The season began after the grueling season 2 cliffhanger where Chin's wife Malia had been shot, Kono tied up and dumped into the ocean, and Joe taking Steve to Japan to introduce him to the mysterious Shelburne, who is none other than: "Mom."
As Chin rushes to save his wife, the paramedics arrive, and despite their best efforts, they are unable to save her life. While Chin prioritised Malia over his cousin, he had already contacted her boyfriend Adam Noshimuri, who dived into the water to save her. As Steve and his mother had a reunion, Wo Fat (imprisoned in 2.22) escaped from prison. He ended up alongside Frank Delano, who offered him a chance to kill the one person that he'd been targeting for the past year - Shelburne.
The team managed to track down Delano, and Chin kills him. Meanwhile, Wo Fat manages to get into the McGarrett house after taking out multiple HPD officers, and sneaking past Catherine. As he and Doris stood aiming guns at each other, shots are heard. When Steve rushes to check it out, he finds Wo Fat gone and Doris left unharmed. In order to protect Doris, Steve sends her away on a plane.
In episode 2, Steve asks Catherine to find out where Doris is. To do this, she manages to hack into WITSEC via information inadvertently given to her by Agent Channing (Carlos Bernard). As she searches the database, Catherine discovers that Doris' plane never left the island.
While Steve and Catherine are together one morning, Steve hears noises from downstairs. As he investigates, he finds Doris cooking breakfast. Despite his questions, Doris doesn't give up any information, except that her failure to kill Wo Fat was due to a struggle between the pair. As Steve attempts to believe this, Doris took a camera film from below the floorboards of McGarrett's house.
Danny has a lot of his backstory explained in episode 6, including how he named his daughter. As he and Steve attempt to take down a terrorist, Danny is left in range of a bomb's proximity centre, and to distract him, Steve asks his partner to explain one of his days in New Jersey. As Danny and his partner, Grace, attempt to take down a gang, the pair are held captive by two of the members (T.I.; Terrence Howard). The two attempt to get information out of Danny and Grace as to whether anyone else knows they are there, but when Danny refuses to talk, Grace is shot. Danny explains that an entire squad of police are on their way. With almost perfect timing, sirens are heard outside. Danny disarms the criminals, and kills both of them before rushing outside to help. As he hoped the police were there to help him, they were actually on their way to the Twin Towers, which had just been hit by planes on 9/11.
In episode 8, Catherine gets into trouble with Agent Channing. Having discovered he had been hacked, WITSEC suspended him from duty. However, the pair quickly join forces when it is discovered that one of Doris' assassination targets named Mangosta was actually alive and well, and on the island. As the pair attempt to protect Doris from any revenge from Mangosta. However, instead, Doris took Mangosta and tortured him for information, before Catherine and Channing stopped her before she killed Mangosta. Doris then cajoles Catherine not to tell Steve about this.
In episode 10, Adam's brother, Michael is introduced to us. A hardened criminal, having just been released from 15 years in prison, Michael was not overly pleased to hear that Adam was attempting to clean up the Yakuza. After a lot of flirting with Kono, Michael is shown to be in a bedroom with Adam and Kono, and put her gun back on a table while she was asleep.
In episode 13, Chin is put in a dilemma as he is kidnapped by Paul Delano (Frank Delano's brother), and put into Halawa prison. While inside, he is assisted by Sang Min, as the pair attempt to evade Kaleo (the corrupt detective who killed Danny's partner in season 1) before he kills both of them. While inside, Chin meets a woman named Lelani. With HPD refusing to move in, Five-0 fly Kamekona's helicopter over the prison to rescue Chin. The team manage to find Chin and Lelani alive, but Sang Min manages to get away. Kono clones Adam's phone, after suspecting him of lying to her about his work for the Yakuza.
Wo Fat returns in episode 14, after he kills a woman close to a Congressman currently running for Senate election, in an attempt to give the other candidate the election. His plan was to use the other candidate to give himself a position in the government, to be able to corrupt the U.S. government again. As the team figure this out, Steve and Danny go after Wo Fat, and although they manage to save the Congressman, they are unable to kill or capture Wo Fat. Meanwhile, Danny goes to court in an attempt to secure custody of Grace. Despite his speech saying that "I hate Hawaii", and Steve's brief testimony, Danny is able to get custody of Grace.
With McGarrett still suspecting that his mother is lying to him, he hires Mick, a friend of his who is a P.I., to try and gain new information on his estranged mother. As Mick attempts many ruses to get Doris to trust him and make it easier for him to gain information, the pair end up going on multiple dates. Doris later reveals to Steve that she knew he hired Mick to spy on her.
In episode 18, Doris' house is burgled. The burglar specifically went after the camera film (from episode 4), which Doris reveals to her son is a record of every case she ever worked for the CIA. As Catherine finds out about the burglary, she informs him of the confrontation between Doris and Mangosta. Steve reacts angrily, telling Catherine to leave. After talking to Doris, Steve and Catherine make up.
Episode 20 reveals what happened on the Hesse mission (from 1.01). As Steve and Catherine go to North Korea to recover the body of Freddie Hart, Steve's Navy SEAL buddy, and part of the team Steve took to take down Hesse. When the body they collect is the wrong body, Steve and Catherine go into North Korea by themselves to get Hart's body. The pair get Hart's body back, and he is able to have a proper burial.
Five-0 get a visitor in episode 21, as talk show host Savannah Walker (Aisha Tyler) follows the team for a day. Despite Steve's best efforts to keep her camera crew at bay, they turn out to be quite useful. As Wo Fat reappears, the team use part of Savannah's film to piece together Wo Fat's latest plan. As they track him into the forest, they see he is attempting to escape in a helicopter. As they shoot the chopper down, Wo Fat is severely injured in the crash, and Five-0 arrest him.
In episode 23, Steve is told by Catherine that the FBI suspect Doris of hacking into their database. When he confronts his mother about this, he discovers a 'team' consisting of Doris, Wade and Mick, who are planning on recovering the stolen microfiche that contained all of Doris' CIA files. Steve's disagreement with this at first is clear, insisting that they not go through with the 'mission'. However, after some persuasion from Doris, and a helping hand from Danny, Steve agrees to let them do it, providing he goes with them.
As they break into the office of the man who took the microfiche, they are discovered by security, and despite her best efforts to escape, Doris is caught. When she is questioned, Steve offers a trade, the microfiche for Doris' life. Steve burns the microfiche, knowing that it may be the best thing for everybody, and Doris is given back to Steve. While leaving the building, Steve presents Doris with the microfiche, after having used one of the magic tricks she had previously taught him.
Kono's concern for Adam continued in the penultimate episode. After having tracked him to being in Japan, meeting with a man named Sato, she questions Adam if he had been lying to her. Adam told her he hadn't been, but immediately after Kono left, she saw Adam making a call, and was able to listen in, having previously cloned his phone. His conversation lead her to a warehouse, and when she got there, she ended up in a gunfight with two Yakuza men. She killed both of them, but was shot in the process.
While in hospital, Adam visits Kono. As she prepares to tell him about having spied on him, she is taken off for a scan. When Adam goes to make a phone call, he hears a phone ring in Kono's bag at the same time. When he checks her phone, he sees that his phone had been cloned. As the episode ends, Max comes into Danny's office to tell him and Steve that a victim on their current case had a ballistics match - to Kono's gun.
The season finale airs on Monday, where as Five-0 attempt to track down an escaped terrorist, Kono is on the run for a murder she didn't commit. Steve visits Wo Fat, and makes a shocking discovery. Will Kono clear her name? What will Wo Fat tell Steve? Let me know in the comments below.
14 year old in England. Love Hawaii Five-0, NCIS, NCIS LA, Criminal Minds, Nikita and Arrow. Aside from TV, a keen cricketer.
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