Hawaii Five-0 Recap & Review--The Series Finale

I am so sad that this is the end of the show. It's been such a great run and such a big part of my life! I'm really going to miss it. I just can't imagine not recapping and reviewing it anymore! I really hope at some future point we get a movie or special of some sort.

This is a longer recap than normal because I didn't want to miss a moment!

We start out with previouslies of Steve visiting his dad's grave and remembering the day he died, telling Danny how it's been ten years, he's feeling lost right now and maybe needs time away for perspective. Then we see Daiyu Mei giving that guy the message for Steve that she's Wo Fat's late wife. Lastly, we see Danny getting beat up for the cipher and that Steve actually still has it.

We cut to ten years ago in a China province, where Mrs. Fat is making tea for Wo Fat and Victor Hesse who are planning the op to get Hector's brother back. The trace on Steve's phone allowed them to pinpoint the location, the helo would take out the lead vehicle first, etc. Victor points out it only works if Steve agrees to let Anton go and Wo Fat assures him Steve will agree, even though Papa McG hasn't talked to Steve in a long time. Blood is blood. We do flash back briefly to a bloody Papa McG asking Steve on the phone who are these people, Steve? (Awww, so sad.) Wo Fat asks Daiyu Mei to stay because he values her input. Hmm... Back to present day where she's watching Danny and Steve at the cemetery. McG's truck is there this time and she says to follow them. (So, I guess he just left the truck there since last week he told Danny he'd drive?)

Cue music.

Steve is in his truck with Cole. He gets a call from Duke that the crime lab didn't get any prints or DNA from his house after the break-in. Cole says whatever that code is, is worth a lot to someone and he's hoping his ex-NSA guy can deliver. Steve appreciates his help. Cole goes on to say there's only one person outside of Langley with a shot at decoding the cipher, but then says to scratch that there IS someone else. A Navy Intelligence officer he met a couple years back. Super smart. She'd be up for the job, too, but I lost track of her. Steve gets a look as soon as Cole says it's a "she." Her name wouldn't be Catherine Rollins, would it? he asks. (Awwww!) Cole is surprised and says, you know her? Steve smiles and is all, yeah, I know her, man, she was my girl. We were together a bunch of years, but these intelligence types got a habit of disappearing on you, you know?" Cole is looking at him and says, sounds like it was serious and Steve tells him she was the one who got away. What are you going to do?"  (Awwww! She was his girl! The one who got away! I was so happy with that little exchange.) Cole is giving Steve a look after he says that.

They stop at an overlook to meet the ex-NSA guy and Cole asks if Steve is okay and hopes he didn't ruin Steve's day by bringing Cath up. Steve assures him he's good. The NSA guy shows up, but Steve gets a frantic call from Danny that he's got a crazy tail. He sends his location and Steve heads over there, leaving the NSA guy looking at them drive away. The tail is all over Danny and Steve hears gunshots through the phone. He's driving on the wrong side of the road to get there and when he finally does, Danny's car is on fire. Steve reaches in the driver's side and his sleeve catches fire. Cole gets an extinguisher and they figure out Danny isn't in the car. Steve immediately calls Tani to get the last twenty minutes of camera coverage at the intersection. Tani says he sounds upset and he tells her Danny's been taken. HPD shows up and he tells them to lock the perimeter down, dust the car for prints or DNA and every officer should be looking for Danny Williams. (Yeah, HPD isn't good at perimeters, Steve should know that by now.) Tani pulls up the traffic cam footage at the Chatting Table and Adam tells her to go back thirty minutes. They're all wondering why they would grab Danny (even though most of them have been kidnapped multiple times, haha), but since whoever took Danny wanted to keep him alive, they'll just treat it like a kidnapping. (Good thinking!) Steve comes in and they all see the footage of Danny being forced out of his car, hooded and led away while his car is set on fire. They run the plates but it comes back to stolen cars. Steve wants all the phones ready for the ransom call.

Danny is chained and bloody, but recognizes Daiyu Mei. He jokes that after what they did to his car they should exchange insurance info. Daiyu Mei is not amused and says that a man with two children should not be making jokes. Danny gets serious real fast and says if she touches his kids, he'll find her and kill her.

Steve comes in and Tani was able to track the two SUVs that took Danny for about a mile, but that's it. Steve wants every single person who has a badge to be looking for Danny. Daiyu Mei calls Steve and says it's good to hear his voice. He immediately tries to get a trace and asks, "Who is this?" She tells him her name is Daiyu Mei and she believes he knew her husband Wo Fat. Everyone looks shocked. Steve asks if she has Danny and she says she does. They each have something the other person wants. She has the person he cares about most in the world and he has the cipher that is rightfully hers. If he delivers it to her, Detective Williams will live. Steve wants proof that Danny is okay so she takes the phone in and shows him a bloody Danny chained up. Danny tells Steve not to do whatever she wants him to do and not to give her anything. Daiyu Mei asks if they have a deal and that Steve shouldn't make the same mistake he made with his father and allow a loved one to die because of his stubbornness. (Steve looks so angry and intense here!) He asks her where the trade will go down and she says she'll text him the info, but he better come alone and do exactly as she asks or his friend dies.

Steve is headed toward the elevator and Adam follows, asking if Steve is going to give her what she wants. Steve quickly explains that he made the mistake of hesitating when Hector demanded Lincoln and it almost cost two lives so he won't make that mistake again. Adam reminds him that the situation turned out fine and they got the woman and her son back. But Steve is all, because of Lincoln, not me. So he's going to trade Daiyu Mei the cipher for Danny's life because that's the only play he's got. Adam sees Steve's struggle and tells him that there was no way he could have saved his father that day because the odds were stacked against him, but now he has Five-0 in his corner and he was telling Adam that not long ago. Let them help find another way. Oh, and there's no guarantee that even if he gives her the cipher she'll spare Danny's life. Steve listens, but says he's going to the trade alone, but he'll call. Adam tells him good luck. Once the elevator doors close, Steve leans against the back wall and thinks about when Victor found out his brother was dead and went ahead and killed Papa McG. So sad.

Steve goes to the meet and Daiyu Mei and her goons show up. Danny isn't there and Daiyu Mei just wants to give him an address of where Danny is. That's not going to fly with Steve. He wants it live- streamed from his phone and proof that he is at that address, otherwise no deal. Daiyu Mei complies and Steve sees Danny and asks if he's okay. Danny tells Steve not to trust her. Steve gives her the cipher and runs to his truck.

Danny tells the goon not to put his phone away and that he should call his family to tell them he loves them because he has no idea what he's stirred up, and the goon punches him. Steve is speeding to the address, telling Tani to put out an All Units alert and send SWAT to the address, he's five minutes out. The goon gets a call from Daiyu Mei to say that McG is on his way, so make sure he finds a dead man. But Danny is climbing the chain to get himself free so when the goon comes in, Danny isn't chained up. He's behind the door! He whacks the goon with the chain and unlocks his cuffs before he takes his gun and shoots another goon who comes in. Danny starts shooting his way out of the house and almost makes it to the front door before a newbie goon shoots him and runs away. (I'm guessing he's a newbie because he just shoots and runs.) Steve has his sirens on and pulls up to the house. He goes in and sees Danny in the doorway. He's unconscious, so Steve wakes him up by touching the bullet hole. Ew. He helps him out to the truck when everyone pulls up. Steve gets Danny in the backseat and Tani drives to the hospital while he holds Danny and calls the hospital to make sure the surgeons are prepped and ready for when they got there. They get Danny to the hospital and he's taken into surgery. Everyone is watching him go and Steve is being told to wait there with his bloody shirt. So sad!

Steve is in the hospital chapel, hands folded, intense, bargaining with God. He says, "If you want to take somebody, take me. Not him. Take me." (It was such an incredible scene. Alex knocked it out of the park.)  Cole comes in to say there isn't any news and Danny is still in surgery. He pauses and then tells Steve that they need to get that cipher. They have a photo of it and with any luck his guy can crack it. Steve doesn't think it matters anymore, but Cole is thinking ahead---cracking that cypher will help them figure out why Daiyu Mei wanted it and what she's got planned next. It's the best chance of catching her. All he needs is Steve's permission to take the cipher to his guy. Steve can stay at the hospital. Steve rubs his still bloody hands over his face and tells him to take Quinn with him. She'll give him a hard time and says she wants to stay here and support him, but Cole should tell her the best way for her to do that is to help Cole. Cole gets up to leave and Steve hands him his gun, passing the torch in a way. Cole rests his hand on Steve's shoulder for just a moment in support. It was a really good scene.

Cole and Quinn go to his guy's house, but no one is answering. Quinn offers to go around back, but Cole just busts in. "Very McGarrett of you," Quinn says as they move through the house. They find a blood trail and broken stuff in the kitchen. The blood leads to the garage on the passenger side. Looks like someone put him in his own car and drove off with him. (At least they didn't put him in the trunk I guess.) Luckily the car is electric and probably has GPS so they can track it.

Steve and the gang are waiting in the hospital hallway. Tani is asking why it's taking so long and Lou tries to comfort her and says that he knows it's hard, but it's all in God's hands now. The only thing they can do is be there for Danny and pray for him. "Chin up, kiddo, it's going to be all right." The doctor finally comes out and says that Danny is out of surgery and stable for now. They aren't out of the woods yet, but they cleared a big hurdle. Steve asks to see him and sits down at his bedside holding his hand. They play an amazing song, All for One, and it's such a great moment as the words really speak to the brotherhood these two share.

Quinn and Cole are at a junkyard and we get a glimpse of Danny's old silver Camaro. So sad! (Wasn't that burned when Catherine was kidnapped?) There's a dog there with fresh blood on him so I guess the murderer touched him? They walk through the wrecked cars and find a dead worker and then a pool of blood underneath a smashed car. Guess they found the cipher guy. Quinn calls Lou to update him and tell him that the contact---the only guy on the island who could crack the cipher---was inside his car when it was crushed. So, Daiyu Mei probably forced him to crack the code and killed him, which means she won't be on the island much longer. Cole has an idea and Lou tells him whatever it is, just do it. We're almost out of time.

Steve is at Danny's beside when he regains consciousness and asks why Steve stopped holding his hand. Steve says he thought he'd lost him, but Danny reassures him he can't get rid of him that easy, but he's supposed to be relieved and look happy when someone wakes up. Steve says he's happy, but Daiyu Mei used him to get to Steve and almost killed him. Danny tries to keep it light by saying he's right there, chilling, but to Steve it feels a lot like what he went through with his father. Danny says Steve is annoying him already and that if he had a dollar for every time Steve saved his life he'd have twenty bucks. Steve says it would be a lot more than that before he gets a call from Cole. (So I guess Danny isn't in the ICU? No phones in there. Hmm) Danny tells him to put it on speaker, he's bored, ha! Cole tells him they cracked the cipher and it was coordinates for a cemetery on the island. They send Steve the coordinates and it's where they thought his mom was first buried. Danny tells him to go, so he meets up with Quinn and Cole at the cemetery and head down to the family mausoleum. (Why wasn't Steve's dad buried in there?) His mom's crypt has been broken into and Cole thinks someone took Steve's mom's body, but Steve nonchalantly tells him that the crypt was assigned to her after she faked her death. It's a long story. Ha! He thought it was empty, but he was wrong. She must have hidden something inside of it, then sent him the cipher so he could find it after she died. Whatever it was, Daiyu Mei has it now!

They find footage of goons robbing the cemetery and it looks like there was a bunch of cash in the crypt. One of the goons is named Roland (not a great goon name, poor guy) so they run a trace on his phone and that takes them to the Honolulu harbor. (So reminiscent of the pilot!) The team goes in and there is a spectacular gunfight. Daiyu Mei is running, doing some awesome parkour and Steve is right behind her. The goons are all terrible shots, so the team is fine. After a great chase over shipping containers, Daiyu Mei gets in a forklift. Steve gets on it, too, but falls off when she stops suddenly. The shipping container the forklift was holding nearly crushes him, but when Daiyu Mei comes down to look, he gets the jump on her. She puts her gun down and he asks her if this was all for the money? She says it was about killing her husband, but Steve tells her that Wo Fat didn't give him any choice. She says her husband had every right to that inheritance since he was Doris's son, too. (I can only assume she means since Doris took care of him when he was a kid since the DNA test showed Steve and Wo Fat weren't related.) Steve says Wo Fat was Doris's charity case because if he was her blood, he would never have ordered the execution of Papa McG. Daiyu Mei doesn't answer that and tells him to pull the trigger. Steve pauses for a second, but doesn't do it. She taunts him that Steve has his father's will and Wo Fat said he'd never met a more principled man. Steve doesn't believe her and says Papa McG never met Wo Fat, but Daiyu Mei corrects him and says not in person. (Although there was footage in the governor's office from an earlier season where John did meet Wo Fat. Hmm)

We flash back to show Papa McG answering his front door and getting smashed in the face. Then Victor telling him that his son has something he wants and if he gives it to him John goes free. If he doesn't he'll die. Victor ties up Papa McG and beats him before he calls Wo Fat to say he has Papa McG. Wo Fat wants to talk to him and apologies for the rude introduction, but he hopes Steve cooperates with them. Papa McG asks who this is and Wo Fat introduces himself as the son of Doris McGarrett. They go on to talk about Papa McG suspecting that her death was staged. Papa McG admits he was looking into it, but whatever happens, don't tell my son, it would be too hard on him. Wo Fat says he's a good man and he hopes Steve feels the same protectiveness toward him. Then back to present day where Daiyu Mei says Steve is his father and then Cole shows up. Steve tells Cole to book her. Cole cuffs her while Steve watches. So intense!

A week later, Steve approaches the beach where Danny is sitting in a chair and he sits down beside him. Danny is feeling depressed because he misses the nice nurse at the hospital who brought him Jello. Steve gives him a word of advice not to mistake a caregiver for someone who cares. She was getting paid to be nice to him. (Ha!) Danny wants to know if Steve's all packed, which he is, and points out one last time that there are beautiful beaches all over the place there, with plenty of sand, he could clear his head here. Steve brings up that ten years ago when Danny came out he hated this place. Danny blames him. And also mentions that Steve should have kept some of the money Doris gave him so he could fly first class like a gentleman. Steve is just going to get on the plane. Danny asks him what he's looking for and Steve is very thoughtful and says, "peace." It was his father who brought him back here and kept him here, trying to figure out what he was investigating and now he knows his dad actually knew his mother was still alive. Danny asks him if he's going to walk the earth like the dude from Kung Fu searching for answers and Steve says something like that. It's going to be okay, though. Danny doesn't feel like it's going to be okay, because his main dude is leaving him, but Steve assures him it's not a goodbye forever. He's got a phone right? Steve makes Danny stand up so he can give him a hug. Smiles all around, and I love you man. Danny sits back down and tells Steve not to make Danny come looking for him. Steve walks up to his house and looks back. (*sniff*)

Steve sees Eddie on the couch and goes over to give him his goodbye. (My son was watching with me and teared up at this part!) He tells Eddie he loves him and misses him and also to look after Danno, he's going to need him. There's a knock at the door and it's the gang. Lou walks in with, you thought we were just going to let you leave without a goodbye? Do you remember that time you saved my life? Steve says yeah, but Lou hugs him and says, no you don't, you know why? Because you saved my life when you met me. Love you man. (Awww. Tears already!) Adam is next and hugs Steve and thanks him for always seeing the good in him and for giving him a second chance. He'll never forget that. And they're going to miss each other. Tani is next and she thanks him for everything and says she's going to miss him so much and she can't believe he's going. He tells her he's proud of her and to be good. She smiles and says no. Noelani is next and he tells her he's proud of her and she thanks him for believing in her. Quinn gets knuckles and a hug and thanks him for taking a chance on her and for giving her a family. Steve says she's worth it and she hopes he finds what he's looking for. The gang is hugging each other on the side of the room and Lou is crying. Junior is last. Steve blows out a breath. They clasp hands and touch foreheads and breathe in before saying Ooyah. It is so poignant! They hug and Steve grabs his duffel and heads to the door. Cole is there. Steve shakes his hand and thanks him then asks him to hold down the fort for him. Cole says he's got it. Steve opens the door but turns back to give them all a shaka and says Aloha. A hui hou. (Goodbye. Until we meet again.) He walks out. (So incredibly emotional and well done!)

Steve is finding his seat on the airplane and there's a beautiful sunset as he's leaving. (Symbolic that his time in Hawaii is coming to an end?) He gets a text from Danny saying he misses him already. He's watching out the window and looking thoughtful when a woman asks if this seat is taken. It's CATHERINE! He looks surprised and she says, "Hey, sailor." (I LOVE when she calls him that.) He quickly realizes it was her that cracked the cipher. She admits she did and that Lincoln got hold of her and said he needed some help. Steve says Lincoln is a good man. Catherine jokes that he must be since Steve gave him the keys to Danno's car. (The burned one?) Steve jokes back that they can't have Danny Williams driving his own car and Cath replies, "Like he ever did." It's cute and easy between them. He asks her if she's going to sit down and she nods. While she's getting settled in her seat he can hardly take his eyes off her. They put on their seatbelts and he wipes his palms on his pants. She smiles at him and asks if he's ready? He says, "Yeah," and holds out his hand for her. She takes it and he squeezes her fingers and looks out the window with a smile on his face---like he's happy to be going into the next chapter of his life with her by his side. It was so great! I have waited so long for them to finally take that next step and love that we got to see that. I have seen the rebuild of love and trust between them (you can see my blog post about it here) and this definitely feels like the culmination of that.

(Did you miss last week's recap? You can see it HERE)

After the episode aired, Peter Lenkov, the creator said this in an interview:

I love that vision! So, after ten years, the series is over. What did you think? Did you watch?

Hawaii Five-0 Recap & Review: The Second-to-Last-One

We start out with previouslies of Steve getting the phone call from Doris's lawyer that he was given instructions to deliver a package to Steve four months after his mom's death. Cut to two days later and the lawyer shows up and gives Steve an envelope which he opens and looks surprised.

Cut to a woman going into her apartment with her little boy and two tough guys right behind her. They're bank robbers that need her to stitch up a gunshot wound. Just after the TV reports on the bank robbery, (where an officer was killed) there's a knock at the door. Uh oh. It's a really hot "busboy" returning a toy the woman's little boy left at the diner. He asks if she's okay and she says she is, but he sees one of the gunmen in a reflection of the laptop screen. She shuts the door, but he kicks it in and attacks the gunmen. The woman takes her son and runs for the bedroom instead of the open door (why not get out of there!) The busboy is shot in the shoulder, but does shoot one of the gunmen and the other gets away. The woman and her son are safe and she calls the cops, but her good Samaritan leaves before they get there.

Cue music.

Steve is at the cemetery visiting his dad when Danny drives up to say since Steve wasn't answering his phone he pinged him and they have a case. Steve just looks resigned and says there's always a case before he sits on a bench to tell Danny about the lawyer visit. Apparently, it was a cypher, but Steve doesn't know why his mom would send him that and doesn't care what it is because he doesn't want another mystery in his life. Danny doesn't think he'll be able to leave it alone and wonders why Steve came to the cemetery. Poor Steve has been thinking about how it's been ten years since his dad dies and a lot has changed since then, including losing Joe and his mom. It's been a tough year and he's just feeling a little lost. Danny tells him to take a day and relax and he'll do the crime scene himself, but Steve says, no, let's go and he'll drive. (Of course.) They get to the apartment building and Tani runs them down on how the woman (Sylvia) got approached by the robbers at a diner and forced at gunpoint back to her apartment before the busboy threw down and killed one of the robbers and chased the other one out. He saved both of their lives, but didn't stick around to give a statement or get treated for his bullet wound. Oh, and his name popped up as a dead guy's, so he's working under an assumed name. Guess he wasn't always a good Samaritan.

Noelani is telling Steve how the dead bank robber had a crushed trachea and a broken neck, so the guy who killed him obviously had some training. Steve hears yelling in the hall and it's the brother of the victim and he's come to ID the body. Only *they* hadn't ID'd the body, so how did he know to come there? The brother gives him the ScaryCriminalStaredown and Steve guesses that he's going to want blood, but they'll find out who did it and let the system take care of it. Steve also points out that  maybe the partner from the bank robbery told ScaryBro what went down and if that's the case, ScaryBro knows the gunshot wound didn't kill him. ScaryBro rasps that we'll just have to see how that works out. (It doesn't sound promising for the whole system taking care of it idea.) Then we see the good Samaritan climbing a balcony all bloody. He goes inside and finds a bathroom and starts to clean up his gunshot wound in his shoulder, actually stitching up his own wound. Ew.

Back at HQ, they're still trying to figure out who the good Samaritan is but his address is an empty field and no hits on facial rec. He's obviously working hard to stay off the radar. ScaryBro, however, is ID'd as Hector, and he's high up in some crime syndicate and probably enlisted his brother to pull off the bank robbery, like a good crime syndicate brother would. Yikes!

Adam is at the good Samaritan's apartment looking through his mail, talking to Junior about how one of Hector's cars was seen in Sylvia's neighborhood. (How did they find the apartment?) The good Samaritan has good hygiene and left his toothbrush and they get DNA off of it. His name is Lincoln Cole. He's a Marine gunnery sergeant with Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Teams. FAST teams are the Marines dedicated security forces deployed around the world to handle threats, primarily counter-terrorism. So, why is he here bussing tables with an alias? Well, back in 2016 Cole led a strike team on a siege of a terrorist stronghold in northern Iraq and lost five men before they managed to retreat. He got a purple heart two days later, went AWOL and was never heard from again until today. Since he started his military career with the third regiment in Hawaii, they'll run down who Cole served with there.

Once everyone breaks, Tani pulls Danny aside to an HQ balcony! (How did we not know there was a balcony?) She says she saw that Danny is obviously worried about McG and she is, too. Danny tells her Steve's been running non-stop for the last ten years, and might be burnt out, so he's going to force the issue since if a cop gets burnt out, he could lose reaction time and they can't have that. Tani takes that as concern that Steve won't be able to have their backs like he usually does, but Danny assures her he'll get to the bottom of it. (Since Steve saved all of their lives last week pretty much, I think he'll still have their back, but whatever.)

McG and Junior drive up to a house and approach Chuck Norris who is holding an axe and chopping wood. Apparently he was Cole's CO. Steve tells him he knows what he did for the country and respects that, but please drop the axe. Chuck says if that's true, turn around and drive away. They can't do that because they ran Chuck's phone records and know he got a call from a hotel room that had Cole's blood in it. Junior goes into the house while Steve tells Chuck that other people are looking for Cole and he'll be safest in their custody. Junior finds blood in the bathroom and Cole is running. They chase him down yelling, "Five-0 stop!" (Haha, no one ever stops when they yell that.) Cole gets the drop on Steve in a wooded area and they fight, but Junior comes along and ends it and cuffs Cole. (Cole has a clean shirt on that perfectly fits him. I guess Chuck had an extra?)

They have Cole in the Blue Room of Doom and Steve comes in and uncuffs him and gives him some ice. Awww. He tells Cole that you usually have to do something pretty bad to end up in this room, but here he is, just committing some crazy act of heroism and taking off before anyone can say thank you. But hey, that's his MO since he served valiantly in battle and got a purple heart, then went UA. Now he saves this woman and her kid and disappears. He wants to know what Cole is running from. Cole just asks if he's being charged with anything, but Steve zings him with besides assaulting a law enforcement officer? (Ha!) But, since Cole killed Hector's baby bro, he's in the crosshairs of some very dangerous people so until they fix that, he's not going anywhere. Oh, and can you tell Steve your life story since there's nothing else to do while they wait?

Junior comes in to HQ from Chuck's place and Tani questions him about how McG acted in the field. (Which was odd, really. Steve hasn't given any indication he's off in the field.) She's worried about him, but Junior tells her Steve was fine. He's been through a lot this year. Tani encourages Junior to talk to Steve since he's hurting right now, but Junior tells her that McG's the best soldier he's ever worked with and he's able to compartmentalize things and if he's got something to deal with he'll deal with it in his own way, there's nothing to worry about. (Go Junior!)

McG is sitting on the floor facing Cole asking him to help make sense of all this. Cole is silent. McG tells him he read up on that mission in Kirkuk and Cole saved lives that day. Dozens of lives. But his unit lost five men and McG knows how that feels, how it eats at you, especially when everyone is calling you a hero and trying to pin medals on your chest when all you can think about is the men you lost. (McG's tone is so awesome, right here, understanding, but not condescending.) But Cole is in a dark hole, potentially on the hook for a dozen felonies and he's okay with that because he's put himself in a hole since Kirkuk. Cole finally speaks and says he could say the same thing about Steve. (Interesting comment, considering where Steve is at right now.) Steve goes on to say that Cole went off grid and changed his name because he couldn't deal with the guilt of getting out of there alive and he's in Hawaii bussing tables, helping out neighbors and fighting for justice to atone, but he didn't do anything wrong, he just survived. Cole denies that and Steve says, tell me how I'm wrong. Cole tells him he's the reason those men are dead. Dun, dun, dun.

Then we cut to a news van being overtaken by masked men with guns. They give the newswoman an envelope and tell her to make sure whatever is on it gets on the air if she wants to live. (Yikes. Do they really need a thumb drive or to track down a news van? Just stream it. Record it and email it. Ha!)

Cole tells Steve about his mission. They'd captured a Jordanian jihadist and Cole interrogated him until he broke and told them about a high value commander in the village just south of them. They searched it, but didn't find the commander. It was a prearranged ambush! They waited until they cleared the village and let their guards down so they were exposed and they hit them. He lost his five men and four ISF members who were accompanying them. Steve tells him war is messy and that all they can do as leaders is to make the best decisions with the information they had at hand. (I hope he takes his own advice!) Cole feels responsible because he wanted to win so bad and he let it affect his judgment. He's not fighting for justice because if there was any justice he would be dead and they'd be alive. Danny interrupts and Steve goes to the Chatting Table. A local news station cut in with Hector in a mask telling everyone that his brother was killed that morning (and it's a really nice pic of the bank robber that died.) They show Sylvia and her son duct taped in the corner and tell the person responsible for BabyBro's death that if he wants to save them, he has to trade his life for theirs. In two hours.

Quin says they got nothing from CSU and Lou can't get any leads from watching the video. They have no idea where the mom and kid are being held. Danny is talking to Steve about Hector being behind it and he won't stop until Cole is in the ground. They have to think about using Cole to flush out Hector. Steve thinks that's too dangerous. Adam comes up with the burner phone number Hector's been using so Steve calls him and says he knows he has Sylvia and the kid and Steve has the man who killed his brother in his custody. Tani is trying to trace the call, but it's being run through a proxy server. Hector tells Steve since he has the guy, what happens to the woman and child is in his hands. Steve assures Hector that the guy who killed his brother is going away to military prison for a long time for going AWOL so he can let the hostages go. Hector isn't going for that. He wants the guy delivered to him by 5 p.m. Come alone, no cops or the woman and kid are dead.

Cole wants Steve to call Hector back and tell him he'll make the exchange, but Steve reminds him that there's no guarantee Hector will hand the hostages over. Cole wants to try, it's an innocent woman and child! Steve wants to find another way. He understands Cole feels responsible, but they'll do everything they can to get them out of there. Danny is still advocating using Cole as bait, especially since he volunteered and it's what Steve would do if he were in his shoes. Before they can figure it out some MPs come in to take Cole into custody. Steve tries to play it off like, who? but when Five-0 ran Cole's prints, it rang bells for the military. Steve tries to buy time and get them to talk about it, but the lead MP isn't having it. He knows who Steve is and wants him to produce Cole now since the COMMANDANT ordered it himself! (Who is the commandant?) I guess the governor is afraid of the commandant because even he won't help Steve stand up to the guy. Since they don't have a choice, Cole is carted off while they watch. Danny asks Steve what the plan is, but he doesn't know. Then he shrugs and walks away. (Kidding, kidding. They just stand there thinking up plans I guess.)

Cole is traveling in the back seat, but he attacks his guards and escapes. The team is at the Chatting Table all sad about Cole being gone and Hector's phone being out of service, when Quinn gets the call that Cole escaped. Steve thinks he's going to the exchange spot. (Did they tell him where that was?) And he's right! Cole is in a blue car at the drop off when Hector shows up with his men. There's a ringing phone taped to a fencepost. Hector thinks of everything! Cole answers and Hector wants Cole to prove he's unarmed, then start walking. Cole isn't on board until he sees Sylvia and her son. They show him the woman and kid and they start the exchange. He passes Sylvia and tells her to keep walking and don't look back. (His car was hotwired, so how is she going to use it to get away?) Cole stands in front of Hector who raises his gun to Cole's head and says, "This is for my brother." Then Junior snipes him and a gunfight breaks out. Tani gets the woman and her son in the car, then Junior blows up the car when Steve is pinned down.. Cole gets a guy underneath the car and Quinn snipes a guy for Adam. It was a good fight. When it's over Danny tells Steve he thinks Cole might be crazier than him and Steve agrees. (Ha!)

Back at HQ Cole is in Steve's office looking at his medals on the wall. The MPs leave without Cole thanks to Steve speaking to the commandant and getting him to release Cole into their custody until the formal military review. Cole is surprised since he went AWOL and assaulted three MPs while escaping custody, but Steve pointed out that if he hadn't have escaped an innocent woman and child would be dead and it isn't a great look to press charges against a decorated war hero. Cole doesn't know how to thank him and Steve says he doesn't have to. Cole notices the cypher on Steve's desk and asks about it. Steve has been looking stuff up online, but hasn't had any luck cracking it. Cole knows a guy that is a wizard with this stuff and he can make a call. He'll be in touch. As he's leaving Steve tells him it takes courage to forgive yourself and put the past behind you and move on and he believes the men Cole served with would want him to do that. Awww.

Steve meets up with Danny on the beach and asks him what's with the face? Is he worried that Lincoln will be his new BFF? Well, no one can replace you, he says, you're my Danno. Danny isn't going along with the teasing, he wants to have a real convo. He's concerned. Steve takes a breath and tells him that he doesn't know when it happened, but something changed. He's been doing this for so long, protecting everyone except himself. Danny tells him to take some time for himself, but Steve says it's more than that and he can't do it in Hawaii since there are too many memories there. He's been trying to distract himself with dating and the restaurant, but it wasn't working. Danny doesn't understand, does Steve think he's capable of being done? Steve doesn't know. All he knows is that he hit the ground running hard ten years ago and he's been running ever since. He needs time away to get some perspective. Soon. Danny recommends he go to Jersey, but Steve says no, it's full of people like him. Danny gets offended and tells him to go anywhere but Jersey, so Steve gives in and asks for recommendations for restaurants and places to stay. Danny goes inside to get another beer and hears a noise in the house. A masked man is in the dining room and Danny fights with him. Steve hears the crashing and comes in. Danny is bloodied and the guy tried to steal Steve's cypher. Luckily, Steve didn't put it back in the envelope, so the thief will be disappointed. But what did he want it for? (And when is Steve going to get an alarm system for his house? Sheesh!)

I'm so sad this is the second-to-last episode. Did you watch? What did you think?

Hawaii Five-0--Some Thoughts on Steve and Catherine

As Hawaii Five-0 comes to a close, I've been thinking a lot about Steve and Catherine and the slow rebuild we've seen between them since their breakup.

1. We don't hear much about her after the breakup until Steve finds out she was working for the CIA and her cover was about to be blown. Then he was totally focused on the mission and making sure she was safe, calling her, "someone very important to me." Then, after it's over and her cover is intact, Danny asks if Steve if he's going to be angry because she lied and Steve says, "If I'm honest with myself, I also understand why she did it. Under similar circumstances, I'd have done the same thing." So, he's starting to understand. He also tells CGI Jack Lord and Harry that he "might have met the right woman and couldn't hold on to her" and that he only had one that he "let in" speaking about Catherine.

2. The next time they see each other, Cath is coming to tell him his mother has been kidnapped and she needs his help to break her out. While on the plane, Cath tells Steve she wanted to tell him and he was the last person she ever wanted to lie to. She thanks him for saving her when her cover was nearly blown. He accepts that and says she would have done the same thing for him. Cath also finds out Steve was going to propose. It's still a little awkward between them, but at the end, he asks out of curiosity what she would have said, and she tells him she would have said yes. He closes the airplane door and lingers on it for a bit. Feelings are obviously still there and maybe thoughts of what if.

3. Then, when terrorists are on the island Cath comes to Steve with the mission, and we get a lot of cute dialogue. Things are easier between them. Steve tells Cath that Tani reminds him of her, "she's an army brat, you're a navy brat, you're both good at your job and you both got good hearts." Awww.

They talk about how they were friends before they were in a relationship, and yes, they talk about how sleeping together wasn't good for their friendship, not that it wasn't awesome. Ha! Steve had mentioned to Joe that he was hesitating in asking Cath out because he didn't want to ruin their friendship. And while their relationship hasn't been smooth sailing, I'm glad they didn't lose that foundation!

They have each other's back through the whole mission. There are so many "looks," between them, but especially in the spike pit when her hands are on his shoulders and he's about to boost her up. *le sigh* Their bond is so obviously still there. They also get a chance to clear up the questions she had surrounding the proposal and if he was really going through with it or just thinking about it. He assures her he was going to propose. It was nice to see some of the past being cleared up so they can move forward. And they are actually in really close proximity to each other for nearly that entire episode and working together like they've been partners for years.

At the end, Lou asks him if it was nice to catch up with Cath and he says, "yeah, it was nice," and Lou gives him a look and he grins and says, "What?" the ease and camaraderie is obviously back between them.

Alex O'Loughlin also had this to say about that episode.

"It was great to see Michelle and it was cool to pick up where we left off. It's a great action, travel-y episode with McGarrett and Catherine," O'Loughlin told ET in March. "It's also nice to see these two sharing the same space for a minute and to explore how they feel about each other, how everything is cool [between them]. It was weird for a minute, the way she left -- somebody who's about to get proposed to and they choose an allegiance to the government and national security. It was a big blow for McGarrett. I think this episode served as a gentle closure and reinstated the friendship between the two of them, which was really important." https://www.etonline.com/hawaii-five-0-sneak-peek-mcgarrett-and-catherine-have-a-spicy-reunion-exclusive-100248

Really important to reinstate the friendship for the rebuild of something more? Hmmm....

4. We see Cath again after Joe dies, when Steve calls her to help bring in those who were responsible for the hit on Joe and the SEAL team. Once again, the ease between Steve and Cath is there. He confides in her about feeling responsible for Joe's death and she tells him she's in this with him until the end and reassures him that Joe's death isn't his fault. He confides in her about Greer and she is there for him. (We also get them playing a married couple for the mission, which was fun.) In the final scene with Greer, we also have Steve unarmed in front of Greer, totally trusting Cath to have his back. In the end, he tells her how Joe was the one who helped bring her into his life and they are both glad Steve took his advice. They hug, and say a lingering goodbye "until next time."

So, looking back, I can see a pattern of them slowly rebuilding their relationship after the breakup from awkward to the friendship to realizing how much they still trust and rely on each other. Obviously, I'm hoping that Cath will be in the series finale and we'll see that "next time." She was his girlfriend in the beginning, the woman he said "I love you," to and the one he wanted to marry. I want him to have his happily-ever-after and I believe she is the woman he could be happy with. (And so did Freddie, Joe, Aunt Deb, Doris, and Danny).

I can hardly wait for the new episode this Friday!

Hawaii Five-0 Recap & Review: The One With Hirsch

We start out with Steve running on the beach and voices from the past are running through his head. His dad feels like he didn't say he loved him enough, Joe saying he couldn't be prouder of the man he'd become and his mom saying I love you so much. Steve runs faster as Joe says you're the closest thing I had to a son. Don't wait as long as I did to find somebody. (Awww. Go find Cath!) Steve looks haunted. (No wonder he's not sleeping and is pacing at night.)

Cue music.

Tani is waking up in bed at 7 a.m.She goes to her front room where Junior has made an amazing breakfast, but her only response is wow, that's a lot. (Poor Junior.) He was going for sweet and romantic, but Tani is all weird and says it's nice, but she usually gets a coffee on the way to work. When Junior points out she's usually late because of it, she says she shouldn't have asked him to stay over, she has a routine and is used to her own space. Junior looks so hurt when she tacks on that maybe they're moving too fast. He says he'll clean up. (Dang! Poor guy was just trying to do something nice!)

Steve gets back to his house and is getting a drink of water when he notices a coffee on the counter. He thinks Junior's home, but it's Hirsch. Eddie is sitting next to him and Steve informs Eddie he fails as a guard dog. (LOL Steve's house is the most broken into house on the island I bet.) Steve asks why Hirsch broke in and Hirsch tells him the door was unlocked and he was worried. Ha! Steve doesn't like to run with keys, Danny is on spring break with his kids and Junior slept somewhere else. Hirsch gets to the point that his Uncle Oscar had heart surgery and is moving in with him. This is the uncle that taught him all the essentials of con jobs and lock picking, but he's a model citizen these days. The problem is, when the movers dropped off Oscar's boxes, there was an antique snuff box in them worth $200,000. Given Oscar's history of criminal ventures, it might have been ill-gotten. Steve says "Let's go arrest your uncle," but Hirsch says the statute of limitation was six years, but could he look at  HPD archives and see if someone reported box stolen so he could return it? Of course if no report was made, he could sell it to the highest bidder, since elder care is not cheap. Steve says he'll have Tani run it. Then he gets a phone call.

The team is looking at a dead guy on the side of the road. He was changing a flat tire and died instantly from a gunshot wound. Apparently there's the same sort of robberies happening on the island right now, targeting an airport rental car, sticking a nail in the tire, and robbing them when they're changing the tire. Now they've graduated to murder, but murder victim Greg flew in with his wife. Where is she?

Back at HQ Hirsch brings Tani a cappucino and tries to get more info out of her about her relationship with Junior, but she wants to focus on his uncle. She found a police report about the stolen snuffbox from 1978, the same year Uncle Oscar moved to Seattle. But it wasn't just a robbery, it was a murder. The housekeeper interrupted the robbery and was killed. Hirsch is sure his uncle isn't a murderer, but when they pull up old newspapers, Tabitha's fiance is Uncle Oscar going by the fake name of Jay Gilbert. Uh oh. They go to Hirsch's house and Uncle Oscar is flirting with his nurse. They try to ask him what made him move to Seattle, if he was in any kind of trouble, and his heart rate goes up so the nurse says he has to lay down. Tani doesn't feel like he's innocent, but agitating him could be dangerous, so they'll get the facts first.

At the Chatting Table, Junior welcomes Adam back, but Steve only gives him a nod. Sad. They found the rental car a few miles from crime scene with luggage missing, and the car wiped clean. No sign of the wife and no ransom demands, so they'll widen the search perimeter in case she's still out there. Steve really wants to ID the perps, but all they have is the robbery pattern. Who is accessing the car rental lots without being seen? What about airport buses? They'll pull up the records and see what they find.

Tani and Hirsch goes to uncle Oscar's former fiance Tabitha May and she talks about her returned snuffbox and fiance. All bad memories. Sadly, she never recovered from her fiance's betrayal and never trusted or loved again. Even though her housekeeper was murdered and she found out he'd pulled the same con on four women, he was the love of her life and she wishes she was more than a mark.

Junior is running the search for Cynthia and they find her unconscious and bloody in the jungle, with a thready pulse so he calls for a medic. In the hospital, she tells them that eight hours earlier, someone offered to help fix their flat tire, then pulled a gun and demanded their money and wedding rings. The husband fought for one of the guns and was shot so she ran into the woods while they shot at her, too. She didn't realize she was hit, just kept moving even though she felt faint. The next thing she remembers is waking up in a hospital bed. She manages to ID one of the shooters. After Lou and Junior leave, Lou says he's not sure he buys her whole grieving widow story. Why risk getting hung up on murder when those guys had a good scam going?

Tani and Hirsch are at HPD looking at the old case file. The housekeeper was shot through the eye. Ew. Jay Gilbert was the prime suspect, lots of info on his four other cons. They called him the Casanova Con Man because he romanced women before he robbed them. Tani mutters, "just like every other relationship." So Hirsch starts asking if there's trouble in paradise already and what happened, so she tells him her and Junior are in their first fight because he made her breakfast. (Still sounds ridiculous.) Hirsch tries to give her relationship advice that relationships are more like a marathon than a sprint and just say sorry and move on. She knows that and they go back to focusing on the case. There is an inventory of stolen stuff that includes a rare Winchester Magnum custom engraved pistol, first edition books, and jewelry. Hirsch knows the fence his uncle probably used, his old roommate Stanley, so if the gun was fenced before the murder, then his uncle probably didn't do it.

Lou and Junior are in the car, not talking. Lou invites him to confide in him, so Junior tells him he made Tani breakfast and suddenly he's the bad guy and they're moving too fast when all he wanted to do was save Tani a trip to the coffee shop. Lou wisely says it wasn't about breakfast, just give her some space and she'll figure it out. They turn the radio on and dance together to Walking on Sunshine. (So cute!)

The team finds a shuttle bus driver that appears to be the inside man, so Steve and Adam head down there. Steve waits until some people get off the shuttle, then gets on and informs the rest of the people that this bus is out of service, but another one is coming. They all get off and he shows the driver the nail. The bus driver confesses pretty quickly that he stops in the rental car lot, goes to the holding area and props a nail underneath the front tire. Luckily, he knows all the blind spots for the security cameras. He takes a photo of the car and gives it to his guys. They score, he gets a cut and that's it. He gives up the names of the crew and Adam, Junior, and Lou go to the house with the team. One robber has been tortured, but still has a pulse. The other one is still missing. There is luggage open on bed that has a secret compartment in it lined with lead and sporting a GPS. So Cynthia lied. Her husband wasn't killed for wedding rings, this whole thing was over what was in the bag. They're going back to the hospital to question Cynthia, but when they get there, alarms are going off and the hospital is in lockdown. Cynthia is gone. So, the buyers of whatever they were smuggling in figured out what was going on, used the GPS in the luggage to find the robbers, tortured one of them, but didn't get what they came for because one robber got away. The only person that can tell who these buyers are is Cynthia and she's MIA.

Tani and Hirsch are at a care center to talk to Stanley who is pretty talkative. He fenced items for Oscar all the time and they split the profits fifty/fifty. But he wouldn't part with the engraved pistol and skipped town because he didn't want to share the proceeds from the snuffbox. He says Oscar came back to the apartment the night of the murder acting all cagey and left. Didn't make sense until Stanley saw the papers the next day and he realized Oscar killed the housekeeper. He thought about going to the police, but  it would have been hard to explain how he got the information. He always felt bad for the housekeeper though, since she was shot in the eye. Hirsch tells him that his uncle isn't living large off what he got for the snuffbox and is now living with him. Stanley asks if they're going to arrest Oscar, but Tani says they need a search warrant for the boxes he had sent to Hirsch's house, but if they find the gun, the case could be done by the end of day. They walk out and Hirsch is thinking his uncle might be a murderer after all, but Tani is all, hey, did you hear what he said about the housekeeper? He said she was shot through eye and only the police and murderer knew that. If she's right, she knows what Stanley will do next.

Reporting in, Junior says they have an APB out on the missing robber and there's no word on Cynthia. Adam looked into the couple's travel history, and Cynthia has been logging dozens of trips a year, including Antwerp, which means they were probably smuggling diamonds. They're going to reach out to HPD on who fences diamonds on the island because if the buyers find the missing robber first, he's dead.

Back at Hirsch's, Stanley is sneaking in to plant the gun. Oscar confronts him after forty-two years of thinking about what he wanted to say after Stanley forced him off the island. Stanley is still mad Oscar wanted to walk away from that kind of a payday because he had the hots for the mark and that she didn't love Oscar, she loved Jay Gilbert. Oscar says he's going to call the cops and tell them everything and he doesn't care if he gets put away as long as Stanley goes away, too. Stanley goes for the gun, but Tani comes in gun drawn thanking him for the confession since it will be that much easier to put him away for murder. (I totally saw that one coming.)

Junior found a nurse who said her cell phone was stolen, so he got the phone record and Cynthia called her contact---a Samoan street gang. If the gang is going after the diamonds Cynthia is probably with them. They find out the diamonds are going to be sold in ten minutes in a parking structure so they head over and there's a good gunfight between the robber and the street gang. Cynthia has her gun pointed at the robber on the ground. She's shaking. Steve pulls up, has his own little gunfight with the street gang before he approaches Cynthia and tells her to drop the weapon or he has to put her down. Yikes. He talks to her about losing the most important person in her life and he understands the weight of her pain. But killing him won't take the pain away, just put the weapon down. She's tearful, but does it and they take her into custody.

Stanley is also being taken away while Oscar watching with Tani and Hirsch. He says he fell in love and wasn't afraid of going to the police, but couldn't look Tabitha in the eye and tell her what he'd done. He always hoped he'd have the courage to return the snuffbox. The next scene is of him at Tabitha's house explaining how he knows he caused her a lot of pain, but the truth is she saved his life because he went straight after that and never loved any other woman like he loved her. He'd like her forgiveness. Hirsch is happy about getting his uncle a second chance with Tabitha because if things go well with her, Oscar won't have to move in with him. Honesty would have saved them a lot of heartache. (Hint, hint, Tani.)

Back at Steve's house, Junior lets Hirsch, Lou, and Tani in and everyone is surprised the door was locked. Steve's been locking it since Hirsch broke in and drank their coffee. (Yeah, when has that ever been a deterrent? Steve needs an alarm system.) Hirsch goes to get a chardonnay and Lou goes with him so Tunior can talk. They go into the back with twinkly lights and tiki torches and she tells him that her reaction this morning wasn't about breakfast. Since her mom left her when she was really young, it screwed her up so that anytime someone is good to her, she gets this fear that she'll lose them or she doesn't deserve them, so she self-sabotages and leaves them first. Junior is so lovely and good and kind, she got scared. Junior assures her he isn't going anywhere.  They hug and Junior offers to be meaner, but she laughs and says he couldn't if he tried.

Lou and Hirsch are on the couch dissecting the chardonnay, but Lou isn't doing it right. Adam comes in with beer and Lou is relieved. Adam just got off the phone with Interpol and Cynthia is cooperating so they'll be able to shut down the diamond smuggling operation. While all this is going on in his house, Steve is in the garage listening to his dad's old tape about five-year-old Steve saying he wanted to be a cop. His dad told him to be anything but that because the life of a cop is not easy. He's proud of the work he did, but has regrets. Steve gets a phone call from a lawyer in London that his mom left instructions to deliver a package to Steve four months after her death. Dun, dun, dun. What could it be?

So, the Hirsch case was a bit of predictable filler, but both cases had some good twists. Did you watch? What did you think?

Hawaii Five-0 Recap & Review: The One With the Hatfield & McCoys!

We start out with Frank Bama making a really yummy breakfast. (Is Steve running a hotel now? Is Frank staying there?) Junior comes in to see him pouring bacon grease into the flour for flavor and Frank tells him that doing that helped him land someone special. Junior confesses that he used to lie awake hoping for something more, but now he's awake seeing all the ways he can screw this up and since the waffles are Frank's get out of jail free card, Junior gets the recipe. Super cute scene!

Adam and Quinn just finished surfing together (and she can't say Noshimuri, haha!) and he's thanking her for inviting him out since it's tough to be away from Five-0. (You kind of made your own bed there, Adam.) Quinn hopes Steve puts him back on the team. He's fair and smart, but just needs time. She gets a phone call and tells someone named Olivia to calm down and stay where she is, Quinn is on her way! And she's out. Bye Adam!

Cue music.

Steve and Danny meet up with Tunior on a horse ranch where Tani has stepped in cowpies with her boots. LOL Last night HPD got a call that four men rode through on horses with bandannas over their faces, and then they found the vic, a guy named Daniel. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the back of the head, and there were four sets of hoofprints leading up to door, which was kicked in, and poor Daniel had rope burns on his wrists, gravel in his wounds, and lacerations on head. So he was dragged behind one of the horses. (Which they show! Ew!) The house is undisturbed so it wasn't a robbery. Maybe it was revenge or he had info of some sort.  But what did he know that would make this worthwhile?

Quinn pulls up in front of a house and a teenager answers. They hug and she goes inside to a messy house. Quinn checks out the fridge, just water and soda. Apparently Olivia's dad hasn't been around for the last three days, but he left money for food and calls every night to check in. Except for last night. Quinn doesn't look convinced and tells her to get her stuff, she'll drive her to school. On the way, they're talking about softball and cheer and Quinn finds out Dad took the money Quinn gave Olivia for her uniform. Sad! She says she'll find him.

Back at HQ, Lou is reporting on Daniel's financials. The guy was flat broke, with multiple liens, and overdue mortgage payments, and had been trying to get a loan from every bank. Maybe he ran out of places to borrow money and turned to more unsavory places. But why not take his valuables if recovering a debt? They're going to keep digging. Junior reports that the vic had a high blood alcohol level and there's a bar not too far away called the Cattle Prod. Tani knows it, so they're going to check it out and see if anyone saw him or if trouble followed him home. Junior wants to know how she knows the bar and is guessing  that she was in a biker gang or dated a ranch hand. She says no. The bartender recognizes her though he can't quite place her. He does tell them that Daniel was in there last night celebrating and buying drinks for everyone with top shelf liquor. He'll hand over all the credit card transactions and security footage. Bartender finally remembers where he knows Tani from---the came in for the Sunday night roundup, which is a line dancing competition and she won four weeks in a row! She hasn't been back so someone else could win and she broke up with the cowboy who introduced her to the place.

Security footage shows no one followed Daniel home that night, but Lou figures out that Daniel got a small business loan from a credit union and bought some digging and trenching equipment so he could make his ranch a macadamia nut farm. He hired some ranch hands and three days ago, Daniel was digging by himself, then suddenly sent them all home. So he must have dug something up on the property! They find out what it was pretty quick. Two sets of human remains. But why would two old skeletons get a guy tortured and killed?

Quinn goes to Adam to see if he'll help her track down the deadbeat guy who turns out to be her ex-husband. He used to play in a lot of local card rooms, so she's hoping Adam can get her in. He says he'll make some calls. (Good old Adam. He knows all the shady places!)

Lou reports that the bones are between 130-140 years old, one male one female. Male shot once in head, female shot twice in chest. It's not a murder suicide, though, because they were killed with different caliber weapons. And thanks to property records, they find out that a guy named Abel owned the ranch back then. He worked as a ranch hand, then went to the mainland, came back and bought the homestead and settled down with his wife. But finding skeletons wouldn't be a cause for Daniel to celebrate because he'd have to shut everything down so the state can investigate. Weird. They found a familial match to Abel, who is on his way in.

Quinn is apologizing for pulling Adam in, but he understands wanting to keep the past in the past. She says she never saw herself falling for an older, divorced guy, but he was charming and had Olivia and she loved the family they made. She realized four months into the marriage that he had a problem when he emptied out their joint bank accounts, but promised to pay it back. No more trust after that. She stayed longer than she should have for Olivia and it was hard to leave her, but she still keeps in touch. But he's reached a new low stealing from his daughter. Adam assures her they'll find him. She also mentions that no one knows she was married, not even Steve. She's not a sharer. (Yeah, we don't know much about Quinn at all.)

Adam gets them into a game and shows the JaketheEx's pic. Apparently, Jake came around quite a bit until a few days ago when he had a bad streak and no one's seen him since he went bust. Quinn is worried because Jake gets desperate when he's chasing a loss. Adam has another idea for someone to help them.

Lou is interviewing Abel's cowboy-hat-wearing-descendant. He didn't go into ranching since land is too expensive and is an accountant instead. He tells Lou that his father always said that land was cursed and that's why their family sold it. Apparently, in the 1870s, Abel set off to the mainland with his friend Buddy McCoy to seek out their fortunes. They made it to Colorado and legend has it they came into a small fortune of Civil War era gold coins. They brought the money home and bought adjoining ranches, but problems started when they couldn't agree on what to do with the rest of the gold. That disagreement turned violent and Abel's wife was killed by one of the McCoy family. Abel grabbed the rest of the coins and took off to the mainland and was never seen again. To this day there is bad blood between the two families. Lou informs him that it turns out his uncle never made it to the mainland. A real-life Hatfield and McCoy story!

 Back at the Chatting Table everyone is talking about how poor Abel didn't flee with the gold, his bones revealed he shot himself standing in the same grave he dug for his wife. So, Daniel probably found the gold coins now worth millions, which is why he was celebrating. And his killers were trying to get out of him where he stashed the coins. Tani remembers seeing the name Buddy McCoy, he was in the bar with Daniel! And he would definitely understand the significance of finding the gold on Abel's property. And guess what? Raymond McCoy's ranch is under three miles from Daniel's property, accessible by a road and horseback!

The team goes to the McCoy ranch with guns drawn, but it's empty, though there are a lot of missing guns from the gun racks. Lou spots three or four guys on horseback on a ridge. Steve is going after them on horseback, but no one else wants to go. Lou has a bad back, Junior doesn't mess with horses, Tani's boots are made for dancing, not riding. Danny volunteers since he's been taking riding lessons with Grace. Everyone else will cover the route behind the mountain to organize a roadblock or stay behind at the ranch in case they double back. (Steve and Danny on horses? Yes, please!)

While they are riding, they chat about Steve doing a James Coburn cowboy thing and arguing over who would be Kris Kristofferson in Billy the Kid. Someone has them in their gun sights as they ride along. (Dun, dun, dun.) Danny brings up that Steve is pacing back and forth at night and he's not sleeping. Steve doesn't want to talk about it. He's got a lot on his mind, that's it. Danny says he's there if he wants to talk. Steve appreciates the offer. They see footprints and realize the men split up here and Steve knows why. The gunmen sees their riderless horses and then Steve is behind him with a knife to his throat. Stand up slow and turn around. Cuff him, Danno. They shoot the guy's gun off a couple of times and when someone on his radio asks what's going on, Steve forces him the guy to say he saw two cops and shot them both. "Uncle Ray" tells him to grab the weapons and meet him at the cabin. Now they're all going to go to the cabin!

Quinn and Adam go to see Kamekona who makes a call to get them into people with bad credit games. Quinn goes to stare at the beach and reminisces about Jake taking her on a date to see Olivia's soccer game and how he could be such a good dad, warm, loving, kind---all the things her own father wasn't. Maybe that's why she was drawn to him. Adam tells her, "See? Sharing isn't so bad is it?" Quinn gets a call from Olivia and tells her everything will be okay and she'll keep her posted.

Steve and Danny get to the cabin and tie the gunman to a tree, then gag him. They're going to go have a look-see when someone starts shooting at them and we've got a gunfight! They get inside the cabin and Steve only has three bullets left. Uh oh. Not good, since there's seven of them outside. Steve has a plan, though. He gives Danny his gun with the three bullets to lay down cover while Steve improvises. Danny does not like this plan and calls him a nincompoop. Steve runs outside with a rope while bullets are coming through the cabin walls, but none of them hit Danny. Meanwhile, Steve lassos a guy and breaks his neck to get his gun. He picks off a bunch of the other guys and Danny gets one, too. Uncle Ray fights with McG and Steve is thrown to the ground and hits his head on a rock so things go fuzzy and there's ringing in his ears. Uncle Ray has a log over his head to bash Steve with when Danny shoots him. Steve wants an apology for calling him a nincompoop, but Danny just calls him that again. Luckily, Steve is okay.

The team meets up with them and Lou is surprised they did all that, but they say they improvised, ha! What happened to the gold? Well, the scout they tied up told them they came up here to stash it, but never told Steve and Danny where and now everyone is dead. So there's millions of dollars in gold coins up there, so hopefully word doesn't get out or a bunch of wannabe Indiana Jones will come looking for it. Steve and Danny have to ride the horses back down and everyone else leaves on ATVs.

Quinn gets into a game with Adam and sits down by Jake. He tells her he can explain, but she takes him outside. He just lost track of time, but she informs him he left his daughter alone for three days! The cops are there to book him on a misdemeanor gambling charge, but she'll make sure he gets probation if he enters a program and sticks with it this time. He is begging her not to do this, but Quinn says she's doing it for Olivia and he's lucky she's not charging him with child endangerment. If he messes up again, he'll go to jail and lose custody of his daughter. He's yelling don't do this Quinn as she drives away crying. Adam reaches out to comfort her and it was a really sweet scene.

Steve and Danny are on horseback and there's a beautiful sunset in the background. Steve stops to look at it and says, "You know I've always taken sunsets for granted. Probably because I figured I'd see a million more. Just cause you see something every day doesn't make it any less special. In fact, I think those are the thing that yo're going to miss the most in the end, you know?" Danny isn't feeling sentimental and says the sun going down means it's going to be dark soon and they'll have to sleep in the woods. Steve wants him to let him have this moment and Danny says, sure, I'll just go find a squirrel to grill for dinner. Steve sort of sighs and says, in ten years have you ever seen a squirrel Danny? Because there aren't any, how have you not learned that? Danny says he's a slow learner because if he wasn't he would have gotten a new partner a long time ago. Steve says, "Admit it, you're going to miss this when it's done." (*sniffle* I know I will!) Danny says, yeah, but he'd never say it out loud. (It truly is a beautiful sunset and I'm so sad at the symbolism that the show is nearly over!)

What did you think? Did you watch?

Hawaii Five-0 Recap & Review: The One With The Dead Pirate

We found out last Friday that Hawaii Five-0 won't be returning next season. I am so sad! It seems sudden and I'm worried they won't have a chance to wrap up the storylines in a satisfying way. Not to mention I'm going to miss this show. I've watched from the very first episode and it doesn't seem like it's already been ten years. The show had a great run and I will definitely miss it.

We start out with Adam in the previouslies again, showing his footage of Kenji killiing Haru and Endo and  Kenji lying, saying he sent them to Japan, then cut to the masked SUV guys coming for him with guns.

Our next scene is at McG's home, where he is ironing again and Danny is watching. Our SuperSEAL likes ironing and just wants to iron in peace, but Danny can't resist needling him, telling him to invest in wrinkle-free clothes. McG brushes him off with, "Is it boring being as predictable as you are?" (Oddly, he says he's going on a date with Emma now, but isn't she the vet who said she was dating someone during Eddie's PTSD ep? Weird. And last week it was Brooke. Something's fishy there.) Junior comes in and asks McG to leave the iron out because he has a date, too. McG thinks it's great Junior and Tani are giving it a go. Steve gets a phone call that shots were fired at Adam's building and Grover is on the way. Uh oh.

Grover gets to Adam's place and sees the Yakuza dead bodies near the door. Adam is bloody, but okay. (Since Adam took out most of the Yakuza sent after them when they kidnapped Tamiko, I would think when the henchmen found out they were assigned to go over to Adam's place, they would be, um, hey, can I have a different assignment? Please. Ha!) Adam tells Lou that Kenji sent them and they need to take Kenji and his crew down now. Lou wants to get him somewhere safe, but Adam grabs his SD card and admits that he's been trying to dismantle Kenji's operation for months and finally has the evidence to do it.

Cue music.

SWAT is on their way to Kenji's. Kenji is bailing, grabbing money and passports and a gun out of his safe while SWAT rolls up. His terrible-decision-making crew opens the door and start firing while Kenji runs away. Adam gives chase to Kenji (and he's already cleaned up and changed clothes. Maybe in the SWAT truck?) However, Adam has a light on his gun that announces his position to Kenji so Kenji nearly picks him off. Junior and Lou are holding off the other Yakuza back at the house and Kenji is running across a stream and up a hill. (You know, I'm wondering where Tamiko is. We haven't seen her for ages? Did they break up?) Adam is right behind him, but when he gets to the top of the hill, Kenji tackles him. They fight, each trying to grab the gun and Adam wins and shoots Kenji in the shoulder. Kenji tells him to finish it, but Adam wants to hear him say Masuda. Kenji smiles and says, yeah, I killed Masuda and you and your girlfriend would have been next had Tokyo not intervened. Adam is shaking, but doesn't pull trigger and instead, calls for EMTs. He taunts Kenji that he was playing him, working for Five-0 the whole time and now he has footage of Kenji executing Endo and Haru. He's going away and will never get out! Kenji doesn't look worried and says he'll talk and he has a lot to say about Adam, so how can he let him live? Adam says he'll take his chances. (Well, he's pretty, but no one said he was smart.)

Back in Maui Noelani is headed to her uncle's wake. She briefly talks to her parents who accept a donation to her uncle's church from a councilman since the uncle was a pastor who helped a lot of kids get out of gangs and get clean. Her parents think her profession is weird since she works with dead bodies and they sort of just woodenly stand there through the whole thing. Noelani gives up and goes to pay her respects. While looking at the body in the coffin, she notices a red rash on her uncle's wrists.

Adam has been called to the boss's office. Steve is sitting there with him, dumbfounded about Adam's plan to dismantle the Yakuza from within and spy on Five-0. Adam assures Steve he only gave the Yakuza morsels to keep them on the hook while he gathered evidence. Steve seems more upset that Adam lied to him multiple times, even though he had several chances to come clean. Adam is all, yeah, you would have said it was too dangerous and shut it down, so he did what he had to do. Steve is feeling a bit of righteous anger and tells him that wasn't his call to make because Adam risked the reputation of the entire unit and that's something Steve has to answer for. Adam says Steve can take his badge if he wants, he'll understand, but Steve snaps back with, "if I want your badge, I'll take your badge!" He tells Adam to go down to HPD and debrief the organized crime division and tell them everything he knows. (Steve is wearing a very nice blue shirt for this scene.) Before Adam leaves, Steve gets a call. A freighter two miles off coast was attacked and the crew were taken hostage. The captain was shot dead and, according to crew, it was the Coast Guard who attacked them! Dun, dun, dun.

Steve, Danny, Junior, and Tani fly out there and interview a crew member. He thought it was a routine check, they had Coast Guard uniforms and badges, and their skiff was skinned to make it look like the real deal. But once they were on board it was guns out and they ordered them on the ground. They locked the crew in the cabin and ordered the captain to take them down to the safe, so that's where everyone heads to next. There are some shell casings near the captain's body, so he got a couple of shots off before he was killed. There was payroll and petty cash in the safe, but only around 20-50 grand. The crew member gets dismissed so the team can spitball possible reasons a gang would go to so much trouble for less than fifty grand when the cargo was worth millions. Maybe they were just getting started with the safe when the captain fired and they bailed? Right in the middle, Noelani calls Steve and says she needs his help. The family was told her uncle died of a heart attack, but a rash on his arm doesn't jive with a cardiac event and it wasn't mentioned in the coroner report. The coroner won't give her the time of day and she wants the truth. Steve will send Quinn to help her out so they can get to the bottom of it. (I was surprised his cell phone worked in the bottom of the ship.)

Junior finds a fresh blood trail and shows Steve. If the captain fired his weapon and hit one of the pirates, his crew could have left him for dead and he could still be hiding on the ship. They split up to go look for him, guns drawn. Tani and Junior are going door to door and he's sorry he had to cancel their date. They were both looking forward to it. Tani goes into a kitchen area and gets a knife thrown at her, then attacked with a fire extinguisher. She fights with the pirate and the door closes and locks so Junior can't get to her. He's yelling for Steve, quickly escalating from Boss! to McGarrett! while Tani is getting her head pushed toward a hot grill. She whacks the guy with a pan, and while she's going for her gun he throws her around, she kicks him and breaks a coffeepot over his head. (In the real world she wouldn't have stood a chance. That guy was huge compared to her.) McG and Junior work together to kick the door in and hear shots fired. They rush in and Tani is standing there, saying she found him. (Loved Junior's emotion and protectiveness in the scene.)

Noelani and Quinn go visit the CrankyCoroner. He's not happy to see him, but Quinn shows her badge and they start asking questions like how did he fail to notice an obvious rash on the pastor uncle's body? When Quinn threatens to arrest him, he caves and said he saw the rash, but someone approached him in the parking lot and said if he didn't say the uncle died of a heart attack, something bad would happen to him. Since he was too scared to go to the police, he just didn't mention the rash. The rash indicates carbon monoxide poisoning, but if it was a suicide, then why cover it up? They're going to need a description of the man who threatened CrankyCoroner and footage of the parking lot.

The gang is back at the Chatting Table, and Lou tells them he got satellite images of the freighter during the attack and guess what? The pirates loaded a crate from the ship! But HPD went through the ship's inventory and it was all accounted for, so something was smuggled onto the freighter with legit cargo. Well, if the pirates knew there was something smuggled onto the ship, they had to have an inside man. Since they ID'd the pirate Tani killed, Kyle Munoz, they're going to look for any connections he had to someone on the crew. And Tunior will also look into boats that fit the pirate boat description.

Quinn easily finds the man who threatened the coroner and it's Eke, a guy who just got out of prison for trying to kill Noelani's uncle a decade ago. They go see him and he says that back in the day they ran with bad crews and when someone was a rival gang member, you retaliated and thought of them as the enemy. He was shocked that Noelani's uncle wrote to him in prison that he forgave him and turned his life around told him so could he. It gave him hope, but why did he threaten CrankyCoroner? Well, the day Uncle died, he invited Eke over, but didn't answer the door. Eke went around back and could hear the car running in the garage. Uncle was in the driver's seat with a hose from the tailpipe to the window. Eke cleaned up the evidence and insisted CrankyCoroner declare it a heart attack so that his legacy wouldn't be suicide. He gave so many people hope, how would they feel knowing he took his own life? Noelani doesn't believe Uncle would commit suicide, so they're going to his house to check it out.

Lou found a link between dead Kyle and the crew member they talked to, Karl Lawson. Karl and Kyle! Besties! They went to high school together and phone records confirm they were in touch last week and Karl was getting wire transfers from overseas accounts for the last three years. So, in a confusing twist, Steve tries to explain that Karl calls Kyle to put a crew together and pull off the heist, then Karl tells his smuggler friends the boat was hit by a pirate attack. They want to talk to Karl, and we see him in the back of an HPD squad car when they are rammed and Karl is kidnapped by masked men. Poor dumb Karl. When the team looks at footage of the kidnapping, with the way Karl is struggling it obviously wasn't a rescue attempt (how did they know when he would be transferred?) But the team guesses the kidnappers are the smugglers Karl was working for and they want their stuff. Oh, and Tunior didn't have any luck looking for the boat the pirates used so now they're going to look for the people who gave it a makeover.

Back at her uncle's house, Noelani is looking at pictures and remembering good times. CSU is running the garden hose for prints while Noelani is confiding to Quinn that her parents already don't approve of her job, how will they react if her looking into this reveals that her uncle really did commit suicide? Quinn tells her that her brother Brian committed suicide and her family never talked about it at all and it made things worse. Brian's life was so much more than the way he died and the same thing goes for the uncle. No matter what they find, she should remember that.

Tani is at the Magnum PI friend's bar, (what was his name again?) anyway, the guy is sad that Quinn didn't come. Tani will put a good word in for him in exchange for the favor of calling Oz the Boat Makeover Guy down. She tells some story to Oz that she's been dating a guy and things aren't working out so she wants to secure his boat and have it skinned for ten grand. He agrees and she pulls out her handcuffs and puts him under arrest. She asks him for info on a client that made him skin a boat to look like the Coast Guard. He doesn't remember at first, but when she threatens him with a holding cell, he suddenly recalls that she's looking for Michael Garcia.

Quinn tells Noelani that there was only one set of prints on the hose and they are Eke's but that's weird her uncle's weren't on it. Unless someone wiped down the hose before Eke found the body. They can't think of anyone that would want to kill the uncle, so they find a kid named Lewis through phone records that Uncle helped. Noelani tells the kid she just wants to find out what happened to her uncle and the kid says he told the uncle too much and that's why Uncle is dead. There's a guy on the city council who is big in the drug game on the island and Uncle knew him. It was the councilman who gave the donation at Uncle's wake! The councilman tells the gangs where to sell and the cops won't bother them and in return they cut him in. Lewis wanted out of this life and Uncle made him feel like he could change, but because he talked Uncle is dead and he's next. Quinn assures him they're going to do their jobs and make sure the councilman can't hurt anyone ever again.

Steve, Danny, Junior, and Lou are all approaching Michael Garcia's house with guns drawn. They go in and find all the dead pirates still in Coast Guard uniforms. It looks like their mouths were foaming and they don't have any gunshot wounds. The powder all over the table and cupboards probably isn't heroin, so Steve calls for backup and a HAZMAT team. But instead, they get black SUVs and gunmen that start shooting at them! The guys duck under the table, but powder is floating into the air with the bullets and Danny doesn't want to be in the room with the powder that killed the people. LOL Back up is ten minutes out so Steve and Junior start picking off the smugglers. They get out of the house and Danny is coughing on the ground when another smuggler shows and Steve shoots him, nearly deafening Danny. When the EMTs get there, Steve gets some oxygen and they talk about how Lawson thought he was ripping off a little heroin, but that stuff is actually a synthetic opiod with a really long name that is ten thousand times stronger than morphine and was banned from the chemical weapons convention. It's that dangerous, which explains Steve's pounding headache. So the pirates went to all that trouble to steal that booty only to have it kill them. Tani lightens the mood with a little joke: Why are pirates called pirates? Cuz they ARRGGGH. No one laughs and she says, "Come on. That was solid." (Cute scene.)

Quinn and Noelani meet up with the CrookedCouncilman and show him the donation envelope he gave earlier. It's evidence now and the DNA on it matched the DNA on the teacup found in Uncle's kitchen. The second teacup had traces of roofies in it, so when Uncle found out the councilman was dirty, he confronted him and told him he needed to come clean and he would help. The councilman drugged him instead, then helped him to the car and ran the hose from the exhaust pipe to the window to make it look like a suicide. But he didn't count on Uncle having helped so many people that some of them were willing to help him in return. CrookedCouncilman gets cuffed and taken away. Noelani's parents awkwardly come up and pat her on the back and say they're proud of her and Uncle would be, too. Then we get a cemetery scene with Lewis and Eke there, too, and people laying roses on the coffin.

Back at the Magnum PI guy's bar, Quinn brings Noelani for just one drink and the team is there! It helps her feel better. Danny says Steve is buying the next round and Steve says he will he just needs to go home and get his wallet. Ha! He's been saying the same thing for ten years. Aww. The band takes a break and Backstreet Boys come on, which was Quinn's jam in fifth grade. The Magnum PI guy comes up and gets introduced to everyone and he offers the next round on the house. He and Quinn talk about the dinner he owes her and Noelani suggests they dance. Apparently, he's a much better dancer than dart player, so Quinn says to show her what he's got. Tunior are watching, think they can take them with dance moves, but they won't give away their best stuff right off. So everyone is on the floor dancing to Everybody Rock Your Body while Steve, Lou, and Noelani watch. A very sweet scene.

I thought it was a good episode overall, I'm mostly just sad that this is one of the very last ones ever! Did you watch? What did you think?

Hawaii Five-0 Recap & Review: The One With The Author

We start out with previouslies of the Big Bad Tokyo guy telling Adam to be his eyes and ears on Five-0, then Adam coming back to the task force and giving info, burying bodies with Endo, and his Yakuza contact Huru tells him to watch his back.

Then we're in a hotel room in 1920 and a bellboy is heading back to work after a liaison with an author named Maureen Townsend. Before he leaves, he says he's a big fan of her work and wants an autograph. Maureen is annoyed, at first, but signs it and tells him she threw her newest manuscript in the trash. He's shocked and takes it out. She tells him that sometimes you have to know when to let things die. (So true. But hard when it's a manuscript you've poured your heart and soul into!) Then we switch back to present day at a high school when a janitor sees a pool of blood coming from under a door and opens it to see a dead teacher with his throat slit.

Cue music.

Junior is home and Tani is waiting for him. They hug. She's trying to make small talk in the car, when he asks her to pull over. She picks a place overlooking a beach and he kisses her. (Duck lips!) She quickly gets on board and things progress with a fade to the ocean and when we see them again they're in the back seat. She tells him that was nice and they laugh. (Poor Junior. That was nice is all he gets? LOL For me, with all the buildup we've had with those two, the backseat was kind of a letdown.)

Steve and Danny are meeting Harry Langford at a literary festival! Love Harry. Steve tells Danny that he likes to read and has a Tom Clancy novel on his nightstand right now. (*swoon*) Danny doesn't believe Steve has time to read, but really, the man has to have some down time and I love that he reads. They meet up with Harry who tells them that he wrote a book in two weeks based on his experiences, and adding some artistic license. He sent it to his friend in the publishing business and got a seven figure book deal. (I really wish it happened like that for everyone. *sigh*) Suddenly, Harry zones out and starts talking about a dead drop, and it turns out he's talking to his literary alter-ego in an earpiece. He hired an actor to play him at the festival since MI6 regulations say he can't appear at events like that. He doesn't want a target on his back and Gabe, the actor he hired, is totally safe because he's got his eye on him. Steve says it's very Cyrano and leans in for Danny's benefit to say "de Bergerac." LOL

Steve's phone rings and it's Lou, telling him about two linked murders. We have the teacher we saw earlier who was garroted with an antique ukulele string. He also had a note pinned to his chest. Now there's been a bookstore own stabbed in the chest with a vintage letter opener who also had a note pinned to her chest. Both notes were handwritten quotes and mention the name Deirdre Naismith, a fictional crime writer who appeared in crime novels by author Maureen Townsend. Steve ominously says the murders are just beginning.  (It reminds me of the Castle pilot where someone was copycatting the murders in Castle's books. I miss that show!)

Steve has Adam in his office, talking about how HPD can't find Endo anywhere, even though they locked down the island. Adam is Mr. Obvious and is all, yeah, the Yakuza don't want Endo in Five-0's hands because of all he knows. Steve tells him to get back out there and lean on his connections to find out if Endo is still on the island so they can bring him in. He also assures Adam he trusts him. Adam thanks him and leaves. Poor guilty Adam.

Danny calls Steve to the Chatting Table to tell him that this is like a vintage murder art project since both victims had ether in their system. Junior comes in and gives Steve and Lou a hug while Danny awkwardly announces he's been sleeping in Junior's bed. Alrighty then. Back to the case. The ink from the notes pinned to the victim's chest is from the 1920s and were written by Maureen Townsend. However, none of the sentences were found in any of her published novels. Luckily, a Maureen Townsend expert, Suzanne Ridge, is on the island at the literary fair!

Steve and Danny head back to the fair to talk to Suzanne and she's definitely a ball of energy! She  shows them Maureen's journal entries---which do match the handwritten notes---and the quotations are word for word copies of passages taken from an unpublished manuscript. She tells them the whole story about how she had access to Maureen's diaries and read about the tryst with the bellman and since there were rumors about an unpublished manuscript, Suzanne contacted the bellman's descendants and found the handwritten manuscript in a box in the attic. (So, the bellman from the first scene got to keep it? Hmmm...) It was a complete first draft and in good condition, so since Suzanne has exclusive rights, she's going to unveil Maureen's plans for her last installment in the Deirdre Naismith series. Steve tells her that what she just said makes her a person of interest and Suzanne seems giddy at the idea of being incriminated in a real life murder investigation. Woot! Danny asks her where she was between six and eight, but she was having breakfast with her assistant Kevin. Since the killer is using the books as a blueprint Steve asks her what they can expect next and it's a butler poisoned with arsenic at a colonial mansion and then Deirdre herself is the last victim and she's tossed off a sailboat with an anchor around her foot. Poor Maureen felt imprisoned by her Deirdre character and wanted to kill her off and write something new, but in the end, she couldn't do it. (I'm curious, though, what did she give her publisher instead?)

Suzanne could be the fourth victim since she's going to publish the work, but Suzanne won't cancel the event since it's been planned for months to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Maureen throwing the manuscript away. (That's a weird anniversary!) She won't let a psychopath steal the moment from her and will avoid sailboats. Kevin comes in and she introduces him. He needs some book dedications for the VIP guests and Suzanne pulls out a pen that actually belonged to Maureen that a fan gave Suzanne at a book signing. Steve looks at it and when it rattles he takes it apart and finds a transmitter. Uh oh. If the pen was in close proximity to a laptop, whoever was on the other end would have access to hard drive and Suzanne would have no idea, so that's how the killer would have gotten their hands on the manuscript. The lab confirms that opinion and Junior tells Steve that Suzanne and Kevin's alibi checks out, so now they're going to try and ID the guy who gave her the pen and get closer to finding the killer.

A suspicious looking guy heads into a hotel the back way and Gabe, the actor playing Harry at the festival is in the bathroom pretending to be 007. He hears the door open and thinks it's Harry, but it's the suspicious looking guy who injects him in the neck. Tunior come into the lobby to meet Harry who was worried about Gabe when the earpiece wasn't transmitting, but now it's turned back on and Gabe is in the trunk of a car somewhere. Yeah, he's in trouble since the kidnappers think he's Harry and will interrogate him. Tani traces the signal off the comms link to some swelling, patriotic-type music. (And I'm disappointed Harry doesn't get to work with Steve!)

Lou tracked down the four people who went to the book signing where Suzanne got the pen and traced them in Hawaii. He texted Suzanne the four pictures and she ID'd Collin Hansen, an unmarried mechanic. Steve wants to go pick him up before he drops another body.

Adam goes to Kenji to ask about Endo and Haru. Kenji is cagey and says he sent them both to Japan. (Uh huh. Sure you did.)  Kenji says if Adam is feeling the pressure, he can put Adam on a plane, too. (Where's Tamiko? So weird we haven't even had a mention of her for so long.)

Junior is driving Harry's rental car to chase down Gabe and Harry tells him to drive it like he stole it. (Haha!) They end up at a warehouse and will notify HPD to set up a perimeter. (*zips lips) Gabe is inside trying to convince the kidnappers he really is just an actor, but they're aren't buying it. They've read his book and know he has bank accounts all over the world, so they're going to take all his money. They drag Gabe's chair over to the laptop to start the transfers. Harry calmly gives Gabe all the info he'll need to make the $10 million transfer (His password is Lan6f0rd, and Tani mentions that for a spy he should have a stronger password, ha!) Gabe messes up and talks out loud to Harry so the kidnappers know he has an earpiece and before they step on it, they tell whoever is on the other end that they'll spare him hearing his friend die. Tunior is outside the warehouse with Harry and he's going in unarmed. If he needs a gun, he'll just borrow one from the kidnappers. (So 007) Harry walks in, assures them he's unarmed and just wants to make sure they get their money. All they have to do is stay calm and make sure no one gets hurt and since they've read his book---a big thanks by the way since publishing is a brutal business---(and it totally is!) but they know it's not an idle threat that if they become unreasonable he'll put them down. He sits down at the laptop and makes the transfer, then tries to leave with Gabe, but they won't let them go anywhere until the transfer is verified.

Steve and the gang are at Collin Hansen's place, but no one is there. They do find photocopies of the manuscript pages that appeared on the murder notes. Noelani checks in because she has another body at a private residence that also had a handwritten note. He was Joel Butler and a vintage bottle of arsenic was placed deliberately by his body, but there was also a human hair that didn't match the victim and his DNA isn't in the system. Danny finds some surveillance pics of Suzanne and they all realize she's next and needs to cancel her talk.

Adam is out in the forest, grabbing an SD card from a camera he had hidden there in the trees.

Kevin is walking down the hotel hall with Steve and Danny, saying that Suzanne is headstrong, but they can try to convince her to cancel the talk. The officer outside the door says no one has gone in or out, but Suzanne isn't answering their knock. Kevin unlocks it and Steve and Danny go in guns drawn. Water is coming out from under the bathroom door. Suzanne! She's in the bathtub unconscious, a little red and white boat floating on top of the water, and tied to her ankle. Steve gets her out while Danny calls for the paramedics. Steve wills her to breathe and she magically does, spitting out water. She's out of it, so Steve thinks she's had ether, like the others. The last page of the novel was on the bathroom counter and the air duct vent open so Steve has the hotel locked down and every cop on the island looking for Collin Hansen.

The kidnappers are happy the money came through and their friend in the Caymans is cashing it out. They leave and Gabe mocks Harry's plan. Watching him just roll over and give those guys $10 million was the least James Bond thing he's ever done. Harry tells him to calm down, he's got it handled. Down in the Caymans the kidnappers' friend is approached by a woman with a gun and she takes the duffel full of money.  When she's on the phone with Harry, he is happy he could count on her and since they didn't discuss terms, will she be taking a cut? She says since he didn't call when they were stationed in Athens, she's taking it all. Live and learn, right darling? Poor Harry. Tunior is there handcuffing the kidnappers, staring sadly at Harry. They all heard what happened since Harry was on speakerphone.

Back at the literary festival, Steve, Danny, and Lou approach Suzanne who is about to go on stage. She asks if they've made any progress on the maniac who tried to kill her and Steve sits down to tell her the news. They traced that air duct to an access point to see if they could get any security cam footage, but the duct has been blocked for some time for air conditioning repairs. Which means whoever is behind this was inside the room this whole time. She staged it almost perfectly, knowing they'd rush in to save her and her acting all drowned in the bathroom, but she couldn't have known about the sealed off air duct. She tells them that's crazy, but, Lou points out it did give a steroid boost to the new book and it's standing room only for her speech. The investigation ended up as publicity some writers would kill for! Lou accuses Kevin of leaking to the news media about the investigation and his only response is that they can't prove that, but what they can prove is that Kevin's alibi didn't hold up. There was blood in the trunk of Kevin's rental car that matched the hair near the arsenic bottle left at the third crime scene. It was a perfect DNA match. Kevin killed Collin Hansen, put him in the trunk of the car, and then planted his hair at the scene to set him up. So now they're going to sit in some uncomfortable chairs until they tell what they did with the body of poor Mr. Hansen. Lou pulls out handcuffs and tells Suzanne, "Look, bracelets to go with your outfit." LOL

Harry is in his hotel room saying goodbye to Gabe, and Gabe is wondering why he has this expensive suite when he lost all his money. Harry tells him he hasn't lost his taste for the finer things in life and this is his happy place. Gabe heads out for a boring deoderant commercial and Tani, Danny, Junior, and Steve show up with beer. They open the bottles and commiserate with Harry losing all that money. Harry says he was getting bored with retirement anyway and so maybe he'll go back to work. Steve offers him a spot on Five-0, but Harry doesn't want that much work. They all go out on the balcony to watch fireworks and Tunior hold pinky fingers. Awww.

We end with Adam looking over the footage from the jungle camera and it first shows Endo's murder, then has Kenji shooting Huru on it. Adam says, "Gotcha" just as some masked men with guns roll up to his building. Uh oh.

So, a lot of storylines packed into this ep. My favorite was the author storyline though, and finding out Steve likes Tom Clancy. :)

What did you think? Did you watch?

Did you miss my review from last week? You can read it HERE