‘Hawaii Five-0’ season 7, episode 14 review: The Nation of Hawaii takes center stage

Last time on “Hawaii Five-0” Max left us as a sobbing mess as he left the team and left the show. It has taken us all week to collect ourselves, but we think we are ready to jump into tonight’s episode without a box of Kleenex.

The good news is that for at least the early going in this episode, we started things off with some rather welcome humor as McGarrett had to go and take his driving test. Let’s just say that this did not go altogether well for him — maybe Danny got in his head, or maybe this was just a reminder that this guy has not followed any standard driving laws for at least the past several years of his life.

On the flip side, he and the instructor survived! Isn’t that something?

A case of jurisdiction – In getting into the main story for the hour, the HPD realized that there was a suspect in a murder case (and a former convict) in Kanuha who they needed a question. Unfortunately, this man had chosen to seek refuge within the Nation of Hawaii, a sovereign place that they did not have jurisdiction. They were told that if they could prove that he was guilty, they would allow them to go in and arrest him. Otherwise, they held firm in their belief that he was innocent.

Since the Governor was not able to help Steve out directly, the next order of business of the show was to get to investigating his car and try to gather up as many clues as possible. The more they dug, and the more it started to seem as there was no direct evidence. Even the Parole Officer came in and vouched for him.

It was actually Chin, meanwhile, who was able to actually get into the Nation using his personal history to speak to Kanuha. He made it clear to him what the situation looked like, but still, he insisted that he was innocent. While he stayed in jail for seven years while his partner ran free, he still didn’t blame him for what happened.

Here’s where things escalated – Marshal Lincoln (Lou Diamond Phillips — always love a “Longmire” guest star!) turned up, and he made it very clear to Chin that this was a case that was no longer in his hands. It was being turned into a federal matter, which meant that there was not that much he could do … at first. Lincoln eventually gave Steve, Danny, and Chin until sundown to try to resolve the matter. Otherwise, the feds were going in and taking Kanuha out by force.

The more and more that Lincoln pushed — cutting off phone communications and eventually the power — Steve and Danny suddenly started to wonder if they had entered the Nation by force earlier. Luckily, these doubts were nullified quickly by Grover, who brought them to a storage locker that contained the murder weapon.

This is why Kanuha was hiding – This gun and the storage locker was the evidence that the Five-0 needed to understand exactly what was going on. He ran because he was guilty of some robberies, even though at the same time he claimed that he was still not guilty of the murder. The fact that Chin didn’t come out with Kanuha at this point infuriated Lincoln further.

The team did uncover that there was someone else who entered the storage locker while Kanuha was in holdup at the Nation, and it was the Parole Officer’s brother, otherwise known as his boss. This is a guy who may have have been responsible for the murder, just because of the possibility that he may have been running this operation either with him, or forcing Kanuha to go along with his plan out of blackmail. Having a brother as a P.O. is a pretty powerful thing.

At the right moment, all of the information came together, and everyone realized once and for all that Kanuha’s brother was the guilty party. Chin arrested him before anyone else died, and the case reached its end. Basically, this meant that Lincoln didn’t have to do much of anything, and we got to see a lovely celebration of the Nation and its people in the closing minutes.

Jerry’s search – On the more lighthearted front, our resident couch-surfer was trying to find himself someone to shack up with permanently. This only lasted a minute or two in the episode, but it absolutely was fun.

Overall – While there could’ve been more content in this episode about the specific characters, we still gotta say that this was a pretty intense hour of the show that gave you a small taste of the Nation of Hawaii. Grade: B+.

What did you think of tonight’s episode of “Hawaii Five-0”? Leave us a comment below with your thoughts. If you want to know what’s coming up next time on “Hawaii Five-0” then head on over to the link here for a preview. (Photo: CBS)