No one does Halloween episodes better than H50 and this one was another winner.  I really enjoyed both scary stories showcased in this episode written by Zoe Robyn & Sean O’Reilly.  It made for an episode which was both intense and funny and spooky as hell.  Really a lot of fun.

Goonies never say die – The search for the body in the woods:  This story was so much fun!  Of course, I already love Jerry, Eric and Noelani so having all of them together for this scary little tale was awesome.

It seems Jerry has been a conspiracy junkie since he was a kid.  “Presentation on Roswell at the talent show”! I ask you!!  🤣🤣  But, who among us hasn’t been camping and told scary stories around a camp fire?  Of course, Jerry has been convinced for decades that he really saw an axe murderer in the woods, a murderer who had just buried his latest victim, when he was at camp as a kid.

Well, he was such a story teller, even then, no one, not his friends, camp counselors or the local police believed him.

But, out of friendship, his friends still go with him on a yearly Halloween pilgrimage to the woods in an attempt to locate the body Jerry is convinced is still buried there.

I loved how he invited Eric along but didn’t tell him exactly what they were going to be doing out there.  Not only was it great to see Eric again, but considering how easily he gets spooked, his presence was a great addition.  His horrified reaction to discovering there’s no internet access at their location was hysterical. 🤣🤣

It was also really cool how Eric called in Noelani to help with the search.  It was so adorable how excited she got over the idea of finding a long-ago buried body and that she brought along, at Eric’s request, the GPR (ground penetrating radar) to help search.  I mean, that’s friendship for you.  Not many people would leave a party in the middle of the night to head out into the woods searching for dead bodies!   It’s so cute she wanted to join their crazy Goonie adventure!

With Max off saving lives in Africa these days, I figured we probably wouldn’t be getting our yearly Halloween costume sighting this year.  Yeah, Jerry is supposed to be keeping up that tradition but, of course, there’s no place for costumes in the woods.  That’s why it was such fun to see Noelani’s Velma outfit.  It’s always nice to have a good old-fashioned dress up in every Halloween episode.  I wonder if she’s going to be our yearly costume wearer from now on?  After all, it is an ME (Medical Examiner) tradition, after all.

I really enjoyed the flashback to Jerry and his friends at camp.  The young actors playing them as kids did a really great job, especially the one playing young Jerry.  He was just perfect.  And having the adult friends sitting around the camp fire in almost the exact same spots was a cool mirror image when the scene transitioned to current day.

The entire mystery centered around the elusive persona of Bo Bradley.  Jerry believes he’s an axe murderer while his friends think he’s probably just a “regular dude” who likes living in the woods.  Just like when he was a kid, when he’d spent months researching until he found the name of the possible victim, runaway Susanna Tumuro, Jerry used all the resources he has at Five-0 to look into Bo, and all he could find on the guy was an expired license from 26 years ago.  This only convinces him more about Bo and makes him even more determined to find Susanna and bring her justice after all these years.

What followed was a great homage to stereotypical horror movies with many of the familiar tropes.  Kids (and grown up kids) around a campfire telling scary stories about the alleged axe murderer lurking in the woods.  The arm, shrouded in darkness, moving the branches of a tree to spy on them.  Is this the killer?

Am I the only one, along with Jerry, who jumped when he caught his own reflection in the glass of the door?

The kids sneaking up to Bo Bradley’s house in the dead of night to look for clues.  And, yes little Jerry, running screaming into the night is the perfect reaction when you’re caught lurking in the alleged killer’s house!

The friend who bailed on the weekend showing up and scaring the living crap out of everyone!

The real hooded axe carrying killer trapping them in the cabin and setting a fire to trap them inside or force them out.  This story had all the elements.

Jerry was awesome running out of the cabin to confront the killer to try to save his friends! Remember last week when Junior told Jerry there are lots of different kinds of bravery?  That’s our Jerry!

It was pretty cool that Jerry was able to prove he was right all along about the axe murder and the victim even if Bo Bradley wasn’t the actual murderer.  Bo ended up being the hero by shooting the real killer and saving everyone.

This is H50, after all.  We have to have a twist.  It has to be someone we never expected.  Or in this case, someone we didn’t even know existed, who ended up being the killer.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  The camp counselor who killed Susanna is the same counselor who discounted Jerry’s story to the local cop way back in 1982.

It was nice that Bo and Jerry later had the chance to bond over hot chocolate.  Bo had known all along about Jerry’s theory about him; had heard all the stories.  He’d let it go, even enjoyed them since it kept pesky campers off his property.  The look on Jerry’s face when Bo kind of recognized him as the kid he caught lurking in his house all those years ago was priceless.

Who hasn’t had an imaginary friend:  It’s fairly uncommon when the COTW is the secondary story but that was the case in this episode, as the “body in the woods” story took up the majority of the episode.  But this story was just as spooky in an entirely different way.

I actually liked this story for a couple of reasons.  Reason one is pretty obvious, it was a really creepy story.  When little Katie’s mom realized the crime scene she was seeing on the late-night news looked exactly like a drawing of her daughter’s, she realized there was something rather sinister going on.

Little Katie has an imaginary friend and it’s “Molly” who drew the picture.  Five-0 needs to figure out how little Katie could possibly know anything about a murder since Steve isn’t about to believe there’s something supernatural going on.

When Katie’s parents give Steve and Junior all the drawings “Molly” has done, they determine there are actually three murder scenes depicted.

There were two stars of this storyline.  The first was Tani.  She orders a handwriting analysis of the drawings (which determined that Katie did not draw them, meaning Molly is real).

She tracked down another potential victim and discovered how Molly was able to know about the killings.

And a DNA analysis on the crucifix found on the first victim.  That DNA points to Jane Martin who just happened to be little Molly’s mother.  Tani realized that all three drawings Molly has done show a piece of jewelry on the victims, victims who all have red hair and blue eyes, just like Jane Martin.

Jane’s ex-husband had won custody of Molly in a nasty divorce because of Jane’s addiction issues.  In an attempt to purge himself of the memory of his ex-wife, he takes to murdering women who resemble her and placing on them, a piece of her jewelry when he buried them.

The sick bastard not only brought Molly along as he killed and buried his victims, he uses her as bait to draw the women out, knowing that a small, crying child, sitting all alone, would bring out protective instincts and make it easier to grab the women.

The second, and biggest, star of this episode was little Jaycee Cryan-Cadiente, as Molly.  I was so excited when I heard Jaycee was going to be in this episode, but I didn’t realize she’d have such a huge part.  She was phenomenal.  From the moment she appeared, Poltergeist style, on the monitor from Katie’s room to the very end when she was united with her mother, she was incredible.

She played every emotion perfectly.  Being caught on camera.  Fleeing Katie’s room, biting Katie’s mom to get away.  Her terror at the laundromat when her father attempted to grab a lady trying to help her was palpable.

And when the team breached her father’s house and found her cowering in a closed closet, her facial expressions and body language was totally heartbreaking.  Our little peanut sure has come a long way since she was “born” as Charlie Edwards almost seven years ago.

(Personal note here:  Just look at Alex’s face here!  He just can’t help giving little Jaycee a sweet smile in the middle of this intense scene!)

Our two stars came together in a truly touching scene at the end of the story.  Molly, waiting in Steve’s office for the reunion with her mother she doesn’t even know is coming, draws a beautiful picture of herself and Tani on the beach.  Tani’s teary reaction at the honor of being in one of Molly’s happy drawings was wonderful.

(Another personal note here!  If this is not the most adorable picture ever I don’t know what is!  Once again…. everyone’s honorary Uncle!)

The second reason why I liked this story might seem unusual for me.  I liked it because it was so well done it didn’t bother me that much that there wasn’t a lot of Steve in this episode and that Danny was away.  Of course, I never like it when Danny is not there (not going into the reasons because that’s been beaten to death) but everyone filled in so nicely it wasn’t that jarring.

And, even though Steve was pretty much in every scene involving the team, because this was the secondary story, Alex got a much-deserved break as well. For instance, the last scene with Molly in Steve’s office, Alex had one line and spent the entire scene as a spectator to the interaction between Molly and Tani.

I don’t know for sure, of course, but I’m assuming part of Alex’s agreement for Season 9 was that he gets to have some breaks.  Unlike Scott who goes home to LA, Alex will always be number one on the call sheet but he probably just asked for a few episodes that were a bit less strenuous on him.  This episode would easily fall into that category.

I like that one of Alex’s lighter episodes was one that’s also one that Scott missed.  It’s bad enough when we don’t have Danny in an episode but if Alex’s light episode was a different one, that would mean two Steve/Danny light episodes.  This way, it’s only one!  Much better solution in my view!

Tani’s worst fear:  A nice little tack-on at the end of the episode was Tani receiving a call from Captain Keo.  He did as Tani requested and ran ballistics on the gun she found in Adam’s house.  Of course, as we all knew it would, it came back as a match to the gun that killed Adam’s sister Noriko.

I’m not overly excited about this story since I think it’s dumb that Tani hasn’t told Steve about the gun yet and, just as we knew what the outcome of the ballistics test would show, we pretty much all know that Adam did not kill Noriko and is being set up.

(Courtesy of @alohaspaceman)

What I am looking forward to is the return of Ian Anthony Dale to my screen next week and seeing how they are going to resolve this “frame-up” so that Adam can become a permanent part of the team.  I know Adam as Five-0 probably doesn’t make a ton of sense, ex-con and all that, but I love Ian so much I’m willing to over look it for the most part.  I just hope they write as well-crafted story to explain it all.

Well, that’s it for this week my friends.  I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week.  See ya next weekend!

Aloha.  Malama Pono

All screencaps are mine unless otherwise noted.