Hawaii Five-0 - Ukuli'i ka Pua, Onaona i ka Mau'u - Review

Title Translation: Tiny Is the Flower, Yet It Scents the Grasses Around It

I have to confess. As much as I enjoy Hawaii Five-0 there have been numerous episodes that don’t really grab my attention until about act 3 when there's usually a twist. This was not one of those episodes.

When that innocent teenaged girl unwisely walking home, in the dark, by herself was grabbed, I sat up and paid attention. Then they discover the bodies of the three kidnappers in the back of the van.

Um.

What?

I can’t think of an episode of Hawaii Five-0 that’s ever had me scrambling so hard to figure out what was going on.

I'm used to this show doing a great job building and maintaining the tension in their action heavy episodes, but this is the first time I can remember a mystery that I didn't have figured out in the first 5 minutes.

It didn’t take too long to figure out who the kidnap victim was; a North Korean spy. That was absolutely nowhere on my list of guesses. I love it when that happens.

Yumi Chun was a twenty-something hacker who was sent into Hawaii to find and return Jae-Sung, a defector who helped 5 families escape North Korea, to North Korea for (I'm guessing) torture, trial and execution.

Yumi was in that high school to get close to the daughter of a man who had access to the classified files that contained Jae-Sung's location.

Since other security personnel got there just after Yumi arrived, they got their butts kicked. By the time Five-0 arrives, she's got her prize and a pretty good plan to hold American authorities off until she's on a plane flying back to North Korea.

She’s set up a program to upload thousands of top-secret files to the Dark Web. The upload is on a timer she won't stop until she's safe.

And if anyone blieves she would have kept her word, I've got a bridge to sell for cheap. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Steve doesn't buy it and already has a couple of plans in place to save Jae-Sung and protect his country.

Now that Jerry is gone Five-0 turns Aaron Wright for the hacking expertise to prevent the data from being uploaded to the Dark Web.

Most of the time I find this character to be a little too over the top. When that happens he moves from funny to annoying. But I thought he was well used here.

The B-Story surrounding Steve’s dating life was a throwaway story. Which is okay because the A-Story warranted the bulk of the episode's focus.

I liked the action sequences. The opening few minutes were definitely one of my favorites since the show started. I also liked the spy twist surrounding and how it flipped the episode into an action story.

Usually, the person who needs saving is an expert in some world changing tech or just running to save themselves and shedding a light on an important topic. I was nice to have the focus of Yumi's mission, Jae-Sung, be a guy who risked all to save others.

What did you guys think about this episode?