Hawaii Five-0 season 7 episode 21 review: Grover’s powerful homecoming

For this Hawaii Five-0 season 7 episode 21 review, we have a few things to celebrate — especially when it comes to the story of Lou Grover. He went away from Hawaii for the episode, and learned that sometimes, you can’t go home and expect things to be the same that they once were.

Specifically, Grover decided to take his son Will back to Chicago to testify against a good friend / fellow former cop named Clay. He murdered his wife of twenty years and didn’t get caught for it — instead, he got caught for stealing at a crime scene, but this was almost an Al Capone situation. It was pretty clear specifically why Grover wanted to put him away. (Also, this episode was a great example of the show revisiting old threads, something that they’ve done a really fantastic job of doing over the years.)

After Clay tried to kill Grover and his family, you would understand why he was so intent on coming back. On paper, this marked a great chance for a reunion with his former cops … or it should have been. They weren’t all that pleased to see him, feeling as though he betrayed them. We do get the mentality, but wouldn’t they be more sympathetic given some of the threats that Clay handed down? It wasn’t like Grover was snitching on someone who didn’t do anything wrong. There’s gotta be a line in there somewhere, and some of what he went through here was pretty heartbreaking.

In the end, this story for Grover was largely about teaching life lessons to his son, and making sure that Will knew that sometimes, you have to make tough choices in life. This was a great performance from Chi McBride — he obviously can take on lighthearted material, but we like the resilient side to him and showing something a little more stoic and reflective. Grover had a hard time revisiting his past, but he was still choosing to be there for his son and not allow him to see some of the more emotional moments.

The case of the week

The remainder of the team found themselves stuck in the middle of the jungle, doing their best to be heroes while (once again) facing danger. In terms of substance, we’ll say that this was one of the more forgettable cases of the season — part of that was just do to the exceptional nature of everything going on with Grover. Honestly, you could’ve set the entire hour just with McBride, though we understand why the show didn’t given that the show is called Hawaii Five-0, after all.

Who was one of the big heroes of the hour? Jerry! After spending so much time being the resident conspiracy theorist, his efforts in the case ended up leading to him getting a shield. He’s now an official part of the Task Force! This is great for Jorge Garcia especially, since there have been some challenges here and there finding good ways to include him into every story. Also, maybe he can find a better way to put down some further roots — he’s still got Max’s old place, but before that even his living situation was chaotic.

Overall take

A really stellar hour for Grover — that story alone elevates this episode to the top tier of Hawaii Five-0 this season, even if we’re not going to remember anything else that well (even if we’re happy for Jerry). Grade: B+.

What did you think of tonight’s episode of Hawaii Five-0? Leave us a comment in the box below. If you want to know what’s coming up next time on Hawaii Five-0 then head on over to the link here and check out a preview. (Photo: CBS)