"Ka Iwi Kapu" = Sacred Bones

This episode should serve as proof that TV shows should never attempt to capitalize on holidays. Even with a Halloween slant, the biggest horror on Hawaii Five-0 this week was the hour I spent watching it.

Let me be perfectly clear: this was the worst episode of this show I have ever watched. It can only be broken in to two parts, bad and worse. See below.

BAD
First and foremost, the episode ended without a clear closure to the case we started on: Who killed Kat and Christian, and buried them? While it might have been the registered nurse who blew himself up, or the mortuary funeral director who was embalmed alive, the dialogue made it sound like these two were being paid by someone else who was severing connections by killing them.

Beyond the garbled story, we had a special appearance by Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger himself.. Sadly, as with previous guest stars, Englund had one important scene that lasted about five minutes where he was allowed to be appropriately creepy. That was it, aside from an intro. Why does Hawaii Five-0 continue to under-utilize such big names?!?

Additionally, this "Halloween episode" featured a bevy of classic horror movie tropes such as: no power for the lights in the funeral home, (but power to run the embalming station), bad guys climbing out of a coffin, and (my personal favorite) the team decided to split up and search alone, just to name a few. While any of these tropes could have been used for fun and could work in the setting of the story, putting as many as they did in went beyond insulting my intelligence - and straight into beating up my common sense. 

WORSE
The single most horrible aspect of this episode was Danny's role.  Given how hard we have seen Danny work to shield Grace from his bachelor lifestyle, there is NO WAY I would believe he would willingly take her trick-or-treating at a motel.

While I was still trying to let it go, he promptly went to a crime scene and desecrated sacred burial grounds in the name of "catching a killer" because he didn't want to wait for the priest to arrive and give blessing. Really?!? While Five-0 may take some liberties with the laws and conducts on the street, none of them has ever disregarded other cultural beliefs. This was a horribly written plot device to throw in "ghost" or "spirits" to make it fit into the Halloween theme.

If stomping over beliefs and embarrassing himself with his daughter wasn't enough, the powers that be decided this was a good episode for us to meet Dr. Gabby Asano, who Danny took on a date. Thankfully for Danny, much like Englund's screen time, Autumn Reeser only visited with us for about 10 minutes. Not nearly enough time for Danny to insult her heritage!

I know that many returning TV Fanatic readers will be disappointed that Lori only got bashed on the head (and wasn't killed by whoever killed the funeral director). I was personally glad she didn't get killed, but I also couldn't reconcile myself to the point that I could give a crap about what costume she had been in when the call came in about the murders. I know it was meant to be some comic relief, but when added to the other poorly penned parts of the episode, it just came off as forced and contrived.

There is good news, though, readers: Greg Grunberg guest stars next Monday night! Let's hope we see him for more than 30 seconds.

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