Hawaii Five-O: The Hula Recital Kidnapping

So, this was me at the end of last week's Hawaii Five-O premiere.  It wasn't pretty.  Last night's show was somewhat better.

We start off with a Navy SEAL's family getting to Skype with him and telling him all about the hula recital his daughter has that day. Aww. So cute.  SEALDad tells his wife he won't be able to talk to her for a couple days and she knows he's going on a mission.  They cut to SEALDad running out to the helo and it looks pretty cool.  I really love the military stuff.  Back to the hula recital where Mom sits down and is shocked her daughter isn't on stage.  She's been taken! Dun, dun, dun.

Five-O is on the case and they get right to work.  Kono is questioning the kids and parents (Yay! She's not at the table info-dumping!) The kidnapped girl, Sophie, is at the swank school on scholarship so it's probably not a ransom.  Steve thinks it might have something to do with SEALDad so they head out to Naval intelligence.

Since Catherine used to give him all the Navy Intel stuff, this was me watching them talk to some old guy (that Steve had saved in the past) to get the intel instead of her.  (Sigh)

Catherine was gold for bringing out a softer side of our favorite SuperSEAL. Steve is a complicated man, but right now, all he's got getting him out of bed in the morning is his job. Sad.  I miss Catherine and the Steve we got to see when she was around. A guy who gets the job done, but can come home to a girlfriend and be sweet and sexy.  (And honestly, this case and the "cargument" was a golden opportunity for Steve to say something about her, where she is, how this SEAL case brings out some emotion in him about her (being away from the person you love who's on a mission, etc.) Something. But no. Nada. We get Dad vs. Mission argument. Whatever. Sigh.)

I must say Danny was more likable this episode. I like him in protective Daddy mode. There is something about him and how he treats the kid cases that gets me every time. Scott Caan can do Daddy emotions so well.  Seriously, though, the SEAL aspect of this is dropped faster than a hot potato and we realize that it was just a cool red herring, but they missed the handed-on-a-platter opportunity to use it for Steve's emotion. It could have been any family this happened to, really, with as fast as the SEAL angle was scrapped.

Anyhow, Kono gets them a lead that a substitute teacher's card was swiped before and after the kidnapping so Steve et al go to the guy's house where's he's all beaten and bloody on the floor. Beaten for a keycard.  Poor guy.

Meanwhile, the parents of the little girl last seen with Sophie get a call for ransom, but their daughter is in her room, so our kidnapper has obviously kidnapped the wrong girl.  The team gets over there to set up a trace on the phone and Kono even gets to dress up as a Hawaiian UPS person and deliver the laptop and equipment to Steve without anyone being the wiser.  (So glad Kono is in the field this time, but we don't see her much after this.  Did they make her do all the Hawaiian UPS deliveries for the day or something? Is that why Chin had to get Jerry to help him look at footage? Ugh.)

We waste a bunch of airtime showing Jerry being disrespectful to his mother and her efforts to sell the house with some guy we don't care about watching Jerry chat with Chin on the front porch.  Why, oh why is Jerry on the show? Is this some sort of punishment for all of us who never watched LOST?

This is how I feel about Jerry and his scenes.  Seriously.

So, Danny is figuring out that the Porters are really rich, so why does the kidnapper only want 1. 6 million? Jerry tracks down a 1.6 million dollar payout the Porters made to a former employee and Chin goes out to talk to him. He confesses he made a car seat for the Porter's company and the seat had a flaw.  Sadly, a baby girl was killed because of it.  The Porters paid this guy to keep quiet about the flaw and they let the Dad of the little girl think he was the reason his daughter died, but the employee mentions that he confessed to the Dad a couple of weeks ago.  Uh oh.  Pieces are falling together now.  And Chin has a name--Jason Hollier.

Jerry gets a partial license plate off the kidnapper's car and the team goes to bring him in, but they end up killing him when he fires on them.  They go in the house and the little girl's pictures are on the bathroom floor but she's gone now.  The kidnapper's partner in crime must have her.  They hope!

Well, thankfully, the kidnapper does call back and wants to know where his partner is.  Yeah. Steve's not going to tell him that.  Then the guy wants Mrs. Porter to deliver the money to him.  She agrees, even though her husband doesn't want her to go.  After she's gone, Chin fills them in that the kidnapper is Jason Hollier, the grieving father who is probably after Mrs. Porter since she paid the employee off, that he probably doesn't want the ransom.  Steve calls Mrs. Porter and tells her to get out of there, but it's too late, Hollier has her. (And why is the team still at the Porter's house? They couldn't get any closer at all? That seemed weird to just leave her on her own like that with the team watching her on satellite. What were they going to do if something went wrong? Watch? Um, yeah.)

Hollier takes Mrs. Porter to the place where his daughter died, but he can't kill her.  The team comes along and Danny gets him to drop his gun.  He's taken into custody and Danny tells Mrs. Porter the good news is that she's safe, the bad news is that she'll need a lawyer. Yep. Love Danny in that mode.

The next part, not so much Danny love.  He's trying to shake down the Colombian guy who is wanting the money that Danny's brother Matt took from him.  Danny shoves him up against the car and demands his brother's whereabouts.  Not gonna happen.

(I did notice that they put last episode's scene of Danny reloading his gun into the opening. That was an awesome moment for him and I'm happy to look at that all season.)

So, a nice, twisty case, our team in gear with guns at least twice, and some good Danny Daddy moments.  But, the SEAL thing was just a red herring that they went all out on, oddly.  We needed some emotion from Steve. (Or maybe just some more Steve.)  And Kono was away from the table! But hardly seen.  Chin looked great, but had almost all of his scenes with Jerry.  Grover provided nice back up, but not much else.  So some cast balance issues for sure, but all in all, a solid, but not exactly memorable, episode. Maybe this season will live up to its potential, but this jury is still out.

Did you watch? What did you think?