Pahele: Trap.

Apparently Steve and his team were busy while we were all eating turkey, as this episode opened with Five-0 receiving public recognition for an $80 million cocaine bust. Now I feel even guiltier about the feasting I did at Thanksgiving. Thanks, Steve!

Aside from the return of Steve saying "book'em, Danno" right at the end, the kidnapping storyline was nothing too surprising or out of the norm. Maybe I'm jaded, but it feels like we just had an episode about college students being kidnapped. I guess that's what happens when you re-watch the last six installment in August as a primer before the new season starts. 

The similarities to the earlier episode aside, I have to admit that Rick Gomez portrayed Vargas/Castillo extremely well. He nailed both the meek and scared Vargas and the confident and arrogant Castillo personalities pretty well. But this did leave me me with two questions:

1. If Five-0 had him in custody as “Vargas,” then his fingerprints came back with that name, right? So is Castillo a fake name or a street name? They didn't really fill in how he got booked as Vargas and not Castillo (as he turned out to be).
2. They would have documentation, lab samples, etc. on the cocaine. Would there really be no case against Castillo and Five-0 would have to let him walk free just because the evidence was destroyed? While plausible, it seems to be a bit of a stretch to this reviewer. 

On the other hand, if the episode had not opened with Joe White's court-martial for rescuing Steve, I would have not even know it took place after rescuing Steve from Korea in the last episode.

Not surprisingly the Navy courts effectively forced Joe to retire. I'm not sure if that means he could end up being a series regular or not. My budding man crush kind of hopes so! Then again, he said he was planning on opening a bar and instead he went straight into kidnapping as he abducted one of Wo-Fat’s men in front of his son and two other civilians at the court house.  

Seriously? You have been out of the military a couple of days and you’re committing a felony, Joe? While we are on the topic, how did you get that gun in the courthouse? Aren't there metal detectors in Hawaii? 

So, overlooking the felony and the fact that at least three people watched him capture the guy, Joe did all of this to find out about “Shelburn,” which turned out to be a person, not a place or thing.  When the Hell did this turn into a game of “I spy with my little eye?” Or was I just ahead of the class when I concluded right off that Shelburn was a person? 

The cherry on this sundae of stupidity was when Joe had Steve meet him to hear from his hostage directly that Shelberg was a person, and then Steve just let him drive off with the guy tied up in his trunk.

Really, Steve? Don’t you think the laws apply to everyone? 

If Steve watching Joe drive away with a hostage was not strange enough, Joe then called someone and said Steve was getting too close and they might have to be moved. When did Steve get too close? Didn’t he spend the entire episode dealing with a hostage situation and only got info on Wo Fat when Joe called him directly? Anyone else confused? Yeah, me too. 

That won’t stop us from having some fun and making a game out of it. Post who you think Joe called or who you think needs to be moved (and why you think it’s that person) in the Comments below. My guess is going completely off the map sideways: I’m saying it's Steve’s mother who’s been in hiding from Wo Fat.

Top that, readers.

Jim G. is a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow him on Twitter.