We are back with another recap and it seems like just yesterday we did the last one. The season is flying by and thanks to Stella, who joins us again for the recap portion, you are able to relive this one as often as you want with some solid detail. As usual, we added our review at the end. For those waiting for the Duke story, you were not disappointed and of course Jerry added to the mix too. Here is the recap for a lot more detailed info and photos.
The episode starts at Kaneohe Psychiatric Hospital where orderly Hector, aka Jerry, is distributing meds to the patients. He greets them, makes sure they take their pills and then moves on to the next one. Until he gets to Mr. Kalani, who appears to be in a catatonic state as he pushes a fork into his arm, twisting it repeatedly. Jerry tries to get his attention and stop him, but the man suddenly becomes violent and assaults him. Jerry screams for help.
Back after the opening credits, Commander McGarrett is at the Ala Moana Beach Park, busy with a very special mission: retrieving a kite from a tree. It takes a bit of effort, but he finally untangles it and gives it back to its owner, a kid named Spike (Alex’s stepson). He tells Spike to watch out for crosswinds, watches him and his friends leave, and then goes to meet Jerry, who’s waiting for him by the beach.
Jerry has had a rough morning but assures Steve he’s fine. He admits that since he joined Five-0 he’s wanted to do more, to be where the action is, and now that he got his chance, he might be having second thoughts. Steve reassures him that he understands and if he wants out its okay because field work is not for everybody. What Jerry’s doing is too important though, so he can’t quit. Plus, he’s the one who volunteered for it.
In a flashback, we see the team around the smart table. Ben Pollard, a long-time resident of Kaneohe Hospital, was found dead in the bottom of a ravine, a mile away from the facility. His death was reported as an accident but Noelani found evidence of a depressed skull fracture prior to the fall, which means the man was murdered. Mr. Pollard had never wandered outside the hospital before, so it is highly unlikely that he walked out on his own. Something must’ve happened inside the hospital that prompted him to leave, and someone followed him out. That’s the most likely scenario but they have no way of confirming it because no one is talking. HPD has interviewed all staff members and got nowhere. They need someone on the inside.
Luckily for them, Steve informs Tani, Jerry, and Junior, the hospital has an opening for an orderly. Junior asks if it’s going to be a long-term assignment. If so, he thinks it’s in Tani’s wheelhouse. “The purpose of an orderly is to maintain order, and that’s kind of like, lifeguard adjacent,” he adds. Steve agrees it’s a good point but Tani is having none of it, replying that the job of an orderly is traditionally a man’s job and therefore, Junior’s right for it. Before they resort to flipping a coin or having to arm-wrestle to see who’s going under, Jerry steps in, volunteering for it. Steve is surprised but agrees with him in the end.
Which brings us back to the present. Jerry doesn’t want to disappoint Steve, so he will continue. He has been assigned to a different wing and doesn’t want to raise questions or get made, which is why he hasn’t searched the victim’s room yet. A room that HPD has already searched, finding nothing. Steve has a piece of advice for him: “A good cop stays awake at night thinking that they missed something. You know, they lose sleep over that kind of stuff. And sometimes they’re right.”
He explains that the more time that passes, the less chance they have of solving the case. People’s recollections get hazy and evidence degrades, so they need to act fast. They need intel, and it’s Jerry’s job to get it. Jerry understands they’re on a clock and that he needs to be resourceful. “In other words, I gotta start thinking like you,” he says. “Well, I mean, if Danny were here, he’d say absolutely not, but yeah, basically, that’s what I’m saying. Think like me a little bit.” After suggesting that he use the “Ortega charm” and find a staff member or a patient to talk to, Steve leaves.
In the next scene, we see Tani at Island Hope Rehab Center making a payment with her credit card. She’s there to pick up her brother Koa, who has completed his rehab program. He looks much better than the last time she and we all saw him (episode 14, when he nearly died after OD’ing). Tani is ready to take him home but he tells her they’ve offered him a job as a counselor and he wants to stay. It is a very emotional moment. Tani is surprised to hear that, and very proud of what her brother has managed to accomplish. Their father would be proud of him too.
Moving to HPD, we see Duke entering the evidence room and chatting with officer Frank about a softball game. As he follows the younger cop, Duke pulls out a stun gun and tasers him. The officer drops to the ground, unconscious.
Five-0 learn of the incident. Lou, Danny, and Junior arrive at HPD and we learn that Sergeant Lukela has turned off his phone and they haven’t been able to track him. He came to the evidence room to pull an evidence box from an open murder case, but that box hasn’t been touched, so something else is going on. The team agrees that this is odd and that they have to find what this is really about. Danny instructs to check all the other boxes and dust them for fingerprints, and pulls up the security footage to see what aisle he was going down. CSU should also focus on the cases Duke was working on. “Anybody reach out to Duke’s family?” he asks. Tani is, Grover replies. With a bit of luck, they’ll know something. “Let’s hope so, ‘cause this is nuts,” Lou comments. “Duke is as straight as they come. This is a guy who would rather read a mosquito its rights instead of swatting it.”
Back to the psychiatric hospital, Jerry introduces himself to Mila, another employee, after picking up a few boxes from a dumpster. He tells her that administration wants Ben Pollard’s room packed up and that he will pick the boxes back up in an hour. Mila is on her lunch break and doesn’t look too pleased, so Jerry says he’ll cut her a deal and box up the stuff for her. She smiles, clearly interested. “And what do you want in return?” she asks. Just half of her sandwich, that Jerry happily chews on while he heads to the victim’s room.
Taking a look around, he finds nothing out of the ordinary except for a chess clock. He goes back to Mila’s desk and asks if there was anyone Ben used to play chess with so that he can give them the clock as a memento. The girl is touched by the idea and replies that Ben used to play with another patient named Harris Stubman every day. Jerry thanks her and adds to let her mom know that he wants that chicken salad recipe. Mila smiles again, delighted.
In the next scene, Steve is back to HQ. He has learned about Duke from Grover and asks Danny what’s the latest. We learn that HPD is sitting on his house and he hasn’t been home though his car is still in the driveway. They also checked his financials, finding nothing. “This isn’t Duke,” Steve says. “None of this makes sense.” They gather around the smart table, where Tani informs them she got something. She contacted Duke’s wife and daughter and they both claimed they hadn’t spoken to him. Checking their phone records though, she found that Duke’s daughter Carrie placed a call to her father’s direct line at HPD that morning, a call that lasted over two minutes. So why would she lie to them?
They call Carrie in and she initially denies having talked to her father. When Steve notices bruises on her wrists, tells her that they know she spoke to him three times, and that they can help, the woman breaks down and admits that it’s her daughter, Akela. Someone took her. We see a flashback of two men entering her house and grabbing the child while her mother screams.
Carrie doesn’t know who took her daughter. The kidnappers contacted her father through a package at work with a cellphone inside and advised him not to get anyone else involved. They didn’t ask for ransom, just wanted him to retrieve a key for them, and were going to give him instructions soon.
Danny says Duke doesn’t have to do this by himself so if she hears from him, she should tell him to contact one of them. “Danny’s right,” Steve adds. “You guys are Ohana. We look out for each other.” He’s arranging for a couple of plain-clothed officers to meet her at her house and CSU to process the scene discreetly, and promises they’ll do everything they can to get Akela back safe.
As the woman leaves, Steve tells Lou to grab Tani and head to the evidence room to go through every case and see if any of them has a key logged in as a piece of evidence. He also asks Danny to call HPD and tell them to stand down as Duke is no longer a person of interest and is not to be touched. From this moment on, this is a Five-0 matter. Tani and Lou head over to the elevator. She is surprised by McGarrett’s trust in the man despite what he allegedly did. “That’s McGarrett,” the Captain replies. “That’s just who he is. He’s a guy that’ll never turn his back on family, no matter what.” Something Tani understands and can relate to.
At Kaneohe Hospital, Jerry enters Harris Stubman’s room and introduces himself. The guy keeps counting to four and obsessively cleaning his hands and every object or surface he touches. He recognizes Ben’s clock and asks when he is coming back. Jerry doesn’t think he will and offers to play chess with him instead. As they do, he asks Harris a few questions and learns that they played chess for two hours every day, that Ben didn’t like lettuce, and he watched TV in his room after lunch. Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, Let’s Make a Deal. Same routine every day. Ben liked routine.
With this new information, Jerry goes to see Mila again to ask about Ben’s TV that he didn’t see in his room. She explains that it broke down and was hauled off for repairs, and that Ben must’ve watched his shows in the common room.
Jerry goes there and switches the channel from a documentary to the Price is Right. This upsets one of the patients, who gets up and changes it back. Jerry, unfazed, switches it again and sits next to him. The guy warns him that he needs to turn it back or he will make Kosaki, another patient, angry. “And what happens when Kosaki gets angry?” Jerry asks, learning that Ben did the same thing a few days before and got pushed by Kosaki. Ben threatened to tell the doctors and the police about it, and that was the last time they saw him.
Jerry follows Kosaki but gets made and is warned by the man to mind his damn business.
Back to HQ, Danny informs Steve that Junior got a lock on Duke’s burner phone. How? He has no idea. “It was very technical, and I don’t understand these things ‘cause I’m 40,” he replies. Junior tries to explain it to Steve and the Commander gets lost as well, asking him to just tell him where he is. Waikiki Beach.
Steve and Danny drive there as Junior keeps tracking the signal, which leads them to Duke’s car. As they search it, they hear sounds coming from the trunk and find Duke inside, gagged and with his hands tied. He’s frantic, tells them they got to go.
Steve tries to slow him down, asking him what’s going on, and Duke tells them that they had him steal a key for a locker. When he opened it, he found a bag with at least a million dollars inside. They were going to call him with instructions but as he was putting the bag inside the trunk of his car somebody came up behind him and jumped him. That doesn’t make any sense to Steve or Danny.
As they talk, Duke gets a phone call. It’s the kidnappers. They’re not the ones who stole the money so Steve tells Duke to stall them while Junior tries to trace the call with Danny. Duke asks to speak to his granddaughter and we see the pain in his eyes as he tries to reassure the little girl that she needs to be brave and everything will be fine. Steve puts a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder and they try to figure out who else knew there was a bag of money in that locker.
Duke explains that the key belonged to a drug dealer named Tyler Musako that HPD picked up on a hit-and-run and who is currently being held in Halawa. The Sergeant has already talked to him and got nothing. That, according to Steve, has inadvertently tipped the guy off so he must’ve called somebody and told them to keep an eye on that locker. They need to check the phone records for that morning: whomever Tyler Musako called, that’s who they want to talk to next.
The recipient of that call is Tyler Musako’s lawyer. Lou and Tani interrogate him in the Blue Room and with a bit of “Lou persuasion” they get the answer they want, which leads them to the money. They call McGarrett and set up the drop.
At the psychiatric hospital, Jerry is picking a lock following the instructions from a tutorial on YouTube. Once inside, he pulls up Kosaki’s file from a cabinet and types the information on his laptop for a search, finding out that the real Christopher Kosaki is dead. He then runs a picture of the guy who has stolen his identity through the system, finding his real name: Dylan Shu, an FBI fugitive. He calls Lou, asking for McGarrett, and explains the situation. Lou tells him that the man is bad news and that he’s sending a couple of units down there. Jerry needs to find someplace safe and stay there until they arrive.
That proves to be a challenge when another orderly, Don, surprises him in the room and asks what he’s doing. Jerry tells him the truth about who he is and why he’s there, but that ends up not being a smart move as Don pulls out a gun aiming it straight at him.
Holding him at gunpoint, he leads Jerry to a van where Dylan Shu is already waiting and instructs him to drive. As he drives, Jerry tells them what he thinks happened. Shu decided to hide from the FBI in a mental hospital with the complicity of the orderly who forged his documents in exchange for cash. Then Ben threatened to report Shu after their altercation over the TV so the two of them took care of him and disposed of his body. “Guess that’s what you’re gonna do to me now, huh?” he asks.
To avoid that, Jerry pushes on the accelerator and drives the van into a dumpster. The orderly and Dylan Shu are not wearing seatbelts, so the impact knocks them out. Jerry unbuckles and staggers out of the van as his phone rings. It’s Lou, who asks where the hell he is. The units he sent to the hospital are looking all over for him.
In the meantime, Duke arrives at the location they’ve arranged for the drop as Steve and Junior watch through the lens of their sniper rifles. Three men come out, asking if he’s come alone. Duke wants to see his granddaughter, but they tell him to put the bag on the ground and step back. He’s getting restless and upset by the second and, ignoring the men’s order, starts walking towards them demanding to see the kid. One of them opens fire and hits him in the shoulder. As Duke falls down, Junior shoots two of them. The third one grabs the bag and heads inside the building.
The team arrives. Lou calls for EMS and stays behind with Duke while Steve, Tani, and Junior go inside. A shootout ensues. Steve and Junior take care of the remaining kidnappers while Tani goes in search of Akela. She finds her, picks her up and takes her outside just as her mother arrives. The family is finally reunited.
Case closed, the team gathers at the hospital to visit Jerry and congratulate him. “Smashing into a dumpster? That’s so McGarrett of you,” Tani says. Jerry is proud of his accomplishment and wants to know when he can go undercover again. He asks how Duke is doing and Junior explains that the wound was a through-and-through and that he’s going to be fine physically, though his future at HPD isn’t clear yet. Are they really going to fire him? They could, Danny says, even if his record is spotless. The team is going to do everything they can but at the end of the day, they have to just wait and see what happens.
A knock on the door interrupts them. It’s Mila and Harris. She brought him her mom’s chicken salad, and after learning who he really was and what he did got special permission for Harris to come see him and play chess with him. After realizing that Mila and Jerry might have something else brewing, the team excuses themselves to visit Duke. Mila does the same after a while, leaving Jerry and Harris to their game but promising to come back soon.
In the final scene, Tani is back at the rehab center, witnessing Koa talk about his experience in front of a few other addicts. He says that he’s lucky, because he has someone who stuck by him through it all. Thanking her for saving his life, he askes her to say a few words. “I just want; I want you all to know, no matter what you think, no matter how alone you may feel there’s someone out there that supports you. That loves you. Somebody who’s on your side, pulling for you to make it through this.”
As we hear her words, we see a montage with scenes of our Ohana sticking together: Duke with his family at the hospital, Jerry playing chess with Harris, Danny and Steve working at the restaurant. It’s a great way to show how much they care about each other and how each and every one of them will always be there for the others.
This episode was surprisingly good. We have to admit as much as we have enjoyed Duke over the years, to take the “A” story of the night is not the same as the back-up he has provided so well in the past. We did not know what to expect but we enjoyed it a lot as it was definitely a team effort and was not carried solely. It allowed for everyone to take part and teamed Steve and Danny up again, too. It also allowed for some action and emotion and both were well written.
As for the “B” story of the night with Jerry, this was also good. There were some blaring inconsistencies with the major one being why Jerry would be allowed to take point on a murder case completely untrained and unarmed for it. Giving into, it’s TV so all things like that go, it was kind of fun to watch him think on his feet and do some detective work along the way. We really enjoyed the time we saw him with Mila and Harris. The story with Harris reminded us of when Steve was working with the young autistic man in episode 6.15 and the hospital scene at the end created another Ohana moment.
The third story with Tani and Koa was the one that probably was not needed, but because it seems there always needs to be at least three stories in one episode, it was squeezed in. It was good to see Koa again and to see that he is OK and the brother-sister love was still strong. His speech at the end allowed for some more Ohana flashes to wrap it all up nicely.
Overall we will rate this one a 9. There was no Eddie but it did include a sweet moment between Alex/Steve and Spike/Spike.
Thanks for reading this one and see you next week which will come sooner than we all think. (#timeflies)
Obrigada, pela revisão!