Hawaii Five-0: A Puff(y) Piece…

Well, this episode began exactly like I expected it would…the usual “look how much better Hawaii is than where you are at this moment…unless you’re in Hawaii” shots, but with a little Diddy in the background. See what I did there? No? Oh well. What does he call himself these days, though, anyways. I’m feeling really old and out-of-touch right now. I’m gonna call him Puffy, because that’s what he was back in my day. Am I dating myself? I think so. Anyways, since the target market for this show probably has no more than a 5% overlap with the target market for Puffy’s music, they choose “Coming Home,” and cut it off after the nice Skylar Grey/piano intro.

On a side note, is it sad that I had no trouble calling up the names of more than a couple Nick Lachey/98 degrees song names to work into my recap when he guest starred, but I can’t, for my life, come up with a single P. Diddy, Puff Daddy, or Puffy song to work into this one? Yes. The answer is “yes.”

So after the 20 or so seconds of the song and beautiful Hawaii (made more painful by the whole IT’S FUCKING 30 DEGREES AND HAILING AS THE EPISODE IS AIRING HERE IN CHICAGO thing), we see a lady and her kid strolling along the beach, and the Puffy walks up. The kid looks at his mom and asks “who’s that, Mom?” and she replies “it’s your father…” Great, writers. Thanks…thanks for this…black kid doesn’t know his dad. What am I supposed to do with this?

That’s right, son…the writers are racist…that’s why, even though I’m meeting you on the beach, we can’t go swimming right now. Because according to them, we don’t know how…

…and, of course, to derail that caption, immediately after, Puffy tells his kid that later they can go swimming with a dolphin he saw. Asshole writers…

So, I’m not gonna spend the whole time knockin’ Puffy, but he really seems to be trying too hard at this acting thing. He’s not bad, so much, just…I kind feel like he’s afraid of the kid, a bit…

Don’t bite….gooood boy, doooooon’t bite daddy…

I’m just not getting the cool vibe at all. Like he’s nervous. Not like he’s acting nervous, but like he’s acting nervously. However, in light of the fact that I genuinely thought he got better as the episode progressed, I’m gonna let him off here. They should’ve probably just reshot the first few scenes.

His kid, on the other hand. Holy shit. We’ve found SpaceGrate’s soulmate. The Yin to her Yang. The peanut butter to her jelly. The lamb to her tuna fish. The black to her white. Wait…that’s not racist, right?

So, he gives the Walt a football, and has a chat with his wife. They group hug it out, and then we fade to black. Night! Fade to night! So he and his wife have a talk, and it turns out that Puff has been undercover in a crime family for the last two years. So that’s why his kid didn’t recognize him. Except…does mom not keep photos of him lying around? Did she not tell the kid that they were going to meet his dad on the beach? What, was she just like “Hey Walt, let’s go to Disney World” and he’s like “Yay!!” and then she’s like “Sike! We’re going for a boring ass-walk on the beach!!” “NOOOO!!!!!”

Whatever. Anyways, Puffy goes outside and sits alone on the beach for no raisin at all. Just after he sits down, he hears gunshots!!! He runs back to the house and finds a dead guard, then another shot guard who isn’t dead, who tells him there are 2 shooters! Then he sees his wife dead on the ground, and does the sensible thing when there are bad guys with guns, and kneels over her and expresses his sorrow that she’s dead! And then Walt comes in, and Puffy shoves him back into his bedroom and tries to shoot the bad guys, but gets shot instead! He chases the men out of the house, and shoots one, but they both get into an SUV and GTFO.

On second thought, maybe it doesn’t feel so good to be a gangsta.

INTRO!

So McG comes back into his house from taking a swim, cast and all…saran-wrapped of course. But he’s wearing a shirt. Weird. Anyways, he smells something, and it happens to be Goomba in his kitchen, cooking him spam fried rice. Apparently there was a bet, while you and I may be thinking that it sounds to the contrary, McG won this bet. He decides, however, to not collect. I don’t blame him.

McG, intent on looking anywhere except the spam fried rice, notices a package was slipped under his door. More crime scene photos from Dad’s toolbox. Then comes the obligatory phone call that kicks off the episode.

Everyone arrives at the crime scene, and McG finds Puffy on the ground, right where he collapsed earlier. Ok…it’s morning. Judging by the fact McG has already had his morning swim, at least 8 or 9. How late do you think Puff was up talkin to his wife? Maybe 1? 2? So at a minimum, Puffy was shot in the stomach no less than 6 hours ago.  I’m not doctor, but I don’t think people survive that…but luckily, Puffy is only mostly dead…and mostly dead is still slightly alive…

“The Island isn’t finished with you…!”

He tells them to find his kid, so they run inside. They see his dead wife, and the dead guard, and then another guard who unconscious but not dead yet either. In the bedroom, McG and Danno find Walt hiding in the closet. For some reason, even though Danno has two fully functioning, not broken arms, McG carries Walt out of the house. He sends the kid off with some nameless officer, and Jin comes up and tells him that the wounded guy had a FBI badge.

Just then, more Feds pull up. Some blonde chick gets out of the car and gives them the lowdown. Puffy was working under cover for the FBI, trying to take down Jimmy Cannon, a mob boss in NYC. Anyways, McG and blondie get into a pissing contest about who can and will do what, and McG wins as always. Because McG could even beat R Kelly in a pissing contest.

At the hospital, McG and Danno chat up Puffy in his hospital gown. He’s doing smashingly for having just been shot in the stomach. He tells them he knows it was Jimmy, and that they have no chance of taking the guy down. McG’s all like “DON’T TELL ME WHAT I CAN’T DO!!”

This McGarret guy sure is a headache…

At the crime scene again, we get a little Danno-Boomer action…they have an evidence revealing competition. Boomer wins, because she knows these secret cameras exist because she got caught drinking and night surfing in high school by one. So she does what anyone on H50 that wants to keep up with McG would do…

…I’ve been forced to watch worse…

At the hospital, Puffy is reunited with Walt, and promises him that he’ll get the bad guy.

Back at H50 HQ, McG and Boomer are looking at the nightvision tape that shows the brief gunfight in which Puffy shot a bad guy. There’s a look at his face, but it appears to be a bit…green. Boomer says she’ll try to clean it up and run against Cannon’s organization. Jin comes in and tells them that the bullets from the crime scene are tungsten, and that matches a bunch of murders that are thought to be linked to Cannon. McG grabs Danno and heads to Cannon’s..

Cannon’s guards at the gate tell McG that Cannon isn’t seeing visitors today, and slip him a couple Benjis for lunch…McG thanks them, and then does what McG does.

I love that the dude on the left does a fat person cartwheel to get out of the way of the speeding car.

I call it such because this is precisely what even slightly fat people (myself included) look like when they try to do cartwheels…they can’t actually straighten their bodies…granted, I’ve not tried to do a cartwheel in…probably 20 years.

McG and Danno interrupt lunch between Jimmy Cannon and his kid…

…who may as well be named “Carlton Banks Cannon”

Jimmy tells our boys that he had nothing to do with the murder. McG and Danno leave, but not before collecting shoes from everyone present.

On a side note, I do like the guy they brought in to play Jimmy Cannon. I liked him on The Cape, too, even though the show itself was poorly executed and I was really only watching for Summer Glau, because I’d do anything for Summer Glau. Well, almost anything. I love her almost as much as Boomer…I’d do ANYTHING for Boomer.

Boomer tells McG that the guy from the greeny/grainy film didn’t match any known associates of Jimmy Cannon…so McG takes the photo to the hospital to show Puffy. Except when they get there…

This is NOT what I had in mind when I asked Puffy to handcuff me to the bed!!!!

So, Puffy is gone from the hospital, less than a day after getting shot in the fucking liver. On that note, I’m pretty sure if you shot ME in the liver you’d immediately get drunk. I’m not sure of the chemistry, biology, or physics behind that statement, only that it’s true.

They found Walt, who’s ok, and put him under protection. Again. Because I’m pretty sure he was already under protection, so now he’s under double protection. Double-bagged, Vegas style, if you catch my drift. McG and Danno head back to the crime scene, and find more officers bound with their own handcuffs. Puffy apparently changed clothes there and stole the officers’ car!

Back and H50, Boomer has a nice little chat, accompanied by piano music, with Walt. She gets him to look through Cannon’s known associates, hoping for him to recognize one. He doesn’t flash. But he does flash on the greeny-grainy picture. Duh. Well all knew that guy was there, he was ON FUCKING CAMERA THERE!! Boomer holds him to make him feel better. I wonder how I can become a child actor on H50.

Boomer calls McG to update him on how they have no leads, still. Jin walks in and joins the phone convo, and tells them that blonde FBI chick conveniently had a ‘family emergency’ last night, and thus skipped security detail…so they bring her in for questioning. After a “I WANT THE TRUTH!!!” “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!” moment, in which McG proclaims

I answer to God and the Governor. Yes, I recognize those are the names you call out during sex. No, it’s not weird. Yes, I realize you also added “Steve Fucking McGarrett” to that list. No, that’s not weird either.

She confesses that “family emergency” meant she was trying to prevent losing custody of her kid. She apparently went and framed her ex-husband for a misdemeanor to prevent him from leaving the country with their daughter. That’s a good way to not lose a custody battle…

Boomer comes in and tells McG they found the police cruiser Puffy stole, and it’s abandoned! They deduce that he stole a police cruiser for access to the computer. Wait, so they don’t have to log into these things? I mean, my computer at work locks after like 10 minutes. Anyways, combining the search Puffy was running with info from Jin, they locate who Puffy was trying to locate, and race over to his residence! They’re too late, though…dude caught one in the back of the head. Sad. Didn’t even have a speaking role. McG tells Danno to call HPD and make Puffy a wanted man.

HE’S GONE ROUGE!!!

Just then, Puffy calls to tell McG he didn’t do it. McG doesn’t buy it, and asks Puff to turn himself in. He doesn’t trust McG. How do you not trust McG? He’s like Jesus, with ABS!!! P tells McG to stay out of his way. In fairness, that’s probably more of a plea than a threat.

They decide that Puffy is listening in to the police scanners, so rather than going silent, they use this to their advantage. While McG and Danno & Co. are down in a field with a bunch of other cops, the Hong Kong Danger Duo steps in and takes care of collaring Puffy.

DUO MEAN DANGEROUS!!!!

Yes, I realize they’re both Korean. Yes, I realize Hong Kong is not in Korea. But c’mon.

Anyways, McG confronts Puffy. Boomer displays the .38 they took off him, and Jin reveals that the most recent dead guy had a couple .38 slugs in him. Then they find a 9mm with tungsten bullets in the trunk of the car. Puffy reasserts that he didn’t kill anyone, and neither did Jimmy Cannon.

SCURRRRRRRRRR!!!!! (that’s my record-scratching onomatopoeia) (who the fuck decided how to spell onomatopoeia, anyways? Fuck him.)

So, of course, McG is curious. Like a cat. And Toight like a Toiger! Anyways, he interrogates Puffy, and doesn’t seem to believe him, until Jin comes in and points out that the bullets in the recently deceased don’t match Puffy’s gun. So then Puff comes out and puts on a clinic. He shows them that one gun’s tungsten bullets have a full load of gunpowder, while another gun’s tungsten bullets have a half load. Apparently this was by design, to avoid killing the moley mole. The other only mostly dead guy at the crime scene. I don’t think I fully buy into the physics in that. Mostly because at the range the guy would’ve had to be shot at in order to guarantee a safe bullet wound (such as the shoulder, thanks for getting one right TV), I don’t think the powder load is going to make much of a difference. But I’m not an expert.

They go interrogate the mostly dead agent, and McG threatens to leave him alone with Puffy if he doesn’t talk, and since they guy is afraid of rap he squeals like a canary.

McG and Puffy head out to the Second Gunman’s (very) humble abode. They see him just getting out of a car, and Puffy gets out and gives chase. Very uncharacteristically, McG stays in the car, and floors it in a bit of a roundabout pursuit. There’s a chase through the houses, but Puffy is in a little pain thanks to a bullet hole in his fucking liver (seriously he’s running after people the DAY AFTER GETTING FUCKING SHOT IN THE LIVER!!! Who are you, Combs? Fitty Cent?!?)

Anyways, McG gets on the dude’s tail, and does what McG does best….

…homewrecker….

He collapses an awning on the dude. Nice, McG. I hope they’re insured to protect them from Mayhem like McG.

What ensues makes me think of Sammy L and his stupid purple lightsaber in the not-quite Star Wars movies…

Because only using one gun is for bitches…

Seriously, P…2 guns? Did Jon Woo get ahold of this? Fuck.

Anyways, P has to shoot the guy because he tries to draw on them. He runs up and tells the dude he’s fucked no matter what, but he can choose heaven or hell, so tell Puff who sent you to kill him. The dude buys it, and tells him it was Carlton Banks Cannon!!!

So, of course McG and Puffy and a billion no name officers storm Jimmy’s complex and arrest the shit out of Carlton.

Man, Uncle Phil dad is gonna be so pissed…

Puffy tells Jimmy that he’s gonna be on him like shit on rice, and then we cut back to H50 and Walt playing with the football his Diddy gave him…

Puffy decides that he’s going to take a desk job in Washington to finish taking down Jimmy, so he can raise his kid. McG gives him a job offer if he ever feels like moving to Hawaii, presumably because we all know Puffy drives a nicer car than Danno…

The episode closes with Puff and Walt walking away to the same bit of the song that opened the episode…the non-Puffy part of a Puffy song…

I will say, I hope he comes back as a more permanent character next season, since there are only a couple left this year, and you know the big cliffhanger will involve Wo Fat, no P Diddy.