Hawaii Five-0 (S07E24) “He Ke’u Na Ka ‘alae A Hina”

Aloooha fellow Five 0 fans and welcome back for another discussion about our favourite show 🙂

And once again I have to say a very good episode with lots of things to like and even more to love.

One of those episodes that reminds us that Hawaii Five 0 is a great ensemble of amazing characters that we have come to love in the past 7 years but that one of them is the heart and soul of the show, the foundation stone for the task force to build on and an inspiration for everybody not only in the fictional universe of the show but also in real life.

I am of course talking about Steve McGarrett. Being a huge Alex O’Loughlin fan I have been accused many times to be biased about his talent and skills, and about the character he plays on the screen, but I have never let that affect my beliefs and my feelings towards him.

Alex plays Steve McGarrett with such integrity and honesty that sometimes I struggle to see the difference between the two. And most of it is probably because Alex shares a lot of Steve’s moral values and commitment towards making the world a better place not only with words but mostly leading by example and 7.24 is one of those mile stones for the character that shows us the real essence of Steve McGarrett.

Steve McGarrett is not only an action hero, he is a hero in every sense of word.

But enough with me gushing and digressing, lets explain why I think what I wrote.

Most of the episode turns around an alleged, which turns out to be more than real, terror threat on Oahu.

Steve is summoned to Guantanamo Bay to talk to a prisoner which claims to have important information that he will reveal only to the Commander. The encounter between the two is initially awkward, with Salaam telling McGarrett that 10 years have passed kindly for him judging from his looks (the guy clearly doesn’t know much about the events in Steve’s life) and remembering that he has family on Oahu. Steve reveals that sadly his father passed but yes, he still has Ohana on the island, of course he is talking about his colleagues and friends of Five 0 and his girlfriend Lynn. Salaam warns Steve about something really bad supposed to happen soon in Oahu.

 

When The Commander returns to H.Q. to discuss the case he encounters a strong, and in some ways unusual, resistance from his team about believing the intel provided by Salaam. Clearly they have no idea why Steve is so inclined to trust the guy.

In reality Steve has his doubts about it but, aware of the bond he has formed with Salaam in 2007, decides to follow his heart, and instincts and investigate.

We get to see how the relationship between the two men starts and develops via numerous flash backs in the course of the episode, each one gives us a better understanding of why Steve decides to trust Salaam and of why Salaam feels the need to repay this debt of gratitude towards the man that treated him with dignity when all others only saw him as the enemy with the only use of extracting information from.

First we see Steve allowing Salaam to respect his faith and pray to his God. A meaningful gesture indeed as so many times religion and faith are used as excuses for hate and war. The first positive connection is established.

Then The Commander provides a hot meal to the prisoner, even apologising for it not being Halal, according to the Islamic tradition. Steve gets in trouble with one of the C.I.A. officers for this kindness, the guy was obviously expecting more torture and duress from McGarrett to induce the prisoner to talk but Steve doesn’t bulge and continues with his different interrogation technique. He likes doing things his own way.

In the meantime, in present days Lou and Kono work on a lead provided by Jerry concerning a suspicious travel agency and find out that the shop is just a front for moving money. This also puts Five 0 on the track of a history professor, naturalised American citizen but of Middle East origin that has left a video explaining that the terror act, which at that point hasn’t yet happened, is consequence of the barbaric way the US Government and military dealt with a specific situation in Afghanistan.

Once again Steve shows his superior investigative skills deducing, just from watching the facial expression of the Professor on the video, that it was all a set up, the guy was being used by someone else as a scapegoat.

In the meantime, thanks to a burner phone bought with Kalid’s credit card, Five 0 manages to find one of the perpetrators who tries to escape with a motorbike but ends up being killed in a quite gruesome collision with two different cars.

They eventually work out that the target of the terror threat is not a building but a plane coming in from the mainland and carrying the body of a marine involved in the Afghanistan incident mentioned in Kalid’s video.

Spider-Steve climbs the building and engages in combat with one of the terrorists, ending up shooting him, in what I thought was the second gruesome scene of the episode, with a bazooka.

On top of the main story the episode also introduced us to a topic that will surely come back in the final episode and might even affect Season 8.

Robert Coughlin invites Chin to a meeting in which he offers him a job to run a similar task force to Five 0 in San Francisco, as the triads are apparently running out of control and a team with (limited) means and immunity has become necessary. Quite funny to remember that this was the exact excuse used to introduce Abby to the Five 0 team in Season 6. Despite revealing the difficult crime situation in the Bay Area Coughlin tries to persuade Chin that is still is a great place to raise a family and that him, Abby and Sarah would be happy there. Go figure…

Chin confides in Steve at the end of the episode and the Commander reveals that Coughlin had already paid him the professional courtesy of asking before. Chin and Steve agree that it is a very good job opportunity but Chin confesses that he is not willing to take a final decision before knowing exactly where he stands with Abby, leading us to believe that he has every intention of proposing some time soon. We know that Abby will be in the final episode so hopefully we’ll be witness to a romantic scene between the two, or at least I hope so as we haven’t seen the couple together since the first episode of Season 7.

Selfishly speaking I hope Chin will say no to the transfer. Five 0 is very much the Ohana that was started in Season 1 and loosing Max this Season was already hard. The idea of loosing an inspiring and charming character as Chin is very depressing.

The third and last story-line was the one of Hirsh meeting with Kono and Adam in order to talk about his intention of expanding his business, which no bank on the island seem to want to consider. Hirsh was not particularly thrilled about Adam’s presence, which he freely describes are “not business competition” but we all know he considers a love rival concerning Kono. Kono doesn’t make things easier for poor Gerard refusing to expunge his criminal record or kissing her husband right in front of him.

Despite not being the best of friends Adam and Hirsh not only share the love for Kono but also the difficulty of finding a job for being ex cons so Adam helps Hirsh in improving his business plan and ends up accidentally involving Kamekona who offers to become Gerard’s “silent” partner. Even if unwilling to receive a hug from him Kamekona is also sympathetic towards Hirsh’s situation having been himself an ex con in need of a job and having been able to succeed also thanks to Five 0’s help.

Once again in this episode we are reminded that kindness leads to more kindness and positive outcomes and that gratitude is the best way to go.

Unfortunately as it often happens the end of the episode quite disturbingly reveals, thanks to a telephone call from Steve’s old friend Joe White, that the terrorists behind the attack of the day might actually just have started their mission and that they might be in fact part rogue faction of the US Government inclined towards domestic terrorism.

Fortunately we are offered another flash back of Steve and Salaam, that reminds us how much good there still is in the world. Salaam asks Steve why he is showing him all this kindness and Steve frankly says that they are both men, that they came into this world in the same way and that war like situations make this simple truth often too easy to forget. Thank you Commander for being the most inspiring hero.

Quite honestly one of the best episodes of the season, probably just with the only one fault of not explaining at all about Danny’s absence, unless I missed that, in which case I apologise.

And now we are left with the season finale next week, which promises to be exciting and action packed. Will we loose any of our favourites at the end of this season? The more likely candidates are either Chin or Kono as it has already been confirmed that Steve and Danno will both be in Season 8. Fingers crossed nobody will leave.

Mahalo for reading and have a great weekend and week ahead.

Manu

Pictures courtesy of my friends Moni, Sonni, Belle, Lisa and Hawaii Five 0 on twitter