REVIEW: Hawaii Five-0 – 1.18 “Loa Aloha”

Loa Aloha:: Long Goodbye

I was mysteriously absent last week, and I apologize. I hope the rest of you didn’t spend a whole week without any shirtless McGarrett! Ok, I might have Googled a bit, just to make the week a bit easier.

The episode starts out grim as a judge and his daughter are out zip-lining through the Hawaii tree tops. The judge gets a mysterious phone call just before his daughter’s zip-line breaks and she falls to her death. Meanwhile, Danny (Scott Caan) and Gracie (Teilor Grubbs) are on their way to see’s Danny’s visiting brother, Matt (Dane Cook). Unfortunately Danny receives the inevitable call, cutting short his family reunion. Leaving Grace to be spoiled by her Uncle Matty, Danno heads off to join the rest of the Five-0s in the jungle.

McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) does his thing. You know, sniff the air, taste a rock… He decides some specific explosives were used, from like 134.74 yards away, on a Thursday. Next thing is to go through the Judge’s “threat file” for baddies that meet the MO. One guy fit perfectly, but before they track him down, the killer strikes again. This time yet another judge looses a child, this time a son.

Matt Williams seems to have some issues of his own going on. While having a disfunctional family dinner, McGarrett and Danno notice a few Feds keeping an eye on Matt. They follow them and find out that they are making sure Matt doesn’t leave the country before his indictment. For fraud. Is Mr. Wallstreet Williams running a Ponzi scheme?? Danno says not a chance. And last time Danno swore someone wasn’t living on the dark side (his old HPD partner), he was right. So, I’m sure he is this time too… But, because Danny’s family is highly disfuctional, for the second time in three weeks, Danny takes a few hours off from the current investigation to handle his own family matters. And, like two weeks ago when he was dealing with Stan, he and McG have their little heart to heart talk over the phone. This time, McGarrett decides he just can’t leave Danny alone on this one, and so he rushes to Danny’s side.

Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) and Kono (Grace Park) continue hunting for the killer. Danny finds out the truth from Matt. McGarrett dons well fitted cargo pants. And then the stories get interesting. So, fire it up on your DVR or go to CBS and watch the episode there. The ending choked me up a bit.

Episode Side Notes:

I don’t normally like Dane Cook much, but I liked him in this role. In fact, I think I like Dane Cook the actor MUCH more than Dane Cook the comedian.
Danny has a thing for calling people, namely Steven McGarrett, by their proper names rather than nick names. Tonight he introduced Steven to Matthew. I like it.
In other Danny news, Scott Caan looked very hot when he was giving Rachel (Clair Van Der Boom) those looks over dinner…
I can suspend disbelief for a bit during these hi-tech cop shows, but Kono was testing my resolve this week. When she blew up the image of the SUV, then tossed it from one screen to the other, and highlight the tire tread all with like two swipes of her hand… Come on. I want that computer.
Whatever the relationship is or isn’t between McG and Danno, I like that the writers are giving plenty of fodder for those fan-fic writers out there who enjoy the pairing.