NCIS: Hawai’i 304: “Dead on Arrival”
After a naval pilot is found dead at a local resort that caters to military personnel, Jane Tennant’s team is called in to investigate. The team learns the pilot was a regular at the resort and never left the hotel during any of her visits. Convinced that something is awry at the resort, Tennant taps Kate and Lucy to go undercover as newlyweds. I love this so much for us.
When they arrive at the resort, Kate plays the doting wife who’s new to the island while Lucy acts as the savvy veteran, returning to Hawai’i after being stationed at Pearl Harbor years ago. But as soon as the bellhop leaves their suite with a nice tip in his pocket, both women revert back to their usual selves: Kate being a little neurotic (about the oversized tip) and Lucy being utterly charmed by her. The couple heads down to the resort bar and begin to survey the landscape, starting with the resort night manager who’s already drawn the team’s suspicions. But as they’re watching him, Lucy realizes that they’re also being watched.
The couple take their drinks over and meet George Conrad, the resort’s honorary concierge and self-proclaimed mayor. He congratulates the “big tippin’ newlyweds” on their recent nuptials and the couple presses him for gossip about the murder victim. Determined not to bring down the mood, George pivots, offering to purchase the newlyweds a bottle of champagne. But while George gets the bottle and glasses, Kate spots the night manager and a suspicious guest (with a gun) walking away. Kate’s able to follow the suspects but Lucy gets cornered by a gregarious George.
The next day, Kate leads Lucy back to where she saw the night manager and his suspicious guest duck into the previous night. Lucy’s reluctant to go inside — the door says “authorized personnel only” — but Kate is ready to charge ahead. In fact, Kate’s so impulsive that she doesn’t see the hotel staffer coming their way but thankfully Lucy does and pulls her into a nearby office. Lucy presses Kate against the wall and silences her until the threat is gone.
Once they are out of danger, the reality of the moment sets in: Kate towering over Lucy, their bodies pressed against each other. They add to the charged moment by whispering to each other. It’s all very hot and, because this is CBS, the sexual tension is diffused by their need to get back to work. Links to fanfics detailing how that scene should’ve ended are welcome in the comments.
The pair search the storage room and find nothing illicit but Lucy happens upon a wedding dress and, finally, the conversation I’ve been anticipating, since they opted to go undercover as newlyweds, finally happens, sort of. Kate reveals that her mother’s been imagining her wedding since she was 17. While Kate claims she doesn’t really care, the way she reacted to that dress says otherwise. Lucy, on the other hand, never imagined a wedding for herself, in part because her parents are unsupportive. It’s a deeper more affecting conversation than I’d anticipated.
Ernie interrupts with a theory about how the pilot was killed so Kate and Lucy head to the crime scene to investigate further… or, rather, to the floor above the crime scene. Lucy explains that she knows how the killer got into the pilot’s room without going through the door. But rather than just telling her girlfriend her theory, Lucy runs off and hops over the railing of the balcony. Kate nearly has a heart attack but Lucy’s safe on the balcony outside the crime scene.
Later, the team updates the couple with information about the resort’s drug smuggling operation, via pineapples, and Kate and Lucy plan to return to the storage room to investigate. But before Kate can meet Lucy, an unknown assailant swoops into their suite (via the upstairs balcony) and tries to take Kate out. Thankfully Kate’s able to fight off her assailant and, when Lucy arrives, exclaims, “no offense, but this honeymoon sucks.”
The rest of the team uses the identity of Kate’s assailant to locate the cartel behind the drug smuggling (and the pilot’s murder) and take down the whole operation. As they dig through the evidence, the team is convinced they haven’t found the mastermind — the person who connected the cartel with the pilots — but Lucy has: she saddles up next to George at the bar and exposes him as the ringleader. George slides his knife out of his pocket and makes a move toward Lucy but Kate (and her gun) dissuade him of that.
I mentioned this in my review of Vigil, but it bears repeating here: NCIS: Hawai’i has set a new bar for this genre when it comes to how to bring together the personal and the procedural… and if anyone needs more evidence of that, direct them to this episode.
(Though the show did a good job with making George seem like a resort-going lush, the casting gave this one away for me. No one brings John Marshall Jones in to play a run of the mill alcoholic.)