Hawaii Five-0 season 9 episode 19 review: Willie Garson is back and it’s everything!
Hirsch is on the case!
So why exactly is Hirsch coming back tonight? A “window washer” (we have that in quotations because he’s not actually a window washer) that was actually a graffiti artist with bladder cancer that burnt off his own finger prints (yikes!) turns up dead. Once they figure out that the victim is an artist they know that it’s time to call in Hirsch. He is the perfect person to bring in with this case since they can’t figure out why anyone would want to kill a street artist with cancer.
Hirsch comes in and he’s able to give them more information then they ever needed including the meaning behind the art, the panda motif and informs them that they found the art studio of one of the top street artists in the world named Bricks. A bunch of Bricks artwork has shown up in Hawaii and someone is defacing the pieces basically putting a death threat out on him, so Hirsch creates an “undiscovered” Bricks piece as a trap to try and lure this person out. The trap works and we even got to see Hirsch in action as he uses a baton to trip one of the guys!
They learn that these guys that were defacing Bricks work because they were paid to by someone named Sterling Jacobs – Brick’s agent. So is he the person responsible for killing Bricks? Nope he’s dead too, tortured and dead long before Bricks was killed. in fact it looks like he was tortured until he gave up Bricks identity.
So what was this all about? Bricks knew that he was going to die and wanted to make a difference before he went so he was working with another artist who’s son was killed in Nicaragua and the government didn’t like what she was expressing about them. They were after her, but they wanted her alive to make an example of her. Five-0 is able to find her, save her and give her asylum.
Father and son time
We also had some father/son bonding time with Junior and his dad – now we know that their relationship has definitely had some bumps in the road, but right now they are trying to work on things. Tonight we saw them working on a deck and listening to showtunes (something Junior didn’t know about his dad). The good mood shifts when his dad finds Maya’s bracelet under the porch and they both are clearly hurt at the thought of her being gone. It’s affecting Junior really badly while he’s at work and he confides in Tani about it (adding another beautiful layer to this growing relationship) especially how it didn’t seem to affect his dad when it happened or now.
Here’s the thing, as a former funeral director we’ve seen it all when it comes to grief and it’s different for everyone. Some get mad, some get sad, some bottle it up and never deal with it… it runs the gamut. It’s not usual for people to not see tears and immediately feel like that person may not care, but more often or not they are just bottling everything up.
What’s going on with Juniors dad is that he’s been bottling things up and trying to be strong for everyone else, but the pain he feels inside is very real, something that we saw at the end of the episode when he was in Maya’s room, drinking away the pain. Finally he let it all out and cried in Junior’s arms.
Want to know what’s coming up next? Check out our preview!
CarterMatt Verdict
Really fun episode tonight, made even more fun by Garson’s appearance. We loved the case, we loved the artwork and even though there wasn’t a lot of personal story arcs (which are usually our favorite episodes of this show) there was just enough with Junior to tide us over before the next new episode – which is going to be quite a wait!.
What did you think of tonight’s episode and were you as excited as we were to see Garson back? Leave us your thoughts in the box below. (Photo: CBS)