington, who at some point pre circa 2006-8 is in a serious relationship with Catherine Rollins. Steve is assigned to SEAL Team Three as are Nick, Billy and Freddie. By January 2014, Steve is the only one of these four still alive – Freddie is killed first in summer 2010, Steve kills Nick in 2011 and Billy is murdered in October 2013 (S4:5).
** Sometime after 2000 and before 2011, Joe is promoted from Lt. Cmdr. to full Cmdr. rank.
4, In 2000 Mary and Steve speak to each other (presumably by phone) for the last time for 10 years (S1:13 Ke Kinohi) – they do not meet or speak to each other again until 11th October 2010 (S1:11 Palakeiko)
2000 – 2008:
At some point between 2000 to 2008 Steve meets Samuel Hanna, Senior Chief Petty Officer of Team…Five, I think in NCIS:LA mythology (?). At some point before 2009 his SEAL teammate Billy Harrington and Naval Intelligence friend Catherine Rollins end their relationship and Steve and Catherine begin a long-distance romance.
March 2001:
Rick Peterson is jailed for 10 years for corruption, drug trafficking, theft & etc, he has a wife and son, Cody Peterson, who is 10 years old. By 2012 (S2:15) these have divorced and disowned Rick Peterson.
April 2001:
Danny presumably transfers from Weehawken PD (?) to Newark PD, where he encounters Detective Grace Tilwell*; she accepts him as the (junior) partner as she is the older, more experienced cop.
* (S2:15) Grace Tilwell is shown to be a female version of Steve McGarrett – she drives Danny's car, is gung-ho and enthusiastically shoot-em-up, and as the senior partner gets Danny to do their paperwork. She also doesn't do back-up – as the senior partner it is her responsibility to inform Newark PD of where they are going on their drug investigation but she doesn't log the call out and this contributes to her death as no other officers know where they are when they are attacked by the drug smugglers in the warehouse in Newark.
June 2001:
Grace Williams is conceived (see 9/11)
11th September 2001:
Grace Tilwell is murdered a few seconds before the Twin Tower attacks, which inadvertently save Danny's life and enable him to kill Grace's murderers a minute or so later.
Earlier that morning, Danny's tells Grace he has the first scan of his and Rachel's imminent baby daughter (then unnamed). Generally the first pre-natal foetal scan takes places between 10-14 weeks, usually at 12 weeks' gestation, so 12 weeks' prior to 11th September is about 19th June.
There is a time gap of a day at this point. In flashback (S2:15) we see a battered Danny stumble out of the warehouse, as the emergency services go past.
Since it is inconceivable he would have left Grace "alone" in the warehouse surrounded by the corpses of her killers, and he would not have had any response to ambulance or police assistance calls due to the Twin Towers, it is likely that he carried Grace bodily to the nearest hospital and then went into New York before returning to the hospital at the end of the day and staying with Grace's body until her family came.
He likely did not get home or more likely called Rachel to come and collect him from the hospital around dawn of 12th September 2001. This is unknown as he never mentions it.
It is possible that if his older sister's husband was a fireman like their father before retirement, that Eric's father was killed on 9/11, but this is never specified.
Update February 2014:
October 2001:
Danny probably transfers from Newark to Hoboken grief-stricken after losing Grace Tilwell. He is Hoboken at Halloween 2002 (S1:13). At some point between 2003 and 2009, Danny transfers back again to Newark PD - Mari217 provided 2 clear references in S1 where Danny is wearing the uniform of Newark PD, i.e., Kono's personal 5-0 graduation (S1:2) and Meka's funeral (S1:9). His likely work locations are:
Graduation 1998 to Rick Peterson arrest November 2000 – Weehawken PD most likely
December 2000 to 9/11 2001 – Newark PD (fresh start, different county – Essex not Hudson)
October 2001 to after Halloween 2002) Hoboken PD
Between 2003 and early 2009, back to Newark* PD
c. 1st March 2010 to c.30th September 2010, Honolulu PD
c. 30th September 2010 to present – Hawaii 5-0 Taskforce
* We know Danny is good with dogs (unlike Steve) and in January 2014 I read a nice one-shot on AO3 which had as the story that after Grace Tilwell's murder, Danny transferred to the K9 Unit in New Jersey and trained as a dog handler, becoming one of the best K9 handlers in the state before relocating to Hawaii. It was something I never thought of, but is certainly extremely plausible. The larger the dog, the more intelligent and Danny seems to have an affinity for canines (and on the DVD boxsets someone's pet dog kept loping into shot!). On top of that, we know Danny is a loyal friend, the ultimate Platonic Spouse – yet the only two previous cop partners he has voluntarily mentioned talked about are Meka Hanamoa and Grace Tilwell (Rick Peterson is revealed by circumstance). Plausibly, if Danny was asked to or agreed to go back to Newark PD in the K9 unit, this would help him avoid having to deal with a human partner who "wasn't Grace Tilwell" and help any prospective partner from having to endure constant comparisons with the partner made a paragon by virtue of death.
2002:
1, C. 1st week of April 2002 – Grace Williams is born.
2, Halloween 2002 Danny is hit/attacked with a stun gun in Hoboken in circumstances he never describes (is this also when he is left with claustrophobia, which may be why he never talks about it and brushes it off with 'long story').
2, c.2002, John retires from HPD.
3, Kono's period of rehab and surgeries is finally completed and she is able to return to work. Presumably she continues to work in various non-sport jobs whilst she considers her future direction.
c. 2002*:
Hideki Mokoto, an extremely wealthy Japanese businessman and a veteran of Pearl Harbour, relocates to Hawaii. (S2:1).
* Logically Hideki was the 1992 postcard writer; it is likely he would have been shocked and enraged by the murder of Doris by the Yakuza in 1992 and would probably have redoubled his efforts to help Jack wreak as much havoc as possible. However, he would have realised the need to relocate eventually. Leaving Japan immediately after the car bomb would have aroused suspicion, but if John let him know he was retiring, he could have a closer involvement in his and Jack's ongoing investigations if he moved to Hawaii, and by then there would be no suspicion on him if he did so.
c.2003 – 2008:
Danny transfers back to Newark PD
2004: Meka Hanamoa and his wife Amy have their son, William (Billy).
c. 2006:
1, Nick "Bullfrog" Taylor leaves SEAL Team 3 for private sector military work – professional soldier/mercenary. He is extremely cynical and is eventually corrupted and embittered by his own anger at seeing the wealthy and powerful corrupt and evil reap the rewards of his fellow servicemen's great sacrifices.
2, Danny and Rachel's marriage is in gradual decline
3, Patricia Jameson is elected for her first term as Governor of Hawaii (in canon) and her Lt. Governor is Samuel Denning (in canon)
2007:
1, HPD Narcotics break a major Yakuza drug trafficking ring delivery and $28 million USD in drug money is stored in the Asset Forfeiture "locker" vault directly under HPD central precinct – Chin tells Steve and Danny this in S1:12. Frank Delano et al later blow up the HPD central precinct to steal the money (S2).
2, Keako (Kelly?), a decorated veteran police officer is turned down for a loan/grant by HPD despite over 20 years' exemplary service. It is possible that the turn down was to do with the murder of Keako's (?) brother (Chin's father) in 1999? (S4:13). Entirely justifiably he steals the money he is morally owed anyway - $200,000 - from the Asset Seizure/Forfeiture vault directly under HPD central precinct to buy his wife, Mele, a new black market kidney (S1:12), which saves her and gives her another 4 years of life (d.2011).
3, Det. Cage of HPD (in S1 he is a Sergeant rank but his rank before is not stated) of IA is convinced Chin stole the money and makes some many problems that Chin resigns from HPD to protect his uncle, who morally was in the right. He ends his engagement to Malia Waincroft to protect her reputation; his family including Sid Liufau side with HPD, or at the least are too afraid to publicly back him* – only Kono believes in his innocence.
* Again possibly the murder of his father who was likely a police officer may influence their fear of the same thing happening if they support Chin Ho, and also by this time the endemic corruption at the HPD is so obvious that most honourable officers are far too wary to trust anyone, especially their fellow officers.
4, Probably at this time, Kono decides to become a cop, probably with an idea of restoring Chin's reputation.
5, Chin finds work as a "mall rent-a-cop" on the North Shore/seafront tourist traps.
6, Billy Harrington and Catherine Rollins split up. I picked 2007 rather than 2008 because adults with emotional maturity and common sense do not simply jump from one relationship to another like rabbits on steroids. It is likely that both of them were single for quite some time afterwards and that Catherine put a lot of thought into agreeing to Steve's overtures given she'd already had one serious relationship with a fellow Naval officer (and SEAL) that hadn't worked out.
c.2008:
Rachel and Danny divorce
2008:
Steve is tapped up by senior commanders to capture arms/dealer/terrorist brothers Anton and Victor Hesse; he is told to pick one teammate, two at the moment, for a long-term mission to track and capture, but kill if necessary, the Hesse brothers. He picks his SEAL team swim buddy Freddie Hart, as Bullfrog is now a civilian and Billy Harrington is transferring* to Naval Intelligence.
* The last mission that Billy is aware of for Steve was the 'extraction from North Korea' which Billy belatedly realises is the one that resulted in John McGarrett's murder (S4:2), so he must have left SEAL Team Three about 2008.
2008 or 2009:
1, Rachel marries Stanley Edwards
2, Steve and Catherine's relationship solidifies
2009:
1, Freddie and Steve are closing in on the Hesse brothers
2, Before 29th Oct 2009: Hideki Mokoto hires Jack to investigate corruption in the HPD; Jack sets up a hidden camera in Pat Jameson's office which records meetings there – in S2:1 this camera card (hidden in a locker on Molokai) proves Steve didn't murder Pat Jameson. When Danny is viewing earlier footage* it shows Jack McGarrett meeting Pat Jameson and Wo Fat about "Shelburne" and shaking hands with Wo Fat in a clip date stamped: 10/29/2009. (In the US the month is listed first then the day, not day, month, year as in the UK).
* Wo Fat told Steve not to look into his family's past as he wouldn't like what he would find (S1:19). In S2:1 Steve gets upset about the footage** of Jack meeting Wo Fat and Jameson on 29th October 2009, wondering about his father's honour and integrity.
** This is a continuity/plot mistake because we have already seen that Jack himself set up the surveillance camera in the first place, so he alone knew that he was being visually recorded on the date stamp Danny shows Steve at the end of S2:1 (10/29/2009). If Jack was bad, it is unlikely he would have knowingly recorded evidence of it on the secret camera in Pat Jameson's office or if so, would have destroyed that footage.
By 2009:
Jack McGarrett is making serious inroads on Wo Fat's operations, believing that there is widespread and high level corruption in HPD, but he does not know that as well as high-ranking HPD corruption, Hawaii CIA Field Office Director Glenn Kendricks is a long-standing traitor who has betrayed his country and his own subordinates (including Joshua Hirsch, fiancé of Jenna Kaye) to his "asset"/stooge Wo Fat, terrorist and crime boss. (In S2:10, the fact that Joshua Hirsch's soft tissue is still mostly intact even in North Korea, a hot and humid country, when Jenna digs the pin out of his corpse's knee to free Steve, shows that Wo Fat had held Josh prisoner alive until just a few days before - November 2011).
As well as Josh and his team, and Jenna Kaye by instigation, Kendricks also uses the Yakuza as pawns to murder his own agent Anna Douglas (Danny inherits her dog, Kono having previously adopted the Pomeranian owned by the slavery ring woman in S1:5). In respect of Doris McGarrett and Kendricks, see below (2012).
c. august 2009:
Rachel, Stanley and Grace* relocate to Hawaii.
* Since no sane family would move home during the period from Thanksgiving (November) to New Year (January) or during the middle of a child's school year, it is most logical that Grace was taken to Hawaii in the late summer (August) of 2009 so she could start her new Hawaii School (Academy of the Sacred Heart) in the fall (autumn) semester (term) of September 2009. Danny would follow as soon as reasonably possible.
c. October 2009:
Danny relocates to Hawaii. When Danny meets Steve (S1:1) he has been a detective with HPD for six months (March 2010 start) but obviously Danny did not land at Honolulu airport, drive to HPD and start his first shift with the clothes on his back and trundling a suitcase behind him.
To give sufficient time for Danny to arrange his affairs in NJ, travel to Hawaii, find and rent the rattrap hovel we see in the pilot, transfer to HPD, have his orientation/induction with HPD, start the job, meet Meka, etc., would all have taken at least 12 weeks before March 2010 which is January 2010 or Christmas 2009.
Since bureaucracy is inefficient and slow everywhere, it probably took from October 2009 to February 2010 for HPD to process the transfer paperwork, so the start date for Danny's first official HPD shift was around 1st March 2010.
Since he wouldn't get his first (March) salary until the end of March, Danny being unemployed from October 2009 to March 2010 on Oahu (the most expensive of the Hawaiian islands to live) and presumably without any income (at least legal income) during that time explains the desperate hovel we see in the pilot episode and throughout S1. Danny may not necessarily be poor, but he is far too responsible a father to be wasting money on "pretty" surroundings rather than spend it on the people he loves – Grace, and his friends, Chin, Steve, Kono, etc.
1st March – 31st August 2010:
Danny is partnered for 5 months' with Meka Hanamoa, a native Hawaiian detective with wife Amy and son Billy (who is about 6 years old). For unknown reasons – it is implied outside interference from corrupt superior officers – Danny and Meka's partnership is ended about 3 weeks before Jack McGarrett is murdered on 20th September.
August 2010:
Freddie Hart marries his long-term partner Kelly ? just before the fatal mission to North Korea because she is pregnant with their unnamed posthumous daughter (b.2011). They capture Anton Hesse but Freddie is fatally wounded and stays behind to give Steve escape time.
20th September 2010:
Victor Hesse gains entry to 2727 Piikoi St and ambushes John McGarrett, who realises Hesse's real orders are from Wo Fat to murder him and make it look like a home invasion robbery gone wrong, and that Steve being with Anton is just a coincidence (from Wo Fat's viewpoint). John clues Steve in on the "champ" box aware that Steve will figure it out as he knows that HPD corruption means no officers will arrive in time to disturb Hesse and save him.
Victor's own botched rescue attempt kills Anton – this is the "event zero" where everything starts to go wrong for Wo Fat and turned him from a CIA asset to a liability to get rid of (S2:22).
For the fan fic writer, there is good material here because as anyone who works in customer service industries will tell you, "perception is reality" – what a person believes to be so is what they view as "reality". The Hesse brothers perceived Wo Fat as a profitable return business customer/associate, whereas WoFat viewed them as hirelings/ minions/ disposable pawns. In Wo Fat's mind he ordered Victor Hesse to kill Jack McGarrett and had no care of Anton Hesse's capture by Navy SEALs. In Victor's mind Wo Fat was just another customer who hired him to murder John McGarrett and believed that the "luck" of him being the father of his brother's captor Steve McGarrett gave him unconquerable leverage in getting Anton free.
c. 30th September 2010:
Steve takes emergency leave from SEAL Team 3 and comes to Oahu for the funeral. He is approached by Pat Jameson, up for re-election and who wins a second term as Governor until 2014.
11th October 2010:
Steve picks Mary up from Honolulu airport. It is the first time they have seen each other since April 1992 (S1:4), and the first time they have spoken since 2000 (S1:13)
c.7th November 2010:
Danny's former HPD partner Meka Hanamoa, investigating corruption in HPD as Jack did, is murdered by Det. Kaleo, a corrupt HPD officer in the pay, ultimately, of Wo Fat and his paymaster Glenn Kendricks. (S1:8, S2:22)
c.15th November 2010:
Nick Taylor is killed by Steve when he persists in trying to murder General Pak, even though it means killing Steve and 5-0 in the process. (S1:9)
c.30th November 2010:
Steve takes Chin into his confidence* about the Champ Toolbox, as Chin was his dad's HPD partner. Steve shows Chin the small golden key, the postcards from Japan, the locker key (S2:1), maps of Japan and photos of a car bomb. Chin recognises a number M123750 as a case file number. At the end of the case Chin tells Steve the case was opened as a homicide investigation on 19th April 1992, the date of Doris McGarrett's car "accident".
* After Steve is stunned and the toolbox stolen (S1:13) Steve calls Danny, Kono and Chin (this is when Danny gives Steve an ice pack and tells him to stop being a tough guy and reveals to Kono he was attacked with a stun gun in "Hoboken, Halloween 2002"). In the opening teaser Steve adamantly declares that he has told only 5-0 about the toolbox, but that must have been an OSE – Off-Screen-Event. On screen, Steve only told Chin, not Danny or Kono (S1:11) when they were alone in Steve's house. Likewise, when Chin told Steve about the murder case being opened – the two men were alone, Danny and Kono weren't there. Earlier (S1:11) Steve tells Danny that his mother was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver, and at that point that is what Steve, Mary, Chin, Danny and Kono all believe. So if by S1:13 Danny and Kono also know that Doris was murdered, Steve and/or Chin had to have told them unseen by the viewers.
© 2014
All applicable parts
The Cat's Whiskers
Continued in Chapter 4…
