H50 Ep: La O Na Makuhine

[the_other_sandy]

Look who's posting! I was still here on LJ even though I didn't post a lot over the summer. I accidentally drank the Avengers Kool-Aid and that fandom generates fic at a terrifying rate, so I spent more time reading than writing. But now I have H50 to squee about again! Too bad it wasn't quite a squeeworthy episode.

I think I'll save my many and varied issues with Doris McGarrett for the end and start with poor Malia. Honestly, I've been waiting for her to be fridged since Chin proposed. In fact, I was really surprised that bad guys didn't pop out of the woodwork and shoot her at the wedding. I was all set for her to die in the season finale, but when she turned out to still be alive when Chin got to her, I thought Show was going to surprise me and save her. But, no. Apparently the only way the writers could think of to give Chin a story arc was to kill off his new wife, because it's not like he doesn't have 147 relatives in law enforcement he could have issues with. I mean, Delano said he still had buddies in the department passing on information to him. What if one of them was a Kelly-Kalakaua cousin? If that family started feuding, it would involve half the island.

But poor Chin. He managed to maintain his full-on Terminator mode until he got home to a set table and chicken in the oven. Funny how it's always the mundane things that hit you the hardest.

On to Catherine. I actually like Catherine. I'm glad I'll be seeing more of her. I'm even happy to have another badass woman on the show besides Kono. But you know what I need? An explanation for her badassery. Not because she's a woman, but because all we've ever seen her do is sit behind a rather impressive array of electronics on her ship. I'm sure she's a Grade A badass in intelligence gathering and analysis, but she's not a field agent. Going through basic training should not give her McGarrett levels of ninja skills. If she's had other training, I would very much like to hear about it.

I would love to use this spot to talk about Steve and Danny, but sadly they had very little screen time again. And Danny never even got to rant about how he was relegated to sitting in the back seat of his own damn car.

And now I suppose it's time to get my Doris issues off my chest. I'm sure it was difficult for her to give up her family for what she thought was their own safety, but it seems like she thought all she had to do was tell her sob story and everything would be magically better, and then she got pissed off when it wasn't. Seriously, she spent the entire rest of the episode verbally attacking anyone who didn't give her a trophy for her sacrifice. Meanwhile, she's ordering Steve to understand her point of view while making no effort to understand how her "death" destroyed her family, because apparently it's all about her.

And really? "Just because I wasn't around doesn't mean I wasn't your mother?" Really? Because I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it means. You were dead to your family. There was no more actual mothering going on.

I didn't want all to be forgiven in the space of one episode, but wow, Doris is a real piece of work. And I really want to know what's up between Doris and Wo Fat that they didn't kill each other on sight. It's not just that Doris let him go; Wo Fat didn't even fire a shot and he was supposedly so desperate to avenge his father's death that he almost had a facial expression.

I'd like to put Doris in a category of characters I love to hate, but I don't actually want to hate her. She's Steve's mom. I don't want to hate Steve's mom. I wanted their road to reconciliation to be rocky, but right now I just want to slap her in the face with a wet fish. Thank goodness she won't be in every episode. I don't think my blood pressure could take it.

Comments

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

I'm betting on Doris being Wo Fat's mother. Frankly, I hope that we find out she isn't Steve's mother after all, because she really seems to be a horrible person. She went out of her way to be nasty, pushy, and/or snotty to pretty much everyone. I did like the bit where Doris said, "If I hadn't faked my death, Wo Fat would have killed your father," and Steve replies, "Wo Fat killed him anyway." Yeah, that whole protecting-your-family thing? It didn't work so well.

I like Catherine well enough, but I hope that The Powers That Be don't try to shove her together with Steve as badly as they did Lori. If the chemistry works, great, but don't try to force it.

I felt so sorry for Chin in this episode. The one person in the whole cast with a fairly normal relationship, and it gets destroyed. Couldn't one of those umpteen relatives have dropped by to throw out the blood-stained rug and spoiled chicken dinner before he got home? Also, I really hope Chin doesn't believe Delano's crap about only a bad cop killing an unarmed man. Talk about extenuating circumstances.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I like Catherine well enough, but I hope that The Powers That Be don't try to shove her together with Steve as badly as they did Lori.

Too late. Catherine has been Steve's girlfriend since season 1 (actually pre-series, really; they already knew each other the first time we saw them together), so they're already together.

I'm not yet betting on Doris being Wo Fat's mother. For one thing, even if she were, she still killed Wo Fat's father. And since she was clearly in Hawaii raising Steve and Mary, she wasn't in Hong Kong or wherever baking cookies for Wo Fat, so how much maternal love could there be that it suddenly overpowered his burning need to avenge his father's murder? I'm still hoping there's an intelligence agency-related reason they didn't shoot each other.

For another thing, I haven't given up on the idea that Doris cheated on John with Joe and that Steve is actually Joe's son. Joe was willing to watch his BFF John self-destruct for years trying to avenge the murder of a woman Joe knew was still alive. Joe and Doris clearly kept in touch and were helping each other out while excluding John, which makes me dislike Joe even more than I did before. And while I have no great love for Doris, I can't yet buy that she'd have two kids that weren't John's.

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know Catherine has been Steve's girlfriend since the beginning. However, she and their relationship have been largely off-screen. I've gotten the impression that she's going to be around a lot more, and I hope that it's going to actually work when we can see the two of them together more than once or twice a season.

It's possible that Joe didn't know Doris was alive (and Shelbourne) the entire time. He could have discovered her or information about her previous work long after it was too late to keep John from destroying his life. However, I'm more inclined toward the "Joe is a scumbag" school of thought, particularly after the way he jerked Steve around about this whole thing.

Doris strikes me as being cold-hearted, selfish, and generally a waste of oxygen. I wouldn't put it past her to have two kids that weren't her husband's. Her going into hiding has been far more effective at keeping her safe than at keeping the rest of her family safe, and goodness knows she's still lying to Steve about plenty of things.

Remember when we used to watch this fun buddy+team action show on Mondays?

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Catherine is main cast now, so her relationship with Steve is going to be unavoidable. As long as she doesn't hijack the show like Joe and Lori did, I can live with it.

Doris is pretty ruthless. I'm sure she has feelings for Steve (although apparently not for Mary since she never even asked about her other kid), but she's definitely looking out for Numero Uno.

Remember when we used to watch this fun buddy+team action show on Mondays?

Yeah, no kidding. I miss my fun bromancey action show. That's what it was good at being. As a nighttime soap opera, it's kind of clunky.

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

As long as she doesn't hijack the show like Joe and Lori did, I can live with it.

Exactly!

As a nighttime soap opera, it's kind of clunky.

Maybe whoever convinced the producer's nephew that his Lori+Steve idea wasn't working can start on this next. Fun banter, pretty scenery and/or people, explosions, butt-kicking teamwork -- is this really a hard mix to do?