S2E3: Tonight’s episode of Hawaii Five-0 featured two completely different storylines — one that only spanned the hour and another, involving Kono, that looks like it’ll factor into the entire season, or at least the foreseeable future. First, the former …
A Navy SEAL, Clay Garcia, is found dead in a tent, with initial reports ruling it a suicide. But Joe White, (recurring guest star Terry O-Quinn), a former SEAL trainer knows that couldn’t be the case, so at McGarrett’s request, Max reopens the case, quickly deeming the death a homicide.
So the investigation begins: Five-0’s first order of business is to question Garcia’s wife, who reveals that the couple had fallen out of love and that she was more or less having an affair with her restaurant boss — who McGarrett pegs as an obvious suspect but who turns out not be involved.
It is then that McGarrett and Co. retrace Garcia’s steps and more or less trip over the real story: Deep in the mountains, near where Garcia’s body was discovered, they find a multimillion-dollar marijuana-growing operation complete with booby traps and hidden cameras. They realize that Garcia tripped up one of the traps and was caught by his captors and probably killed.
Only … that’s just part of what really happened! It isn’t until another SEAL turns up dead — under very similar cover-up circumstances, no less — that the gang realizes someone has it out for the Navy SEALs, SEAL Team 9 in particular. Following some further investigation, Five-0-plus-Joe learns that a drug-cartel war is to blame, with one man, Hector Ruiz (aka the Chameleon), as the ringleader. They know to look for him, and where to look for him, but unfortunately he’s about to take out another member of SEAL Team 9 — in a skydiving mission. In the end, as is usually the case, the gang brings the bad guy to justice and save the good guy.
As for that aforementioned Kono story …
Laid off from Five-0, bored and just flat-out suffering from feelings of low self-worth, Kono starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. Like, the really wrong crowd; we’re talking traitorous. Towards the end of the episode, she takes a meeting with a onetime detective, Frank Delano (guest star Billy Baldwin), who was kicked off the force for corruption and who offers her a potential gig serving up advance intel on the Hawaii Police Department’s whereabouts and plans. At least for now, it appears as though she accepts. Fortunately — or unfortunately — Kelly is following her every move. Stay tuned!
TOP FIVE MOMENTS FROM TONIGHT’S EPISODE
1. Max walks into Five-0 headquarters literally looking like Inspector Gadget, which McGarrett verbalizes — to which Max replies, “Reopening a closed case without authorization is considered risky.”
2. During the mountain sequence, in which the guys learn of the marijuana operation, Kelly steps over a tripwire, which almost causes a shotgun-shell booby trap to automatically activate, and it makes for a tense few moments — with Joe and McGarrett trying to prevent it from going off and Kelly sweating bullets as he’s forced to stand still and wait to see if a chunk of his body will be blown off. (It won’t be.)
3. Realizing they’re being watched, McGarrett, Joe and Kelly purposely draw the marijuana growers out from their bunkers and turn the tables on them, setting up booby traps of their own — including yanking down an entire tree to block their camouflaged Jeep Wranglers!
4. This cool quote from the characteristically cool Baldwin (to Kono), seconds after his character is revealed: “I don’t trust cops who don’t drink — especially ex-cops. So have a drink.”
5. The climactic scene, in which a drugged SEAL is dropped from a plane — only to be rescued by McGarrett and Co. Because they can skydive too!
