Hawaii Five-O Review: Some Random Filler & A Quick Murder Case Before We Say Goodbye To Max

We are saying goodbye to Max this week, but since we couldn't do an entire Max-centric episode, the show gave us random filler scenes and a quickly wrapped up murder case for our entertainment, before we were all crying our eyes out over Max's departure.

Last week, the team found out Chin's location and rescued him from a bunch of rookie cartel members before the opening music. This week, we have Grover lecturing McG about how to dunk malasadas in his coffee. It was long and rambly and sort of weird. (Yeah, definitely random filler scene #1 before we say goodbye to Max.) McG politely listens and they head into the police station. Duke is telling everyone to be prepared for the police expo with extra patrols and calling on H50 resources if necessary. The expo is like spring break for cops and last year they painted a goat and ran down the street nude. I bet McG is really hoping Duke doesn't have to call him or his team in. Could you imagine Danny or Steve chasing down the streakers? Book that, Danno!

Later that night, (it's dark now) Danny is playing Pie Face with Charlie and he keeps losing. Whip cream in the face! But Charlie is so cute (and sort of looks like his TV dad!) and my heart melted a little. There's an explosion rattling the walls and Danny goes to look out the door. There's a fireball in the middle of town! I hope it's not Jared the Terrorist's uranium.

Max is down in his office moving his piano when Jerry comes in to help. According to Max's calculations, the rest of his belongings will fit in the last seven boxes. *sniff* I'm going to miss his personality. Jerry is noisy, popping bubble wrap and asking questions. He finds a box of Max's journals and Max gives him permission to read them if he'll be quiet.

The next day (it's light now) Danny and Steve are down at the blown up building in some very fine blue shirts. Chin is giving them an update on scene about how dogs looking for survivors found a body. (He also reassures them it's not Jared the Terrorist's uranium.) The dead body is down in a hole, so Danny and Steve climb down to look. The guy was stabbed with a knife and he's a cop from Milwaukee. Steve is half-listening and looking around with his flashlight as he sees tracks leading to a safe. (Thankfully, Danny's claustrophobia is okay while they're underneath a half-collapsed building in a dark hole with a dead guy.)

The boys come up from the dusty, dirty hole in the ground and their blue shirts are still nearly spotless! All the better to accentuate their eyes and McDanno matchiness. Chin is giving them another update (they usually make Kono do that from the office table, so this is a nice change. Chin can update me anytime!) and they found drilling equipment that hit a gas main causing the explosion. Our boys spec that after they hit the gas main, the heist people came back the next day to grab whatever was in the safe. Smart cookies, our boys. The lawyer whose firm owns the safe says he has no idea what might have been taken.

And now, time for another random filler scene before we say goodbye to Max: Grover sees Frank Bama bring a surfboard to the office. McG offered him his couch so he could escape a wannabe warlord. He also overheard McG talking about missing uranium, but Grover tells him that's a secret. Chin was blabbing about it at the wrecked building, too, so our team needs to work on keeping their voices down when they have a secret, I guess.

Jerry is reading in Max's journals when McG was a fugitive from prison and had come to Max after he got shanked. I love the little flashbacks. Max says he saw Steve as a colleague, but Steve saw him as a friend and trusted him. *sniffle* They also see the Milwaukee cop's body being brought in and Max says this will be his last post-mortem. *sad face*

And all too soon, it's time for another random filler scene.  Hirsch the Crime Scene Cleaner is at the expo hawking franchises of Crime Clean. Steve and Kono come in and Hirsch tries to claim them as colleagues, but Kono shuts him down right away. They ask him about his buddy named G. Stealth who has footage of the crime scene they need. He says he took the guy home once and can take them to his house, but they wander around until Steve says there'll be a crime scene cleanup in the truck if they don't find the house soon. Hirsch takes that threat seriously and finds the house immediately afterward. G. Stealth has some trespassing warrants out, but nothing serious. Yet, Steve and Kono just bust down the guy's door (the one-footed breach pose from McG, though!) and go in guns drawn. Hey we need your video so we're coming in! Immunity and means, sucka!

Stealthy isn't very smart (I guess his name should have been my first clue) and tries to run by going out the window. (Running from Five-O generally never works out well, and criminals should all be aware of that, I think. Like, put it in the criminal/people with warrants handbook or something. Rule #5 Don't run from Five-O. It's pointless.) Hirsch sees him and honks the horn, presumably to alert Steve, but Stealthy comes over and gets in the car with a gun trained on him! Okay, Stealthy is as dumb as I thought, especially for a stringer. He has a job helping his newspaper report on events, and now he's waving a gun around and running from Five-O? Kiss that job goodbye. Unless he has a very understanding boss I guess. Gun-happy Stealthy tells Hirsch to drive away and Steve and Kono watch as he drives into a parked car and sets off the airbags. But, never fear, after all that silliness, the team gets the footage. And guess what? The footage shows a car leaving the wrecked building and they get the plate and head over to that guy's house. Jimmy Roark is his name and he's been pinched for Grand Theft and B&E. (It sounds so British and formal. Pinched. Jimmy Roark was pinched again! Jimmy the Pinched.) Well at Jimmy's house there's a van with a dead guy in the garage. Chin draws the short straw and has to search the dead guy for ID. No dice.

Jerry is now to the part in the journal where Max got Sabrina's number. I loved that ep. So cute! And they make a cute couple. He remembers that Kono told him to go for it and Jerry says he owes Kono big time.

Time for another Chin update! There were TWO overalls in the garbage! So Jimmy the Pinched has two accomplices! Luckily the dead guy in the van had prints that are in the system since he used to clerk for a federal judge and works for Hadley, the law firm that owned the safe! Dead guy's name was Leo and his phone records show he talked to Hadley quite a bit that day. Uh oh. Danny and Steve go talk to him, but Hadley ain't talking. Attorney/client privilege, you know. Steve says he's obstructing justice then, and utters the words, "book 'em Danno." Haven't heard that for a while!

Jerry is still mesmerized by the journals and asks Max why he sold his fossil collection and DS9 action figures. It was to get his yellow Camaro. He looked up to Danny as he sacrificed to be near his daughter and gave part of his liver to Steve, and so since Danny had a Camaro, Max got one, too. It was a sweet ride, for sure.

The team finds out the blackmail guy is named Gabler because he withdrew two million dollars today. Gabler had been tried for stabbing his girlfriend to death but got off due to a mistrial. Steve specs that the knife that was used in the murder was in the safe, the Milwaukee cop saw them with it, so they stabbed him, and now they're blackmailing Gabler. Kono says that's far-fetched, (silly Steve!) but of course Steve is dead on. They go talk to the lawyer in the Blue Room of Doom and Steve says that even though Hadley tried to stymie their investigation, they figured it out. (I love when our boys use words that stretch vocabulary norms. I haven't heard the word stymie in ages! Like pinched! Is there an English teacher on the writing staff perhaps?) But, so much for attorney/client privilege. Hadley caves and confirms everything. Gabler has gone to pay the two mil in his lawyer's car, but luckily that has GPS!

But guess what? Leo (the dead guy from the van) also emailed the brother of the murdered girlfriend (Alan) and he's on the island. Uh oh. They all head to the meet. Jimmy the Pinched is there getting the duffel bag of money from Gabler and he throws the knife down in front of him. (Are you all still with me? It's getting confusing, I know.) Alan shows up and he has a gun AND the knife now. Jimmy the Pinched drives away and the brother approaches Gabler. He looks pretty upset and tells Gabler to kneel down. Gabler is fairly calm, overall. Just wide-eyed. (I wonder what he was thinking? Wet sand is seeping through my pant leg? I wish I'd had a better lawyer?) Anyway, Steve is on his way to stop Alan and tells Chin to take on Jimmy the Pinched. Chin heads him off and Jimmy is a terrible driver and crashes. Chin approaches with his gun and asks to see his hands, but dumb Jimmy the Pinched reaches for a gun and Chin shoots him. And now poor Jimmy the Pinched will never pinch again.

Steve and Danny spend a few minutes talking down Alan from killing Gabler and they take them into custody. Sort of anti-climactic to say the least.

But now we are to Max's goodbye party. Flippa is playing some awesome music, but Steve tells Danny he doesn't have to dance with him. (Just not in the mood to see Danny dance, I guess, since he dances with Max later on.) Hirsch gives a drunk toast, (who invited him?) but finally sits down so we can get to the good stuff. Max's speech was so sweet. He thanks Kamekona for hosting and tells the team they can still call him for consults. But then he talks to his "adopted family." He reminds them he was an only child, but thought of Steve as an older brother. Danno was his role model. Chin knows ohana better than anyone and will be a great father for Sara. Kono has such a loving relationship with Adam, Max and Sabrina want to emulate that. (And where is Sabrina? Home packing? Or Adam for that matter. Confined to the house? It's not like he has anything better to do.) Max will miss Grover's smile and gets Grover all choked up when Max says Hawaii has claimed Grover as one of her sons. He also thanks Jerry for being his friend. He ends by telling them he loves them. *wipes tears* Then they cut to the montage of all the great Max scenes of Halloween costumes and fun times they've had with him combined with their goodbye hugs while there's a soulful 'all good things come to an end' sung in the background. Yeah, I cried. I'm going to miss Max and all his quirkiness!

Next week has Lou Diamond Phillips guest-starring and going toe-to-toe with McG. Looks good to me!