Monday, March 9, 2015

Hawaii Five-0 - Pono Kaulike


Past sins come back to haunt Five-0 as both Danny (Scott Caan) and Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) are arrested on separate charges. The idea of a member of Five-0 facing serious charges is hardly new as it's become one of the show's recurring themes (in fact it happens so often its almost unintentionally funny at this point). What offers a slight twist with "Pono Kaulike" is that in both instances the detectives are 100% guilty of the crimes of which they are accused as each tie back their actions following the kidnapping and murder of Danny's brother.

While Danny faces extradition to Columbia for the murder of Marco Reyes (Anthony Ruivivar) who was also a key CIA asset in the region, "Pono Kaulike" sees the return of Detective Coughlin (Robert Knepper) whose quest to prove Chin's corruption makes him turn to the detective's brother-in-law Gabriel Waincroft (Christopher Sean) who paid Chin more than $2 million from prison (although not for the reason Coughlin suspects). The two arrests on top of each other seem to suggest someone targeting Five-0 but that turns out not to be the case as both sets of officials have their own separate agendas in seeing the two members of Five-0 behind bars.

There are certainly some questionable moments in the episode, such as Danny being arrested in the middle of a presentation at Grace's (Teilor Grubbs) school and the exact reasoning behind his choice to so quickly waive his rights to be tried in Hawaii without giving McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) and his team the opportunity to even began their investigation prior to his deportation. That said, the tension of both situations (although a little too quickly resolved) certainly works. The episode also give Chin (the squad's resident martyr at this point) more guilt to carry around and offers the audience a look at Danny's continued difficulty following his choice to murder Reyes (although the mention of the men he and McGarrett maimed and killed to get back to the drug-dealing killer is never mentioned).

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