Hawaii Five-O Recap & Review: The Ep Where A Lot of People Get Killed

Well, this ep is marked with a lot of murder and violence, but also the return of Harry Langford, (who I wish was a recurring character). But I digress . . .

The show starts out in Waikiki with a waitress bringing drinks to a back gaming room where a heavily guarded man is arguing with someone about the best place to get a manicure. (Do crime bosses really get manicures? Like, so their shooting hand looks especially good or something?) The FBI has a surveillance van listening in, whining about how boring this assignment is, when gunfire breaks out. The FBI guys try to run in, but their back door is blocked in by another car. (Can't they go out the front? More than one exit seems like something surveillance guys would plan for, but hey, what do I know? Apparently these are smart criminals and we have bumbling FBI guys.)

Back in the Restaurant of Dreams, Steve is sanding down a counter with Kamekona looking on when Danny brings in fabric swatches for the restaurant booths. He pretends, but doesn't really want Steve's opinion on what color fabric to use, because he's already ordered garnet. Not to be outdone, Kamekona offers up T-shirts he ordered that will bring people in. It has McDanno's Bar and Grill on it, with Danny and Steve in the Lady and the Tramp pose. Danny hates it (as would most people I would imagine, yikes!) Steve tries to be diplomatic and tell him it's going to be a different kind of establishment than the one he's used to running, but Kame has already ordered 400 of the shirts. (Maybe they can use them as rags?) Steve's phone rings, thankfully, and it's Harry! He wants to hang out with them.

The audience gets a nice shot of Harry coming out of the ocean in small swim trunks that Danny compares to Daisy Dukes. (Which was a bit strange, but okay.) Harry gives him a nice wet hug, using his shirt for a towel, but Steve gets a handshake. Apparently, Harry has retired at 45 and is traveling with world with his girlfriend Veronique who meets them as they walk down the beach. When Danny sees Veronique he comments that she's so pretty, but then adds, it's painful. (I'm not sure what that means. So pretty it hurts his head? Eyes? Heart?) Anyway, she invites them to lunch, but Steve gets called to the FBI's I-Can't-Get-Out-Of-My-Van crime scene.

The murder victim was Jimmy Okada, head of the Okada crime family and nine of his terribly inept bodyguards were killed as well. Lou starts to give the boys a recap when Tani comes in to finish it off, saying that after the shooters barricaded the feds in their own van, they came in the emergency exit, shot everyone, and left without being seen. Steve looks very concerned at this news because whoever did this, just started a war. Dun, dun, dun.

Back at the Show and Tell Talking Table, Tani is showing a deposition video of Okada giving one stiff line about how this is a waste of time and then we hear an even more stiff voice from the off-camera female attorney laying out his crimes. (I mean, I know lawyers have a reputation for having no feelings, but they don't talk like robots!) Jerry runs in breathless for the "tell" part of the show and tell, because he found out that the witnesses and staff are all accounted for except the waitress, Annie Hughes, who was last seen five minutes before the shooting. The team breaks without any high fives with Lou and Tani going to talk to Okada's son, Derek, (who isn't helpful, but definitely wants some revenge) while Danny and Steve go to see a CI. But of course they have to argue more about booth colors. (Steve wants black booths, Danny still wants red.) The scene is obviously filler, but then Harry shows up in the office elevator to save it! He wants to help them out on their case because retirement can be so tedious.

Steve and Harry talk about the booth colors. Harry votes for plain colors so they can liquidate it after the restaurant fails. (No one has been positive about a restaurant. Literally no one, so why are they still doing this?) They end up at Kamekona's for lunch (he's their CI) and to see if he knows who might want to take over Okada's turf and pull off a hit like that. (Honestly, how would Kamekona know? Hasn't he been out of the game forever?)  Kame gives them the name of a gunrunner, though, and they send Harry in to see the guy, since he knows all the "cops" on the island and the boys will run backup and listen in.

Harry is the ultimate professional, and gets hit on at the restaurant by a woman who is intent on taking something of Harry's if she can't have him herself, (in this case, she takes his drink) while he waits for GunRunnerLoto. Once the gunrunners finally arrive, Harry isn't intimidated at all by Loto and his crew. (I admit, I love listening to Harry's British accent). Loto asks him to get in the back of his van to do business (no, don't do it! Never get in a creeper van with graffiti all over it!) He does, though, and surprise! Once it's moving, a fight breaks out, which escalates to gunfire and the driver is shot. When the van stops, Steve and Danny hurry over, but Harry has things under control. (Of course!)

Danny can't get Loto to talk with his "good cop" persona, so Harry and Steve convince him. (Man, I would love to see those two work together on a regular basis.) They end up in a warehouse on Pier 17 and surprise a crew who bought a massive amount of guns from Loto. After a brief gunfight (where the bad guys once again are terrible shots), Steve pops a guy running away and they take him to the Blue Room of Doom. Victor, the BloodyGunRunnerGuy, admits they were trying to take over Okada's turf, but they didn't kill him. He knows someone at the FBI (bumblers AND with a mole? The poor FBI looks terrible in this ep) and they were waiting until the feds took down Okada before they made their move. But, Victor isn't the killer, and Lou confirms that since the guns from the warehouse and the Okada murder scene aren't a match.

But, good news! They actually found a gun match---with a gun that was reported stolen three days ago. Everyone is surprised the Okada murders (ten guys!) were done by a lone gunman, but Jerry shows them how it could have been done. (And the audience gets to see all the murders happen. Ew). Once the Jerry show is over, Harry meets Tani and is impressed with her shiny badge and wedge espadrilles meant to impress (but which aren't practical for her line of work. A lot of women on cop shows wear shoes that would never work. Why is that? Remember Castle? Some of Beckett's shoes/boots had four inch heels!) Anyway, Tani got a lead on the missing waitress, so the team breaks again and Steve and Danny go to talk to her, while Lou and Tani follow up on the guy who reported his gun stolen.

In the car Danny can't stop talking about how he wants to retire. Harry used to think the same thing, but he didn't realize he'd miss the buzz of the job. (So, let Danny retire, Harry become Steve's full-time partner, and they can go eat lunch at Danny's dream restaurant every day. Everyone wins!)

The boys get to the hotel and the waitress is dead on the floor, so that lead is gone. But, all is not lost! Tani and Grover are at the piano teacher's house and he's acting suspicious from the start. He doesn't know what was stolen besides the gun, says maybe a camera, when a large expensive camera is sitting on his coffee table. There's also an expensive tea set that didn't get stolen. (Plus, the guy's got shifty eyes.) When a cell phone rings on the coffee table, Lou goes ahead and answers it (which was weird), but it's Steve on the other end. PianoTeacher was the last phone number the waitress called before she died. Lou pulls a gun on him, just as a lot of men in dark cars and suits pull up. (Have you ever noticed that a lot of Crime Family Goons dress nice for work?) Tani takes the little piano student to safety in the bathtub and then joins the gunfight with Lou---after he tells her to make sure she kills who she shoots at. (Didn't he see her last week? She picked off a ton of people. Some of them from a moving car!) Oddly, they have piano music playing as they're killing people. (Like that makes it more classy? I'm not sure.) Oh, and Grover dares PianoTeacher to try to get away during the gunfight and he does! Never trust a shifty-eyed piano teacher.

Steve and Danny arrive on scene and Lou tells him that the guys Tani and Lou killed were identified as crew from the Okada family. Everyone is surprised PianoTeacher is behind it all, but then they find his secret room with all kinds of guns and weapons, books and DVDs on weapons, topped off with surveillance pics. Jerry figures out that Okada ran over the piano teacher's kid and killed him, so the Okada murder was a revenge play. (Well, for all the training he did, he sucked as a criminal by not having his stolen gun story straight. It totally gave him away!) Oh, and the waitress, Annie Hughes, was PianoTeacher's girlfriend.

Well, Derek Okada is mad that the piano teacher got away. (How did he figure out who killed his dad? We'll never know) and he orders his men to be on guard. After the piano teacher calls to tell him he's next, he wants to get his place locked down. Yeah, good plan. (PianoTeacher has definitely lost it. I mean, an hour ago he was teaching a little girl to play a piano piece!)

Next thing we know the piano teacher is killing everyone in his way as he works up to Derek Okada. He shoots all kinds of guards and even shoots someone through the eyehole in the door! (Ew). (It's pretty violent, especially when you consider all the murders at the opening of the show, the warehouse, the van, the murders at the piano teacher's house, and even the waitress.) When PianoTeacher finally makes it to Derek, he shoots him in the leg and shoulder, before he holds a gun to his head, Steve, Danny, and Harry come in quiet and tell him not to do it, but he wants Derek to pay. You see, Derek tried to buy the piano teacher's silence, and then his dad threatened to kill the rest of his family (Who? Did he have a wife or other kids? Because their lives are screwed now with their husband/dad being a serial murderer) if he went to the cops about Okada's role in his son's death. Harry says he's lost someone he loved very much and that this won't bring his son back or change anything. The piano teacher coldly shoots Okada anyway. (They even show the blood spatter on his face. Gross.)They take him into custody, but he doesn't look sorry.

Harry says he needs to make things up to Veronique since he told her he was only going out for sun cream. Danny and Steve offer to make them dinner, but can't get anything edible on the table, so Harry takes her to Kamekona's instead. Kame lectures the boys on customer satisfaction as they awkwardly watch Harry and Veronique eat. (Did they follow them there? It was so odd that they were just standing there drinking, watching Harry and his date.)

Anyway, the best part of the ep for me was definitely Harry's appearance. The rest? Yeah. A little much.

Did you watch? What did you think?