Episode Title: 'Kanalua' ('Doubt')
Writer: Joe Halpin
Director: Fred Toye
Previously on "Hawaii Five-0":
Episode 3.01 "La O Na Makuahime" ("Mother's Day")
Story:
When an art gallery is robbed, HPD engages in a high-speed chase but ultimately loses the suspect. 5-0 is called in when one of the thieves, who is badly injured, takes a hostage inside the gallery and demands medical care. Kono (Grace Park) goes in, posing as a paramedic and when the thief is distracted, McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) shoots him. He's later identified as George Solani.
Afterwards, the gallery owner tells Kono the men stole several lithographs from his safe, leaving the cash register untouched. 5-0 then catches up with Max (Masi Oka) at the scene where the getaway car was left and burned, with the driver dead inside. Though the car had the body of a taxi, under the hood the team finds a high-performance racing engine.
McGarrett and Danny (Scott Caan) reach out to former art thief, August March (Ed Asner) in hopes of finding out who the thieves plan to sell the art to. Meanwhile, Fong (Brian Yang) identifies the man inside the burned taxi as Tyler MacNamara, a professional stock car driver. When the team cases his house, they learn that MacNamara's daughter, Karen has been kidnapped and that Tyler was forced to be the wheelman for the thieves in order to save her.
Karen's mother tells Danny and McGarrett that she was dating George Solani. Kono and Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) ID Solani's two accomplices from a security video at the auto body shop where he worked. After meeting with an associate, August March tells McGarrett and Danny about a warehouse the brothers are working out of. Inside, the team finds one of the men dead and the other dies moments later, without giving up Karen's location. Kono finds pictures on a cellphone of one of the men posing as security at the gallery. McGarrett also spots some art in the picture that wasn't reported stolen. It turns out the art was stolen by the gallery owner's grandfather during the Pearl Harbor attacks and is extremely valuable.
McGarrett and Danny chase the gallery owner down and he admits that the brothers were extorting him for the paintings. They take the art work to Fong who finds a print belonging to August March on one of the pieces. When they bring March in for questioning, McGarrett and Danny confront him about a gun found in his apartment which is linked to the murder of the brothers as well as kidnapping victim, Angela Branson. March shows them a picture of Karen tied up in the trunk of a car and agrees to take them to the place where Karen is being kept. However, when they get there, he walks into oncoming traffic, preferring to die rather than go back to prison. Using the photo, Kono IDs the car Karen is in and after contacting a number of parking garages, the team narrows in on the its location. Karen is found shortly after and reunited with her mother.
Later, McGarrett meets with Catherine (Michelle Borth), who he asked to track down his mother. Catherine tells him she is on the island. In fact, she never left, having turned the plane around as soon as it was out of sight.
Breakdown:
The best thing about this episode? The return of Ed Asner as grumpy-yet-deadly old man, August March. The worst thing? He got run over a by a truck.
There's a number of exciting guest stars lined up for this third season but "H50" O.G., August March is a tough act to follow. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the elderly art thief shoot anyone this time around, but his last hurrah with McGarrett and Dano was a fun one.
As expected, a good part of this episode focused on Chin Ho's grieving over Malia which was kind of a downer. But we did get to see the cast in bathing suits as promised by the official "5-0" Twitter account. If that doesn't make your Monday night, well then…
Action-wise, we got a couple of nice high-speed chases, but nothing compared to the helicopter stunt shenanigans in last week's premiere. The case of the stolen art and the kidnapped girl wasn't particularly interesting as solving it relied more on crazy tech like thermal imagining, skull scans and facial recognition than good ol' fashion pavement (and face) pounding.
However, we did get some movement on the Momma McGarrett/Wo Fat front. Surprise, she's still on the island. Kind of wish Katherine's investigation involved more than hustling a Witness Security Program employee over a game of pool though.
It's always nice when the show touches on Hawaiian history and traditions, in this case with Malia's ocean ceremony and the Pearl Harbor connection to the stolen art. It may not have been as exciting as last week's premiere but "Kanalua" did have a shoot out, a chase scene, some eye candy and fuddy duddy art thief, August March for a baddie. Not too bad for the second episode of the season.
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