Episode Title: 'Lapa'au'
Writer: Joe Halpin
Director: Steve Boyum
Story:
When a small plane crashes in the water off the coast, 5-0 is called in. At the scene, McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) and Danny (Scott Caan) learn that the body of ICE agent, Monica Jensen was on board. Her supervisor, Jeff Morrison (Greg Grunberg), an associate of Officer Weston's, tells the boys it looks like a case of foul play. Dr. Max Bergman (Masi Oka) suggests Jensen was poisoned. McGarrett deduces that she dead before being put on the plane.
Weston (Lauren German) looks for Jensen's "red book" or case diary, but does not find it in her office. However, the book does turn up at her home, with several pages missing. Danny finds signs of forced entry and an attempt made to poison Jensen's dog. He takes the dog with him, despite McGarrett's protests.
Kono (Grace Park) and Chin (Daniel Dae Kim) examine photos from Jensen's camera and learn that she was tailing Liam Miller (Jon Gries). At Miller's home, he explains he was helping Jensen with her investigation of a medical marijuana shop that was making illegal sales. Meanwhile, Max tells Weston and Morrison that poison from a puffer fish killed Jensen.
At the smoke shop, Kono busts the clerk for selling her pot after dropping Miller's name. After a print belonging to a Jason Akita comes back from Jensen's red book, McGarrett, Danny and Weston chase him down. He tells the team he was working as an informant for Jensen who was tracing deliveries from a custom's house and broke into her home after learning of her death, for fear that his relationship with her would brand him a snitch.
Back at HQ, the team determines that the pilot of the plane parachuted out over the jungle. Weston and Chin Ho find motorcycle tracks near the landing sight. Meanwhile, Fong (Brian Yang) pulls an address for Kono from the charred remains of the pages torn out of Jensen's red book.
At the location, 5-0 busts in to find a group of women working on leis. However, behind a wall of boxes they find a stash of exotic animals, as well as the puffer extract that poisoned Jensen, who was working an animal poaching case. With a tip from Kamekona (Taylor Wily), the team goes in search of a Dr. Yang. Inside his home, they find evidence of a struggle, as well as his wallet outside.
After leaning that the motorcycle tracks match a bike belonging to Miller, who's also a pilot, he's taken into custody. He admits to killing Jensen in order to keep Yang, who was supplying him with black market supplements, in business. However, when he learned that Yang duped him, he kidnapped the doctor and left him to die in the jungle. Miller leads the team to a shipping container in the jungle, where Yang is still alive inside.
Back at HQ, Morrisson presents McGarrett with a certificate honoring Jensen, insisting she'd want 5-0 to have it.
Breakdown:
'Lapa'au' (which means "healing") may just be my favorite episode of "Hawaii Five-0," to date. All the ingredients for a great hour of H50 were there: a bromantical opening scene with Danny and McG, Chin and Kono catching a contact high, a lame but appreciated "Heroes" overture between guest star, Greg Grunberg and Masi Oka, a random dog dropping "land mines" all over a humorless McGarrett's office and another "Lostie" back on the Island with an appearance by Jon Gries aka Roger Linus. And let's not forget a little fan service towards '80s sci-fi classic, "Enemy Mine!"
"Hawaii Five-0" might just be the (unintentionally?) silliest procedural on TV and I learned last season to just go with it. This episode was jam packed with screwball nonsense, amid the very serious murder investigation of a customs agent. Guest star, Greg Grunberg was put to great use in this hour as the former supervisor of a murdered customs agent. Though he kept his game face on for most of the episode, Grunberg had a couple of fun moments, particularly with Masi Oka and Danno's dog.
As for the case of the week, it was beyond contrived but who cares? It was a helluva lot of fun to watch and not nearly as dry or bland as CBS' other procedural offerings. In fact, there were so many shenanigans in this episode, let's just through 'em, real quick.
- Kono's over-the-top flirting with the dred-head smoke shop clerk, culminating with Kono admitting to "burning fatties" with a suspect.
- The fact that the "red book" was actually red and yet the black box was orange for easier visibility, as McGarrett explained to a perplexed Danno.
- Max Bergman's canary yellow Camaro with "Warp 9" plates. He had to sell off a ton of fossils and DS9 figures to score that ride.
- Chin catching a contact high after visiting a medical marijuana smokers home.
- Danny's dog eating shrimp tails, barking at Weston, pooping in McG's office, etc. This dog needs to be a series regular. McGarrett, stop hatin'.
- 5-0 and a SWAT team busting into a warehouse where a bunch of older women are making leis. "They looked a lot scarier as heat signatures" explains Danno.
- We get that Chin Ho is a motorcycle enthusiast but he's not a motorcycle encyclopedia. Still, the ATV scene in the jungle was kind of awesome.
Bear bile, exotic birds, puffer fish, a dog and Louis Gossett, Jr. as a pregnant alien made this a fantastic, albeit absurd episode of "Hawaii Five-0." 'Lapa'au' was a comical zoo of random gags, pop culture references, guest stars, animals and a few nice action sequences thrown in for good measure. Please do this every week, "Hawaii Five-0" and I promise I'll never talk sh*t about "Enemy Mine" or "Heroes" ever again.
Crave Online Rating: 9.5 out of 10.
