HUMAN TARGET 1.4 – "Santuary"

WRITER: Kalinda Vazquez
DIRECTOR: Sanford Bookstaver
GUEST CAST: Sam Huntington, William Mapother, Sarah Smyth, Michael Ryan, Peter Bryant & Merwin Mondesir

[SPOILERS] This week was almost "Die Hard in a monastery", as Chance (Mark Valley) was hired by the girlfriend of reformed thief John Gray (Sam Huntington) to protect him from the gang he snitched on to the cops, who have now escaped from a prison bus. The unsuspecting John's now hiding out in a remote mountain monastery outside Quebec, where he intends to find and steal an ancient religious scroll worth millions, unaware that his old colleagues, led by Sam Fisher (William Mapother), are on their way to avenge his betrayal and nab the scroll for themselves...

There were a few quirks to the usual setup in this episode, in terms of both story and format. Winston (Chi McBride) was again more involved in the week's mission (a la "Rewind"), accompanying Chance to Quebec to provide comms support from a van parked at the foot of the mountain, before being forced to take a more active role and assist Chance once Fisher's team took over the monastery from the Abbott (Peter Bryant). This worked nicely, as it feels like a waste to not use McBride more extensively on the show, although letting his character bookend the episode with a wry voiceover is an overused technique I'm not a fan of. Likewise the episode's pointless in media res opening made me roll my eyes, because we caught up to present events far too quickly for its use to have been at all necessary. And is there really a need to return from commercial breaks with a two-second montage of the previous act's events? My memory's not that bad, thank you.

Arguably the most fascinating aspect of the show wasn't even related to the monastery drama, but was instead the week's subplot for Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley) -- which saw him lying to Winston about being on another job, while actually sneaking around Winston and Chance's office on the orders of a mysterious client, to take photos of Chance's first ever case-file. The episode played with the idea that Guerrero's definitely a snake in the grass Winston's actually right to be suspicious of, working against his friends (kind of the flipside to John Gray), but his actions were later given an honourable explanation: he was only providing intel on Chance's first mission in order to learn who his client's working for. The case itself appears to have involved a woman's death (someone Chance no doubt loved), and a mission that was likely instrumental in making him decide to go straight with Winston. There were also a few additional hints that Chance, like John Gray, wasn't always playing for the good guys -- so, perhaps the people who paid for Guerrero's help were some of Chance's own ghosts from the past?

Strangely, while Chance's back-story become slightly clearer via Guerrero's storyline, Valley himself didn't really get much to do beyond look stern and go through the motions with the admittedly fun fights (a cable car tussle being the highlight.) This episode was just more interesting whenever Winston or Guerrero were around (baiting each other in phone calls best of all), leaving Chance to play the impassive bodyguard. I still think Valley shows promise as an action hero with some depth to him, but his character's in danger of becoming a rather functional, dry personality. It doesn't help that Chance is still such an enigma after four episodes, but I'm happy to wait and get some explanations about his character's mystery -- including why he seems so disinterested in being paid money to pay utility bills, and prefers to be rewarded with gifts. Maybe his past life was more financially motivated, so as part of his rehabilitation he prefers to avoid monetary gain?

It was also a fun episode to note the talent involved, too: from writer Kalinda Vazquez (who cut her teeth on Prison Break during it sillier years, which is perfect training for a show like this), to director Sanford Bookstaver (a Harper's Island alumni, along with guest-star Sarah Smyth), the presence of the unfailingly sinister William Mapother[*] (Ethan Rom in Lost) as the episode's villain, and likeable Sam Huntington (Jimmy Olson in Superman Returns, another DC Comics property, whose character was even seen explaining the storylines of some Superman back-issues.)

Overall, "Sanctuary" suffered slightly from a mechanical performance from Valley, some unnecessary tweaks to the narrative structure, and a central story that didn't quite connect emotionally (I didn't care about John, or the religious scroll at any point), but it was a great showcase for McBride and Haley, we got our first big puzzle piece to help deduce Chase's back-story, and there were enough entertaining moments to keep you watching (the cable car zip-wire, Winston's defusing of a bomb), and I'm still impressed the show's making such a good impression after only four episodes. I hadn't planned to be watching this many episodes, but it's proving to be good entertainment.

3 FEBRUARY 2010: FOX, 9/8c

[*] Did you know William Mapother's the first cousin of Tom Cruise? Their fathers are brothers. Cruise's real name is actually Thomas Cruise Mapother IV.