Hawaii Five-0 - No Ke Ali'i' Wahine A Me Ka Aina - Review: "For Queen and Country"

After a gripping season premiere that wrapped up some old storylines while introducing new ones, Hawaii Five-0 takes a break to deliver a lovingly crafted Bond homage. We've got a superspy out for revenge, racing against the clock to stop an arms dealer. When his beautiful and unwitting accomplice ends up dead, the team crosses paths with Harry Langford, armed and dangerous.

And that's when things get... weird...

I'm not crazy in thinking that this was a very weird episode, right? In their nod to Bond films, the writers tried to cram an entire Bond movie's worth of plot in 44 minutes and the end result is an erratic, sped-up case that throws something new at the audience every second. First, Langford is at a party, then there's a car chase, then everyone is at a different party, then all of a sudden they're in Prague, then all of Europe's nuclear reactors are going to blow up right this second, then Steve shoots the computer, then they're in Pakistan raiding a terrorist compound, then suddenly they're in Buckingham Palace getting thanked by the Queen. It's honestly exhausting just recapping it.

Steve and Danny think it's going to be an ordinary case when they show up to investigate a young model's strangulation. It gets immediately complicated when they run the DNA underneath her fingernails through the database and get a match to Langford, a former MI-6 agent accused of selling state secrets. One car chase later and Langford is in custody, loudly protesting his innocence. He was in the process of stealing a computer program called the Greystone (loved that my closed captions spelled it the British way in honour of the MI6 connection), when he met the young model. She unknowingly helped him smuggle it out of the party and the host later killed her for this. Langford realizes that he did not actually take the Greystone and the host had already sold it to a terrorist cell. The team arrests the host for murder. With that, we've wrapped up the original mystery and we're only halfway done with the episode.

When the team tracks the Greystone down in Prague, Steve and Danny get to tag along on a whirlwind international adventure with Langford.

They check back in with the team in headquarters and find out that a hacker is using the Greystone to overload all of Europe's nuclear reactors. Kono seems way too calm for someone informing her team that all of Europe is about to be irradiated. When Langford, Steve, and Danny track down the hacker, they find out that the computer had a bunch of built-in fail-safes to stop them from disengaging it. Steve decides to then shoot the computer, which is absolutely the perfect amount of ridiculous, and saves the day.

But we're still not done with the episode. Steve and Danny see Langford casually walking to his car and conclude that he has stolen the Greystone for himself. Instead of doing anything about that at the moment, they let him go. They realize that he wants revenge for the death of his wife at the hands of El Hamadi, the terrorist boss. Langford travels to Pakistan to meet up with the boss, only to be stopped by Danny and Steve at a fake roadblock. They tell him that they know that he is using the Greystone to buy access to El Hamadi and kill him, and that they know he can't do it alone. The three marshal their resources and attack El Hamadi's compound. Steve stops Langford from shooting El Hamadi in cold blood, but kills him in self-defense.

With that, the day is saved, Langford's wife is avenged, and Steve and Danny earn an award from the Queen of England. Unfortunately, as Langford informs Danny, she probably won't go out for some fish and chips with them.

In addition to a globe-hopping mission, the episode keeps up with a couple of ongoing arcs. Chin is still feeling horrible about letting Sara's aunt and uncle take her away from Hawaii. He promises he will visit her, but she is unhappy about leaving.

Steve has also tracked down Alicia Brown (Claire Forlani), a retired behavioral analyst who he thinks can help him crack the Chess Piece Killer (they haven't given him a name yet, so this is what I'm calling him) case. Although she protests that she is completely, 100% retired, she does manage to do a copious amount of research and come up with a new lead. An HPD cop was investigating each of the "pawn" killers. He is conveniently dead now, but it does provide the first solid connection between the three.

I hope we'll get more updates on the serial killer in the upcoming weeks. I'm excited to find out why he thinks Steve is the "knight" and if any other team members will get their own creepy chess pieces.

What did you think of tonight's episode? Let me know!

About the Author - Laurel Weibezahn

Laurel Weibezahn is a freelance writer. She lives in the Pacific Northwest.

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