I think this new move is going to be really good for us.
If you find yourself in the opening of a Hawaii 5-0 episode, you should really not talk like this. Don’t talk about how excited you are about an upcoming event or how you’re two days away from retirement and just want to spend more time with your family.
Unfortunately for poor FBI Agent Douglas Fisher, his wife utters these fateful words just before someone delivers a bomb to his house.
Before we can find out whether Fisher, his wife, and adorable daughter survive the blast, we flash back twenty-four hours to an important meeting with Tani. Fisher is on the island to investigate a recent spike in gang activity. It’s sort of funny that just now they’re noticing all the violence. In the past few weeks there’s been a Christmas-themed armed robbery, a hostage situation, a serial killer, and the arrival of a bioweapon on the island. It’s been pretty violent for a while.
Fisher, in his eagerness to get to work, takes a strongarm approach when dealing with the team. He believes that the gang war was sparked by Michelle Shioma’s death and has something to do with Adam’s return to the island. He and his partner first approach Tani with an offer. If she can get them the information they need, they might be able to put in a good word for her with the FBI. Tani declines. She may not have been on the team long, but she knows what to do when someone is threatening a member of 5-0. She goes to Steve, who makes it clear to Fisher that Adam, despite his previous ties to the Yakuza, is protected by the team.
Although Fisher is just trying to do his job, picking Adam as the first suspect to question wasn’t the greatest idea. Still, Steve immediately comes to regret their exchange when he’s sitting in the morgue, staring at the bodies of Fisher and his family.
No one survived, and the team understands the punch in the gut this is. It may be a hell of a first day for Junior, but everyone’s committed to getting justice for the Fishers and their little girl. They just won’t be able to do it alone.
Steve coordinates with the National Guard and HPD to target “Suspected Sites of Organized Crime” as the caption helpfully informs us. If it was that simple, I’m not sure why they needed to call in the FBI in the first place.
The different squads manage to sweep up eighty-seven suspects at once, but there are still some big gang heads unaccounted for. With an assist from Kamekona, Steve narrows down assignments for his teammates. Junior is after Luis Alvarez (although he’s really just serving as backup for HPD) and Tani is in charge of bringing in Damien Bautista (who she has a history with). Meanwhile, Adam is being harassed by Fisher’s grieving partner.
Lou and Steve are after Hector Garcia, who is unhelpfully not in the safe house they raid. That’s what they think, until Eddie leads straight to an underground tunnel.
He even manages to catch Hector before he can escape.
Although Damien still seems fond of Tani, he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo that his ex is working for 5-0. He also doesn’t seem to know anything about Agent Fisher when Tani questions him. Before Tani can take him in, the rest of his gang shows up. Damien offers to call them off if she lets him go, but she pushes him off the balcony instead. He lands in the pool below, and Tani manages to bring in her assignment.
While Tani manages an impressive collar, Junior isn’t happy about serving as backup. Steve tells him that its all about baby steps, but when Luis shoots the two HPD officers after him, Junior goes in alone. By serving as a one-man SWAT team, he manages to take out Luis.
Now, the team is at 169 suspects in custody and believe that someone knows something about the bomb. After a lot of exhausting interviews, the team concludes that all the gang members are telling the truth. No one had the means or opportunity to take out such a high-profile target.
Luckily, Jerry is able to give them a new suspect. Brandon Kenzo may be the mastermind pulling the strings. He orchestrated an island-wide gang war, took out his main competition, and disappeared before the team could find him.
The only person who could have a lead on Kenzo is Adam, who is currently indisposed talking to Agent McNeal. Steve isn’t happy. He gets into a shouting match with the agent, and McNeal drops a bomb. Adam visited Michelle Shioma hours before she was killed.
Steve isn’t stupid enough to suspect Adam of killing her, but he’s taken aback by this betrayal of his trust. Adam admits that it was a mistake. All Michelle wanted was to make sure that her kids were safe and she was willing to pay Adam a lot of money to make sure it happened. Adam shut her down, even after she claimed to know a life-changing secret about him.
Adam makes it up to Steve by finding Kenzo for him. Adam strolls in to the hideout and gives Kenzo a countdown. Kenzo isn’t willing to go so easily. He takes particular offense to Adam calling the team “my people.” However, Adam manages to talk Kenzo down and negotiate a peaceful surrender. Kenzo basically denies everything the team accuses him of.
Before they can learn anything else from Kenzo, Jerry calls with some bad news. Someone has broken into the rendition facility and freed the prisoners. Jerry delivers this news in the most matter-of-fact way. To be fair, elite teams of bad guys do storm 5-0 facilities on a regular basis. They still haven’t figured out the identity of that random guy who took them hostage in the hospital.
After an intense firefight, the team realizes that they might have gotten played when they arrive on the scene. Someone killed the Fisher family specifically to spark this wave of arrests. It put all the gang heads in one place. When Steve realizes that the unknown mastermind killed all the heads, he realizes that someone has been making the team do all their dirty work for him.
The whole team is shaken up, especially Tani. She may have been on the opposite side of the law when it came to Damien, but she knows that the only reason he is dead is because of her. She offers to take on the monumentally difficult task of informing his family.
Junior is also having a tough time. He initially resented the fact that Steve wanted him to act as backup, but now he’s blaming himself for the loss of life at the arrest. Tani gives him some advice that she should take herself. These deaths are not on them. There is one person responsible, and the team will make sure that that person will face justice.
In the last scene, Adam catches Steve contemplating a very bad day. There has been a massive amount of death in this episode: the Fisher family, police officers, and gang leaders. No one is being held accountable. The men that hit the rendition facility had no ties to organized crime, and Steve knows that he needs everyone on board to tie them to the mastermind. He officially offers Adam a job on 5-0 as the head of a task force specializing in organized crime. Finally, the gang will stop running into Adam randomly shopping all the time, and he has a place with them.
So, no one was actually caught in this episode. The hit on Michelle Shioma, the bombing of the Fisher family, and the execution of the gang heads are all related. That, plus the mystery of who shot Danny (and does anyone remember that rogue faction of the government introduced last season?) will probably drive the plot in this new year.
What did you think of tonight’s episode? Let me know in the comments!
