Hawaii Five-O Review: McGarrett vs. Grover

Well, we started off with the team kidnapping Sato, the guy who supposedly has Adam.  I felt really gypped during the scene, not because of Sato, (because, yeah, who cares about him), but because I didn't get to see the team's reunion!  I wanted to see them reunite with Kono, hugs all around, that sort of thing.  And it was so abrupt.  One second Sato is being interrogated (and he gives up the info pretty fast that Adam has faked his death) then the next minute it's Kono and Chin and she's telling him once again she's going to go find Adam.  I just shook my head.  It's starting to sound like a broken record, find Adam, find Adam, and I'm losing interest.  But it was nice for a second to see the team together again.

We then head back to Hawaii and Steve is talking on the phone to Danny. That's another thing becoming glaringly obvious is the lack of Scott Caan.  Is he doing another project or something? His appearances on Hawaii Five-O seem to be less and less.  He's not in this episode.  But we still get tension and arguments from Steve's partner-of-the-episode---Captain Grover.

There are some hints that Grover has come to Hawaii for reasons other than the climate.  His daughter had to pick up and leave and Steve hints at another reason as well when they're together.  Which was the best part of the whole episode---when they were together.  The governor calls them to his home to discuss the complaint Grover filed against McGarrett.  That doesn't make McGarrett too happy and he makes that known.  The governor says he doesn't have time to play principal so they need to get along in their "small sandbox" island.  Then he tasks them to go serve a warrant on a kid (played by Nick Jonas) named Ian Wright who has a bunch of unpaid parking tickets.  Neither of them are too thrilled, but they go do it anyway.

They take Ian into custody (and even let him put a stinky shirt on before they take him away) but before they can get him out the front door, shots are fired and McGarrett is hit in the arm.  A bunch of guys are out there with machine guns shooting holes in the house until it looks like swiss cheese.  McGarrett, Grover, and Ian are sitting ducks and even after they take out a few, the kid is still taken and driven off.  Of course the trucks McGarrett and Grover drove up there (because neither of them will ride shotgun) have flat tires and they start walking down the road.  Grover is cranky because he also realizes that the kidnappers stole his daughter's computer that was in his car.  But the funniest exchange of the entire episode was when he's cursing because of the missing computer and McGarrett tells him he has an angry disposition.  Grover gets this corny, insincere smile on his face and says, "Maybe it's because I'm with you."  HAHA! Oh man, that was funny.

They start walking and Grover keeps holding up his cell phone hoping for service.  McGarrett tells him to stop doing that since he looks like a blind giraffe (ha!) They track down the people, find evidence of tear gas and a dye pack and start to wonder if the kidnappers are bank robbers, too.  They both use their resources to start tracking down bank robbers and Ian.  (Even chasing the kidnappers down on horseback!) They go to the bank, which doesn't realize it's been robbed, and they also track down the lawyer that connected the bank robbers with Ian. Cut to one of the grossest scenes---a lone foot in the shower because the lawyer that was under house arrest had an ankle bracelet and CUT OFF HIS FOOT. Yeah. Gross.

But that's also where the case stopped making sense to me.  The team figures out that Ian is the mastermind behind it all with his hacking skills and he hired the bank robbers etc.  But why were they shooting up his house then? And what was the point of the lawyer cutting his foot off?  I didn't get that.

The team tracks down Ian at the airport using Grover's daughter's computer. (And mad props for them using Radioactive from Imagine Dragons. Love that band!) Ian has taken over a plane's GPS and it will run out of gas and land in the ocean if the team doesn't put him on a plane, which they do, hoping that Catherine's Navy intel people will come through with a block on the plane hack. Catherine gets the block to work, but not in time to catch Ian and he gets away.  He does come back in the end by sending a message to McGarrett through an ATM, though, and that was cool.  "Should have paid those parking tickets."  Haha. Yeah.   (I do love that Catherine brings her own contacts and expertise to the team.)

I also liked the grudging respect that McGarrett and Grover seem to have for each other in the end.  I hope we see more of them in the future and find out why Grover really came to Hawaii.  So, for me, a good episode for the relationship development with Grover and McGarrett, not a great case since it was hard to follow, but the laughs in the episode covered some of that up.

Next week's episode stars Carol Burnett at McGarrett's aunt who has come for Thanksgiving. I am excited to see her on my screen again!