Hawaii Five-0 3x09: Haʻawe Make Loa

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Max is at the bank, creeping on Rumer Willis when some masked gunmen come in to rob the place. As they're leaving, they take a hostage and one of the other patrons tackles one of the robbers to save her. He gets a bullet in the gut for his trouble. Amazingly, it passes through him and the counter and winds up in Rumer's abdomen. That is one magic bullet.

It hit her on the left side, forcing her back.

During the scuffle, the robber's mask came off, revealing to the audience that he's C. Thomas Howell, but on the security camera footage, he's faceless.

Even when he's on camera, C. Thomas Howell gets no recognition.

A quick visit to Fong at the crime lab gives Kono a first-hand demonstration of both the awesome power of Windows 8 and how you can use infrared LEDs to mess with cameras.

The HPD recovers the bag the robbers used to carry the money, and a print on it leads Kono and Steve to a small-time hood. When they go to arrest him, he's hopped up on mushrooms and wearing nothing but a grass skirt.

It's not a bad way to live.

After a few questions, the guy decides to make an incredibly slow break for it. Steve tries to stop him, but there's not much to grab on to, so he winds up with a handful of grass skirt, and a butt-naked chase ensues. Even unencumbered by clothes, the guy's still not fast enough to outrun McGarrett, and he winds up crotch down in the grass, which isn't as much fun as you'd think.

Back at Five-0 headquarters, the newly bepantsed man has regained his marbles and says he was given $20,000 to help rob the bank and gives a description to a sketch artist that looks just like C. Thomas Howell. But, the guy who got shot in the bank also gave a description to an artist, and that sketch came out looking like a Chinese guy with a moustache. Something's not right.

Steve and Kono head out to the hospital and when they get there, C. Thomas Howell has just finished murdering the witness, and a much cooler chase scene ensues. There's shooting, there's jumping out windows, and in the end a woman almost gets hit by a truck.

It was pretty awesome.

A spot of blood left by the killer and the autopsy of the witness reveal something interesting: They both had chemotherapy drugs in their systems. As it turns out, the dead guy was on the outs with his ex-wife and daughter, and since he was suffering from terminal cancer, he figured if he could die a hero, it might redeem him in their eyes. C. Thomas Howell was a contract killer for the mob named Cordova who met the guy during treatment and agreed to help him.

Again, Steve and Kono go out, this time to catch the guy while he's getting his cancer treatment. But the killer gets the drop on Steve, kidnaps him and drives him out to the forest. They take a walk, and then Cordova gives Steve his gun back so he can commit suicide by cop and end his own suffering. McGarrett won't do it though, and Cordova's forced to put his own gun to his head, but just as he's about to put a bullet in his own brain, Danny and Kono roll up, distracting him just long enough for Steve to knock him down. Danno books him, and Max takes Rumer on a date to the hospital cafeteria.

Aw yeah.

Elsewhere, CBS needed an excuse to have promote the Victoria's Secret fashion show on one of its programs... not that I mind or anything. Anyway, it seems that a threatening letter was slipped into the models' make-up trailer on the beach, so their security guy calls in Steve and Danny to help out. Since he's the serious business guy, McGarrett goes to help out on the bank robbery case while Danno volunteers to stay behind and guard the ladies.

It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.

His interviews with the ladies turn up nothing, but Fong's analysis of the letter leads to a crazy woman who was accused of stalking and attacking a movie star, and who recently went AWOL from her mental hospital. And, lo and behold, magic facial recognition shows that she flew into the island just a few days ago. Apparently, she's obsessed with the most famous model the show could afford, Behati Prinsloo. She's pretty, but I've never heard of her, so one wonders how a woman who's been confined to a mental hospital could have seen enough of her to become obsessed. Regardless, Danny shows up in the nick of time to save the day, puts two bullets in the woman's back, which luckily do not go through and kill Behati, and as a reward, he and McGarrett get backstage passes to the fashion show. Danno gets a kiss on the cheek for his trouble, and Steve stops him from asking for her phone number.

Case closed.

What I Liked
-When Rumer suggests that Max might be coming into the bank just to see her, he accidentally confirms it, and then lets out a little yelp. Masi Oka is hilarious.

He doesn't emote all that much, though.

-The models bust Danny's balls. I think it's a rule that everyone has to bust his balls at some point.
-McGarrett makes Kono cuff the naked dude. Seniority has some perks. One if them is not having to touch naked guys. The whole chase scene was actually pretty good. The guy's on mushrooms, so partway through the chase he looks up in the sky to check out a hallucination. That's some good acting. There's also a background actress covering her children's eyes. They put a lot more thought into that scene, and I appreciate it.
-C. Thomas Howell put in a really good performance. His acting's not always the best, and he's done some really awful projects, but the gruff, dying murderer-for-hire he did in this episode was just far enough over the top for a show of this type.

What I Hated
-The explanation for why the robbers' faces didn't show up on camera. Yes, you can disrupt cameras with an infrared LED, but it doesn't work nearly as well as what they showed, and an inexpensive filter (which I assume is on all bank cameras) will defeat them.
-There are a few shots where the stunt guys are on camera too long and are too in-focus. That seems to happen with some regularity on this show.

Or, maybe McGarrett's a shapeshifter.

-The models were terrible actresses. Nice to look at, and a good bit of cross-promotion for the fashion show, but terrible actresses.

Final Thoughts
This episode has redeemed the show in my eyes. The last few have been far too serious, but this one had exactly what I asked for: bikini babes, bitchin' Camaros, and "Book 'im, Danno". Action, adventure, danger, sexy ladies, and a chase scene with a naked dude. What more could you possibly want from a show?

Well, better acting, I suppose. Behati Prinsloo is a nice-looking lady, and I'm sure she's a great model, but modelling and acting are two very different things, and the models could've used a few lessons. That's enough to knock this episode down from great to just pretty-good. But even so, it was still a heck of a lot better than last week's.