Monday, January 9, 2017

Hawaii Five-0 - Ka 'aelike


"Ka 'aelike" is a strange episode that wraps-up the show's big mid-season cliffhanger before the opening credits even roll. Quickly sent back to Hawaii, with Chin (Daniel Dae Kim) now having custody of Sara (Londyn Silzer), the Five-0 crew gets back to business as usual for the case of the week. It's odd for the show to throw away such a big lead-in, and I wonder if something larger wasn't originally planned (involving the impregnable stronghold where the bad guys don't even bother to take Chin), but was cut for either time or cost. Plus, the (completely unnecessary) involvement of Adam (Ian Anthony Dale) seems to be included for the sole purpose of helping Adam and Chin bury the hatchet (and possibly set-up trouble or the parole later this season).

The murder of the week takes Grover (Chi McBride) undercover as a car salesman, in one of the show's best uses of the character. "Ka 'aelike" proves to be one of those episodes where the true motive for the crime takes several twists and turns. Eventually uncovering not one but two separate smuggling operations the salesman was involved in, Five-0 becomes more concerned with finding the nuclear material smuggled into Hawaii than simply solving the murder (although they do both in record time as the episode races through multiple plotlines, involving one character's plans to leave Five-0, in breakneck speed).

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