It's like the music being the food of love bit
It's about the opposite of absence and fond hearts being overstuffed, or something.
SO. Detailed recaps of Hawai'i Five-O. Someone had to do it.
Look, no one else seemed to be doing it, and when I see a niche that is also a chance to procrastinate, I will fill that niche.
Hawai'i Five-O
1X01
We’re in Pohang, South Korea, apparently. Looks a bunch like it was probably filmed on the islands, but whatever! Zoom on an armoured truck convoy leaving some concrete installation, and the exposition caption tells us it’s a US Military Prisoner Transport. Exposition radio voices tell us Commander Steve McGarrett (shot of O’Loughlan looking stern) has the prisoner (Murphy McManus in plastic cuffs, looking smug). He tells McGarrett he doesn’t look Hawai’ian. He does, however, look like an idiot, being the only soldier on the truck without a flak jacket or helmet. This is because he is a photogenic hero!
He smugs right back at Murphy, who displays some disquieting knowledge about McGarrett’s personal life. More exposition! Murphy and his brother are arms dealers to terrorists (terrorist count: 1), McGarrett has been following them for years, Murphy has done his homework. McGarrett’s phone rings, DUNDUNDUN, and Murphy knows it’s coming from his Dad in Oahu. Or rather, DUNDUNDUN, Murphy’s brother who is holding McGarrett’s dad at gunpoint and is not DUNDUNDUN Conner McMurphy but Spike with an Irish accent.
DUN.
McGarrett answers the phone with the manliest pronunciation of “Dad” I have ever fucking heard. McGarrett Sr, who is bloodied and tied to a chair, calls him Champ, then Irish Spike steals the phone and says he wants a swap. Steve freaks the fuck out, SEAL style, which involves writing a note in manly all caps to send cops to his dad’s house. Steve and Spike flirt, Spike drawing it out for the benefit of some guy on a laptop who needs more time to do a thing. Steve says they don’t negotiate with terrorists (terrorist count: 2), and we realise that this on the laptop is targeting Steve’s cellphone signal and relaying this info to someone in Korea. DUNDUNDUN some more.
Steve points out that killing his dad is a stupid plan, and it is, there is no non-death way out of this for Steve’s dad, and he knows it. He asks to talk to Steve on the promise he can talk sense into him. “He’s my son, he’ll listen to me,” has that ever ever been true? I know to ignore a lot of what my dad says because half of it is stupid jokes and the other half are well intentioned lies. Is it true in America? I remember people got upset when Russel Brand made fun of that shit president you guys had for ages, is it kind of the same thing?
McGarrett the Elder calls his son Champ again, and Steve says “Dad” in the most vulnerable, scared, little-boy-with-a-monster-under-the-bed way. It is excellent, especially the way he then snaps back to SUPER SOLDIER MODE, promising everything is all right. His dad apologises for lying to him, Steve is confused. His dad tells him he loves him, Steve is confused. His dad tells him not to give Spike and Murphy whatever it is they want, and Spike pistol whips him for it. Spike and Steve yell at each other a bit, then Murphy leans forward and says “Boom.” Steve is confused. A helicopter arrives out of nowhere and blows up the first truck in the convoy.
Hang on, how did he know to get the timing so right? Maybe he heard the chopper, and no one else did because they’re wearing helmets/yelling into a phone? Whatever, explosions. The chopper ninjas and the soldiers exchange fire, people die, another truck gets blown up. McGarrett starts dragging Murphy out of the truck, through the roof for some reason? Gunfire gunfire gunfire. Steve uses Murphy as a human shield and a chopper ninja holds fire, another soldier gets in the way and Murphy skitters off to grab a gun from a dead soldier. Steve tells him not to do it, Murphy ignores him, takes aim, Steve shoots him in the chest. He walks toward Murphy, who’s thrashing a bit, still aiming his gun, and has this little, “oh shit” moment. Dude, you shot the guy. What did you expect? While he checks for a pulse, Murphy, whose name is Anton, apparently, dies. Steve yells no three times. Really.
The phone rings. Victor wants to know what happened. Steve goes, “Listen,” which never ever ends well. Victor fucking knows it, and shoots McGarret Sr. Steve yells “NO!” right into the inappropriately peppy theme tune.
The whole titles bit is an awesome homage to the original, from not changing the music at all to using updated versions of some of the same images. This show is interesting because as reboots go, it’s not really at all faithful. Thinking about the A-Team movie and Star Trek XI, those make sure to keep all the characters recognisable and authentic to what they were. Here, they blow off all that authenticity bullshit in favour of actually fun and interesting personalities and interactions. I’ve only watched an episode and a half of the original, but I’m pretty sure McGarrett as played by Jack Lord was a boring douche with stupid hair, Danny was a quiet subordinate with not-stupid-enough hair, Chin was more stoic than badass and Kono was a fat dude. If they had changed the names, there would be nothing linking them. They’ve maintained the basic frame work of being Hawai’i state police (which don’t really exist) and there are subtle references: casting Dennis Chun, son of the original Chin Ho Kelly as a desk Sargent, calling McGarrett Sr Jack after Jack Lord, “Book ’em Danno” is there (but now imbued with a whole bunch of emotional overtones), the Mercury Marquis is there (ditto), they’ve dressed Jack McGarrett’s study to look like original!McGarrett’s office, but the only thing they’ve really carried over is the theme tune. Which was the best part of the original show anyway. If this theme tune doesn’t make you want to dance, you have not had enough sugar today. It’s a half minute of brassy awesomeosity.
OK, theme tune fun done with, we get a shot of McGarrett in full dress blues looking at Hawai’i from his USAF plane, all stoic and edgy. Someone (the co-pilot?) asks how long since he’s been home. “It’s been a while,” EMOTIONALDUN. As he touches down the pilot tells him he’s got a call from the Governor of Hawai’i. Cut to Pearl Harbour, which is part military installation, part museum/tourist destination these days. Steve looks stoic! The Governor approaches, says she’s sorry for his loss, says they’ve got Honolulu PD looking for Spike. Steve says they won’t find shit, the Governor launches into a job offer. She wants him to run a task force that will stop stuff like Jack McGarrett’s death from happening. She drops some of Steve’s backstory on us, i.e. he has a badass resume, including naval intelligence, he cuts her off to point out that Spike is a slippery bitch who needs to be caught and she’s wasting his time. He puts on his hat as punctuation.
She counterpoints that his task force would have full immunity and means “to go after guys like [Spike] and get them the hell of my island”. I like the fact that she make no bones about it, that possessiveness of responsibility. “Your rules, my backing, no red tape.” Do governors have that kind of power? She’s kind of a magic bullet in the show. Steve calls her on the fact that it’s an election year, the task force would be awesome publicity, and (backstory!) his grandfather died at Pearl Harbour, way to be emotionally manipulative. She denies none of this, but says she feels responsible, she knew his father. She gives him her private number, asks him to think it over. Was it only my brain that went to booty call? OK, cool.
While he’s looking at the card, yes, still stoic and edgy, someone says “She’s a smart lady, that one. Steve McGarrett, right?” It’s Chin Ho motherfucking Kelly! Wearing a tragic tube socks/polo shirt/bum bag combo. Steve recognises him, they exchange some bragging about being quarterbacks, back in the day. They walk along and Chin Ho Kelly says he was a cop, working with/under McGarrett Sr. Steve tries to finesse the fact that Chin’s now a tour guide or security person or something, but Chin is blatantly bitter about not being a cop anymore. He says Steve’s dad was good to him, which cost him and bam! All the stacks of Chin’s Dark Past hinted at in, like, two sentences. Chin says maybe Steve can do something to help his dad, which does not track at all with the rest of the conversation but we’re deep to expositionville, so let’s carry on.
Apparently, Chin heard, because Chin hears everything, that the Chief of Police put a haole on the case, “fresh meat from mainland”. Haole is the Hawai’ian version of gringo or cracker, transliterating to foreigner. Basically, some white guy who has no idea what the fuck is going on.
Cut from Steve’s disgusted face to a shot of some expensive suburb, zoom in on Danny Williams, sitting in his car with a billion bits of case file in front of him, on the phone, bitching about being on hold. He asks for surveillance on a Fred Duran, and as he wraps up the call, the big wrought iron electric gates he’s parked next to begin to open. What looks like a housekeeper in a white uniform starts walking a little girl down a long pretty drive. Danny puts all the bits of case file away and fluffs up a pink toy rabbit the size of a keg in the passenger seat. He gets out of the car to greet Grace, his daughter, who is adorable. They hug, he thanks her for the hug, he asks what she’s carrying. It’s Mr Hoppy, a live rabbit in a cage. “Stan bought him for me for the animal show and tell.” Danny makes this face for a fraction of a second like he kind of wants to explode on the inside, calls him Step-Stan, calls his daughter cute. He starts to lead her to the car, then spins her around and does this distracty thing while he hides the giant toy rabbit in the back before he gets her in the car to get to school in on time. It’s all adorable.
Suddenly, Steve, no longer in dress blues and carrying a rucksack, is ducking under the yellow crime scene tape of his dad’s house, which is a waterfront two-story flipping mansion no cop could ever afford. This house is gorgeous, and is actually rented out for weddings in real life. Steve’s mother better turn out to have been an investment banker or at least an heiress or something, Hawai’i is super expensive. Anyway.
Steve turns on some lights in the house and sees blood splatter. We have an entirely unnecessary flashback to McGarret Sr saying "I love you" and getting shot, Steve winces. We have a flashback to something we didn’t actually see five minutes ago: the 21 gun salute at the funeral. Dude is not processing this at all.
He starts looking around, finding evidence and stuff, taking photos of fingerprints with his phone. He goes into the garage, uncovers the homage car, a sweetass black Mercury Marquis that looks like a 70’s model Chevy Impala had a baby with a 60’s model Corvette Stingray. It’s hoodless and clearly not running. This moment, this is the closest he looks to tears so far. He turns around, sees a Champion tool box, oil stains obscuring the ‘ion’, so it just says ‘Champ’. We get another unnecessary flashback to remind us of that thing that happened five minutes ago, where his dad called him Champ and got shot, ‘member that? In the box is a key, a dictaphone, some postcards. Steve starts playing the tape, it’s his dad saying how he doesn’t trust anyone at HPD, and the key is super important, better not let it get stolen!
Steve hears something, turns off the tape, closes the box, Danny arrives, gun drawn. Steve draws his gun too. They both say who are you, they both identify themselves, both demand that the other put their weapon down, both want to see ID, both yelling over each other. Neither want to put their gun down. Steve suggests Danny use his free hand to get his ID. Danny’s all, “Please, after you.” They agree to do it at the same time, on three. You wouldn’t think two guys with guns could be so endearing, but they are.
Danny says he’s sorry for Steve’s loss, but he has to leave the active crime scene. Steve starts spouting all the stuff he found out, that Spike wasn’t alone, that someone was using a laptop. Danny asks him to leave, again. Steve starts out, with the Champ box, trying to act like he came with it. Danny is a detective, though, and sees right through it. He wants to know what’s in the box. Steve gives him this once over, asks how long he’s been with the HPD, Danny says it’s none of his business, “what are you, Barbara Walters?” Steve claims his father’s murder investigation is totally his business, and tries to walk away with the box again. Danny threatens to arrest him. Steve asks if he wants to call for back up. “An ambulance,” says Danny, who is, by the way, my favourite, for all kinds of reasons only some of which are lines like that.
Steve puts the box down and calls the goddamn Governor, putting it on speaker phone so Danny knows what’s going on. Danny thinks this is ridiculous. Steve takes her up on the job offer and is hilariously sworn in as a law enforcement officer over the phone, right hand raised in his dead dad’s garage. His middle name starts with J. He picks up the box and walks out, because now it’s his crime scene. Danny is standing there with his arms folded, face just set on WTF.
Cut to Hawai’i in the afternoon, yellow clouds and heavy rain. The Black Keys’ Sinister Kid plays as Steve hops out of a taxi and runs up to Danny’s apartment, which is a bit shitty and full of cardboard boxes. This, I believe, makes more sense as a place a cop could afford. Steve wants to know about Fred Duran, and walks into Danny’s apartment, starts looking at stuff. There’s a picture of Grace next to a holstered gun and badge in an unsubtle bit of juxtaposition. Steve asks doubtfully if Danny actually lets her stay in this sofa-bedsittingroom. Danny distracts him with sarcasm. Steve asks about Duran, Danny sarcasms some more. When prompted he says the guy’s an arms dealer with a record who might have sold some guns to Spike because of something to do with ballistics. Sinister Kid is still playing, just quietly under this whole scene, which is a bit awesome. Steve wants to go talk to him and wants Danny to come too, Danny quite rightly points out that Steve took him off this case. Steve starts listing facts about Danny: he moved out from New Jersey six months ago to be close to his kid after a divorce and he has no life that isn’t his job. Danny says guys like Steve suck. Steve says he doesn’t care what Danny thinks, he only wants him for his body or something, and deputises him. “We’re gonna get along great,” he says, and Danny pulls a face. A sinister kid is a kid who runs to meet his maker/ A drop that spreads from the day he's born/ Straight into his maker's arms/ That’s me, that’s me,/ The boy with the broken halo. Ahaha, apt.
It’s sunny again. That’s not movie magic, the tropics are like that. Danny’s driving a new model Chevy Camaro, which is the automotive equivalent of Ryan Reynolds. It’s sort of attractive, but in a really boring, boxy way, and is secretly more talented then anyone expects.
His phone starts playing the Psycho theme tune, he rejects the call. Steve surmises his marriage ended badly. Danny said it would have been alright had she not “remarried and dragged my daughter to this pineapple infested hellhole.” Steve is shocked anyone doesn’t like the beach. Danny like cities that don’t try to kill you with natural phenomena. Steve doesn’t really believe Danny can swim. Danny says he swims for survival. (I live in Australia, something like 80% of our population live on the coast, swimming lessons are a compulsory thing at school, I literally can’t comprehend someone not knowing how to swim. Don’t they have pools in Jersey?) His phone plays Psycho again. He answers with a kind of furious “Yes, dear?” and immediately descends into giggles, telling “Monkey” he thought she was her mum, says he’s really excited for the weekend too. He ends the call “Danno loves you.” Steve watches all this kind of bemused because so far, he has only seen Danny the ball of rage and angst, not Danno the soft touch father. When Steve asks who Danno is, Danny shuts him down. “Danno,” Steve repeats, quietly, to himself, possibly just to fuck with him.
Danny drives up to a bunch of trailers and corrugated iron bungalows, a sort of white trash shanty town vibe. Steve gets out, Danny says given Duran's whole armed history, they shouldn’t be going in without back-up. Steve says, completely straight-faced, “You are the back-up.” Danny hates him. It’s awesome.
Steve nearly runs up to Duran’s bungalow, part way up the stairs of the porch. There’s rap music and sounds of a domestic disturbance coming from it. Something gets thrown, a man and woman are yelling at each other, Danny and Steve draws guns and strategically surround the front door. This chick in a bikini, still swearing, storms out, spots Steve, Danny grabs her and covers her mouth. Duran starts storming through his house, yelling her name (Jacey?), spots something moving behind the frosted glass by the front door. This is Danny and the chick, who’s struggling. Duran reaches for some big machine gun, the chick bites Danny’s hand, gets away from him and yells “Cops!” Duran just starts autofiring toward the front of his own house. The girl ducks, Danny gets clipped and thrown through a window off the porch, landing on a car. Duran is still firing, Steve yells for Danny, who tells him to go, cradling his arm.
Steve goes, Duran starts to retreat, for no reason at all, considering he has this machine gun and Steve’s got a pistol. Steve chases him through shanty town, nearly gets crushed between two cars but ninjas his way out of it while Duran takes a hostage. Steve tells him they don’t have to do this, he just wants Spike. Duran isn’t really listening to reason, threatens his hostage some more unless Steve puts his gun down. Steve starts to put his gun down, Duran raises his machine gun, and gets shot from behind. He falls down dead, Steve aims his gun again. It was Danny, bleeding from his upper arm. Steve is disappointed. The hostage is fine, by the way.
Cut to later. Cop cars, ambulances, crime scene tape. They’re dressing Danny’s wound, arresting the bikini chick. Steve is checking out Duran’s place. He hears a noise, coming from a cupboard that’s being held shut with a screwdriver. He opens it to reveal an Asian girl, maybe a teenager, tied to a wall and scared shitless. He makes soothing noises, asks her name in English and badly accented Cantonese, apparently. She’s Chen Shi, he cuts the ties around her wrists.
Steve is now explaining what’s going on to Danny, she’s a refugee smuggled in from China, separated from her family. Danny interrupts the exposition to point out Steve hasn’t thanked him for saving his life. Steve bitches that Duran was his only lead. Danny is horrified at this lack of etiquette. Steve reckons if they’re smuggling refugees, they might have smuggled in Spike. Danny starts yelling at Steve about his lack of self preservation, how he doesn’t want to die for Steve’s vendetta, Steve tries some emotional blackmail (“What if she was your daughter?”), Danny says “For someone who just lost his father, you’re pretty dense.” Steve starts yelling back, Danny takes this as a challenge and points at Steve, who tells him to get his finger out of his face. Danny, who is kind of a giant kid, starts poking him. Steve twists his arm behind his back so Danny is on his knees, facing the ground. Some uniformed cops try to approach, Steve waves them off, tells Danny he still only wants him for his body. His actual words are “You don’t have to like me, but right now there’s no one else to do this job,” but he does have Danny bent over right now, so.
Danny asks him to let go. Steve does, starts in on how they need to find the human traffickers. Danny gets to his feet and, without warning, punches Steve in the face. “You’re right, I don’t like you,” he says calmly as he walks away. Steve recovers and swears a bit. Such a matched set.
Danny is driving again. Steve asks how his arm is. Danny doesn’t want to talk, now or ever again. Steve calls him sensitive. Danny flips out, calls Steve on being a crazyface soldier, starts ranting “I’m glad that you have that GI Joe, thousand-yard stare from chasing shoe-bombers around the world!” (terrorist count: 3) “Rule number one, when you get someone shot, you apologise!” Steve says sorry a couple times while Danny is still ranting, finally talks over him, “I said I’m sorry, that’s what I was trying to tell you. Last year. When this conversation first started.” Danny informs him that the apology has been “noted, acceptance is pending.” Steve nods. “You’ll let me know, now.” He tells Danny to head to a place because he knows someone who could help.
It’s Chin Ho Kelly! Chin Ho Kelly is looking at a photo of Chen Shi. Steve tells him where they found her, that he’s looking for the people who bought her into the country because they probably bought Spike in too. Chin says it’ll be a “snakehead”, Chinese gangs. Danny wants a name, Chin points out that he’s not a cop anymore, but he knows someone who might be able to help. Someone who’s not going to talk to haoles. Chin says he can’t be a cop anymore because HPD accused him of being crooked, tries to leave, like this whole thing hasn’t been him trying to get them to ask him to be a cop. Chin Ho Kelly: secretly a drama queen. Steve asks if he did actually take pay offs. Chin says no. Steve says they never need to talk about it again, because he’s seen through Chin’s dramatics and know he wants in and his dad trusted him blah blah blah. Chin looks like he might cry, legit.
Kamekona! He’s a big islander dude who owns/works in a shave ice shop. Chin, now wearing an eye-gougingly awful green and yellow shirt but at least no tube socks, greets him with a handshake-hug dudebro thing and gets right down to business. Kamekona eyes Danny and Steve, says he’ll talk after they leave, and they can leave after they pay, orders two cones and two shirts for them. Steve gets his wallet out, asks for a medium. Kamekona says his face don’t fit on anything smaller than XL. Chin smiles beautifully. Steve asks how much in bird, which is pidgen proto-Polynesian. Kamekona is a bit impressed, but not enough not to ask for more money. And to make them wear the XL shirt with his face on. So Steve and Danny are standing by the car, in baby blue shirts that reach their knees, holding cones of pink shave ice, and a little girl comes up to Steve and asks if he’s a cop. Kids are canny and all, but I swear to god this makes no sense. What makes less sense is Steve’s response: he offers her his shave ice, asks if she likes cotton candy, tells her to go find her mum. Is the shave ice cotton candy flavoured? She thinks he looks like a cop and doesn’t like cotton candy. Danny intervenes in Steve’s frankly painful interaction with the kid by reaching into the car and pulling out the giant pink rabbit, presenting it to her. She thanks him and runs off, Danny smiles, Steve stares. Danny goes “What?” Steve’s got nothing. Chin comes back, laughing at them in their giant blue shirts.
At the new headquarters, which is, in a nice touch, like, two desks and a bunch of boxes, Chin shows them Sang Min, played by the ridiculously attractive Will Yun Lee. Unfortunately for this role he is sporting a greasy villainous mullet. I did not think I’d miss Witchblade for any reason, but he was really well dressed in that show. Sang Mullet is a human trafficker. They’re going to use an undercover to do some entrapment to get leverage to get information about Spike which is for so many reasons not how it works in real life, lalala, show logic! Chin Ho points out that Hawai’i is small and cops are known, so their undercover has to be a fresh face.
Enter Kono Kalakua, who is more awesome than everyone! The first we see of her is her teeny tiny bikini, as she shreds on a short board. I can’t tell whether this is a body double or not? Does Grace Park surf? She does most of her fight stunts, I read somewhere, but I don’t know if she surfs. The guys are standing on the beach, watching her be awesome as Chin Ho Kelly explains: cousin, (badassery runs in the family), he is kind of protective of her, in a super proud way, used to be a pro-surfer, about to graduate from the police academy, but her association with Chin and his Dark Past means she’s going to be hobbled in HPD. They watch her get knocked off her board by some beefy dude and make the universal wipeout sympathy “ooooooh”. Steve questions her readiness as she runs out of the water and decks the guy who knocked her down. Danny is amused. She spots Chin and is all smiles. They make fun of the guy she just assaulted and he introduces her to Steve, who compliments her punching technique (she calls it a love tap), and Danny, who holds her hand and smiles for such a long time, more goofy than creepy, that Chin reminds him to stop. Steve offers her the job and she is totally down with it.
We cut to Steve’s house, Steve staring at a mugshot on a laptop. Danny arrives with a box of surveillance stuff and news that Chin has set up a meeting with Sang Mullet. Steve shows him the mugshot, says it’s the criminal IT guy who was sitting at the desk when his dad got shot. Steve knows this because of his learnings and relays creepy details about Spike’s shoes. Danny remarks that Steve’s brain is miserable and requires beer.
Cut to them on Steve’s private beach (no cop salary provides a private beach!). There are beers, and Steve takes his shirt off for no apparent reason. He puts on another one and asks what Danno means. Danny deflects with a question about the Champ box. Steve admits that he has no idea. Danny talks about Grace, which he often does without provocation. Steve, on minimal evidence, calls him a good father.
Danny outlines the overarching paradox of his existence: he is a cop, he might die in the line of duty and be a shitty dead father (Steve admired his dad’s sacrifices), he loves his daughter but he loves his job and doesn’t want to do anything else and feels kind of guilty about it (he is willing to work with Steve and Steve’s crazycakes because it means he can work), and even though he hates Hawai’i, it’s where Grace lives and he’s going to make it safe for her (Steve’s emotional blackmail from earlier paid off!). Steve stares like this is the most amazing thing he’s ever heard, and his phone rings. Kono is going to meet Sang Mullet tomorrow. Danny points out quite rightly that there’s no reason to believe he can/will tell them anything about Spike. Steve says that he has to because he has to because he has to and I laugh forever at the only thing dumber than show logic: Steve logic!
The next day, the boys are in a high tech crate full of way more surveillance equipment than Danny had in that box yesterday. Way more than they would of been able to get overnight. If I point out all the ways this is not like reality we’ll be here for another 5000 words, so Kono is going in, Chin is using expensive and slightly illegal equipment to listen in on it. In a warehouse office thing with some random bodyguard dudes, Kono does a good fragile flower impersonation for Sang Mullet, who is greasy and villainous, getting all in her space and implying sexual favours would be accepted as payment and DUNDUNDUN there’s sand in her hair! Which does not fly with the hard working immigrant story she’s spun.
Danny wants to get her out, Chin reckons she can hold her own. Kono kind of covers, but Sang makes her take off her dress, to check for a wire. She looks equal parts furious and miserable as she turns around for him. He gets up close again. It’s all kinds of uncomfortable and creepy. He sits at his desk and takes a photo with his phone, says he’s going send it to someone and they’ll know if she’s a cop. In the high tech crate, Danny is tracing who this photo is being sent to: an unlisted mobile number that’s inside Danny’s precinct of the HPD DUNDUNDUN! Kono gets her dress back on and looks terrified. Sang gets an all caps reply, SHE’S A COP. A muscly guy starts to draw a gun, Kono starts punching dudes out. The high tech crate turns out to be a high tech truck, which Steve drives through the wall, taking out a guy who was flexing on Kono. Danny arrives, starts arresting dudes, Steve goes for Sang Mullet, who grabs a machine gun from a desk drawer. Everyone takes cover, Sang Mullet escapes, starts to get away in a Mercedes, Steve shoots out the tires, causing it to crash into a shipping container. He yanks Sang Mullet out of the car, Chin Ho Kelly notices something is moving in the shipping container. Danny covers him as he opens the door to reveal DUNDUNDUN a bunch of Chinese refugees.
Now all the refugees are being herded onto a bus by some guys with clipboards so they can go be proper Americans? Yay happy ending? Oh, wait, here’s Chen Shi who was tied to that guys wall earlier, reunited with her family by Steve! Danny looks kind of impressed. Cut to Chin Ho Kelly and Steve playing Sang Mullet the incriminating recording of him propositioning Kono. Apparently they made it with “laser audio surveillance”. LASERS.
Sang Mullet wants to sue them for entrapment and rape Kono. Chin Ho Kelly hits him in the face with an ashtray. Steve didn’t see anything. Sang Mullet is delightfully outraged. They threaten him some more, he smirks and asks to go to jail. Chin Ho asks about Spike. Steve asks about Sang Mullet’s wife and kid, who Steve has been stalking. Steve threatens to have them deported back to Rwanda, where his seven year old son will probably be made into a child soldier. Sang Mullet is scared for them, which is an awesome bit of dimensionality that never would have happened in Jack Lord’s day.
Steve is driving him and Danny in a cop car, telling the Governor that Sang Mullet put Spike on a Chinese cargo ship. The Governor says this is a terrible idea, he says you made this crazy permissive task force, deal with it, China’s not going to complain if we catch them smuggling a terrorist (terrorist count: 4). He tells her to get the Coast Guard to stop the ship and hangs up on her, which, seriously? She is your boss, man.
Danny’s phone starts playing Psycho while Steve drives all crazy. Danny starts yelling down the line that he left messages for Rachel that she should pick Grace up, that she sends a driver half the time anyway, Steve stares all confused again. Danny yells some more then calms down and asks Rachel to tell Grace that Danno loves her. He hangs up, Steve gives him the look, and Danny snaps. He explains when Grace was little she mispronounced his name Danno. That’s it. Steve says it’s cute, Danny tells him to shut up. They’re both wearing tac vests, by the way, and Steve is still driving like he’s running moonshine.
Danny’s holding onto the car as Steve skids to a stop, facing the gangway of Spike’s cargo ship, which is about to take off. So Steve drives up the ramp, onto the deck, the car taking machine gun fire from four or so guys on deck. Steve runs off to find Spike, Danny covers him, because he is the back up, by stealing a machine gun. Spike appears, punches Steve a bit, gets chased onto some shipping containers. Danny shoots a guy off a speed boat that’s sitting on the deck of the freighter. What the fuck is this freighter actually freighting? Steve shoots Spike in the shoulder, Spike steals a gun off the a dead guy, shoots him in the shoulder back, Steve looses his gun, Danny shoots some other guy. Spike’s gun is out of bullets, or something, so he and Steve just start fighting. Man, James Marsters has learnt no new moves since Buffy.
Steve ends up on top of the speedboat, while Spike gets another gun off the dead guy on top of the shipping container. Steve tells him there’s something he should know about his brother, which is a clever delay tactic while Steve grabs his gun and shoots Spike twice. He falls into the water, Steve runs up and looks down into the water. Danny sits on and starts to cuff one of the guys he shot, Steve, who is genre savvy, tells him to get the Coast Guard to find the body. Danny asks what he should do with this guy, who’s struggling. Steve says the eponymous, “Book’em, Danno.” Danny doesn’t like it. He makes fun of the guy he just arrested. Steve smiles like a twelve year old.
Cut to H50 HQ, which is being set up with all awesome bits of technology and attractive blinds. Steve is covered in bandages and has his arm in a sling. They’re pretty rigorous about wound continuity in this show, which is rare. Of all the things for them to pick to be realistic about, they pick the thing that makes the team seem most badass. Never let it be said that this show doesn’t know exactly what it’s doing. Steve comes into Danny’s office, says hey, puts something on his desk, starts out. Danny wants to know what the fuck is going on. Steve sort of hesitantly admits he bought three nights at some fancy hotel even though he knows Danny won’t want to accept it. Steve says he can take Grace to swim with dolphins, starts out again. Danny stops him, like he might say thanks, tells him he looks terrible, which he does, then says thank you. Such boys.
Now, a bit later, the whole team is sitting in their shiny new office, drinking beers, being pretty, trying to come up with a name. Chin suggests something long and Polynesian that translates to a dorky statement about teamwork. Everyone laughs at him. Kono suggests Strikeforce. Danny hates Strikeforce. Steve wants to keep working on it. Fade out to Hawai’i looking pretty.
There are all kinds of thing that annoy me about this show, but so many more that make me want to watch it over and over again. It's the crack cocaine of my television world, which is otherwise populated with semi-respectable alcohols like Madmen and Southland. I think Being Human is LSD. Supernatural is still ecstasy.
SO. Detailed recaps of Hawai'i Five-O. Someone had to do it.
Look, no one else seemed to be doing it, and when I see a niche that is also a chance to procrastinate, I will fill that niche.
Hawai'i Five-O
1X01
We’re in Pohang, South Korea, apparently. Looks a bunch like it was probably filmed on the islands, but whatever! Zoom on an armoured truck convoy leaving some concrete installation, and the exposition caption tells us it’s a US Military Prisoner Transport. Exposition radio voices tell us Commander Steve McGarrett (shot of O’Loughlan looking stern) has the prisoner (Murphy McManus in plastic cuffs, looking smug). He tells McGarrett he doesn’t look Hawai’ian. He does, however, look like an idiot, being the only soldier on the truck without a flak jacket or helmet. This is because he is a photogenic hero!
He smugs right back at Murphy, who displays some disquieting knowledge about McGarrett’s personal life. More exposition! Murphy and his brother are arms dealers to terrorists (terrorist count: 1), McGarrett has been following them for years, Murphy has done his homework. McGarrett’s phone rings, DUNDUNDUN, and Murphy knows it’s coming from his Dad in Oahu. Or rather, DUNDUNDUN, Murphy’s brother who is holding McGarrett’s dad at gunpoint and is not DUNDUNDUN Conner McMurphy but Spike with an Irish accent.
DUN.
McGarrett answers the phone with the manliest pronunciation of “Dad” I have ever fucking heard. McGarrett Sr, who is bloodied and tied to a chair, calls him Champ, then Irish Spike steals the phone and says he wants a swap. Steve freaks the fuck out, SEAL style, which involves writing a note in manly all caps to send cops to his dad’s house. Steve and Spike flirt, Spike drawing it out for the benefit of some guy on a laptop who needs more time to do a thing. Steve says they don’t negotiate with terrorists (terrorist count: 2), and we realise that this on the laptop is targeting Steve’s cellphone signal and relaying this info to someone in Korea. DUNDUNDUN some more.
Steve points out that killing his dad is a stupid plan, and it is, there is no non-death way out of this for Steve’s dad, and he knows it. He asks to talk to Steve on the promise he can talk sense into him. “He’s my son, he’ll listen to me,” has that ever ever been true? I know to ignore a lot of what my dad says because half of it is stupid jokes and the other half are well intentioned lies. Is it true in America? I remember people got upset when Russel Brand made fun of that shit president you guys had for ages, is it kind of the same thing?
McGarrett the Elder calls his son Champ again, and Steve says “Dad” in the most vulnerable, scared, little-boy-with-a-monster-under-the-bed way. It is excellent, especially the way he then snaps back to SUPER SOLDIER MODE, promising everything is all right. His dad apologises for lying to him, Steve is confused. His dad tells him he loves him, Steve is confused. His dad tells him not to give Spike and Murphy whatever it is they want, and Spike pistol whips him for it. Spike and Steve yell at each other a bit, then Murphy leans forward and says “Boom.” Steve is confused. A helicopter arrives out of nowhere and blows up the first truck in the convoy.
Hang on, how did he know to get the timing so right? Maybe he heard the chopper, and no one else did because they’re wearing helmets/yelling into a phone? Whatever, explosions. The chopper ninjas and the soldiers exchange fire, people die, another truck gets blown up. McGarrett starts dragging Murphy out of the truck, through the roof for some reason? Gunfire gunfire gunfire. Steve uses Murphy as a human shield and a chopper ninja holds fire, another soldier gets in the way and Murphy skitters off to grab a gun from a dead soldier. Steve tells him not to do it, Murphy ignores him, takes aim, Steve shoots him in the chest. He walks toward Murphy, who’s thrashing a bit, still aiming his gun, and has this little, “oh shit” moment. Dude, you shot the guy. What did you expect? While he checks for a pulse, Murphy, whose name is Anton, apparently, dies. Steve yells no three times. Really.
The phone rings. Victor wants to know what happened. Steve goes, “Listen,” which never ever ends well. Victor fucking knows it, and shoots McGarret Sr. Steve yells “NO!” right into the inappropriately peppy theme tune.
The whole titles bit is an awesome homage to the original, from not changing the music at all to using updated versions of some of the same images. This show is interesting because as reboots go, it’s not really at all faithful. Thinking about the A-Team movie and Star Trek XI, those make sure to keep all the characters recognisable and authentic to what they were. Here, they blow off all that authenticity bullshit in favour of actually fun and interesting personalities and interactions. I’ve only watched an episode and a half of the original, but I’m pretty sure McGarrett as played by Jack Lord was a boring douche with stupid hair, Danny was a quiet subordinate with not-stupid-enough hair, Chin was more stoic than badass and Kono was a fat dude. If they had changed the names, there would be nothing linking them. They’ve maintained the basic frame work of being Hawai’i state police (which don’t really exist) and there are subtle references: casting Dennis Chun, son of the original Chin Ho Kelly as a desk Sargent, calling McGarrett Sr Jack after Jack Lord, “Book ’em Danno” is there (but now imbued with a whole bunch of emotional overtones), the Mercury Marquis is there (ditto), they’ve dressed Jack McGarrett’s study to look like original!McGarrett’s office, but the only thing they’ve really carried over is the theme tune. Which was the best part of the original show anyway. If this theme tune doesn’t make you want to dance, you have not had enough sugar today. It’s a half minute of brassy awesomeosity.
OK, theme tune fun done with, we get a shot of McGarrett in full dress blues looking at Hawai’i from his USAF plane, all stoic and edgy. Someone (the co-pilot?) asks how long since he’s been home. “It’s been a while,” EMOTIONALDUN. As he touches down the pilot tells him he’s got a call from the Governor of Hawai’i. Cut to Pearl Harbour, which is part military installation, part museum/tourist destination these days. Steve looks stoic! The Governor approaches, says she’s sorry for his loss, says they’ve got Honolulu PD looking for Spike. Steve says they won’t find shit, the Governor launches into a job offer. She wants him to run a task force that will stop stuff like Jack McGarrett’s death from happening. She drops some of Steve’s backstory on us, i.e. he has a badass resume, including naval intelligence, he cuts her off to point out that Spike is a slippery bitch who needs to be caught and she’s wasting his time. He puts on his hat as punctuation.
She counterpoints that his task force would have full immunity and means “to go after guys like [Spike] and get them the hell of my island”. I like the fact that she make no bones about it, that possessiveness of responsibility. “Your rules, my backing, no red tape.” Do governors have that kind of power? She’s kind of a magic bullet in the show. Steve calls her on the fact that it’s an election year, the task force would be awesome publicity, and (backstory!) his grandfather died at Pearl Harbour, way to be emotionally manipulative. She denies none of this, but says she feels responsible, she knew his father. She gives him her private number, asks him to think it over. Was it only my brain that went to booty call? OK, cool.
While he’s looking at the card, yes, still stoic and edgy, someone says “She’s a smart lady, that one. Steve McGarrett, right?” It’s Chin Ho motherfucking Kelly! Wearing a tragic tube socks/polo shirt/bum bag combo. Steve recognises him, they exchange some bragging about being quarterbacks, back in the day. They walk along and Chin Ho Kelly says he was a cop, working with/under McGarrett Sr. Steve tries to finesse the fact that Chin’s now a tour guide or security person or something, but Chin is blatantly bitter about not being a cop anymore. He says Steve’s dad was good to him, which cost him and bam! All the stacks of Chin’s Dark Past hinted at in, like, two sentences. Chin says maybe Steve can do something to help his dad, which does not track at all with the rest of the conversation but we’re deep to expositionville, so let’s carry on.
Apparently, Chin heard, because Chin hears everything, that the Chief of Police put a haole on the case, “fresh meat from mainland”. Haole is the Hawai’ian version of gringo or cracker, transliterating to foreigner. Basically, some white guy who has no idea what the fuck is going on.
Cut from Steve’s disgusted face to a shot of some expensive suburb, zoom in on Danny Williams, sitting in his car with a billion bits of case file in front of him, on the phone, bitching about being on hold. He asks for surveillance on a Fred Duran, and as he wraps up the call, the big wrought iron electric gates he’s parked next to begin to open. What looks like a housekeeper in a white uniform starts walking a little girl down a long pretty drive. Danny puts all the bits of case file away and fluffs up a pink toy rabbit the size of a keg in the passenger seat. He gets out of the car to greet Grace, his daughter, who is adorable. They hug, he thanks her for the hug, he asks what she’s carrying. It’s Mr Hoppy, a live rabbit in a cage. “Stan bought him for me for the animal show and tell.” Danny makes this face for a fraction of a second like he kind of wants to explode on the inside, calls him Step-Stan, calls his daughter cute. He starts to lead her to the car, then spins her around and does this distracty thing while he hides the giant toy rabbit in the back before he gets her in the car to get to school in on time. It’s all adorable.
Suddenly, Steve, no longer in dress blues and carrying a rucksack, is ducking under the yellow crime scene tape of his dad’s house, which is a waterfront two-story flipping mansion no cop could ever afford. This house is gorgeous, and is actually rented out for weddings in real life. Steve’s mother better turn out to have been an investment banker or at least an heiress or something, Hawai’i is super expensive. Anyway.
Steve turns on some lights in the house and sees blood splatter. We have an entirely unnecessary flashback to McGarret Sr saying "I love you" and getting shot, Steve winces. We have a flashback to something we didn’t actually see five minutes ago: the 21 gun salute at the funeral. Dude is not processing this at all.
He starts looking around, finding evidence and stuff, taking photos of fingerprints with his phone. He goes into the garage, uncovers the homage car, a sweetass black Mercury Marquis that looks like a 70’s model Chevy Impala had a baby with a 60’s model Corvette Stingray. It’s hoodless and clearly not running. This moment, this is the closest he looks to tears so far. He turns around, sees a Champion tool box, oil stains obscuring the ‘ion’, so it just says ‘Champ’. We get another unnecessary flashback to remind us of that thing that happened five minutes ago, where his dad called him Champ and got shot, ‘member that? In the box is a key, a dictaphone, some postcards. Steve starts playing the tape, it’s his dad saying how he doesn’t trust anyone at HPD, and the key is super important, better not let it get stolen!
Steve hears something, turns off the tape, closes the box, Danny arrives, gun drawn. Steve draws his gun too. They both say who are you, they both identify themselves, both demand that the other put their weapon down, both want to see ID, both yelling over each other. Neither want to put their gun down. Steve suggests Danny use his free hand to get his ID. Danny’s all, “Please, after you.” They agree to do it at the same time, on three. You wouldn’t think two guys with guns could be so endearing, but they are.
Danny says he’s sorry for Steve’s loss, but he has to leave the active crime scene. Steve starts spouting all the stuff he found out, that Spike wasn’t alone, that someone was using a laptop. Danny asks him to leave, again. Steve starts out, with the Champ box, trying to act like he came with it. Danny is a detective, though, and sees right through it. He wants to know what’s in the box. Steve gives him this once over, asks how long he’s been with the HPD, Danny says it’s none of his business, “what are you, Barbara Walters?” Steve claims his father’s murder investigation is totally his business, and tries to walk away with the box again. Danny threatens to arrest him. Steve asks if he wants to call for back up. “An ambulance,” says Danny, who is, by the way, my favourite, for all kinds of reasons only some of which are lines like that.
Steve puts the box down and calls the goddamn Governor, putting it on speaker phone so Danny knows what’s going on. Danny thinks this is ridiculous. Steve takes her up on the job offer and is hilariously sworn in as a law enforcement officer over the phone, right hand raised in his dead dad’s garage. His middle name starts with J. He picks up the box and walks out, because now it’s his crime scene. Danny is standing there with his arms folded, face just set on WTF.
Cut to Hawai’i in the afternoon, yellow clouds and heavy rain. The Black Keys’ Sinister Kid plays as Steve hops out of a taxi and runs up to Danny’s apartment, which is a bit shitty and full of cardboard boxes. This, I believe, makes more sense as a place a cop could afford. Steve wants to know about Fred Duran, and walks into Danny’s apartment, starts looking at stuff. There’s a picture of Grace next to a holstered gun and badge in an unsubtle bit of juxtaposition. Steve asks doubtfully if Danny actually lets her stay in this sofa-bedsittingroom. Danny distracts him with sarcasm. Steve asks about Duran, Danny sarcasms some more. When prompted he says the guy’s an arms dealer with a record who might have sold some guns to Spike because of something to do with ballistics. Sinister Kid is still playing, just quietly under this whole scene, which is a bit awesome. Steve wants to go talk to him and wants Danny to come too, Danny quite rightly points out that Steve took him off this case. Steve starts listing facts about Danny: he moved out from New Jersey six months ago to be close to his kid after a divorce and he has no life that isn’t his job. Danny says guys like Steve suck. Steve says he doesn’t care what Danny thinks, he only wants him for his body or something, and deputises him. “We’re gonna get along great,” he says, and Danny pulls a face. A sinister kid is a kid who runs to meet his maker/ A drop that spreads from the day he's born/ Straight into his maker's arms/ That’s me, that’s me,/ The boy with the broken halo. Ahaha, apt.
It’s sunny again. That’s not movie magic, the tropics are like that. Danny’s driving a new model Chevy Camaro, which is the automotive equivalent of Ryan Reynolds. It’s sort of attractive, but in a really boring, boxy way, and is secretly more talented then anyone expects.
His phone starts playing the Psycho theme tune, he rejects the call. Steve surmises his marriage ended badly. Danny said it would have been alright had she not “remarried and dragged my daughter to this pineapple infested hellhole.” Steve is shocked anyone doesn’t like the beach. Danny like cities that don’t try to kill you with natural phenomena. Steve doesn’t really believe Danny can swim. Danny says he swims for survival. (I live in Australia, something like 80% of our population live on the coast, swimming lessons are a compulsory thing at school, I literally can’t comprehend someone not knowing how to swim. Don’t they have pools in Jersey?) His phone plays Psycho again. He answers with a kind of furious “Yes, dear?” and immediately descends into giggles, telling “Monkey” he thought she was her mum, says he’s really excited for the weekend too. He ends the call “Danno loves you.” Steve watches all this kind of bemused because so far, he has only seen Danny the ball of rage and angst, not Danno the soft touch father. When Steve asks who Danno is, Danny shuts him down. “Danno,” Steve repeats, quietly, to himself, possibly just to fuck with him.
Danny drives up to a bunch of trailers and corrugated iron bungalows, a sort of white trash shanty town vibe. Steve gets out, Danny says given Duran's whole armed history, they shouldn’t be going in without back-up. Steve says, completely straight-faced, “You are the back-up.” Danny hates him. It’s awesome.
Steve nearly runs up to Duran’s bungalow, part way up the stairs of the porch. There’s rap music and sounds of a domestic disturbance coming from it. Something gets thrown, a man and woman are yelling at each other, Danny and Steve draws guns and strategically surround the front door. This chick in a bikini, still swearing, storms out, spots Steve, Danny grabs her and covers her mouth. Duran starts storming through his house, yelling her name (Jacey?), spots something moving behind the frosted glass by the front door. This is Danny and the chick, who’s struggling. Duran reaches for some big machine gun, the chick bites Danny’s hand, gets away from him and yells “Cops!” Duran just starts autofiring toward the front of his own house. The girl ducks, Danny gets clipped and thrown through a window off the porch, landing on a car. Duran is still firing, Steve yells for Danny, who tells him to go, cradling his arm.
Steve goes, Duran starts to retreat, for no reason at all, considering he has this machine gun and Steve’s got a pistol. Steve chases him through shanty town, nearly gets crushed between two cars but ninjas his way out of it while Duran takes a hostage. Steve tells him they don’t have to do this, he just wants Spike. Duran isn’t really listening to reason, threatens his hostage some more unless Steve puts his gun down. Steve starts to put his gun down, Duran raises his machine gun, and gets shot from behind. He falls down dead, Steve aims his gun again. It was Danny, bleeding from his upper arm. Steve is disappointed. The hostage is fine, by the way.
Cut to later. Cop cars, ambulances, crime scene tape. They’re dressing Danny’s wound, arresting the bikini chick. Steve is checking out Duran’s place. He hears a noise, coming from a cupboard that’s being held shut with a screwdriver. He opens it to reveal an Asian girl, maybe a teenager, tied to a wall and scared shitless. He makes soothing noises, asks her name in English and badly accented Cantonese, apparently. She’s Chen Shi, he cuts the ties around her wrists.
Steve is now explaining what’s going on to Danny, she’s a refugee smuggled in from China, separated from her family. Danny interrupts the exposition to point out Steve hasn’t thanked him for saving his life. Steve bitches that Duran was his only lead. Danny is horrified at this lack of etiquette. Steve reckons if they’re smuggling refugees, they might have smuggled in Spike. Danny starts yelling at Steve about his lack of self preservation, how he doesn’t want to die for Steve’s vendetta, Steve tries some emotional blackmail (“What if she was your daughter?”), Danny says “For someone who just lost his father, you’re pretty dense.” Steve starts yelling back, Danny takes this as a challenge and points at Steve, who tells him to get his finger out of his face. Danny, who is kind of a giant kid, starts poking him. Steve twists his arm behind his back so Danny is on his knees, facing the ground. Some uniformed cops try to approach, Steve waves them off, tells Danny he still only wants him for his body. His actual words are “You don’t have to like me, but right now there’s no one else to do this job,” but he does have Danny bent over right now, so.
Danny asks him to let go. Steve does, starts in on how they need to find the human traffickers. Danny gets to his feet and, without warning, punches Steve in the face. “You’re right, I don’t like you,” he says calmly as he walks away. Steve recovers and swears a bit. Such a matched set.
Danny is driving again. Steve asks how his arm is. Danny doesn’t want to talk, now or ever again. Steve calls him sensitive. Danny flips out, calls Steve on being a crazyface soldier, starts ranting “I’m glad that you have that GI Joe, thousand-yard stare from chasing shoe-bombers around the world!” (terrorist count: 3) “Rule number one, when you get someone shot, you apologise!” Steve says sorry a couple times while Danny is still ranting, finally talks over him, “I said I’m sorry, that’s what I was trying to tell you. Last year. When this conversation first started.” Danny informs him that the apology has been “noted, acceptance is pending.” Steve nods. “You’ll let me know, now.” He tells Danny to head to a place because he knows someone who could help.
It’s Chin Ho Kelly! Chin Ho Kelly is looking at a photo of Chen Shi. Steve tells him where they found her, that he’s looking for the people who bought her into the country because they probably bought Spike in too. Chin says it’ll be a “snakehead”, Chinese gangs. Danny wants a name, Chin points out that he’s not a cop anymore, but he knows someone who might be able to help. Someone who’s not going to talk to haoles. Chin says he can’t be a cop anymore because HPD accused him of being crooked, tries to leave, like this whole thing hasn’t been him trying to get them to ask him to be a cop. Chin Ho Kelly: secretly a drama queen. Steve asks if he did actually take pay offs. Chin says no. Steve says they never need to talk about it again, because he’s seen through Chin’s dramatics and know he wants in and his dad trusted him blah blah blah. Chin looks like he might cry, legit.
Kamekona! He’s a big islander dude who owns/works in a shave ice shop. Chin, now wearing an eye-gougingly awful green and yellow shirt but at least no tube socks, greets him with a handshake-hug dudebro thing and gets right down to business. Kamekona eyes Danny and Steve, says he’ll talk after they leave, and they can leave after they pay, orders two cones and two shirts for them. Steve gets his wallet out, asks for a medium. Kamekona says his face don’t fit on anything smaller than XL. Chin smiles beautifully. Steve asks how much in bird, which is pidgen proto-Polynesian. Kamekona is a bit impressed, but not enough not to ask for more money. And to make them wear the XL shirt with his face on. So Steve and Danny are standing by the car, in baby blue shirts that reach their knees, holding cones of pink shave ice, and a little girl comes up to Steve and asks if he’s a cop. Kids are canny and all, but I swear to god this makes no sense. What makes less sense is Steve’s response: he offers her his shave ice, asks if she likes cotton candy, tells her to go find her mum. Is the shave ice cotton candy flavoured? She thinks he looks like a cop and doesn’t like cotton candy. Danny intervenes in Steve’s frankly painful interaction with the kid by reaching into the car and pulling out the giant pink rabbit, presenting it to her. She thanks him and runs off, Danny smiles, Steve stares. Danny goes “What?” Steve’s got nothing. Chin comes back, laughing at them in their giant blue shirts.
At the new headquarters, which is, in a nice touch, like, two desks and a bunch of boxes, Chin shows them Sang Min, played by the ridiculously attractive Will Yun Lee. Unfortunately for this role he is sporting a greasy villainous mullet. I did not think I’d miss Witchblade for any reason, but he was really well dressed in that show. Sang Mullet is a human trafficker. They’re going to use an undercover to do some entrapment to get leverage to get information about Spike which is for so many reasons not how it works in real life, lalala, show logic! Chin Ho points out that Hawai’i is small and cops are known, so their undercover has to be a fresh face.
Enter Kono Kalakua, who is more awesome than everyone! The first we see of her is her teeny tiny bikini, as she shreds on a short board. I can’t tell whether this is a body double or not? Does Grace Park surf? She does most of her fight stunts, I read somewhere, but I don’t know if she surfs. The guys are standing on the beach, watching her be awesome as Chin Ho Kelly explains: cousin, (badassery runs in the family), he is kind of protective of her, in a super proud way, used to be a pro-surfer, about to graduate from the police academy, but her association with Chin and his Dark Past means she’s going to be hobbled in HPD. They watch her get knocked off her board by some beefy dude and make the universal wipeout sympathy “ooooooh”. Steve questions her readiness as she runs out of the water and decks the guy who knocked her down. Danny is amused. She spots Chin and is all smiles. They make fun of the guy she just assaulted and he introduces her to Steve, who compliments her punching technique (she calls it a love tap), and Danny, who holds her hand and smiles for such a long time, more goofy than creepy, that Chin reminds him to stop. Steve offers her the job and she is totally down with it.
We cut to Steve’s house, Steve staring at a mugshot on a laptop. Danny arrives with a box of surveillance stuff and news that Chin has set up a meeting with Sang Mullet. Steve shows him the mugshot, says it’s the criminal IT guy who was sitting at the desk when his dad got shot. Steve knows this because of his learnings and relays creepy details about Spike’s shoes. Danny remarks that Steve’s brain is miserable and requires beer.
Cut to them on Steve’s private beach (no cop salary provides a private beach!). There are beers, and Steve takes his shirt off for no apparent reason. He puts on another one and asks what Danno means. Danny deflects with a question about the Champ box. Steve admits that he has no idea. Danny talks about Grace, which he often does without provocation. Steve, on minimal evidence, calls him a good father.
Danny outlines the overarching paradox of his existence: he is a cop, he might die in the line of duty and be a shitty dead father (Steve admired his dad’s sacrifices), he loves his daughter but he loves his job and doesn’t want to do anything else and feels kind of guilty about it (he is willing to work with Steve and Steve’s crazycakes because it means he can work), and even though he hates Hawai’i, it’s where Grace lives and he’s going to make it safe for her (Steve’s emotional blackmail from earlier paid off!). Steve stares like this is the most amazing thing he’s ever heard, and his phone rings. Kono is going to meet Sang Mullet tomorrow. Danny points out quite rightly that there’s no reason to believe he can/will tell them anything about Spike. Steve says that he has to because he has to because he has to and I laugh forever at the only thing dumber than show logic: Steve logic!
The next day, the boys are in a high tech crate full of way more surveillance equipment than Danny had in that box yesterday. Way more than they would of been able to get overnight. If I point out all the ways this is not like reality we’ll be here for another 5000 words, so Kono is going in, Chin is using expensive and slightly illegal equipment to listen in on it. In a warehouse office thing with some random bodyguard dudes, Kono does a good fragile flower impersonation for Sang Mullet, who is greasy and villainous, getting all in her space and implying sexual favours would be accepted as payment and DUNDUNDUN there’s sand in her hair! Which does not fly with the hard working immigrant story she’s spun.
Danny wants to get her out, Chin reckons she can hold her own. Kono kind of covers, but Sang makes her take off her dress, to check for a wire. She looks equal parts furious and miserable as she turns around for him. He gets up close again. It’s all kinds of uncomfortable and creepy. He sits at his desk and takes a photo with his phone, says he’s going send it to someone and they’ll know if she’s a cop. In the high tech crate, Danny is tracing who this photo is being sent to: an unlisted mobile number that’s inside Danny’s precinct of the HPD DUNDUNDUN! Kono gets her dress back on and looks terrified. Sang gets an all caps reply, SHE’S A COP. A muscly guy starts to draw a gun, Kono starts punching dudes out. The high tech crate turns out to be a high tech truck, which Steve drives through the wall, taking out a guy who was flexing on Kono. Danny arrives, starts arresting dudes, Steve goes for Sang Mullet, who grabs a machine gun from a desk drawer. Everyone takes cover, Sang Mullet escapes, starts to get away in a Mercedes, Steve shoots out the tires, causing it to crash into a shipping container. He yanks Sang Mullet out of the car, Chin Ho Kelly notices something is moving in the shipping container. Danny covers him as he opens the door to reveal DUNDUNDUN a bunch of Chinese refugees.
Now all the refugees are being herded onto a bus by some guys with clipboards so they can go be proper Americans? Yay happy ending? Oh, wait, here’s Chen Shi who was tied to that guys wall earlier, reunited with her family by Steve! Danny looks kind of impressed. Cut to Chin Ho Kelly and Steve playing Sang Mullet the incriminating recording of him propositioning Kono. Apparently they made it with “laser audio surveillance”. LASERS.
Sang Mullet wants to sue them for entrapment and rape Kono. Chin Ho Kelly hits him in the face with an ashtray. Steve didn’t see anything. Sang Mullet is delightfully outraged. They threaten him some more, he smirks and asks to go to jail. Chin Ho asks about Spike. Steve asks about Sang Mullet’s wife and kid, who Steve has been stalking. Steve threatens to have them deported back to Rwanda, where his seven year old son will probably be made into a child soldier. Sang Mullet is scared for them, which is an awesome bit of dimensionality that never would have happened in Jack Lord’s day.
Steve is driving him and Danny in a cop car, telling the Governor that Sang Mullet put Spike on a Chinese cargo ship. The Governor says this is a terrible idea, he says you made this crazy permissive task force, deal with it, China’s not going to complain if we catch them smuggling a terrorist (terrorist count: 4). He tells her to get the Coast Guard to stop the ship and hangs up on her, which, seriously? She is your boss, man.
Danny’s phone starts playing Psycho while Steve drives all crazy. Danny starts yelling down the line that he left messages for Rachel that she should pick Grace up, that she sends a driver half the time anyway, Steve stares all confused again. Danny yells some more then calms down and asks Rachel to tell Grace that Danno loves her. He hangs up, Steve gives him the look, and Danny snaps. He explains when Grace was little she mispronounced his name Danno. That’s it. Steve says it’s cute, Danny tells him to shut up. They’re both wearing tac vests, by the way, and Steve is still driving like he’s running moonshine.
Danny’s holding onto the car as Steve skids to a stop, facing the gangway of Spike’s cargo ship, which is about to take off. So Steve drives up the ramp, onto the deck, the car taking machine gun fire from four or so guys on deck. Steve runs off to find Spike, Danny covers him, because he is the back up, by stealing a machine gun. Spike appears, punches Steve a bit, gets chased onto some shipping containers. Danny shoots a guy off a speed boat that’s sitting on the deck of the freighter. What the fuck is this freighter actually freighting? Steve shoots Spike in the shoulder, Spike steals a gun off the a dead guy, shoots him in the shoulder back, Steve looses his gun, Danny shoots some other guy. Spike’s gun is out of bullets, or something, so he and Steve just start fighting. Man, James Marsters has learnt no new moves since Buffy.
Steve ends up on top of the speedboat, while Spike gets another gun off the dead guy on top of the shipping container. Steve tells him there’s something he should know about his brother, which is a clever delay tactic while Steve grabs his gun and shoots Spike twice. He falls into the water, Steve runs up and looks down into the water. Danny sits on and starts to cuff one of the guys he shot, Steve, who is genre savvy, tells him to get the Coast Guard to find the body. Danny asks what he should do with this guy, who’s struggling. Steve says the eponymous, “Book’em, Danno.” Danny doesn’t like it. He makes fun of the guy he just arrested. Steve smiles like a twelve year old.
Cut to H50 HQ, which is being set up with all awesome bits of technology and attractive blinds. Steve is covered in bandages and has his arm in a sling. They’re pretty rigorous about wound continuity in this show, which is rare. Of all the things for them to pick to be realistic about, they pick the thing that makes the team seem most badass. Never let it be said that this show doesn’t know exactly what it’s doing. Steve comes into Danny’s office, says hey, puts something on his desk, starts out. Danny wants to know what the fuck is going on. Steve sort of hesitantly admits he bought three nights at some fancy hotel even though he knows Danny won’t want to accept it. Steve says he can take Grace to swim with dolphins, starts out again. Danny stops him, like he might say thanks, tells him he looks terrible, which he does, then says thank you. Such boys.
Now, a bit later, the whole team is sitting in their shiny new office, drinking beers, being pretty, trying to come up with a name. Chin suggests something long and Polynesian that translates to a dorky statement about teamwork. Everyone laughs at him. Kono suggests Strikeforce. Danny hates Strikeforce. Steve wants to keep working on it. Fade out to Hawai’i looking pretty.
There are all kinds of thing that annoy me about this show, but so many more that make me want to watch it over and over again. It's the crack cocaine of my television world, which is otherwise populated with semi-respectable alcohols like Madmen and Southland. I think Being Human is LSD. Supernatural is still ecstasy.