Hawaii Five-0 Recap & Review: Those Meddling Kids!

Well, if you don't look at the details too hard, this was an enjoyable episode!

We start out with a really cute scene of Steve coming over to visit Grace. Danny's made her pancakes, which he is very anxious for her to eat. He's hovering and when he goes to get Grace's sweatshirt, Grace begs Steve to take Danny away for a few hours because he's "all up in her business." Steve explains how helpless Danny felt while she was in the hospital so now he wants to take care of her, but he helps Grace out by taking Danny with him when he gets a homicide call. Grace mouths "thank you."

Steve and Danny end up walking across the beach to the crime scene, and Steve brings up that Danny is spending a lot of time with Rachel. Danny tries to blow it off, saying they're taking care of their daughter, but Steve presses him by asking, "How much does this playing house thing have to do with Rachel and Grace?" Danny sort of dodges and says that they don't want to kill each other for the first time in a long time, but he doesn't have a plan. He's just relationship freestyling right now. (Hmm... Interesting that Danny thought Steve was playing house with Cath in Montana and now Steve thinks Danny is playing house with Rachel. Very interesting phrase from both of them.) Noelani shows them a swollen body with the throat slashed. Danny's weak stomach is glad he didn't eat pancakes. We get the whole rundown on how the victim died from sudden and massive decompression or exploding from the inside out. (Ew.)

Cut to Junior trying to fix a deck, helping out his dad, but his dad comes along and rudely tells him he isn't doing it right. Junior leaves.

Back at the Chatting Table Adam tells everyone that the body is Prof. Jason Kamaka. Three months ago, he took a leave of absence to work on a deep sea research lab called Neptune One studying the effects of lava flow. The expedition included four other scientists and was put together by Claude Nostromo. (Doesn't that sound like a Scooby Doo villain name? Will we get a "if it weren't for those meddling kids" at the end of the ep?) Anyway, if the deep sea lab is that isolated, then Dr. Kamaka had to be killed by one of the other four scientists. Steve throws in that when you're in serious close quarters for a long period of time you could get high pressure nervous syndrome which includes paranoia, hallucinations, and delusions.

Steve and Danny head over to Nostromo's and he's surprised about the murder and says he lost contact with Neptune One twelve hours ago. (That doesn't sound good, but Nostromo doesn't seem too bothered by it.) Steve points out that communication channels could have been cut by the murderer. Nostromo is not helpful, but does say that he didn't think any of the other scientists had a beef with Kamaka. When Steve asks for the personnel files, though, Nostromo dismisses them because he's busy getting on top of crisis management and his PR response. Steve gets annoyed and announces that the lab is a crime scene and everybody is a suspect! (So there!)

Back at the Chatting Table the other four "dream team" scientists/oceanographers are introduced. Jim Walker, Linda Brady, Marcus Nash, and Nina Kane. And one of them is a murderer! Steve says they'll be heading down there to assess the situation, collect evidence, and interview suspects, but the sub only fits three so Junior is going to take lead and Adam and Tani are going with him. Junior rambles a bit about the sub and descending slowly to acclimate their bodies to the pressure because if they don't they'll feel nauseated. Also, since Neptune's communication is still down they don't know what they're walking into and it's too dangerous to have firearms in a highly pressurized environment, so they get stun guns. With that, Steve tells Junior not to do anything he wouldn't do. Ha! (You know, we haven't seen or heard from Jerry in a while. I hope he's okay!)

Steve and Danny interview Kamaka's wife and they see a cute video of Jason Kamaka counting down the minutes until he's with his family again. He only took the job because they need money for his son's illness and experimental treatments. Kamaka didn't talk much about work since he signed a large NDA and all communications with the surface were monitored, however, he did say that the job wasn't what he signed up for. The wife is visibly upset, says she had faced the possibility she could lose her son, but didn't think about losing Jason. Steve says they won't give up.

TeamJunior, the fearless trio, arrives at the underwater lab, but there's no welcome committee. With five tanks and suits visible in the bay, the other scientists are still there somewhere, though. Junior checks the oxygen levels and all is well, so they take off their oxygen tanks. Tani sees someone looking at them from the porthole, so they go after him. There's a blood trail that's fresh and they finally corner Dr. Walker, who has a shoulder injury. Apparently Dr. Nash attacked him and he doesn't know where anyone else is. He does seem a little paranoid as he relates the story that he woke up that morning, the power was out and Kamaka and Nash were missing. Then Nash went out of his mind and attacked him with a knife, but he fended him off and got away. The guy just snapped! TeamJunior thinks that Nash is Kamaka's killer. They decide to go look for the rest of the crew and they do find Dr. Brady and Nina, but Nina is having a panic attack. The only oxygen in in the bay and with CrazyNash out there, it isn't safe. So NewGuyAdam gets the laundry list of assignments to stitch up Walker, get a tank for Nina, and then request an evac vessel. Tani and Junior are going to go find Nash. They wander around for a while until Tani realizes there's a short hallway, and they find a secret door! Nash is inside and he immediately attacks them so Tani uses the stun gun on him and Junior zip ties him. They find samples inside the secret room that don't look like lava rocks.

Those samples are actually a rare earth element called yttrium. It's worth more than gold, and is a key component for micro chips, processors, etc. China currently has the market cornered, but if Nostromo finds his own reserve, well, we're talking about billions in profits. Except that it's illegal to mine the waters in Hawaii. But it's all coming together now! The secret room only had two regulars going into it---CrazyNash and Dr. Brady. TeamJunior questions Brady who denies it at first, but then caves. Nostromo gave them a mission to collect samples to help Nostromo know where to mine. She says she didn't kill Kamaka, though, and Nash didn't either since they worked all night putting in data and their entries are time stamps. When she tries to pull the data up, though, it's all been wiped. Nash thinks Nostromo wiped it to cover his tracks because he's the murderer! Nobody really believes CrazyNash, though. TeamJunior does decide that if Nostromo thought his billion dollar investment was in trouble, he would do anything to protect it.

Steve goes back to question Nostromo with Lou. (Maybe Danny is checking on Grace?) Nostromo denies everything, but when they confront him about the yttrium and mention that the data was wiped, Nostromo gets upset. There's no backup of that data and they made the computer air-gapped to prevent hacking. Someone down there had to wipe the data because they're going to sell it on the open market and he knows who it is! It's his inside man!

Adam and Junior are talking about how they don't feel good so they check the oxygen level. It's nearly at hypoxic levels! No wonder they don't feel good! Except for Nina, since with her "panic attack" she has an oxygen tank. Tani comes in with McG's info about his "inside man" and Nina knows she's caught. She grabs Dr. Brady and puts the knife to her throat. She locks them all in and barricades the door with an ax, but it must be a moldy old ax because Junior and Adam easily bust through the door AND the ax barricade! Nina took the sub and Junior dives in after it (to wave goodbye? What did he think he was going to do? Hitch a ride?) But all their communications are now gone with the sub and they're all stranded! But the worst news is, there's no oxygen supply and they only have about forty minutes of breathable air. Topside, Lou sees GPS movement on the sub, but no one is answering anything, so they figure out TeamJunior's been jacked. Steve heads to the dive site.

TeamJunior is watching Junior rummage through the lab stuff until he finds a transmission buoy. He puts an emergency message on it, sends it to surface so it will send to all emergency frequencies, but it gets snagged on a ledge. He swims up to fix it and then gets disoriented, but Tani saves him and they collapse on the bay floor. (How strange that a SEAL would be disoriented underwater and have to be rescued by Tani!) They use up more air talking about Junior buying her expensive sushi and how much seeing his dad sucked.

Steve is speeding to the dive site with Danny telling him to slow down. He doesn't want Steve to go down to the lab because they could be dead for all they know. (I was honestly shocked to hear him casually say that!) Steve tells him not to do that, to stay positive and keep his mind on the rescue. Lou calls to say the SOS buoy from Junior was found and TeamJunior only has six minutes of air left. (The Coast Guard must be super slow or something and by the time they finally mosey over, it will be too late.) Steve does the calculations for how much air they'll need until the evac vessel can finally get there and Danny is still half-mocking him with comments like "what are you doing, beautiful mind?" Steve figures out they'll need two tanks and he's going to free dive it down to them while Danny's job is to tell the evac vessel to be there in eighteen minutes. Danny is not on board with this plan. He says there's no way Steve will make the 130 meter dive. (Well, what is Steve supposed to do? Just stand around and let his team and the other scientists die? Oy!) Steve is going to exhale all through the ascent so he doesn't get the bends, but if he looks like a potato when he comes back, then Danny needs to get him to a hyperbaric chamber. Steve puts his Converse into flippers and gets in water, taking in big breaths. Danny hands him the tanks and Steve won't let him give any pep talks, because Danny sucks at them. (Yes, yes he does!) Steve makes it down and finds the lab, then gets some air to an unconscious Junior and Tani. After he tells them the rescue team will be there in fifteen minutes so make the oxygen last, he takes a hit of oxygen himself and goes back to the surface Danny throws him a rescue preserver and pulls him in. He's gasping for air while Danny questions him and all Steve can do is give a thumbs up that he's okay and they're okay. Then Danny says now he knows Steve can hold his breath for that long, he can't complain about takeout in the car anymore. LOL (I at first was a bit skeptical as to how realistic it was for Steve to free-dive it and come back without getting the bends, but it turns out that scenario is possible. And if anyone could do it, Steve the SuperSEAL could!)

Back at the office, it's a happy ending for everyone! Lou reports that Nina is in ICU. In her haste to surface, she gave herself the bends. Nostromo is going to take care of the medical bills for Kamaka's little boy and assist the feds in their investigation of illegal mining. (No one's going to say it, so I will---If it weren't for those meddling kids!) Tani comes in after spending sixteen hours in a hyper-"barbaric" chamber with Adam and Junior who were arguing about which is better cartoons or anime. She also says Junior will be in later, he had something else to do and we see him at his dad's house. Dad hands him a hammer while we hear the happy music and they're working together on the deck.

An entertaining episode for sure, if not a little reminder of Scooby and pals. Did you watch? What did you think?