My review of episode 7x01
That scene in the chapel … guys. That scene in the chapel. It lasted only few minutes, but I have so much to say about it.
Some premises: I love the tributes to the original show, I didn’t watch it and they make me emotional, so I can’t even imagine what is the effect they have on those who watched and loved it. I’m still hoping we will have a Duke centered episode (I think you all already know that Dennis Chun is the son of Kam Fong Chun, who played the role of Chin Ho Kelly in the original show), but this one, in this episode, was probably “the” tribute par excellence and, in my utmost ignorance on the matter, I read about the process that was behind the realization of it all and I was impressed and have a tremendous respect for all the work that was necessary to come up with this scene and I also appreciate, narratively speaking, all the possible layers and interpretations to it.
But there are some things, especially about some of the things Steve said, that I need to get off my chest, so please put up with me…
- “Okay, I’m sorry. You were a cop? You’ve been married for 45 years? What’s your secret?” I’m surprised at how surprised Steve is. I’m not even talking about the fact that he’s married with Danny for six years now and they’re both cops ;-) , but – jokes aside – he surely knows some happily and long married cops, Grover, for example.
- The Jack Lord character says that his secret is he met the right gal and then he asks Steve if he’s married or has a girlfriend, Steve answers no … For the second time, Steve is with someone he can’t call his girlfriend. Curious, if you see how easily he tells Danny he loves him and the way he rarely corrects the people who think they’re married or tease them about it.
- Then Steve asks “What if I already met the right woman, and, uh, and I couldn’t hang on to her?”, the man very wisely answers “Then she wasn’t the right woman”, but Steve says “Yeah, see, I’m not so sure about that.”
Now, that man is clearly so right: Catherine couldn’t be more wrong for Steve if she tried, and she tries, oh, she tries so bad to be worse for him (or maybe it’s something that comes naturally to her), every time she appears, everything she does behind his back and right to his face makes her a little bit worse for him.
But what about what Steve says? He met Catherine 10-15 years ago, and he still tries to convince himself that she might have been the right woman for him and that it didn’t work because of his job? 10-15 years and he didn’t build anything with her, he didn’t know the tiniest things about her (what she likes to eat, what football team she roots for, etc.), nor the biggest things (what she did the last two years, why, who she became …). He thought he should propose just because … it was about time. That’s sad. A total stranger could see and feel she wasn’t the right woman for Steve and told him so, let alone those who know and love this character for six years now.
How can he have the tiniest doubt she could be the right woman for him when she is literally an upgraded version of his mother, with all the lying to him, betraying him, abandoning him? He needs to learn to love himself and to believe he deserves to be truly loved.
I think he found that right person for him (I say person, because, the way I see it, it’s not like you see a man, and you just assume he’s or must be with a woman: we’re past that kind of heteronormativity, thank God!, and I think Hawaii Five-0 showed us that many times, with people genuinely believing Steve and Danny were together as a couple), he met this person six years ago and he’s the best man he knows, the one who loves him like no one else did or does or ever will. What Steve and Danny have, that is the truest and purest definition of love and I will never thank enough this show for telling us this story.
- Now, another thing: “Sometimes it feels like this job of mine has taken everything good from me. I’ve been wearing the badge for six years, and I’m really starting to wonder whether… whether any of it’s worth it.” It was so sad to hear Steve saying these things. It’s so not true that this job took everything good from him. It gave him the good that is in his life. Some people left him, yes, but they would have found any other reason to leave him, eventually, because they didn’t love him. It was Catherine who chose her job instead of Steve, it was her who lied behind his back and right to his face, it was her who left him multiple times. Why blaming himself?
The people who really love him, his true friends, his true family: THAT is the good in his life, people he met thanks to this job and who never left and would never leave him. People that know what true love and true friendship mean… and that’s the kind of people he deserves to have in his life, for sure not people who left him and treated him like they did, like he means nothing to them, like there’s is always something more important for them, like they can play him as they want. So I really hope that we’ll see him realizing all of this.
He can start with what the Jack Lord character told him at the end of this scene: “Son, what we do can’t be quantified. Your worth is measured in the closure you bring, the people you save. That’s your real legacy. And the best legacy a man can leave behind is the people whose lives he’s changed. Trust me.” Let’s start with this, and then let this be the season where Steve learns how to love himself and allows himself to truly love and be loved.
I’m sorry I wrote so much about that scene, that doesn’t mean the rest of the episode wasn’t worthy of attention, on the contrary there were so many things I liked. My favorite things:
I absolutely adored the scene with Chin and Sara, and my heart breaks thinking they could be separated, so I hope things could somehow work so they can stay together! And I also adored Chin and Kono’s conversation about Chin liking to be a father figure and the possibility of her becoming “Auntie Kono”!
Steve and Danny overcoming the impasse by asking Chin to drive the Camaro! That was hilarious! And Steve had to ride shotgun, of course!
I like the new Governor and I loved to see her and the team working together.
The case was so creepy and breathtaking, the action was superbe. And it all promises to become more and more scary and intense in the next episodes.
And I loved the way Steve and Danny’s interaction evolved throughout the episode, from that tension and frustration, the way Danny constantly watched over Steve and worried for him while having to deal with Steve’s stubbornness and recklessness, to them finding a way to communicate in a softer, more open and effective way, to Steve reassuring Danny, getting it was all out of love… I couldn’t decide if they looked more like two teenagers too shy to show their love for each other or a married couple making up after a fight… maybe a little bit of both. It was nice to see that fondness towards the end of the episode and I hope we’ll go from there and leave the tension behind so that their sweet way of teasing each other, that unique sweetness they reserve for each other will be back, possibly even stronger: now they share even more than before!
That Ohana scene at the end was simply amazing, I loved the way all the team looked happy and relieved that Steve was going to finally rest a bit and looked at Danny like they knew he was the only one capable of working that miracle! The way Grover said “You two…” and Kono said “They’re in love again”, warmed my heart. Love this family, so much. They chose each other and they stand by each other, in the good and bad times. So precious.
Congrats and thank you for this episode and here’s to a wonderful season 7!
