H50 Ep: Ho'oma'ike

[the_other_sandy]

This is the cold that never ends
It just goes on and on, my friend...

By the way, I finally made a post about last week's episode here if anybody is still interested.

Grover amused me mightily by passing up wearing a coat to go into the freezer while the Hawaiians all bundled up, especially since Hawaii looked to be having lovely trick-or-treating weather while we got snow today. Because this is Greater Chicagoland and that's how we roll.

I loved the scene with Steve and Danny at the beginning. Steve must've been really worried to go so far as to physically track down Danny when he couldn't reach Danny by phone. Danny is clearly not okay no matter what he says, but he's putting on a brave face for everybody, much like someone else we know.

It's in Danny's nature to feel responsible for what happened to Matt because he's the big brother and he's a caretaker personality, but ultimately Matt is responsible for his own poor life choices. The way he was going, it was just a matter of time before he got stuffed in a 50 gallon drum of consequences.

It pleases me that Ellie got her first dose of Steve/Danny banter. She might as well get used to it now if she wants to hang around with Steve.

Comments

[superbadgirl]

The coats cracked me up - that he got them. I mean, do the people who regularly use the freezer have to put on a jacket to spend a few minutes in there? Haha, no.

I'm not sure I get some of the choices made with this episode. Plenty of pretty to look at, interesting-ish plot (not the Jerry one), though honestly? "They made me poor because they bullied my dad" as motivation for murder is ... eh. But why on Earth were Danny and Steve going to gung-ho on the Jerry one, going so far as to bend the rules for this guy who's more often a wingnut than not? Also, barrels full of money (even counterfeit)... well, if I'd just lost my brother and had him delivered to me stuffed in a barrel in which there were copious amounts of cash, that would have been a likely trigger. And also fishing at the end felt ... eh, it's really okay if Steve doesn't have a lady friend he can use blatantly for favors.

[mangacat201.livejournal.com]

OH YES, I totally forgot about the barrels, I was thinking the exact same thing (that and the fact that they let the barely body-armored cops ZIPLINE FROM A HELICOPTER AT SEA instead of a qualified strike team... of which they seem to have so many on the Island, right? I'm looking at you SEAL team nine). And they even made Danny open them up... was that supposed to be something like INSTANT THERAPY? Seriously, that couldn't have been more tactless if they tried.

[superbadgirl]

Ah, I got a little garbled in trying to explain why that struck me as trauma-inducing, but I'm glad you got what I meant. I do think Danny crying out Steve's name in somewhat-unnecessary warning came off as a little panicked, and if I squint right I can interpret Steve's odd look to Danny after he shot the bad guy as concern. My fic-writing brain instantly went to Danny freaking out at the thought of losing someone else.

But we shouldn't have to work so hard for it!

[mangacat201.livejournal.com]

Yes, I totally got that now that I think back on the exchange you're referring to, that's totally correct! And I completely agree that it's vital for a thriving creative fandom that the source material leaves room for us to grow our thoughts into, but that's a way different deal than expecting us to carry half the narrative with our own ideas. Then, they can just go, you know what fans, pitch us scripts, we'll write on demand and produce that shit.
Not the way it's supposed to be.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

they let the barely body-armored cops ZIPLINE FROM A HELICOPTER AT SEA instead of a qualified strike team

But on the plus side, we got to see BAMF!Danny rappel out of a helicopter. Steve is clearly a bad influence.

[mangacat201.livejournal.com]

Oh, never let it be said that I don't appreciate Danny's badass (and his great ass) rappelling anywhere, clearly Steve has taken him out for a couple of runs since impro-rappelling-downcliff-towards-fallen-McGarret times.
But, ya know, those henchmen on the boat had machine guns and that helicopter wasn't exactly a stealth approach by any means. That could have gone very badly for them boys if one of those dudes was intelligent enough to look up (but then, henchmen, ehhhh...)

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Haven't you noticed that no one on TV has any peripheral vision, and they can't hear anything until the thing is actually in the frame with them? The helicopter was perfectly safe. ;-)

[mangacat201.livejournal.com]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHh... OF COURSE, how could I have missed that important tidbit. Silly me.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

do the people who regularly use the freezer have to put on a jacket to spend a few minutes in there?

I expect the people who work there spend more than a few minutes at a time in the freezer. Plus, Hawaiians. They don't have the same tolerance for cold that some of the rest of us do due to local climate. I know some people from warm climates who think that 70F is nippy and they need to put on a sweater.

But why on Earth were Danny and Steve going to gung-ho on the Jerry one, going so far as to bend the rules for this guy who's more often a wingnut than not?

Because Roberto Orci is a conspiracy theorist and Jerry is his self-insert underground hero saving all the sheeple who can't see what's really going on.

well, if I'd just lost my brother and had him delivered to me stuffed in a barrel in which there were copious amounts of cash, that would have been a likely trigger

Yeah, they clearly didn't think that one through.

And also fishing at the end felt ... eh, it's really okay if Steve doesn't have a lady friend he can use blatantly for favors.

It would have been nice to bookend the episode with scenes of Steve checking in with Danny. Also, can we have a female character who's her own person? Catherine was very competitive with Steve with first military and then cop stuff. Lori was competitive with Steve with cop stuff and sports stuff. Now Ellie is better at fixing cars and fishing than Steve is? Can't she be knowledgeable about history, or French films, or bird watching, or something that is just hers and has nothing to do with Steve?

[mangacat201.livejournal.com]

I really like how they've been framing the episodes in different case arcs to actually give all of the extended team something worthwhile to do (also, Icechamber!Grover was awesome) and even if they still engage in too much on screen 'hole-poking with subsequent marginally satisfying explanations for actions' for my tastes, it still shows again a very telling commitment to fixing some things that have been griped on by fans time and again.

And I really want to like Elly with her competent badassery and taking no flack from McGarrett, instead giving him some, but I still wish that last scene would have made time for Danny (though that little private heart-to-heart at the beginning was splendid). I feel like they're setting her up half as a buddy and half as sneak-peek love interest (so they can actually safely drop it if there's backlash?) and that hasn't ever worked with any other female character they introduced that way, so...
Ah well, we'll see... I think the actress has really got something of a cool spark, so I'd definitely like to see more of her.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

it still shows again a very telling commitment to fixing some things that have been griped on by fans time and again

That's the thing I've noticed the most about this season--the apparent effort to fix things fans have been complaining about for a long time. Although why they waited so long to start is beyond me.

I think the actress has really got something of a cool spark, so I'd definitely like to see more of her

Ellie definitely strikes me as a slow-burn love interest, which makes a nice change from the instarelationships we've seen so far (I still want to know how Kono and Adam ever wound up together). She also seems a bit more mature than either Catherine or Lori.

[mangacat201.livejournal.com]

Well, my guess would be that they actually have a new addition to the writers team who actually hit the blogs and did some re-evaluating of their structural approach. Also another (I hope that doesn't come to pass) suspicion is that they're trying to butter us up for a low blow.

Maturity is definitely something about Ellie, yes, and the fact that she comes at Steve's history from the grassroots and isn't likely to ever fall into that stary-eyed SUPERSEAL!Worship (at least I hope not, we noticed how fast Grover got the kool-aid to drink after a couple of quips), and she's not tied to Steve in any kind of subordinate or military working relationship, also a big plus. However, I feel like her nuances toward him read more like a parental figure who indulges him on the one hand and whacks his fingers on the other. And it's not that I don't like that, just that it feels to me like the way they're setting up her character and dynamics with Steve and the team doesn't mesh with what they're clearly trying to lay down as a path for her in the future with the scenes they put them in, if that makes any sense. If you're going the friends-to-lovers route, let them have a friendship without the whole romantic subset-playdate shit first and then walk it up.
But I guess, you're absolutely right and that's just a terrible weakness of the creative team just putting cardboard love interests somewhere in the plot because they think that makes for proper window dressing (and I do appreciate it as another attempt to fix that, if imperfect).