H50: Runaway Bride 2: Keep Running, B*tch!!!

So, this week on Hawaii Five-0…wait, did anyone else watch the “next week on” segment at the end of this episode?!? SPIKE IS BACK NEXT WEEK!!!! Ok, anyways, now I’m back under control.

This week’s episode, however, did not feature Spike. Sadly. Instead it features Sgt Pepper and his Shattered Hearts Club Band. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. So, back to the beginning.

A couple of island boys are out in the jungle, bow hunting for some pork. Because I guess people just do that in Hawaii, and why wouldn’t they? The larger of the two takes a shot, but misses the hog, and it takes off running into the bushes. Of course, since there’s only one pig on the Island, it makes more sense for them to sprint after that one with sharp arrows in tow than just look for another, so they do exactly that. Suddenly, they realize they don’t know where the pig went, and hear a rustling in the brush next to them. They draw their bows, and…

Usually when I go piggin’, a girl that looks like this is not what stumbles into my lap.

She’s all panicky, probably because she’s in her jammies in the middle of the jungle and clearly she didn’t get there on her own.

INTRO!

So the episode proper begins…well…properly.

Meet Commander McShirtless.

I think A. O’L. has it in his contract to be the only shirtless person on the screen at any one time. Divided attention would be unacceptable.

Jin tells McG about some fishing trips he want on with Papa McG, and McG decides it’s time to bring Jin into his circle of trust. He tells him about how his dad called him Champ right before he died, and his dad never ever called him “champ,” nor “sport,” nor “tiger,” nor “boss,” nor “kidd-o,” nor “Commander McGarret,” and all he wanted was his dad’s love but Papa McG was too damn busy being a cop to ever even notice he had a son!!

Anyways, apparently the fact that his dad called him “champ” for the first time was a clue, which is why McG just knew the second he saw the toolbox with the “Champ” sticker on it that it was important! He shows Jin what’s in the fuckin’ box, and tells him he can’t make sense of any of it, but then Jin notices a number on the back of a photo and thinks it may be an old-school HPD case #.

Just then, the phone rings, and they gotta bounce. Upon arriving at the hospital Boomer and Danno brief them on the situation…it appears that this girl was abducted, but she doesn’t remember any of it at all, up to and including the part where she ended up in the jungle. McG suggests a bender, and Danno agrees that he’s heard crazier drinking stories, but she wasn’t drunk. Also, she and her husband were in Hawaii for their honeymoon…and her husband is nowhere to be found. McG decides he needs to talk to the girl for himself.

She’s equal parts confused, concerned, and scared out of her mind, but thankfully she had time to brush the jungle out of her hair.

On a side note, now that she’s all done-up, I recognize this girl…and recognizing her did a pretty good job of nearly ruining the episode for me, regardless of the fact that it wasn’t too bad. If anyone watched FlashForward last year, you’ll know her as Nichole from the Bryce/Nichole tandem that made everyone want to hang themselves.

As Jin told them, she doesn’t remember anything from the night before expect waking up in a room that just happened to be in the middle of the jungle. She doesn’t even know how she untied herself and escaped. Danno sees this is going nowhere, so he cuts the interview short. McG gets irritated by this, but Danno doesn’t care. They walk around a corner and smack dab into the mother-in-law, who is none-too-pleased to learn that her baby boy is still missing.

Nope. Not pleased at all.

She does what every mother-in-law does, and immediately tells McG and Danno that if anything happened to her son, the daughter-in-law is responsible. Dun dun DUUUUNN!!! Also, please pardon the horrid photo-shopping. I had neither the time nor the skill to actually make that look any better than it does.

Returning from the commercial break, we get a little insight into mom’s skepticism. Daughter-in-law Erica and son Jake met only about 6 months ago, and were engaged after only 3 weeks! Also, Kevin has a lot of money, and despite her urgings they didn’t sign a prenup!  Welp, this spells trouble!

So, where do we go when we want to mull over the facts? Well, if it was me it’d probably be a bar, but that’s mostly because I don’t have access to fancy marble floors and super fancy computers.

Our boys do their research and learn that Erica had about 100 grand in debt, and had been bouncing all over the country holding dead-end jobs before landing a temp job at Jake’s law firm. Jin tosses up the driver’s licenses for both of them up on the screen, and Danno comments on her being absurdly out of Jake’s league.

I love what Hollywood thinks “ugly” looks like.

Ok, fine, the guy may be a little dopey looking or whatever, but geez. Hollywood’s idea of dopey is like a CEO “mingling with the commonfolk” by taking his friends out to box seats at a baseball game.

They all seem to be on board with the possibility that Erica staged her own abduction to throw them off, and kidnapped/offed her new husband for his cash. The hotel room has no signs of forced entry, and the keycards wasn’t used. Also, apparently Erica made a few calls from her cell phone to a room at another hotel. Fishy!!

So, of course, the next move is to go question Erica. According to her, she didn’t make the calls from her phone…Jake forgot his charger so maybe he did. She also tells McG that she was perfectly ok with signing the prenup, but Jake didn’t want to, because he didn’t want to give his mom that victory. She then starts to put the pieces together and realizes that they suspect she may have had something to do with her husband’s disappearance. McG tells her she’s a “person of interest” because she’s the only witness, and offers to put her up in a new hotel room with a police detail. She screams “Why?!? So you can keep an eye on me?!?” and storms off. They just watch her go.

I love this…just reminds me of the family sitcoms I used to watch on TGIF, where the kid gets in trouble and feels that he’s being punished unjustly and storms out of the room acting hurt that his parents won’t listen to his side of things. I then remember trying this once, and I swear I hadn’t made it two steps before my dad pulled out a whip and went all Indiana Jones on my ass and the next thing I knew I was being dragged backwards across the living room floor by my ankles.

Seriously…the cops are just going to watch their only suspect stomp off?

Hate to see ya go, but I love to watch ya leave!!!

Jin and Boomer head over to the hotel room where the couple was abducted. Finally. You’d think they’d have been here three times by now. They discuss honeymoons, and Jin makes mention of what he’d planned for his, which sparks some anger from Boomer. Apparently Jin was almost married at some point, and she did something that chaffs Boomer’s ass. Not sure what.

Jin walks into the bedroom portion of the mansion of the hotel room, and immediately notices it smells like someone dumped a gallon of nail polish remover on the floor. He remembers a case where someone pumped acetone into a hotel room to incapacitate the victims, and decides to take a closer look at the door between the suites.

In real life, a tiny hole in the door between rooms would have a tiny camera behind it, not a gas hose. Just ask Erin Andrews.

McG and Danno head over the Pagoda hotel, where Erica’s phone mysteriously called someone a few times the night before. They learn the room number to where the calls were directed, and head on over to pay a visit. No one is home, so Danno decides that he pretends to hear someone screaming for help on the other side of the door just so McG can show off a little…

****BAM!!!!*****POW!!!!****SNACK!!!!*****

Turns out Danno only had intended to go back and get the key from the hotel manager, but McG is paid to look pretty, not think before acting. They find a bunch of pictures of Jake and Erica, and then they see someone approaching the room. McG hides behind the door and THWACKS!!! the crap out of the guy when he pulls a gun. Then he learns the guy was just a Private Dick, and also a P.I., and he was also investigating a case…the SAME case.

Back at the other hotel, Jin and Boomer enter the adjoining room and find a canister of acetone and Jake’s body. Jin calls to let McG know, and he takes this new information into his interrogation of the PI.

It turns out the PI was hired by Jake’s mom to find Jake and Erica. However, Jake saw him a couple days prior and told him to back off. AND THIS IS WHY YOU ALWAYS HIRE A P.I. THAT YOUR SUBJECTS DON’T KNOW!!!

Anyways, he tells them that Erica really, truly, madly, deeply loves Jake, and that it’s not just for the money. Welp, that’s gonna make telling her he’s dead a bit harder, huh?

Especially when she’s sitting on rocks, statuesque, gazing out over the waves.

So McG is the one to break the news, and she doesn’t take it well, as would be expected. She gets mad and starts hitting McG, and he rape-hugs her to calm her down.

Danno and McG have a rather somber ride home, discussing how hard it is to have to break the news to someone that their loved one is dead, and McG decides to lighten things up by putting on the radio. Danno seems to take issue with the song that’s on the radio, and he and McG have a little argument and I’m waiting for the classic moment where they both bust into song, but it just never happens. If you’re wondering, the song featured is “Sexy Eyes” by Dr. Hook. “Who?” you ask…

Dr. Hook.

McG makes Danno endure the torture.

Jin and Boomer head over to the Medical Examiner, who still makes me think of Scrubs (RIP) every time I see him in that white lab coat. I always did love Franklin…

ANYWAYS, he’s tuning his own piano…Boomer says it sounds like he’s torturing a walrus. Anyways, after some brief chit-chat about the case, Franklin realizes that he’s heard this story before. Newlyweds knocked out with acetone gas, husband murdered, wife taken to a remote area. In his spare time he apparently spends his free time on internet forums dedicated to unsolved murder cases.

Back at H50 HQ, the gang looks up the previous murders that Franklin directed them to. The guy seems to be a bit of an island hopper, killing on 3 different islands last time he went on a spree. Just then, Jake/Erica’s car turns up in a remote area, and so McG, Danno, and half of HPD head out to check it out.

Still at H50 HQ, Boomer shows Jin how she went through all the photos from the PI (who has since become no longer a focal point of the show it seems) and found the same guy in a few different pictures. So the killer has a face!

Back in the woods, McG stumbles upon an overgrown shed. They bust in the door and no one is home, but they find the ropes that had Erica tied up! The find morphine, which is quite a traceable little substance, and they have Boomer look into it. Poor Boomer is like the person behind the scenes that does all the work and gets none of the credit. Turns out the morphine was stolen from a cruise ship a couple days prior! Jin realizes that the killer is probably on the cruise, and uses it for his transportation between islands. Clever. Turns out that one person was on this cruise and on the boat that happened to line up with the last string of murders!

This guy looks more like he belongs in Dr. Hook than in a line-up…

The ship is about to make port, and McG tells them that no matter what, no one is to leave the ship. McG and Danno board the ship and head straight for Bradford’s room, but he’s not there! McG hands out his photo to the crew of the ship and they all start searching. Back in his room, they find a bag of wedding rings that he allegedly keeps as trophies, as well as a file folder with information on a few potential next targets.

Just then, one of the ship’s crew radios McG and tells him he found the guy! McG tells him to keep eyes on the guy but not to try to apprehend him. However, the guy gets a little too close…

****THUNK!!!!!****

McG attempts to follow the guy, and finds a door that’s been forced open, but when he enters the room, Bradford isn’t there!! Danno has narrowed down the possible suspects from four to one, so he and McG haul ass over to the hotel where they’re staying.

Jin calls to give a bit more background on our killer. It turns out that Bradford was left at the alter, and is now hellbent on revenge, on the anniversary of his failed wedding.

At the hotel where the probable next victim is, a pretty brunette is getting a massage. Wait, I think I left out the part where the gang deduces that all of the victims are pretty brunettes with blue eyes…what shitty storytelling on my part. Sorry guys. Anyways, this chick meets his profile…and then her phone rings, and it’s the front desk telling her there’s a phone call for her, and it’s a family emergency and she should hurry to the nearest courtesy phone so she can be connected. Only we see in the background that it’s actually Bradford!!!

The lady and her husband hurry to the courtesy phone, only there is no phone!!!

Now that’s what I call a smash and grab!

McG and Danno are pulling in to the hotel and see Bradford leaving the hotel! So McG pulls an amazing u-turn in his massive FBI suburban and chases them!! They fly down tiny back-country roads at high speeds and McG is having trouble overtaking the car because of oncoming traffic and he’s all like…

… “man, I would KILL for a blue shell right about now!!!”

However, blue shells only exist in Mario Kart, so McG has to do this the hard way. Danno is worried that his nearly 15 year no-vomit streak is about to come to an end, and McG freaks out, because apparently puking in the car is way worse than what’s about to happen to it…

I didn’t realize they’d hired Michael Bay to direct this episode…

Lucky for our heroes, Bradford comes to a road closed sign, but he takes the lady and puts a knife to her throat and stands at the edge of a cliff!!! There’s another classic McG and Danno moment, where they bust into argument and totally throw Bradford off, and right when he’s least expecting it McG launches a wicked wrist shot and puts a bullet in the guy’s chest.

Do you have life insurance? Because if you do, you could always use a little more, right? I mean, who couldn’t? But you wanna know something? I got the feeling… you ain’t got any. Am I right or am I right? Or am I right?

He turns around, stumbles to the edge of the cliff, and jumps. Death before dishonor!!! Danno runs over to comfort the victim, and this time it’s his turn to rape-hug someone!

Back at H50 HQ, coerces forces Erica and the mother-in-law to kiss and make up. Jin walks in and tells McG he learned what the case number from the Champ toolbox meant. It turns out that the case # has gone missing, and that the case file was a homicide investigation! Hurray for the random, overarching storyline that we’ll hear more about in another 5 episodes! They just need to bring on Kristen Bell and it’ll be Veronica Mars: The Later Years! (ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease)

Next week….SPIKE!!! And then a break for the holidays, it would seem!