Hawaii Five-O: A Cross Between Point Break, Holes, and National Treasure

Last night's episode was like a movie mash-up:  Surfer babes robbing people so they can live to catch waves, a treasure hunt complete with a postcard clue, and Danny digging holes.

Let's start with the surfing robbers.  Obviously, I would have preferred Keanu or Patrick Swayze, (or Alex O'Loughlin, haha) dressed in some swimwear, but we get three chicks dressed in bikinis getting on a tour bus.  One holds the tour guide hostage while the other two relieve the passengers of their wallets and other valuables. One tourist puts up a fight, though, and gets shot for his trouble.  Uh oh.  Surfer robbers run away.

Apparently there have been a rash of these sorts of robberies, but the new ME tells the team she thinks the murder victim was targeted because he had an X on his shirt that could be seen with the special UV glasses one of the robbers was wearing.  (Charlie Fong is actually the one that tells Kono there was wax and sand and stuff on the wigs and other things found at the crime scene, so he thinks they're surfers.)  Back at HQ, Kono is tasked to go undercover since she's the only one who can go on the beach and not look like a cop.  Doesn't everyone know she's a cop, though? Their task force is high profile enough that they can just yell Five-O when they ram down doors and no one questions it. And I was sort of hoping that Steve might run back up, and you know, need a swimsuit as well, doing his SEAL thing, but no such luck.  Grover---I shall pass on seeing him in a swimsuit. Ever.

Anyway, Kono gets close to the suspects and pretty much announces she's a cop. (Definitely not as smooth at infiltrating surfer criminals as Keanu was.)  But, seriously, what was the point of "undercover" other than to see her in a bikini? Oh well. There's a cool surfboard chase and Kono gets one of them.  The takedown was awesome for sure, like the airplane takedown was in Point Break. Sort of.  Okay, airplane takedown was more than cool. But the surfboard chase was original.  Kono starts to question the suspect in the blue room, but surfer robber isn't talking.

The new ME gets some screentime when the victim's wife comes in and spends some time with the body, only the ME realizes that the woman took his thumbprint.  The team figures out that she's not really his wife and the case twists a bit more.  Our victim is head of a high tech security firm and that thumbprint would give people access to highly sensitive information.

They track the "fake wifey" down as she's ransacking the surfer robbers apartment and the team shoots her henchman, but Fake Wifey gets away.  (And honestly, with all the firepower they had, either that car she got away in was bulletproof or our team needs to spend some serious time at the gun range. Practicing how to hit large targets or something.)

The team goes back to HQ and shows pics to the robber they have in custody and she breaks and tells them where the other two are hiding out.  Once they get there, Fake Wifey has already shot one of the surfer robbers and the other surfer robber is trying to get away by climbing over a balcony.  Kono gets another nice sniper shot to save her and Steve and Grover head in to take care of Fake Wifey.  (I'm so very glad Kono's not stuck at the table this week!) Turns out, our poor murder victim was being held up by Fake Wifey for his cell phone so she could get access to some banks and steal from them, but then the surfer robbers interrupted that and ended up stealing what Fake Wifey wanted.  Two robberies in one day for the poor guy.  But it gets all sorted out, except for the extremely odd voice-over at the end while the women are being marched onto a prison bus. Kono is waxing poetic about surfer lives and the crazy people who take it one step too far or something.  Weird.  So Point Break meets Hawaii Five-O.  Not bad, really.

Danny's story this week was more of him reacting emotionally to his brother's kidnapping and not like a detective at all.  Why doesn't he go into professional mode and get info on this guy, Reyes, who is just claiming to have Matt? Call in some favors, figure out a plan, do some detective work to see what this is really all about and how his brother is truly mixed up in it.  But, no, Danny just uses the guy for a punching bag which doesn't do anyone any good and makes Danny look like a terrible detective. How many hostage/kidnappings has he been a part of investigating? This isn't his first time at the rodeo. But whatever. Danny figures out Matt probably didn't have the money on him, and remembers he got a postcard from his brother and hey, that might be a treasure map/clue as to where he hid the money. He calls Steve to talk about it, and then declines his offer of help. He's doing this on his own, bro. No Nicolas Cage friends and family treasure hunt for him.

So Danny heads out with a shovel in the dark to some park that matches the picture Matt sent.  He makes a lot of holes trying to find the money, and after quite a few holes, he finds it. And he's not even sweaty! Maybe that's why he did it in the dark. At least he didn't recruit any little kids to help him, but still, reminiscent of the movie Holes.  Anyway, not much else I can say about that.  At least we didn't have the cliche scene of a bad guy walking up behind him to grab it as soon as it was found. I guess next week we'll find out what he's going to do with it.

Jerry was also on, and I try to tune him out in his scenes and concentrate on the other actors he's with. For example, in his scene with Steve, Jerry is talking and I'm thinking things like, oh Steve is wearing a nice blue shirt today. I like him in blue.  Oh, there's Kamekona. I've missed him.  Jerry waxed on and on about his dad and counterfeiting and other stuff. Maybe the counterfeiters will kidnap him and take him away.  Then he can be lost. Get it? haha. Sorry.

So, to sum up, a nice twisty case, some awesome Kono scenes, movement in Danny's brother's story, and Grover got a good takedown, Chin was mostly background, way too much Jerry, and not enough Steve.  But, in my opinion, a fairly solid episode all in all.

Did you watch? What did you think?