Most of us have moments in our past that we would prefer to stay buried from the light of day. For the last 10 seasons of “Hawaii Five-0,” McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) and the other members of the Five-0 team have dealt with the emergence of their pasts in several plotlines. Yet this week’s episode, “E uhi ana ka wā I hala I na mea I hala,” which is Hawaiian for “Passing time obscures the past,” has more to do with a case that connects to a strange plane crash from 1983, than any of their own personal ghosts from the past.

The episode, written by Matt Wheeler and David Wolkove and directed by Brad Turner, has the Five-0 team working two cases — one dealing with the mystery behind the crash of Flight 912, and the other has McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) and Quinn (Katrina Law) tailing Wes Cullen (Rob Morrow). McGarrett has asked Quinn to help him find more concrete evidence to prove Cullen was the one who planted a bomb in McGarrett’s home in last week’s episode “Kuʻi pēʻia e ka makani ʻāpaʻa,” which translates to “Knocked flat by the wind; sudden disaster.” After spending the day together, running surveillance and photographing Cullen’s nefarious activities, McGarrett seems to learn all he needs to know about Quinn to confirm that she is someone they could use on the Five-0 task force.

SECRETS BURIED AT SEA

The case of the week was an interesting one as it had to do with the discovery of a dead man in the underwater fuselage of Flight 912. The crash has only recently been discovered and Adam (Ian Anthony Dale) tells the team how “some conspiracy theorists think the reason the wreckage was never found is that the military got to it first and buried the discovery,” because the plane was brought down by a test of the strategic defense initiative from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.

As Adam is detailing the host of conspiracy theories surrounding the decades-old crash, it did seem odd that the team did not once reach out to Jerry Ortega, played by Jorge Garcia. Jerry left Five-0 in the season opener, “Ua ʻeha ka ʻili i ka maka o ka ihe,” which translates to “The skin has been hurt by the point of the spear.” Jerry left to research a book “about the connection between the Federal Reserve and the sinking of the Titanic.” Yet the only mention of Jerry is when Lou (Chi McBride) mentions that Adam doesn’t resemble their conspiracy theorist friend.

Beyond that, the episode was pretty interesting as the team — including Tani (Meaghan Rath) and Junior (Beulah Koale) — search for the killer of Jay Kahale, a diver who they find was hired by the brother of one of the dead passengers, Joe Ennis (Cullen Douglas). Ennis hired Kahale to find his brother Ron’s suitcase from the wreckage. The suitcase held millions of dollars in jewelry that he and his brother had conspired to steal from a New York socialite. Unfortunately, Ron caught Flight 912 to Hawaii and he along with the jewels were lost in the Pacific Ocean. When the crash site was discovered, Joe saw his chance to finally get a payday.

Of course, thieves are far from honest. Kahale hired underwater welder Sara Brown (Allison Caetano) to remove the airplane seats so he could search from the suitcase, but Brown killed him to obtain the jewels. When Five-0 catches up to Brown, she takes off but Tani catches her. After a very cool underwater gun-knife fight, Tani surfaces. With Junior’s help, they both save and subdue their killer.

When Junior quips, “I didn’t know they taught underwater fighting in mermaid school,” we know he is glad Tani is all right, even if she didn’t have her tail. Both have spent the last two episodes saving each other from peril, and we think it’s time they start saving some time for romance in the near future. Still, it was a satisfying ending to an interesting case of the week.

Even Adam got a little vindication when he tells Lou, Tani, and Junior that the NTSB found that “someone wiped” the black box from Flight 912, confirming his idea that there was a conspiracy of some sort behind the crash all along.

FACING THE PAST WILL SET YOU FREE

While the rest of Five-0 is dealing with the case of the week, McGarrett and Quinn are tracking Cullen. If anyone is haunted by his past, it is Cullen. He is fueled by his anger and self-hatred after the death of his wife and daughter who were killed when he could not pay back a loan he made with an old-school loan shark. In the season opener, McGarrett, Grover, and Quinn figure out that Cullen was taking out his revenge on several high-level underworld figures, which put him on Five-0’s radar.

While McGarrett is no stranger to being haunted by his past, his past caused him to start the Five-0 task force instead of hiring hitmen to kill cops and crime bosses. Still, it was not very satisfying to have McGarrett confront Cullen since Cullen dies when his house explodes while McGarrett stands in the driveway. We may not know what is going on right now, but Cullen’s last words seem pretty prophetic, at some point, McGarrett is smart enough to figure it out.

Wendie Burbridge writes the “Five-0 Redux” and “Magnum Reloaded” blogs for staradvertiser.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.