H50 Ep: Oia'i'o

[the_other_sandy]

Yikes! Where do I start?

The show is called Hawaii Five-0, so it's not like Five-0 is going to be permanently disbanded. Steve is the main character, so it's not like he won't be cleared. Scott Caan has a contract for next season, so it's not like Danny is going to go back to Jersey. So why am I so nervous?

For one thing, I don't know how they're going to clear Kono. She (and the rest of Five-0) really did steal the money from the asset forfeiture locker. That's illegal no matter how you slice it.

For another thing, I don't know how Danny and Rachel's relationship is going to play out. I just don't see it working out any better the second time around. Rachel hasn't even divorced Stan yet, and Danny has already missed the flight he promised to make because he was doing cop stuff. That's got to remind Rachel of one of the reasons she divorced him in the first place.

Will she leave Hawaii permanently with Grace, forcing Danny to do something he doesn't want to do (lose Five-0 and his ohana, or lose Rachel, Grace, and the new baby) again, or will she be back? I don't want Rachel (and/or Grace) to die, but I can't see watching her and Danny start over with a new baby either. And I definitely don't want to see what Danny would be like if he couldn't see Grace regularly. Ugh. There are just so many ways this could go wrong, and I like Daddy!Danno just the way he is.

You know what's really bothering me about the Wo Fat storyline? That he seems to be doing so much of his shooting and bombing himself. He can afford to hire flunkies to do his dirty work for him and prevent any evidence from implicating him. I find it very hard to believe that no one has ever been able to make a case against him when he's so hands on with his criminal activities.

I'm pretty sure Chin went back to HPD so he could work on clearing Steve from that angle. He just can't let anyone know or he won't be able to stay involved in the case. And Lieutenant Kelly now outranks Danny.

The one thing I want to see more than anything next season is for Wo Fat to deeply regret not targeting Danny. I have a feeling Danny is going to be on a mission until all this gets cleared up. And if he does clear everything up? Danny is going to be Wo Fat's new special friend, right up there with Steve. Which again brings up mixed feelings about Rachel and Grace. I don't want Wo Fat to go after them (and there's no way he won't if Danny annoys him enough), but I don't want them packed off to the mainland for their own safety either.

Is it fall yet?

Comments

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

I loved this episode except for the incredible stupidity of Rachel and Danny. They have, apparently, been fooling around behind Stan's back long enough for Rachel to be reliably pregnant and be certain that Danny's the father. They seem to think that all of the reasons they got divorced before are magically fixed now, despite the fact that Danny's still a cop. To prove that all of their problems are magically fixed, Danny lies to Rachel about the fact that he's in the middle of a huge, ugly case at work that involves someone trying to frame his partner. Even in H50's normal caseload, how would Danny be able to whisk off to NJ with Rachel and Grace on a few hours' notice, whisk back for a little while to tie up loose ends on his cases, and then just leave the task force?? Sorry, I think the writers of this subplot are cracked in a very bad way.

On the plus side, I loved Steve in this. He got to be nicely BAMFy, running across rooftops, beating up guards and HPD officers, raiding Kamekona's arsenal (which was rather silly and very cool), and having a show-down with the governor. Steve also got to be stupid in very in-character ways, letting his feelings about his parents' cases and Wo Fat get the better of him. I do wonder if he told anyone about getting tasered though. There should be evidence of that, and it would help his argument that he was framed for her murder.

I also wonder what's going to happen with Kono. Why didn't any of them think to go back and clean up the field after they got Hesse?! I know the money was tossed in a fire, but a big bag of paper (cash) isn't going to burn worth a darn, and there's probably other evidence of something weird going on that shouldn't be just left lying around.

I'm with you on Chin going to HPD to work from the inside. At least, I hope he's that smart. Given his actions the last few episodes, he's overdue for some smarts.

Danny and Jenna are both in big trouble. Danny could go back to HPD, at least theoretically, and see if he can do anything. Maybe Jenna could go back to the CIA and try to continue her investigations there?

I just had a horrible thought, too. I wonder how much time will pass in the show between this episode and the first episode of season two. I really, really hope that everything picks back up where it left off.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I think Danny, like Steve, was stupid in an in-character way. Rachel left him, not the other way around, and when Danny gives his heart to someone, he's fiercely loyal (remember when he let Matt escape?). I'm not surprised he's willing to take his family back. I just wonder what Rachel is thinking. Like you said, Danny is still a cop, and Five-0 is way more dangerous than Newark PD ever was.

Come to think of it, everyone in Five-0 gets the stupids when it comes to family.

I think my favorite character in this ep turned out to be the governor. I liked her even more as an evil criminal mastermind. Too bad she died. I just wonder how in bed she was with the yakuza. Did she take orders from Wo Fat? Give orders to him? Or were they on equal footing?

I don't think Jenna needs to go back to the CIA. I mean she came to Hawaii on her own to try to bring down Wo Fat, so she had her own resources (to a point). I don't know about Danny though. He's the last man standing at Five-0. Maybe Five-0 still exists on a technicality until the new governor signs the papers to disband it? That might give Danny a little maneuvering room.

I really, really hope that everything picks back up where it left off.

You and me both. I think it would kill the momentum to have the story pick up 6 months later or something.

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

I can understand Danny jumping at the chance to get back together with Rachel. He loses a lot of points with me for going as far as he has while she was still married and (supposedly) trying to work things out with Stan. He loses more points for telling Rachel that he'll ditch Five-o for her, when he knows that they're in the middle of an insane situation that's getting worse by the minute. I'm not sure whether he gains or loses points with me for not going to NJ with her and Grace after he said he would. It's kindof a wash -- what he gains by loyalty to his team, he loses again by not even calling to tell Rachel and Grace that he can't go after all.

Rachel may be looking for any semblance of security she can find. Her second marriage is failing, and oh, look, here's a ready-made relationship that she take as a replacement. I'm going to be charitable and think that she's being as stupid as Danny is, rather than thinking that she's a manipulative minx who's trying to get him away from the task force.

The governor was definitely getting interesting as a criminal mastermind. I wish they had kept her in that role for a while. That makes me wonder when the writers found out that the series was getting a second season. They could have easily (and much more believably) drawn out everything and spent most of next season building up to this, instead of trying to squash it into one episode.

A lot of this episode felt rushed -- we got bits and pieces of set-up over the past season, but they'd put something in place and then ignore it. Now, all of a sudden, everything is coming to a head at once without a real build-up on the tension. It feels more like they're dragging a bunch of stuff together at the last minute though, and less like a carefully constructed house of cards tumbling down.

Come to think of it, everyone in Five-0 gets the stupids when it comes to family.

That's a very good point. Self-destructively stupid, at that.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

He loses a lot of points with me for going as far as he has while she was still married and (supposedly) trying to work things out with Stan.

That's a big 'supposedly.' Rachel specifically said the reconciliation trip was Stan's idea and that she'd been looking for an excuse to bail. That seems to be a lifelong trend with her.

He loses more points for telling Rachel that he'll ditch Five-o for her, when he knows that they're in the middle of an insane situation that's getting worse by the minute.

Danny is a caretaker personality. When things go to hell for the people in his life, he feels compelled to fix it. Things went to hell for the most important people in his life almost simultaneously, and fixing it required being in two places at once. He managed to juggle both crises pretty well until he had to choose between staying in or leaving Hawaii. And at the time he told Rachel he would leave with her, (a) he had just found out she was pregnant with his child, and (b) the warrant hadn't been issued for Steve's arrest yet. Things did not get epically insane until the next day.

rather than thinking that she's a manipulative minx who's trying to get him away from the task force

That reminds me of my crack-laden theory that there's more going on than just Rachel leaving Stan. Rachel was so shaky when she dragged Danny out to Sand Island that I honestly thought Wo Fat's people had captured her and were using her to lure Danny out there for some reason. As freaked out as she seemed and as big a hurry as she was in to get to Jersey, I think she might be running from something bigger than a failed marriage. Or I could be reading too much into it.

A lot of this episode felt rushed

Every episode feels rushed to me. It's part of the show's style. I just let the ridiculous cases and plot holes wash over me while I wait for the next Steve/Danny scene.

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

That's a big 'supposedly.'

True, but it sounds like she's been telling Stan that she's trying to work things out, or at the very least, not telling him that she's sure enough things are over to be starting up her relationship with Danny again.

I get that Danny wanted to fix things for Rachel, especially once she told him that she was pregnant. However, he already knew that someone was trying to frame Steve -- I'm pretty sure that they found out Steve's prints were all over Leah's house before Danny went to Sand Island -- and that Steve was planning to break into the governor's residence that night. The feces may not have hit the air circulation unit yet, but it should have been painfully obvious that a "SPLAT" was in the near future.

I understand that Danny was blind-sided by a bunch of stuff this episode, and he was trying to do right by all of his family. However, because he couldn't take the time to think, he ended up making things a lot worse for everyone. I dunno, maybe he was trying too hard not to put his job before his family again? (Sorry, I'm thinking out some of this as I type because I really like most of the characters and want to put their actions in a better light, but mostly I want to just shake some sense into all of them right now. Darn it, I don't want to spend the season break being grumpy with these guys!)

Every episode feels rushed to me.

For me, it wasn't so much the pace of this episode specifically as the setting up Subplot A in one episode and ignoring it, setting up Subplot B a couple of episodes later and ignoring it, setting up Subplot C a little later yet and ignoring it, and so on. Then, in the season finale, they pile on every loose end from the entire fricking season.

I just let the ridiculous cases and plot holes wash over me while I wait for the next Steve/Danny scene.

Good point -- we're not exactly watching it for the plot. ;> Sorry if I'm over-analyzing. Like I said, I like the characters, and I do like the show. The last two episodes were just really frustrating for me because they would have been epic bromance material if it hadn't been for the Rachel/Danny stuff. That hug at the end of ep.23 could have completely eclipsed the heart-hands scene as fic-fodder if people weren't trying to reconcile it with Rachel and Danny getting back together. Sigh.


In other people's news, I don't know if you've seen zarah5's No Place Left to Run (http://zarah5.livejournal.com/72984.html) yet, but it's one of the better follow-ups I've read so far. She does a pretty good take on both Rachel's and Danny's thoughts.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I think Stan is the one trying to work things out and Rachel is just taking the path of least resistance. I agree she should have just flat out told Stan she wasn't interested in saving the marriage.

Danny didn't know Steve planned to break into the governor's mansion that night. He thought he'd successfully talked Steve into staying home and thinking things through so they could attack the case the smart way in the morning. Granted, Danny should have known better (has he met Steve?), but he was distracted by trying to juggle two crises at once.

Everybody in the episode did some pretty stupid things, but Danny is the only one getting demonized because he was the only one whose stupid knocked everyone's slash goggles askew. Personally I find it best not to confuse what I see through my slash goggles with canon. Steve and Danny will live happily ever after in my head even if they both get married (to other people) and have a bazillion children on screen. As long as the bromance is there, I'm good. And yes, I'm disappointed that the Danny/Rachel stuff on screen now means that everyone is going to spend the summer writing "fix-its" instead of schmoopy slash fic.

For me, it wasn't so much the pace of this episode specifically as the setting up Subplot A in one episode and ignoring it, setting up Subplot B a couple of episodes later and ignoring it, setting up Subplot C a little later yet and ignoring it, and so on.

Ah. I've spent 6 years getting broken in by Supernatural, so I'm used to that by now.

Sorry if I'm over-analyzing.

We're catalogers. That's what we do. ;-)

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

You have a good point about Danny being distracted enough by the Rachel crisis to think he might have convinced Steve not to do anything too insanely rash. Admittedly, Steve doesn't seem to believe that anything could ever be too insanely rash, but Rachel was being a pretty big distraction.

I've seen a few good "fix-its" and a few more good follow-ups that don't try to fix things, and lots of mediocre waily-waily stuff. I'm ready for more good schmoopy slash, too. Can writers say, "This is pretty much canon, except I'm ignoring these episodes," or does that make it officially AU? (Well, ok, I'm sure fan-fic writers can say whatever they want. Which is more accepted though?)

We're catalogers. That's what we do.

[grin] Good point!

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I've seen a couple of good episode codas that continue on from the finale, but I've also seen way too many 'Danny has to grovel for Steve's forgiveness for being selfish enough to want to follow his daughter back to the mainland' stories. And too many fix-its came out all at once (as you might expect), so I burned out on them after a few days.

Fortunately, I have some older long stories on my e-reader that I haven't had time to get to. I'll be at a con this weekend, so I plan to bring my e-reader with me to wallow in fic in my oddly spaced free time.