Hawaii Five-0 “E Malama (To Protect)” 

Excuse the delay, kids. Tumblr ate my draft (no, really!) Last week’s episode switched things up a bit as Kelly was partnered with McGarrett, Danny went ever so slightly off kilter to protect Grace (and Rachel) while Kono ran point and awesomely told a killer’s attorney exactly what she thought of his threats.

We commence at a very, very, ridiculously remote outpost where a witness, Julie, is about to be driven into town for the case that’s had her under WITSEC protection. Her U.S. Marshall heads downstairs to meet the police officer escorts, and TV 101 tells you that because the only exchange of dialogue the Marshall and Julie have involves her apologizing about keeping him from his family, he’s going to take a bullet before the credits. Alas, he takes a few and the pseudo cops come after Julie. She’s ballsy, though, and does the Aquanet + lighter thing to scald one of the guys before hauling ass out a window.

Back in town, Danny has been introduced to coco puffs and is rather enthusiastic as he tells Kelly that his mother’s lasagna is now off the last meal list. There’s some back and forth with them about the way Danny and Rachel dodge each other’s calls and resort to message-leaving. We cut to Rachel leaving a message for Danny at the precise moment she and Grace are carjacked. When Danny hears the playback, he’s apoplectic until his hone rings again and Rachel tells him they’re safe. The rest of the 5-0s head up the hill to look for the witness while Danny hustles to the station to see his girls.

The 5-0s check out the scene at the WITSEC house and Kelly and McGarrett opt for a commando-style search and retrieval while Kono runs the operation. We then get the boys doing the false redirect thing out in the trees until they catch up with Julie and patch her up. McGarrett tells Kelly to get her back town because he’s going to be busy putting the smack down on the assassins. In a weird wordplay thing he makes a point to tell anyone else who finds the guys to take them out, but when he collapses one of the guy’s lungs with an errant log, he saves the guy. Huh?

Back in the city, Danny takes the girls home to a ransacked house and decides pretty quickly Stan’s up to something. That resolves itself when Stan confesses he found out the housing board director was crooked and threatened to out him. Danny interrupts said housing director’s lunch with a roughing up, badge to the forehead, and a promise of certain death if his family comes to any harm.

Kelly and Julie bond over her autistic sister’s role in getting her to testify. They make it to a shed and steal a bike and then another killer shows up. McGarrett’s close enough by to intervene so the threesome lands a truck and the boys drive Julie to town. When they get there, things still seem a bit off. The DA (recent The Vampire Diaries guester Michaela McManus) agrees to a plea deal with the assistant defense attorney, who seems a bit sketch and who had an earlier confrontation with Kono (who helpfully offered the spelling of her name for the grievance they threatened her with). Despite the boys already being in the building, it’s Kono who swings in to take the gal down. And Julie testifies in open court about the murder she saw.

This was a fairly straight up procedural, but it was good to see them change up the dynamics. I liked that Danny’s still involved with Rachel despite his best intentions, and there was a very sharp scene where Danny went into Stan and Rachel’s ransacked bedroom and had the briefest flicker of regret that he didn’t sleep in that room. Kudos to Scott Caan. Julie was played by Mariana Klaveno, who had the twisty sex scene with Bill last summer on True Blood. I liked her here–without the mustache twisting and Southern drawl. Alex O’Loughlin was awesomely straight-faced for his Rambo turn. I laughed that in the middle of fixing the pulley for the log trick and holding back his own weight, McGarrett stops to chat on the phone with Danny and talk him down from laying a beating on Stan.

Still love this show; would like to know whether we’re go for 22 or 24 episodes.