We start out with an airplane flying in 1983 (the good old days) with Hungry like the Wolf in the background, a lady reading a Jackie Collins book, tons of leg room and a guy lighting up a cigarette. All of the sudden the plane lurches, oxygen masks come down (that can't be good with the cigarette lit) and the plane crashed. (Good thing I didn't see this episode before my trip to Hawaii!) Fast forward to present day where there's a salvage mission going on and they find a dead diver in the wreckage.
Cue music.
New Girl Quinn surprises their bombing/murdering suspect Cullen and sits down to breakfast with him. She reminds him of who she is, then starts buttering a croissant while she fills him in on how some incompetent planted a bomb at McG's house, but luckily, McG has a bomb-sniffing dog. Cut to the shiny red truck where McG is listening to this convo and smiling when Eddie is mentioned. Cullen asks if they have any suspects and Quinn gives him "the look" like um, duh. That'd be you. Cullen points out that they must not have any evidence to back up the allegation. She sidesteps that and mentions how delicious the breakfast is and how she's clingy, that once she's interested, she can't let go, so basically, he'll be seeing a lot more of her, McG and the Five-0 task force, all up in his business 24/7. She takes a croissant for the road and leaves, going to the shiny red truck and giving Steve the croissant she took. McG says she did great and obviously got under his skin since Cullen's making a phone call to tell someone he has a job for them and meet him in an hour! McQuinn can't trace the phone because it's a burner, but luckily Quinn got the day off because their stakeout just turned into a tail. (I really like Quinn so far.)
Back at the ME's office. Tani calls Grover out because he seems cranky and he says he can't find an apartment in their price range. (Yawn.) The ME tells them the dead diver was Jay Kahale and he wasn't a member of the salvage team, but was killed with a bang stick at close range. Maybe his partner killed him, but what would be on the plane worth killing for? They go back to the Chatting Table to watch the news report of the wreckage being located and everyone is hoping the black box has answers on what caused the crash. Adam tells them that the JaytheDeadDiver's phone was turned on hours after his death and they found his burned out boat. So they need to find out who he was diving with. (And Adam has on a blue shirt today, too, just like Steve! Both of them look good in blue).
McQuinn is following Cullen, but they're not being very sneaky. First of all, they're in a shiny red truck, not to mention they're running red lights and pretty much staying close behind him. (I think "tails" learn to be inconspicuous the first day of spy school, but whatever I guess.) Quinn says you can tell a lot about a person by how they drive and Steve, who is so used to his driving being criticized, gets defensive and reminds her that this is a pursuit, so normal rules of road don't apply and last time she told him he wasn't driving recklessly enough. When he finishes, she says she was talking about Cullen, but now she knows what triggers him. Ha! She gets a phone call and answers in Kurdish. When she's done, Steve asks her if everything is okay and she says it's nothing. (Hmm...I wonder if Steve had any flashbacks to Cath speaking in Kurdish?) Cullen turns off, so they go a little further and set up to watch with binoculars and take pictures of Cullen sitting in his car. His boy finally shows up, though they can't hear anything because they're at the airport, but hey, you don't go to this much trouble to hide what you're talking about unless it's illegal. Quinn says she'll get the pics to Adam to see if he can identify Cullen's friend and Steve adds on to tell him to put an HPD detail on Cullen, and then they'll follow his boy see what he's been tasked to do. They leave on a deserted road and Steve must think they're invisible or something because they are not hiding that they're following the guy. At all.
Back to the airplane crash. TaniLou go to see a passenger's brother and he talks about finding out about the crash and wanting answers as to why it crashed. He doesn't seem too shocked about the diver's murder, so I'm calling it here, he's the bad guy. BadBro thinks that the truth will be covered up and tells them there are a bunch of conspiracy theories out there. Adam backs that up at HQ and tells the Chatting Table Crew that one theory is that the manufacturer is covering up a mechanical defect that took plane down, or it went through a wormhole and passed through another dimension, or it had to do with the Star Wars Defense project where the U.S. could take out Russian nukes with lasers from outer space. Apparently the Star Wars program has close ties to Hawaii and the Pacific Missile Range facility on Kauai was a center of the Stragetic Defense Initiative. Maybe some Star Wars testing accidentally downed the plane. So, JaytheDeadDiver could be from the military, trying to retrieve incriminating evidence before the plane is brought to the surface! Lou calls Adam Jerry and says he looks different since he's shaved his beard. Ha! JaytheDeadDiver was former Navy, so maybe the military went offbook to outsource the job to him so they have plausible deniability. Junior phones in that JaytheDeadDiver had been contacting a bunch of other divers over the last several days, saying he had a one day job for them that paid $30,000. So, whoever took the job, probably murdered Jay to cut him out of the take, then reached out to the contact so they could renegotiate the deal which would explain why his phone was turned on after his death. Oh, and also, Jay needed a diver who specialized in underwater welding. Which you would only need if you were retrieving the black box. Hmmm...
Back to the pursuit, McG roars up to a building still not sneaky at all and McQuinn heads upstairs. They barely have any cover, but since they're invisible, it's fine. They watch four or five men load duffel bags into the back of a car and it's not for a weekend getaway! Adam calls to tell them that Cullen's friend is Sam Bishop and he's been arrested for aggravated assault, criminal trespassing, and attempted murder. So, Quinn tells us, since Cullen has already tried to murder McG once, and now has reached out to a guy with attempted murder on his jacket, who then picks up four DuffelDudes, well, their next stop is probably McG's house to try and kill him again. Dun, dun, dun. They get in the truck to see if she's right about that.
TaniLou has a Mr. Pollack in Blue Room of Doom. He's on online conspiracy theorist who bankrolled five failed attempts to locate the wreckage. He also believes the military is behind the whole thing and will destroy incriminating evidence. Pollack denies any involvement in diver's death and truly has a creepy blank expression on his face. He does tell TaniLou that there are way bigger wackos out there, like Delphi's Son who is the Godfather of Flight 912 conspiracy theories. Lou tasks Tani to look into Delphi's Son.
McQuinn are probably only thirty feet away from the four DuffelDudes, kind of hiding in the trees taking loud clicky pics of them. DuffelDudes are walking down a path with shovels, then digging something up. Quinn thinks it might be McG's grave (how morbid!) but Steve thinks they're moving a body. It's actually a barrel of money that they haul back to their truck. McQuinn go back to the shiny red truck to follow them, but the tire is slashed. They were made. Sad!
Chatting Table RoundUp and Report: Junior found gear that survived blaze from boat. Tani reports that Delphi's son generates 80 percent of posts on plane crash so they're tracking his IP address. Oh, and Adam says the NTSB has the black box that was still on board the plane and are analyzing it. They also found out that a welding gun was used to remove several seats from first class cabin, so one of the passengers must have hidden something worth killing for under their seat .
McQuinn are standing around waiting for the tow truck. Quinn's blood sugar is low and she's floating the idea of driving back on the rims. Steve offers beef jerky, but she turns that down and would rather eat her own fingers, since jerky is only meat trying to do a plywood impression. They just have to sit and wait, but luckily HPD has eyes on Cullen and Bishop hasn't shown up with money yet, so there's still time to catch Cullen and the money in the same place. Quinn asks Steve if he has any ideas on how they can kill some time while waiting for the tow truck, but quickly backs off and says that sounded so different in my head. (And also reminded me of another Cath scene when she says that came out wrong. Huh.) Anyway, she says she was going to suggest they play Tic Tac Toe, but Steve doesn't want to do that, so she suggests Twenty Questions, but Steve guesses right away she's thinking about a croissant. (Haha. It was a funny scene.)
The B Story Crew have found out that Delphi's Son is the brother they talked to earlier. (Called it!) His brother was actually a jewelry thief who pulled off a heist in New York (and killed a woman) and was coming home on that plane with 4.1 million dollars in jewelry that's worth over ten million today. That's what JaytheDeadDiver was looking for. Since BadBro worked for the insurance company that held the policy, he would know all about the worth of the jewels taken. So now one diver has killed the other and are probably shaking down Joe so they have to find him. He's not at home or his office, but luckily the DNA on the gear from the burned out boat came back and it's female! There aren't many female welder divers, and only one that JaytheDeadDiver knew, so in less than ten seconds they already have a location on her since she left work and took a company boat with GPS.
BadBro is there to pay her off with a duffel of money. (There are a lot of duffels in this ep!) She gives him the briefcase full of jewels, but he pulls a gun, so she shoots him in the side. Police sirens sound and she runs away with both the money duffel and the jewelry briefcase. Tani is in pursuit and there's a little shootout on the dock. (Maybe Tani could run faster if she wasn't in heeled boots, but whatever) She wings the diver and the lady falls in the water, but is surprisingly able to shoot at Tani from underneath the dock. Tani dives in the water and an underwater fight between the two women ensues. Tani gets slashed on the arm, but manages to elbow and kick the suspect in the face. Junior is racing to scene, but stops to take off his Kevlar and earpiece. By then, Tani has surfaced, but he still jumps in. She's okay, it's the suspect who needs help. They get her on the dock and even though she's breathing shallowly, they do chest compressions. When the lady spits out water, they inform her she's under arrest. While Tani's arm is being bandaged in the back of an ambulance, Junior comments that he didn't know they taught underwater fighting in Mermaid School. She gives him a grin and says he should see what she can do with a tail. Ha. BadBro is already headed in surgery, (that was fast!) but he'll make it. Oh, and Adam mentions that the NTSB has finished nalayzing black box. There wasn't any data. Someone wiped it. *cue Twilight Zone music* (Jerry would have loved this little conspiracy theory I think!)
McQuinn pulls into the HQ parking lot in the shiny red truck. Steve seems contemplative, then says that the call Quinn got earlier was from a woman in Iraq whose husband was a police officer that was killed in Mosul last year. Quinn seems surprised he traced her phone call and says he could have asked her. Steve goes on that he knows she was stationed there for a time training local police forces. So he's asking. What happened? She tells him the story of how two weeks after she finished training the guy, he was gunned down by local insurgents, even after months of training them and teaching them everything she could. Steve reminds her that they are talking about one of the most dangerous places on the planet right now, and so no amount of training would have saved that guy's life. Quinn says she keeps in touch with his widow since it's nearly impossible for the widow to make a living over there, never mind support two kids. She helps out when she can. (Hmm...also interesting that Cath kept in touch with a family she met while stationed over there as well.) Quinn wonders if Steve's always up in everyone's business, (she says that a lot) but he says it's just her because when when he works with someone he likes to know as much as he can about them. He puts an H50 badge on the console between them and tells her that he had a feeling she'd be a great fit for the task force. Quinn laughs and says when we were pointing guns in each other's faces? Yeah, he has a gut instinct on these things and since she's had disciplinary issues it probably won't be hard to get an official discharge. Quinn says she'd be honored and they shake on it and Steve tells her welcome aboard. But the words are barely out of his mouth when the military police show up and arrest Quinn. Steve is telling her to sit tight and he'll get to the bottom of this while she's put in car with her new badge in her handcuffed hands. One of the MPs tells Steve they got an anonymous tip and found a lot of currency associated with a money laundering operation in Quinn's apartment. (Ohhh, that's what the barrel of money was for!)
Cut to Cullen getting home with Steve right behind him. Steve is angry and confronts him, telling him that he made a phone call to the governor and Quinn is being processed out as they speak, but hey, if Cullen wants to dance with him, he'll do it every day and make his life so miserable he'll be begging for an 8x10 cell just to get some peace. Cullen is so smarmy, smirking and telling Steve he has no idea what's going on here and doesn't have the whole picture. But hey, he's smart, maybe he'll figure it out at some point. Steve assures him he will and Cullen goes inside. Only to have the house blow up in a big fireball.
What a great ending! I'm liking Quinn more and more, but there are some pretty big similarities to Cath beyond looks, as in the similar dialogue of last week and similar backstory this week. Maybe next week she'll mention how Chicago makes everything better! We shall see.
What did you think? Did you watch?
