Happy H50 weekend!  Is everyone up to their eyebrows in holiday preparations?  I know I am even though my hubby has told me to scale back this year because of all the work that went into the wedding. But he knows me too well.  Scaling back simply means instead of doing a million things, I’ll only do 999,990 things! 🤣 So, bear with me if this review is a bit all over the place since I’m writing it in between a few hundred thousand other things! 🤣

I enjoyed this episode more than I thought I would.  First off, Danny wasn’t in it, which always means an episode has one strike against it before it even starts.  Add to that, I knew this was going to be another one of those episodes with two story lines, each not at all connected to the other.  You all already know how I feel about those, so strike two.  And, from interviews and spoilers, I already knew I wasn’t going to like the Adam story at all.  Strike three.  Thank goodness this isn’t baseball, because despite all that, I managed to like this episode more than I thought I would.  Let’s start with some of the fun stuff first.

Lou and the Kids:  I really love the way Lou has taken to Tani and Junior.  He’s a friend, he’s a mentor and I wonder if, in Lou’s eyes, it’s maybe a wee bit more.

First off, Lou missed a golden opportunity to make a few bucks off all that stuff in his garage.  Hasn’t the man ever heard of a garage sale?  That’s what my husband and I did when we moved a few years ago.  Thirty-two years in the same house means a ton of collected junk that you don’t remember you even had! It’s hysterical that Lou sold his house, has moved into a new shiny apartment but that garage is still filled to the brim.  My garage was spotless and practically empty before we had our first showing.

I do wonder when they all got around to finally cleaning out the place since they all got called to crime scenes before they ever even got started.  Regardless, Lou still took the kids out to the promised dinner as a thank you for their help.

The kids.  Listening to Lou reminisce about Samantha and Will and how much he misses having them around, does anyone else get the feeling that Lou has begun to look on Tani and Junior as, I don’t know, kind of like surrogates (in the best possible way, of course) for his own kids?  He’s taken to mentoring them both, the way a father would teach his own kids the ropes.  I’m probably way off base but it was still very sweet of them both to reassure Lou that, no matter what, he’ll always be needed.

Steve and Quinn:  I have no idea what TPTB have in store for these two but for now, I am loving their interactions.  They have a fantastic vibe between them, and I honestly can’t get enough of them together.  Of course, as a die-hard McDanno, Danny will always be my favorite partner for Steve and I still want to see them together as much as is humanly possible.  But, unfortunately, that’s not always possible with the way things are and if I have to live through episodes without Danny, then I’m perfectly happy to embrace Quinn.  Not that she should ever be considered any kind of a replacement because A) no one could ever replace Danny and B) she is very much her own person.  Fantastic in her own right.

She’s smart, she’s tough, she’s incredibly capable and she’s funny.  I like the easy comradery she’s developed with the entire team, but especially with Steve.  I like that, in a relatively short time, she’s comfortable enough to joke around with him.  That malasada scene was hysterical.

I do wonder about the references to Steve’s age and his cholesterol though.  Was it just something thrown in to justify the funny malasada scene or is this something we’re going to hear more about?  It’s funny to think all the way back to the second episode of the series when Steve wouldn’t eat a malasada Danny brought to his house “without bypass surgery”.  If the writers really want to connect back to the old days, they’ll have Danny say something to that effect with regard to Steve’s current cholesterol levels soon.

Photo Credit:  @alohaspaceman on Twitter and InstaGram

COTW:  I know the crime of the week is supposed to be the “A” story of an episode, but this one was relegated to the “B” side fairly quickly.  Not that it was a bad story, just that it kind of took a back seat to the other story of the episode.

It was a typically convoluted H50 story even if the outcome wasn’t a complete surprise.  The fact that all three victims were the same age, all came into large sums of cash at the same time and were all killed on the same day, in incidents which were designed to look like accidents, it was pretty obvious they’d all been paid off to keep some sort of secret.

So, some rich bitch killed a rich dude because he made stupid investments that caused her to lose money.  Ten years later, one of the witnesses the rich bitch paid off for silence finally grows a conscience and wants to confess about the murder and the cover up.  He’d spent the last ten years giving money to the Innocence Project in an effort to get the innocent man convicted of the murder freed and when he found out the man’s last shot at freedom was gone, he couldn’t live with the secret any longer.

That’s very noble….. I guess.  He’d given a lot of money to try to get the guy freed, but it was money he was never supposed to have in the first place.  Sure, he tried to help the guy, but he still managed to live a pretty good life on that blood money for ten years while allowing an innocent man to lose ten years of his life for something he didn’t do.  It’s all fine and well that he tried to get the guy freed, but wouldn’t it have been better to not allow an innocent man to be locked up in the first place?

I confess I got a bit choked up when Steve and Quinn were able to tell the guy he was a free man and would be able to finally see his daughter again.  Quinn said she’s in the 6^th grade, which would make her about eleven.  That means the poor guy hasn’t seen her since she was an infant.  The happiness pouring off that poor man was palpable.

Adam:  I know this was supposed to be the “B” side of this episode, but that’s not the way it turned out.  I’m going to be up front right off the bat.  I do not like this story at all except for one thing.  Ian Anthony Dale totally rocked the material.  It’s the one thing that made the story fun to watch.  He was magnificent in every single scene, beginning to end.  And while I do not like this story at all, I am looking forward to seeing what Ian does with it.  He’s an awesome actor and I have the feeling this story is going to give him a lot of opportunities to show us all just how good he is.  But the story itself… nope!  At least not the way it’s being laid out right now.

Why?  Ok.. anyone who has known me for a long time or has been reading this blog from the beginning are probably tired of hearing me say this, but I feel the need to say it yet again.  From the moment we first met Adam Noshimuri, he has never been a bad guy.  When we were first introduced to him in Season 2, his father said he kept him away from the business and a few years later, when we met his brother Michael, Adam told Kono that Hiro always intended Michael to take over the family business.  When we first met him, Adam was working in New York, far away from Yakuza connections.

When Hiro was killed, and with Michael still in prison, Adam attempted to be the leader but was so inept at it, he inadvertently allowed his legal muscle to lead him by the nose.  It was the Yakuza lawyer who had a CIA agent murdered and who convinced Adam he had to kidnap and murder WoFat in retaliation for Hiro’s death.  The lawyer himself considered Adam such a weak leader he tried to kill him himself, right on the tarmac before Kono put a bullet in him.  It only took a tearful plea from Kono to get Adam to lower his gun.  It was abundantly clear that the last thing he wanted to do was shoot Steve.  In that same episode, he duct taped Kono to prevent her from following him when he went after WoFat.  A real Yakuza leader would have just put a bullet in her head and been done with it.  But not Adam.

Adam has never had the skills to be an effective bad guy but that just doesn’t fit with the story they want to tell now.  We’ll just forget that when he did finally become the official head of the family business, the first thing he did was begin to legitimize it.  We’ll all just conveniently forget that he’s never been a true Yakuza boss.

I could go on and on about the ways Adam has proven that he’s not a bad guy.  That’s why it’s always infuriated me every time someone would say something like “Adam has changed”.  Adam has never needed to change.  He’s always been a good guy.

I’ve seen people on Twitter say things like “Adam just can’t catch a break” and I suppose that’s true but, honestly, most of his problems are self-inflicted.  He has a good heart and he’s intelligent but being intelligent and having basic common sense don’t always go hand in hand.  Adam has no common sense at all.

He acts on his emotions and his best laid plans are usually reckless and not thought out very well.  He makes stupid mistakes.  Like his watch, for instance.  He went through the trouble of removing the license plate from his very recognizable car, but neglects to take off a personal item, full of fingerprints and DNA?  And what did he think was going to happen to the guy he took to Masuda after they worked the guy over for information?  That he was going to be allowed to just go home and sleep it off?  Jeez!

And it’s all so unnecessary.  Yeah, the kidnappers told Masuda no cops but come on.  How many times have we heard that one that Five-0 has ignored?  Adam has risked everything he’s spent years working toward.  He has the love and the respect of Steve and the entire Ohana.  He has earned the respect of HPD.  Det. Beldon went to Duke with the information about Adam instead of just moving forward to bring him in.  The first thing Duke did was try to phone Adam.  Only people who respect and trust you give you the opportunity to explain yourself first.  And Duke didn’t issue a warrant for Adam’s arrest either.  He went to Steve, knowing he would also give Adam a chance to explain himself before moving forward officially.

In many ways, Adam is like Steve.  Steve has gone rogue plenty of times, most recently when he went off to look for Doris.  Steve’s been known to be reckless and head strong and leap into things without concern for himself but when Steve does it, it’s for the greater good.  He may do stupid shit every now and then, but he doesn’t break the law.  How is Adam going to get through this?

And I really want him to get through it because I’ve always liked Adam and I like him as part of the Ohana and I really don’t want to see that go away.  But he’s jeopardized the trust of those he should know will always have his back.  Steve has a huge heart and God knows he’s forgiven a lot of crap he’s gotten from a lot of people, but I can’t see how he can overlook this.  Adam kidnapped a man and is directly responsible for his execution  even if he, himself, didn’t pull the trigger.  He was involved in a shoot-out between the Filipinos and the Yakuza which left several people dead.  He was involved, not as a member of law enforcement but as part of Masuda’s men. I can’t see any of this sitting well with Steve.

So, no, I do not like this story one bit.  As I said above, not the way it’s being laid out right now.  Even though all these things happened, and I don’t expect Steve to brush them aside lightly, I’m hoping it will all be used to inject Adam into the Yakuza world as a spy for Five-0.  I’m hoping we’ll eventually hear Steve say something like “You want to make this right? You need to do this for Five-0”.  I’m hoping Steve will use this mess that Adam has created to go after the Yakuza.

Because I think Adam was right and Kenji planned the entire thing to grab control from Masuda. He’s really bad news and Five-0 will need to bring him down. Of course, if that is the path the writers are planning to follow, we won’t know about it until much later.  I’m really hoping from this point on, Adam’s story is a long con and when it’s finally completed, he’ll still be a trusted member of the Five-0 Ohana. But whatever happens, even if the story itself is not to my liking, I’m still looking forward to watching Ian totally hit it out of the park.

That’s it for this week my friends.  Please let me know what you think about all the events in this episode.  Am I totally off base?  I look forward to hearing all your views!

Aloha.  Malama Pono

Sorry, no time for screencaps this week.  All photos courtesy of CBS and @alohaspaceman