This episode aired as a "double header" on February 22nd, along with Episode 16.
It was much superior to Episode 16, which I didn't care for too much.
Episode 17 was the best one of Season 9 -- at least so far.
One strength of this episode is that it spent the entire time focusing upon one story, rather than jumping around between two, and it had zero time wasting with nonsense.
The episode started off with an exciting and tense bank robbery, where both an armored car security guard and a bank manager were killed. The member of the crew who killed them was a fake armored car worker, who also was the only robber not to be wearing a mask. The killer also seemed like a sociopath, as he killed indiscriminately, even when the victims did as he asked.
When one of the other robbers questioned him as to what happened, he lied and said, "He gave me some trouble" (referring to the now-dead bank manager).
The opening scene ended with the getaway vehicle -- a modified armored car -- busting through a police car barricade, and getting away. During the opening police chase, "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath played, reminding me a lot of "Miami Vice", where popular music would play during chases and action scenes.
Indeed, Mr. Mike's review (scroll down on his site to see it) stated that the opening scene reminded him very much of the movie "Heat". Both "Heat" and "Miami Vice" were Michael Mann productions.
A main plot point of this episode was that a witness at the bank recognized one of the robbers as Tory, the husband of Junior's ex-girlfriend Leila.
Upon learning this, Junior didn't want to tell McGarrett, because he "cares about Leila", but this doesn't make sense, as simply investigating Tory wouldn't harm him unless he was guilty. Was Junior worried that Tory might be falsely accused and arrested? Five-Zero hasn't made a false arrest in the history of the show, to my memory. This is never really explained.
Junior visits and attempts to squeeze information out of Leila, but does a poor job at hiding the motives for his visit (he pretended it was an unexpected social visit), and she gets mad at him and kicks him out.
Michael Ironside, the veteran character actor who typically plays bad guys, played Robert Castor, the ringleader of this gang. Castor organized it but did not actually participate in the robbery itself (presumably due to age). When he's arrested and questioned in the blue-lit room, he acts arrogant and tells McGarrett and Danno that they "haven't actually figured it out", but this is never explained. In fact, it seems they really had figured out everything!
At the post-robbery meetup between Castor and the crew, the sociopath killer and one of the other members almost come to blows over the matter that two people were murdered. However, the same guy not wanting to "go down as an accessory" seems to have no problem firing upon the Five-Zero squad near the end of the episode.
I thought that the sociopath would meet his end after an extended chase/fight/battle with Five-Zero, but he was dispatched rather quickly by Grover, who shoots him dead in front of a fountain, resulting in a big splash and a lot of blood in the water.
Junior chases down Tory at the end, and Tory is in a panic because he "doesn't want to go back to jail", and can't let his son "grow up seeing his dad in a cage." Tory decides that his only way "out" is to commit suicide by cop, so he raises his gun to Junior, who reluctantly shoots him dead, in a very emotional scene.
Tory is shown as mostly a sympathetic character -- an ex-con who had trouble making ends meet for his wife and kid, and hooked up with his old troublemaking friends to commit these bank robberies, despite his heart not really being in it. There are a few scenes showing Tory being loving with his baby boy.
By the end of the episode, all four bank robbers are dead (including Tory), and only ringleader Castor remains alive, though his fate is unknown, aside from being in police custody.
This was one of my favorite episodes of the series, and definitely the best of Season 9, which otherwise has been a weak season overall.
4 out of 4 stars.
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