As much as I enjoy watching them, I’m beginning to think that the Hawaii 5-0 team isn’t very good at their jobs. They may be able to wrap up the murder of a TV medium in a Halloween night, but they’ve let a 30+ person death cult operate on the island for the past three years.
This Halloween themed episode gave me a bad case of whiplash. It was like the writers thought of two different Halloween-related plots and couldn’t decide whether to go with the spooky haunted house or scary cult, so they went with both. Interspersed intermittently between the two is a sappy story about Jerry teaching Grace the true meaning of Halloween.
The best storyline of the episode is Kono’s and Adam’s crazy night out. We meet them driving through the back-country on the way to a surprise. Even when they run into a blood-soaked woman who leads them through the underbrush on a search for her injured friend, I was wondering if this was somehow part of said surprise. Some people pay for those escape room experiences. This could just be an elaborate version of that. Then Kono bit a guy’s ear off, Adam burned another with a pot of boiling water, and I decided this wasn’t going to end up being some kind of prank.
Part of the reason the action seemed a bit fake were Kono’s and Adam’s reactions. When they are taken hostage by a compound full of crazy people in masks, they react more with bemusement than any real terror. If I was that other victim, the girl who’s clearly losing her mind in terror, I would be more scared of the couple smiling and joking while being kidnapped by a death cult than the actual death cult.
Kono and Adam prove to be the perfect action couple when they free themselves from their restraints, secure a location, and begin preparing for a siege. Some quick improvisation with household items and a shotgun keep them safe until help can arrive.
What’s all this? the viewers may be asking themselves. The only answer we get is a shrug. Some kind of death cult. Ok, then…
In a less interesting plotline, Steve and Danny are called to a crime scene at a legendary haunted house. Steve tells Danny the strange history of the house, but Danny dismisses it as Steve trying to psych him out.
And Max’s back! He’s happy, recently married, and in the Halloween spirit with a John Wick costume, sans puppy. If you’re going as John Wick, why forgo the only thing anyone remembers about that movie?
Max declares the victim has been Scared. To. Death. *cue theme music*
The homeowner was one Marjorie Webb, who made her fortune by scamming grieving loved ones out of cash as a television psychic. She was horrible at her job. She told a family whose son was dead that he was alive, giving them false hope and leading them to spend thousands of dollars searching for him in the wrong place. She told another family their daughter was dead when she was just a runaway, leading the father to kill himself in despair. Marjorie seemed to have been wrong 100% of the time, which is an interesting feat itself.
In the weeks leading up to her death, Marjorie had become convinced her house was haunted. The team, with the help of Russo the Cowardly Lab Tech, find out that someone had rigged the house to simulate paranormal activity. At first, they think it may be the boy’s duped family, but they are disqualified because they have moved to Canada. Danny apparently thinks Canada is a magical land that people go to, never to return. Then, suspicion falls on a magician who was obsessed with proving Marjorie a fraud. Instead, it ends up being the runaway daughter. When she found out her father had committed suicide because of what Marjorie told him, Julie Hilman got close to Marjorie as her personal assistant and tried to scare her into insanity. She hadn’t counted on Marjorie’s heart failing her and killing her. She then murdered her accomplice to cover up her crime, which destroys any sympathy Steve may have had for her plight. He draws upon his own experience with guilt over his father’s death, but only to make her feel worse about her crime.
Both of these plots would have been good on their own, but together they create a tonal mismatch that ruined any momentum. Imagine how thrilling this episode would have been if we could have stayed with Kono and Adam the whole time as they play a cat and mouse game with the killers. Instead, with cuts to a fairly generic investigation and Jerry babysitting Danny’s kids, it messes with the rhythm of the episode.
Still, I feel like I got two Halloween episodes for the price of one, so I can’t complain. What did you think? Let me know in the comments!
