Hawaii Five-0: Battle Royale

So, how’s this for a little mid-season finale, huh? You can’t honestly not be happy that Spike’s back, can you? Even if he is a bit of a bastard…but he always was. And just like the good old days, he’s out for blood!!

The episode begins as many have before it, with banging drums and flashing lights and the feeling that something really big is going down, and it is!! McG and Danno run right through a police barricade, ignoring the shouts of the guy wearing the space-suit telling them that they have to be wearing a bomb suit to go any closer, and McG’s all like “We’re Five-0 bitch! KING KONG AIN’T GOT NOTHIN’ ON US!!!” and runs down to where they find Jin on his knees wearing a stylish new choker to go with that dazzling blue shirt of his.

He tells our boys that he got jumped from behind, and he doesn’t know how he let them get the drop on him but they did, and the next thing he knew he was on his knees about to blow…welp, what happens in Hawaii stays in Hawaii, right? Ok, so seriously he’s pretty ashamed that he got his ass beat and is now on his knees with a motion-sensitive bomb strapped around his neck, and we come to the first

I’ve made a huge mistake

moment of the episode. This will be a recurring theme. In fact, chug a beer every time there’s an “I’ve made a huge mistake” moment this episode. We’ll play this game together, ok? Don’t make me drink alone is what I’m asking. Anyways, there’s a shitty cell phone in Jin’s pocket, and it rings, and McG takes it and answers it, and…

INTRO!!!

So their opening “don’t you wish you were here instead of whereverthefuck you are that isn’t as awesome as Hawaii” segment doesn’t do such a wonderful job of convincing me to pack my bigs this week…

This is not what Christmas should look like…

Being from the South, I don’t have this crazy idea that Christmas should be snowy…but it should at least be cold enough to wear tacky sweaters…I mean, the guy in the picture has even taken the time to shave his back. This is the anti-Christmas.

In the background they’re playing some dumb Hawaiian song about how “Mele Kalikimaka” is how you say “Merry Christmas” in Hawaii…so basically it’s “Feliz Navidad” as performed on a uke-fuckin-lele. We’re at a point in time 24 hours prior to Jin being found as a living bomb, so either these guys stole the schematics for a time machine from Coke Zero or we’re about to find out how Jin ended up with the 2nd-most-deadly pearl necklace of all time.

So Danno unwraps a box in his shitty little apartment, and it’s a Christmas Tree…

…in the same way that black snakes and sparklers are “fireworks.”

Just then Goomba shows up with a Santa suit for Danno. We learn that he likes to dress up as Santa for his daughter who can’t act good (and would like to learn how to do other things good as well), but the suit that Goomba brings over is big enough for Hagrid, so clearly Danno can’t pull it off. Goomba asks him, if he dresses up as Santa every year, why doesn’t he own a Santa suit. Danno tells him he owned one, but lost it in the divorce. Ok, I thought Danno and the ex had kissed and made up…what kind of cold bitch wouldn’t give him back his Santa suit so he could dress up for their daughter? WOMEN…..geez…Danno’s phone rings, so he takes off.

Danno and McG meet up with Jin, who is about 23.5 hours away from strapping on a bomb, and he tells them that a major international arms dealer just turned up dead. It seems that he was tortured before he was executed, too. Danno and McG are like “man, this is a hard case,” and from the grave we hear that arms dealer yell “You think this is hard?!? Try being water-boarded! THAT’S hard!!!”

When they arrive in the H50 war room, Boo has already solved the crime. She found the body was dumped at some super fancy resort, where the dead guy owned a villa…and she has security tapes sent over, showing the dead guy walking with…

SPIKE!!!

A O’L is all like “man I miss watching Spike on TV. This really takes me back.” Then he’s like “wait, how is he not dead?!?” and Danno is like “dude next time…stake, remember?” and McG’s like “why would I want to wine & dine him? I know he’s almost as sexy as me, but that doesn’t mean I should buy him a slab of cow!!!” and Danno is like “dude STAKE! Wooden stake, not cow steak..man it’s a good thing you’re pretty.”

So McG sees that Spike didn’t die and is a bit worried that he might try to regift those bullet holes that McG gave him, and we’re at our second…

…I’ve made a huge mistake…

of the episode. We get a little flashback of Spike capping McG’s dad, though they forget to mention the part where McG whacked off Spike’s brother first because they want to make McG look even more like the victim and tragic hero. Fine, whatever. Spike is a cold-blooded, bloodsucking killer. They shift the camera to the rest of the crew briefly so a stagehand can run on and drip some eyedrops in McG’s eyes so you can see the fury welling up like a hangover, and he calls the Gov’nah to tell her that the man that murder his father is alive.

Our boys visit the crime scene, presumably leaving Boomer behind to iron some clothes and fix a hot lunch for them, and one of the randoms at the scene manages to find a cell phone in a tide pool that just happens to belong to the dead guy. Jin goes all Bill Nye on us and sticks the sim card in a bag of rice to draw the moisture out, and is able to recover the call history, and finds out that the dead dude called a local gun dealer. They track him down to some place off the beaten patch, as would be expected, and McG plays chicken with a couple pedestrians who think they’ll be able to stop the Camaro.

Anyways, they show up and there are a bunch of unsavory types hootin’ and hollerin’ over a cockfight.

…and I see your schwartz is as big as mine…

Seriously, though, it’s about time this show had a literal cockfight, since every five minutes McG is having a metaphorical one with somebody. He refers to the cockfighting  as Hawaii’s answer to Jersey’s tanning salons. McG and Danno threaten to arrest everyone unless this gun dealer, Trent, steps forward. There may be no honor among thieves, but gun runners apparently live by a strict moral code, and Trent reveals himself. Apparently the guy also is pretty astute, and realizes that they’re after Spike. He tells the guys that he referred Spike to a special doctor who is very good about patching up bullet holes and not telling people afterwards.

Turns out no one has heard from this guy for months, but no one filed a missing persons report because apparently he mass-emailed everyone telling them he was taking a much-needed trip around the world. The gang heads out to illegally search his shit. Well, they find the guy…and he’s dead and stuffed in a closet in his house, wrapped in plastic.

Danno and McG go to visit their little Asian princess in prison, hoping he will provide some clues to Spike’s whereabouts. Seriously, this guy is such a ridiculous caricature that even my white ass finds it a bit insulting. I’m seriously just waiting for him to yell out “DUO MEAN DANGEROUS!!!”  I feel like that reference will go completely unappreciated, so…here.

Anyways, they threaten to tell everyone in jail that he’s a snitch if he doesn’t help out, so he agrees to help out, and tells them that his guy will never meet with them if he’s not there. Hong Kong Danger Duo’s guy is reluctant to help out, McG tells him that all of Spike’s other buddies are dead and if he doesn’t want to end up dead he should help them. He hooked Spike up with a condo, and tells the boys where. He also tells them that Spike hangs out at a hostess bar.

Jin takes a team to the condo, but no one is home, so Danno and McG hit up the bar. The decide to leave HKDD in the car, handcuffed to the steering wheel. Ok, seriously, have they not seen Rush Hour? NEVER LEAVE AN ASIAN GUY ALONE AND HANDCUFFED TO THE STEERING WHEEL!!! Anyways, McG and Danno go into the hostess bar and see all the lonely people (where do they all come from?) buying girls drinks just for companionship, and then all of a sudden Spike walks into the room and is mortified that he’s been seen at a hostess bad by his arch-nemesis!!! It’s time for our third

I’ve made a huge mistake

moment of the episode!!! Spike and McG have a brief stare down before Spike takes off running through the bar. He runs outside, and HKDD backs the Camaro up and Spike jumps in and the squeal away!! McG runs out in the road in front of a cab and is all like

I know Kung Fu.

Apparently the cabbie believes him and gives him the car. McG is driving like a maniac and tells Danno to put his seatbelt on, but while McG is trying to buckle up and drive he nearly kills both of them. They realize that Spike and HKDD are stopping only a couple of blocks from where Jin is. Unfortunately, Jin’s whole strike team has apparently already gone out for beers, but that’s ok because

no one this manly needs backup.

Jin hurries to the port, and they lead use the tracking bracelet to tell Jin where he is. He’s on a boat!! Jin hurries onto the boat all alone because he’s a Loner, Dottie…a Rebel, and he looks into a cabin and sees the tracking bracelet on the bed and is like…

I’ve made a huge mistake…

and that’s the fourth huge mistake of the episode, and as such it’s time someone gets smashed in the head with a lead pipe! And it’s Jin, and he goes down!!! And then he wakes up with a bomb strapped around his neck. If only he were surrounded by another 30 or so asian kids similarly outfitted, this would be Battle Royale 2.

So we’re back to the beginning, to the part where the shitty cell phone rings and McG answers him. Spike asks for 10 million in cash and a way off the island, and McG goes into his whole “My name is Inigo Montoya…you killed my father, prepare to die!” routine. Jin’s just sitting there like “maybe don’t piss him off while I still have a bomb around my neck.” Anyways, Danno calls the gov’nah and she won’t give them the money because we don’t negotiate with terrorists, but I don’t understand how luring him in with 10 mil and then capping his ass counts as negotiating with terrorists…

McG goes and tells Jin that the gov’nah isn’t gonna help him, and Boomer comes running up and when she finds out that they need 10 mil, she convinces Jin to tell them about his secret stash. Jin doesn’t want to talk about it, because the “secret stash” is actually a police evidence room, and he was already accused of stealing money from this stash once. Jin tells them that there are blueprints underneath a loose floorboard concealed by his nightstand. Well, that certainly sounds suspect.

So McG runs over to Jin’s and gets the blueprints, and he and Danno express concerns with the fact that Jin has these blueprints, and Boomer tells them that he was keeping them to protect someone else and they have to trust him, they just have to, and they all pile into the Mystery Machine and take off to save the day.

…only their Mystery Machine looks more like a rape van.

Somehow they think that an unmarked white utility van will be inconspicuous when they’re using it as a cover for breaking into a place via an underground tunnel. McG and Danno head into the tunnel, and some old lady starts questioning Boomer. Boomer tells her that they’re “just doing some…ya know…water stuff.” /facepalm. Now I understand why they leave her home to clean while they go have all the fun. The old lady tells her that they have a neighborhood watch, and we’re now at moment #5!!

I’ve made a huge mistake.

I feel like we’re in bizarro Scooby-Doo land, where Boomer, McG, and Danno are going to get busted, but they would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling senior citizens!!!

McG and Danno grab the cash and hurry back out just in time. They jump into the wagon and drive off. Boomer stops by to tell Jin that they’re gonna make the drop, and she and McG head out. I love it when Boomer gets to do stuff. Spike calls McG and learns that the 10 mil is on the way. Spike tells McG to come alone or boooooooooom goes the dynamite, so Boomer lays down in the back of the truck. When they start getting kinda near, she jumps out while the truck is still moving and stays hidden from Spike and gets in position to take a shot when needed…

Moments like this make me miss Battlestar.

McG tosses the money over to Spike, who looks at it, then throws the bag onto the fire. It erupts in flame like it’s been soaked in gasoline. Spike tells him that it wasn’t about the money, but that he just wanted a chance to look into McG dreamy blue eyes as he killed a man that worked for him. Well, Boomer has had just about enough of the foreplay and shoots him! He drops the detonator to Jin’s bomb, and McG charges in and beats the unholy fuck out of him.

MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA! YOU KILLED MY FATHER!! PREPARE TO DIE!!!

However, instead of driving a stake into his heart, McG just knocks him out, uses his thumbprint to disarm the bomb, and arrests him!

McG looks at the fire, which is consuming the last of the Benjamins that were in his little camo backpack, and we arrive at what is the sixth

I’ve made a huuuuuuuuge mistake

moment of the day. But at least Jin is alive, and Danno takes the necklace off him and everyone is happy. McG tells the gov’nah about HKDD getting away, and the heroic tale of how they caught Spike…but neglects to mention the part where they burned 10 mil in evidence money.

So the gang gets together to chip in and help Danno out by altering the mammoth-sized Santa outfit that Goomba brought Danno at the beginning of the episode, because after blowing a cool $10 mil to save Jin, they didn’t think it’d be prudent to drop a couple hundred on a Santa suit that actually fit him. They make fun of McG for knowing how to sew…as Danno uses a fucking stapler to attach the fur lining to the coat. Seriously, a stapler?!? But I guess they were afraid that if they had Boomer do the sewing then we’d all scream “RACIST!!!!” and “SEXIST!!!!” at the same time, which in my humble opinion would’ve been much better than revealing that McG was in boy scouts. Though I don’t remember learning to sew in scouts. I remember learning to sew when I got too fat for my pants and the buttons started falling off…

Anyways, this ragtag group manages to perfectly alter the Santa suit for Danno, and they finish just in time. Grace shows up and shows off her terrible acting and then there are fireworks. On Christmas. It’s like Christmas in July (which already annoys the shit out of me) except it’s Christmas in July in December! No, Hawaii. No.

Just when we think everything is happy, though…someone pays Spike a visit in prison. Someone he doesn’t seem very happy to see…and it’s time for our final…

…I’ve made a huge mistake…

moment of the episode. The guy asks him how much McG knows about what his father was investigating…which we think was his mom’s murder. Spike tells the guy that McG is too close to knowing the truth…and we end this half season with a cliffhanger!!!