The past two episodes of Hawaii Five-0 have focused on specific characters and “’Elua la ma Nowemapa” continues the trend with one all about Jerry.
Jerry doesn’t always have a well-defined place on the team. He was introduced in a one-off episode about conspiracy theories, but now juggles that with work as the team’s tech guy and researcher. It was nice to get back to his origins with the biggest fish for all CT’s (conspiracy theorists, as Jerry helpfully explains): The Kennedy Assassination.
JFK at first seems like a random thing to center an episode on, but the episode showed how connected the ‘60’s aesthetic is to Hawaii in the cultural imagination. The ‘60’s were the time of Elvis, Don Ho (the supposed singer in the nightclub) and spy-fy. After the tense mission to Morocco, it has been nice that the past couple of episodes haven’t taken themselves so seriously.
The episode starts off with the first of many flashbacks to 1963. The director made great use of the iconic Royal Hawaiian Hotel to set up Jerry’s meeting with his online friend, schoolteacher and conspiracy theorist Susie Freeling.
Just because this episode was lighter than some of the others this season doesn’t mean that Jerry is let off the hook when it comes to dramatic and traumatic moments. Jorge Garcia does a great job at conveying Jerry’s shock and horror when Susie is shot dead while talking to him. Even as his friends try to console him in the aftermath, he can’t seem to get all the blood off his hands.
In the grand Hawaii Five-0 tradition, Jerry decides to grieve by avenging his friend’s death. He is sure that it was associated with Susie’s work: her grand conspiracy theory about JFK’s assassination. She believed that a meeting of the joint chiefs at Camp Smith on Oahu was cover for planning the assassination, which happened a day later. Jerry found her theory credible, but some members of the team have their doubts.
Danny is the first to completely deny that there is any connection. Chin tries to keep an open mind. Steve doesn’t think it’s so farfetched. As Jerry gets closer and closer to what really went down at Camp Smith, the team slowly starts to change their minds.
Jerry and Chin track down Susie’s interview subjects, a hotel employee who delivered a telegram to the Secretary Rusk and a shoeshine attendant who was asked by Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to wait for a call from a phone booth. Jerry is sure that that was the confirmation about the plan being set into motion.
Jerry’s theory becomes even more credible when Russo’s lab is ransacked by FBI agents. They want to take over the case. After a few run-ins with the aggressive lead agent, Ward, Steve tries to be diplomatic, but is inwardly seething.
Chin and Jerry go to Camp Smith and find an old film strip that seems to depict the joint chiefs talking about an assassination. As both struggle to process the significance of the find, Chin notices that they are being followed by a dapper gentleman in a snazzy car. He clandestinely arranges a meeting and tells a story of the swinging sixties, spycraft, and a singer who was never seen again.
The old man, Drake, reminiscences about 1963, at Duke’s nightclub (named after legendary swimmer and surfer Duke Kahanamoku). Drake was the FBI’s man in Hawaii and had asked a singer named Kamele to spy on the joint chiefs using a tape recorder hidden in a cigarette case. Whatever Kamele overheard that night disturbed her so much that she went off the grid, changed her name, and hid the rest of her life.
Jerry is sure that Kamele wouldn’t have gotten rid of the recording, which she could have used as leverage if the CIA/FBI ever found her. Kamele, unfortunately, died and thus has nothing to do with Susie’s death. Chin and Jerry still track down her belongings and find the recording.
Meanwhile, Steve is about done being nice to the FBI agents. When they confiscate the car the sniper used, he straight-up punches and arrests Ward, and demands to know just exactly why they were so interested in a schoolteacher from Baltimore.
What Danny finds in Ward’s car cements the agent’s fate. Ward was spying on Susie right before she died, took photos of the shot that killed her, but let it happen. It mimics the actual JFK assassination. A chance piece of recorded footage becomes a pivotal point of the investigation.
It angers Steve. As a man who has dedicated his life to protecting the people of Hawaii, he can’t believe that a law enforcement officer would let a woman die without warning her or trying to immediately catch the killer.
As the rest of the team leaves Ward with Steve, they gather round to listen to Kamele’s recording. It certainly wasn’t what they expected.
The joint chiefs were talking about an assassination, but not Kennedy’s. Instead, they are talking about the ill-fated Operation Mongoose, which was supposed to take out Fidel Castro and remove Cuba from the hands of the Communists. If Susie had followed her next lead and found the recording, she would have known that her entire quest was in vain. There was no secret plot hatched in Hawaii to assassinate the President.
So who did kill Susie?
As Ward tells Steve, the JFK assassination wasn’t the only conspiracy theory she was working on. She uncovered something damning about a chemical company and the CEO hired a hitman to kill her.
It offers small consolation to Jerry. He dove into the quest for the truth behind the assassination because he wanted to finish Susie’s work in her honor, but there was no work to finish. Instead, he is left to process his friend’s horrific death.
In a touching final scene, Steve tells Jerry that he will happy to listen to his conspiracy theories and that “coffee’s on me.” It’s an emotional callback to the last season finale, where Chin tells a story about Steve drinking coffee with him every night when he was mourning the death of his wife. It shows that Steve acknowledges Jerry’s grief and would do anything he could to alleviate it.
Even though he can’t focus on Susie’s current work, Jerry can remember her legacy. Susie wasn’t killed because the CIA wanted her gone. She was killed because she wanted to make the world a better place and protect people, and she didn’t care if she endangered herself in the process. She, as Jerry tells the team, didn’t hide behind a computer screen when she saw something wrong with the world. It’s that legacy that Jerry can remember, and it’s that legacy that he honors by working with the team.
A lovely part of the episode was Jerry’s and Susie’s relationship. This episode was about friends who met over the internet due to shared interests, so I thought it’s a fitting time to tell you how much I enjoy reading your comments!
What did you think of tonight’s episode? Do you have any thoughts about the Kennedy Assassination? Let me know! Hawaii Five-0 is taking a well-deserved break for a couple of weeks after a string of stellar episodes, so I’ll see you back here on December 9!
