Hawaii Five-O Episode 1.20 Review

Hawaii Five-O has come and gone recently (the last time the show aired consecutive episodes was February 14 and 21!) .

Steve and Danny come across a dead guy on their day trip. As if that’s not bad enough, Steve gets a boulder in the face, and breaks his arm in the resulting fall. As someone who’s actually had both those things happen to them (though not at the same time), I can say they both hurt a lot. While I was appreciating Vicodin, though, Steve’s analyzing the crime scene. I give props to the writers for being willing to significantly injure the lead character. (Now we see if he’s still recovering next week, or will somehow become magically healed.) At the same time, it’s kind of cool that he’s no less effective even while injured.

Sans their fearless leader, Five-O investigates the murder. This is a neat idea, because it allows the other team members to have larger roles and to operate with a different dynamic. Even though Steve comes back later on, we still get to see that Danny can lead the team in his absence. They don’t go to pieces without him. The case of the week is plenty interesting – from boats to planes and back again, all of it connected to a vanished murder suspect. The mystery is interesting to follow, but also makes sense at the end, instead of becoming convoluted as it goes. I’ve always appreciated how this show doesn’t try to tell a story it can’t give an adequate resolution to within its time period. I never feel cheated by an ending.

(As an Iron Chef fan, I also doubled over laughing watching Masaharu Morimoto in a karaoke-singing cameo.)

Meanwhile, Chin Ho and Kono visit their dying aunt, which prompts them to confront the issues surrounding Chin’s dismissal from the HPD. It’s revealed that their uncle is the one who stole the money from the asset forfeiture locker – in order to pay for a kidney that their aunt desperately needed – and Chin took the blame for him. That’s a big reveal, and as the season is coming to an end soon, it’s at the right time. The whole episode has a theme of family running through it, whether biological or not, one that’s universal for all of us.

This is a vast step up from the last new episode, but that’s not entirely surprising as it also doesn’t include the character of Jenna Kaye in it (though she is mentioned), who was a significant part of what made that previous episode not work as well. Not to attack that character, but this episode shows that at least on-screen, this team works just fine as a foursome. (It’s been suggested that Kaye’s potential addition is in order to allow the four regular actors more time off, which I completely understand.) The episode also has a stronger plot than the previous one, so I’m not at all surprised that Hawaii Five-O bounces back nicely this week. It has a certain way of doing things, and when you don’t mess with that, it works.

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