S01E23: I guess after last week’s incredible episode and next week’s promise of a decent one, this week’s Hawaii Five-0 couldn’t really live up to it. But they still gave it their best shot and it was by no means the worst episode ever. It just paled in comparison.
“I like hospital food, I checked into here for the weekend.” – Danno (State-run health care FTW!)
So, the big push on the advertisements this week was that Danno got hit with some biological chemical warfare agent thingy and gets in some serious trouble. Now, I think it’s cool turning a procedural cop show into a medical show but H50 takes care of Danno in the first 15 minutes! I really hate when they do this; they’ll set up something really cool that could make for some tense drama over the course of an episode but then solve it by the time the second commercial comes around. Remember when McGarrett fell and broke his arm? He was scooped up in a helicopter ten minutes later. Give the drama some time to mellow, H50! Let us really have a chance to worry about what happens. You can still give us a breakneck story without cramming in fifteen red herrings.
Speaking of cramming in, we had a lot of stories going on this week. I don’t think we’ve ever followed three or more stories like this in H50, have we? Why am I asking you? I’m the expert here. And no, we haven’t! So we get to follow the main procedural case-of-the-week The Curse Of The Biological Weapons, then we also get the ongoing Wo Fat investigation, but that leads to Danno’s hospital visit and then to pile it on we get Chin’s ongoing IA investigation. That’s a lot of stuff happening at once with H50. I kinda liked it.
Let’s start with Danno’s story just because it’s the easiest to explain. He touches a corpse that is contaminated with Sarin and gets infected. He’s rushed to the hospital but they eventually cure it thanks to Alex Mack who happened to know EXACTLY what to do about it. Things get really sweet because he about died and what do you know. Turns out he and his ex-wife Rachel might be getting back together? I thought he hated her? I guess near death experience with biological chemical warfare brings people together. Also Kamakono shows up with a bucket of chicken despite Gracie telling him it’s high in cholesterol. Can those two please get a spin off?
“You’re glad I got poisoned and almost died?” – Danno
Meanwhile turns out Chin wasn’t as slick as he thought he was with his uncle’s money. He long believed the record for the serial numbers in the cash went missing but it turns out that was a ruse. The IA guy comes and basically tells him what’s up, but he doesn’t get punished. I really don’t understand why Chin keeps defending his uncle like that. Kono is right to get up in his grill demanding to know why he keeps ruining his life trying to protect his family. It looks like he’s finally getting somewhat off the hook and can at least get the deed to his house back. It was definitely an odd ending to the story, but I don’t think it’s quite over just yet.
Then finally we have the main procedural element of the show. It somehow involved a company, the owner’s brother-in-law, the Russian mob, and a secretary with deadly ambition. It was confusing as always, but when is H50 ever not confusing? Really my only problem with this story was that it took the focus away from everything else despite being as ridiculous as anything else this show has done.
And finally some random things that happened for the episode: Dexter’s dad couldn’t have done it! He knows the code! Also, he’s a hallucination. And the police can hack into ATMs now? That makes me feel good. There were a bunch of fairly impressive smaller stunts in the opening action scene. Not one of them was good enough to single out as Stunt of the Week but Kono hitting the dude with a trash lid is worth noting. Not as good as Grace Park in a bikini, but I’ll take it.
And finally next week’s episode was set up at the very end. Our tricky Asian guy interrupts the bro-iest hug of all time between Danno and McGarrett to inform them that Wo Fat is after him and then McGarrett next. Definitely a good catalyst into next week when things look to get crazy. I honestly haven’t been this excited for an episode of H50 since, well, ever.
