H50 Ep: Aloha Ke Kahi I Ke Kahi

[the_other_sandy]

The new fall TV season is starting, so it must be time for me to get back to posting again after an unexpected summer lull. Last year at this time I was talking about how I'd tripped and fallen into Avengers fandom and had spent the summer reading all the Avengers fic ever. This past summer I was forcibly kidnapped by Teen Wolf and spent the summer reading all the Teen Wolf fic ever.

Also, I started a Tumblr, which turned out to be a ridiculously huge time suck. It amuses me mightily that I started said Tumblr to reblog pretty pictures of pretty people and somehow instead fell face first into the cross stitch community there. But who can say no to cross stitch patterns based on Monty Python characters? Not me, as it turns out.

But you don't care about me--no, I don't mind ::sniffle::--so on to tonight's H50.

All the commercials made it sound like Chi McBride was joining the cast (largely due to the part where the narrator said, "Chi McBride joins the cast!"), so I was kind of expecting to see his name in the opening montage with everyone else, but I guess he's just recurring? Whatever. I liked Captain Grover and I'm looking forward to seeing where Show goes with his character. At the same time, the cast is getting a little unwieldy and I don't understand why they keep adding new characters when some of the characters we already have are sorely underutilized.

Case in point: what the heck are they doing with the female characters on this show? Kono used to be an independent badass, but now all she wants is for her boyfriend to love her, and she'll make any sacrifice to stay by his side. Loyalty I totally understand and admire, but Kono just gave up everything for a guy she spent last year spying on because she didn't trust him. And she didn't join him as an equal partner. Every time they're together, all she does is look at him with big doe eyes and let him take care of her. Meanwhile, Catherine was reduced to a damsel in distress whose sole job was to wait for Steve to risk everything to rescue her. Remember when she and Steve stormed North Korea by themselves? Yeah, neither do the writers. And where was Doris? Not that I'm one to complain about a lack of Doris, but didn't she get on the boat with Adam and Kono? Shouldn't there have at least been a mention of her during the Adam and Kono scenes?

In other news, this episode kind of reminded me of seasons 6 & 7 of Supernatural when they decided to take away everything important to the Winchesters, so many of the surviving characters were written out or killed off, Bobby's library was destroyed, the boys had to ditch the Impala, etc., only Five-0 just lost Chin's computer table of awesome and Danny's Camaro (do you think Sam Hanna from NCIS:LA will send a condolence card?). Chin's face when the NLM people shot his computer table cracked me up. He looked like he was steeling himself to avenge its death.

With no particular bromance to distract me, I was once again left to pay attention to the writing, which is almost always a mistake. That's what the bromance was originally for, back in the day--to keep me from paying attention to the ridiculous plot points.

• Why does no one on TV understand how CPR works? Ricardo's heart stopped because he was bleeding out. Chest compressions (and rescue breathing if it ever came to that, which it wouldn't because you'll pretty much never see a man place his lips on another man's on network TV, not even to save his life) might keep him going until emergency responders showed up, but it certainly wouldn't revive him unless it was accompanied by saline or a transfusion to boost his blood volume. CPR isn't magic, people.

• And then minutes after Steve's heroic CPR efforts magically revived Ricardo, who had about 3 drops of blood left in his body, Steve fired a shot through Ricardo's shoulder to kill another NLM guy. Because they needed to keep Ricardo alive.

• Did the professional terrorists who had carefully planned the takeover of a building that houses the governor's elite task force really deactivate the explosive device and open the front door just because someone knocked on it? Geez, even I ask who's there first, and I have a peephole. And no hostages.

I do have to give the Show kudos for attempting to explain all the batshittery on screen for once instead of just letting it lie there, even though that scene between Steve, Chin, and Danny did come across an awful lot like 'no, seriously, this is what we were thinking in the writers room.'

Oh, and there was one line that bugged the hell out of me. Steve told Wo Fat, "You killed my father, then hunted my mother for twenty years." That literally makes no sense because it hasn't been twenty years since John died. Wo Fat hunted Doris for twenty years, then killed John (or, you know, ordered John killed or whatever--it was Hesse who fired the shot). How did not one single person in the cast or crew catch that?

Sigh. I sat down an hour ago thinking I wasn't going to have anything to say about this episode and then this happened. Show really needs to amp up the ohana feels to distract me from things it does less well. Where did my show about ohana feels go?

Comments

[superbadgirl]

Where did my show about ohana feels go?

Did you miss the memo? It's now call Hawaii Steve-0. And I say this as someone who loves Steve, but great googelymoogely tonight really hammered it home. The only story of relevance is his; any other storyline will ultimately also be directly tied to his.

Danny kvetches about leaving Gabby with some rather uninspiring words, and it's the perfect counterpoint to demonstrate how Steve will cave to terrorists because of how much he lurves Catherine. Which, no. I'm sorry, but that whole, "this is how we do things in Hawaii" speech was ridiculous. They haven't had full immunity and means for a while, but apparently now they do again if it means saving Steve's girlfriend? Captain Grover ain't the bad guy, but he'll be painted that way because he doesn't agree with Five-0's off-the-books tactics.

Things'll probably shape up, but from a plot perspective, this wasn't a terrific showing.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Did you miss the memo?

Dang, I knew I should've checked my spam folder.

The thing about Steve and his over-the-top action shenanigans is that what was cute and fun in season 1 when he was just coming off combat special ops makes a lot less sense after he's been a civilian law enforcement officer for 3 years. Has he really not learned to tell his team, who are all standing right there, that he's engaging in a foot pursuit of a fleeing fugitive? How much time does it take to yell "Runner!" before taking off? Of course, then he would have had back-up when he ran out of bullets, so there would've been no need to jump on the helicopter, kill everybody in it, and land it safely.

Captain Grover has my sympathy. There's no reason Steve couldn't have quickly told Grover what was going on with the Catherine-as-hostage thing and knocked out a plan that didn't involve pointing guns at the SWAT team. Five-0 dug that hole with SWAT all by themselves, and I won't blame Grover in the slightest if he doesn't kiss and make up.

[superbadgirl]

That, and not only not bothering to tell his partner what he (they!) are doing, but to tell him it wasn't a good time to explain the plan. I mean, Jesus, the lack of respect there makes me gnash my teeth.

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like Steve okay, but Danno is my fave by far and the lack of respect Steve shows him sometimes gets my goat. And that's often personal as well as professional. What can you say about a guy who will call someone his best friend, stand by him when a bomb is gonna go off, but then all but laugh along when some random witness insults him and asks if he's "off his meds"? It's one thing for them to bicker and toss the occasional play insult, but you don't let some outsider dis your buddy for real.

[superbadgirl]

Yeah, even toward the end when Danny asks if Steve broke anything, Steve basically tells him not to nag. Ooookay...what?

[4thoffive.livejournal.com]

Your comments made me laugh out loud, but then so did the show. But then again I watched the whole thing on fast forward so who am I to judge?

The CPR thing was preposterous. And WTF? Danny is also trained on first aid, why didn't he get in there and help? Oh wait, I know, because Danny is the silly comic foil and mindless sidekick and Steve is the hero. Right.

I'm not even feeling the bromance anymore.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong of me that I really wanted the whole ep to be like Die Hard, only with Five-0 being all sneaky and BAMF-y and taking out the bad guys one-by-one?

[and-ed.livejournal.com]

I meant to comment on your Monty Python cross stitch post but I saw it at work and forgot to get back to it, I guess. Anyway...awesome. I had no idea people were making cross stitch patterns out of stuff like that - very cool.

Sorry the H50 ep didn't work for you tonight. You'll probably be shaking your head if you read my recap because I actually really loved it. I think maybe I'm a pretty easy audience. But hey, at least Steve took his shirt off so there's that. =) (Yeah, I'm DEFINITELY an easy audience).

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I knew people made fannish cross-stitch patterns because I had a few from my Stargate fandom days, but I had no idea there were so many and for so many different fandoms. Either people are into fandom cross-stitching a lot more now than the last time I looked, or I'm finally looking in the right place. I even found a Dr. Horrible pattern!

I like that you like episodes that I don't. Sometimes I need someone else to look at the bright side for me.

[mangacat201.livejournal.com]

Completely agree all the way, they just get more ridiculous every time I see them. It's like they're having a contest or something. 'How long until even the most long-suffering member of fandom snaps?'

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

There was just so much going on in this episode, when all they really needed to do was make the entire episode about Five-0 being sneaky and BAMF-y and taking out the hostage-takers one-by-one from inside the building while trying to keep their prisoner alive.

[opalshore.livejournal.com]

Ditto. In total agreement. I watch the show as a comedy because it is ridiculous. So I don't take it seriously because taking it seriously gives me a headache.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I never watched this show for the writing. I was there for the bromance and ohana feels, which is what the show did best. When the show tries to rely on the plot and writing to carry an episode, well, those are things the show is less successful at.

[opalshore.livejournal.com]

That is the same for me, not watching for the writing. Sometimes I get the bromance and family feel of it but sometimes when I think it should be there I feel like someone f***ed up with the writing and left the moment feeling cold and left me feeling lost (ie. I think I know and understand a character and then they do something that seems to me to be out of character).

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

While there were things I liked about this episode, I think it hit new lows for realism. Captain Grover stripping to his skivvies and going to ask the bad guys if they want Chinese take-out was the sort of over-the-top "my BAMF insanity will protect me from reality" that I expect and enjoy. I'm looking forward to him calling Steve on some of his crap, like not taking two seconds to say, "New hostage, gotta let these guys go now!"

The entire CPR scene was the sort of "we're going to do something stupid and unrealistic because we can't bother to write it better" that I'm resigned to getting periodically. Ok, I can understand not wanting to do rescue breathing on the terrorist covered in blood because I've had the sort of blood-borne pathogens training that would make M laugh hysterically. However, there are still far more useful things Danny could have been doing than standing around whining about not being sure whether he loves the woman who didn't tell him she wasn't coming back until her plane was scheduled to land, and then decided to show up in his apartment with all of her luggage.

On Catherine and Kono, I agree that they need to get their BAMFiness back soon. I don't expect H50 to pass the Bechdel Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test), but someone needs to explain to the Powers That Be that strong female characters attract viewers.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I seriously hope Capt. Grover calls Steve on all his BS, but I'm afraid it'll turn out like the Gov. Denning/Lori Weston thing where they set it up, but then nothing ever came of it.

It annoys me that they've been having Danny suddenly break out in personal conversations at the most inappropriate times (in the middle of car chases or hostage crises or whatever). Does nobody on this show remember that Danny was a decorated cop long before he met Steve?

someone needs to explain to the Powers That Be that strong female characters attract viewers

Nonsense, babes in bikinis attract viewers. Thinking and competence and stuff is men's work.

Have you watched any new fall shows yet? I can recommend Sleepy Hollow and Agents of SHIELD so far, although I like Sleepy Hollow more, much to my surprise, considering how much I love The Avengers.

[bookwurm.livejournal.com]

I think the problem with Danny's personal conversations is that TPTB think giving him a social life will draw back some of the viewers they lose by making the formerly-strong female characters into Damsels in Distress. (Chicks are into that relationship crap, after all.) However, this is an action show, so there isn't really a good time for these conversations. To make one, they'd have to sacrifice some of the action, so they just slap some awkward relationship crap on top of the action instead. That should make the little ladies happy, right?

I haven't tried any new shows yet, but I've heard good things about both Sleepy Hollow and Agents of SHIELD from several people. Thanks for the recommendations!