Hawaii Five-0 Review & Recap: The Very Sad One

This one was sad all the way around. The season has been a bit of a downer for both Steve and Danny in the relationship department and keeping people they love safe. Sigh.

Anyway, we start out with Eddie running into traffic and Steve nearly getting killed trying to save him.

Cue music.

We open with Danny in a bar nursing a club soda. A beautiful woman approaches him and flirts a bit so he invites her to sit down and she does. She orders him a sweet drink that she thinks will help his mood and they are all smiley and flirty together. They're not going to give names or talk about jobs, they're only going to discuss interesting and original things. First, though, Danny gets a call from Steve, telling him about Eddie running into traffic, but the vet is coming over soon---the one he didn't ask out again. Danny says he thinks Adam is on his way back from wherever he was. Steve invites him to get a bite to eat, but Danny finally tells him he's sitting in a bar with a pretty lady. Steve counsels him not to blow this rare opportunity. Danny goes back to flirting, figures out she's from the east coast by her outfit and is new to Hawaii. (He also doesn't like the drink she ordered him.) She shares that she's not too sure about the island, which Danny can relate to, but he assures her that it grows on you. Next thing we know they're having a quickie in the bathroom and afterwards, he tells her he can drive her home.

They chat in Danny's car about how she's looking for a room of her own and she name drops a late 90s baseball guy that Danny knows, which helps her figure out he's from Jersey. One of her favorite things to do was go to her aunt's place and watch movies and eat pizza from Romeo's, which is also familiar to Danny. They see another driver right in front of them who isn't paying attention, but looking at his phone. Danny swerves to miss him and goes off the road and down a steep incline. The other driver speeds away.

Back at McG's, the vet is there. Steve tells her how Eddie hasn't been himself, is skittish and jumpy, like he's on high alert all the time. The vet examines Eddie and comes to the conclusion that he has Post-Traumatic Stress. Steve is surprised, but the vet tells him that PTS is complex, and Eddie must have a long-buried trauma that has resurfaced. (When are we going to have an episode that deals with Steve's PTS? The man has been through a lot of stuff!) Steve walks her to the door and brings up the fact he never called and assures her it wasn't because he didn't like her, because he did, but he has a problem balancing his job with his personal life and historically, his personal life always gets the short end of the stick. It definitely wasn't a problem with her, it's him. The vet believes him and says she's dating someone now anyway. There's no hard feelings. Steve opens the door and says, "I don't want to hold you hostage," which made me laugh. (That has to be a writer's inside joke since so many episodes of this show feature the team and anyone associated with them held hostage. Ha!) The vet says to keep her posted and leaves.

Lou calls Steve to ask about Eddie since he can't be there. He's helping his wife set up Will at his new off campus apartment during parents weekend. Steve tells Lou that the vet just left and Eddie was diagnosed with PTS, but guess what? Lou is psychic and already knew that and set up an appointment with an Army veterinarian! Wow!   

Back to the car wreck. Danny is hurt, but not as bad as the woman he's with. Her legs are crushed under the dash. (Oddly, no airbags deployed). The situation goes from bad to worse when they realize they don't have cell service where they are. Before Danny goes up the hill to try and get cell service, TheWomanWithNoName tells him the last three numbers of the license plate of the guy that caused the accident. Danny manages to get out of the car to go to the road for service, but doesn't get a signal. (But how did the guy that caused the accident get service? Huh.) TheWomanWithNoName is moaning, so Danny goes back down to be with her.

The army veterinarian examines Eddie and confirms the signs of PTS. Steve is blaming himself, but the doctors says that PTS can stay dormant for years until something sets it off to bring old trauma back, so Steve shouldn't beat himself up. Eddie was probably alone when the triggering event happened, so Steve has to figure out what triggered Eddie and remove it from his environment. Apparently, Eddie's first handler was killed in action in Afghanistan, but Steve doesn't know any details, so he's going to start there. Since he doesn't want to leave Eddie, he calls in Tani and Quinn. Crime on the island must be slow because they rush over to talk to a Colonel O'Donnell who has details about Eddie's old unit. He finds a Marine from the old unit that is still on active duty as a radio operator in Okinawa. They're going to get in touch with him.

Danny is trying to open TheWomanWithNoName's door because he wants to get her stable. There is a sharp metal object stabbing her in the back, so he removes it. There's a lot of blood. He goes around to pry open the trunk and get a first aid kit out for a compress for her back wound. He also bungee cords her leg for a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. She's scared, but he tells her it's going to be okay and to just hang tough. To distract her, he shares a story about how he got into a fight when he was in seventh grade right outside of Romeo's. Some high school basketball players were calling his friend Butterball and teasing him, so Danny stood up to them and got beat up for his trouble. WomanWithNoName tells him he's a good guy.

Before the Okinawa Marine calls, Tani is thinking about Junior and how he's not invincible and she hasn't heard from him. Quinn reassures her that Junior's tough and he'll do everything he can to get home safe. The radio officer guy from Eddie's old unit calls in and tells them about the day Eddie's first handler died. The area was littered with IEDs and they were marking them on the road when one went off. The radio operator went down and the first thing he saw was purple flowers covered in blood. Eddie's handler was dead and Eddie went over to lay by the body. The purple flowers were called Restharrow and were all over the place.

TheWomanWithNoName is looking bad. Danny is changing her dressings, which you shouldn't actually do in that situation. (He should have just added more compresses, but whatever.) She's asking him questions like why were you in the bar? He says it's because he was in a mood over his ex-wife. They've been trying to work it out for the last year or so but are better off as friends. We finally hear a car coming, and Danny rushes up to the top, but the driver doesn't stop. Danny comes back down and tries to keep TheWomanWithNoName awake, but she's shivering and cold and tired. He makes another compress out of his shirt and gets frustrated, yelling and honking the horn. He finally hears a semi-truck coming and runs back up to the road. The driver stops and lets him use his radio. Help is finally on the way.

Tani and Quinn go next door to Steve's neighbor who happens to be a botany professor. She loves the plants of Hawaii and surprise! She's growing those purple flowers, too! They tell her about Eddie being triggered, so she'll have them moved to the greenhouse on campus. Case closed!

Steve is on the couch holding Eddie, and Tani and Quinn are watching them. Tani says rom-coms want us to believe that racing to the airport tops the list for romantic gestures, (didn't Steve do that for Cath?) but dodging traffic has that beat. (Well, Steve has done both, I guess.) Steve talks about when he was trying to get Eddie out of traffic, the dog made eye contact and Steve could see his panic and fear. He could relate to that after everything that's happened to him this year. That exactly where he would be if he didn't have the dog to lean on every day and the team. (And Mr. Pickles I assume.) Tani and Quinn assure him they're not going anywhere. There's a knock at the door and it's Adam! He apologizes for being gone so long, but says he had to get away and clear his head. Steve doesn't look all that happy to see him, but says he gets it and "welcome home, bro." Steve gives him an awkward hug and you can tell he's not really buying into the prodigal son routine. (I'm interested to see where Adam's loyalties lie, for sure.)

Danny slides back down the hill to TheWomanWithNoName. She looks terrible. He has good news, though, the ambulance is on the way. He wants her to stay awake. When he chuckles, she opens her eyes to ask what's so funny and he tells her that he has all the luck like she said. Just when he meets the girl of his dreams, he gets in a car accident. She tells him that things are going to work out for him and asks his name. He tells her it's Danny and then says, "Are you going to tell me your name now?" But she dies. Danny is crying and holding her hand, when he hears the sirens. He goes to the top of the embankment and walks away. The ambulance gets there, but it's too late.

So, both Steve and Danny are still killing it with emotional scenes, but honestly, it's been such a hard year for them. I'd love to see them have some happiness in their lives to balance all the sadness. Next week we get another kidnapping! Haha. Honestly, pretty soon there won't be anyone on the show who hasn't been kidnapped a few times.

What did you think of the episode? Did you watch?

Did you miss my recap and review of the last episode? You can see it HERE