Human Target Episode 2.10 Recap And Review

I have a feeling that a lot of anecdotes start with Guerrero in a cheap motel. This time, he’s making a new ID for a friend, advising him to lay off the cigarettes, caffeine…and drug running. Sound advice.

The following day, Ilsa tells Winston and Chance that she believes Guerrero has gone missing, as she hasn’t heard from him in two weeks. The boys are unconvinced, but as it turns out, he’s being stopped by the cops in the middle of nowhere. They ask him to pop the trunk on the Cadillac, and his friend Jerry is inside, quite dead. “Dammit, Jerry,” he says. “What’d you get me into?” The answer: jail.

Chance comes to visit, only to realize that Guerrero plans on busting himself out and going after whoever framed him for Jerry’s death. “We need to protect Guerrero from himself,” Chance tells Winston, and they start looking into the situation to clear his name. This involves Ilsa asking Ames to break into Guerrero’s locker, where the two of them find a mysterious case that neither of them can open. While they’re talking about that (and how he changes his first name “now and again”), Guerrero gets into his first prison fight. That’s right, he’s liberated himself sixteen minutes into the show – and surprisingly he doesn’t want Chance helping him with his next steps, but eventually relents. This means letting himself get thrown back inside to face an annoyed warden (Dexter‘s James Remar, who is very much alive on this show) who decides he’ll be an example. Wow, the second straight episode Guerrero gets that treatment. Rough week.

At large, Chance and Winston track the murder weapon to its retailer, which looks an awful lot like a low-budget version of a Bass Pro Shops. Winston crashes the phone system via computer, so Chance can come in as a phone repairman in order to get the footage from the nearby security cameras. This only gets him mistaken for a potential robber and shot at by a few rednecks. The footage proves that Guerrero wasn’t the one to buy the murder weapon – it was one of the prison guards.

Meanwhile, Ilsa and Ames are flying the case to our boys via Ilsa’s private jet, with Ames still trying to crack the code. She finally gets it open by remembering Guerrero’s nickname for his car. There’s all sorts of paperwork inside, including files on everyone and a photo of his son (remember, it was mentioned that he was a father in “Baptiste”), plus a log of pickups and deliveries at the jail.

Chance’s next move is to turn himself in for the not-exactly-robbery of the gun store. This is, of course, so he can share a cell with Guerrero. Orange is not a flattering color on either of them. “So they wanted the notebook,” Chance says. “The one with the incriminating evidence against the meth suppliers your friend was working with.” This does not make Guerrero a happy camper.

Winston meets Ilsa, Ames and the briefcase, and gets the two women up to speed. The guys believe there’s a meth lab somewhere in the jail. While Ilsa takes this to the governor, Winston and Ames hit the streets to break into a truck that may contain evidence of the lab’s existence. Namely, a bunch of prison snowglobes. Just as we connect the dots, the truck starts moving, with them still inside it.

In jail, Chance and Guerrero are met by a foursome of not so nice individuals who demand the notebook. A fight ensues, and it’s no surprise that our heroes end up on top. They’ve seen worse odds, after all. For them, two against one is nothing. They escape on the underside of a departing truck, and when it arrives they realize they’ve found the meth lab. Not only that, but they’ve also found the warden, who’d like them to be dead. They’d rather set stuff on fire and run for it.

Winston and Ames are met by the police and the governor, who now has a truckload of evidence to bust the warden with. Guerrero wants to shoot the warden for killing his friend, or maybe just take one of his eyes out, but the cops get there before he can go through with it, because we all know he would. In most shows, you’d think the good guy honestly wouldn’t go there but we’ve seen enough of Guerrero to know that he would do it without hesitation, which is what makes that moment so great. That, and Jackie Earle Haley can do it without having to overact it. Guerrero may be free, but he’s quite upset that the Cadillac’s been mauled. No one messes with the Caddy. When Ilsa confronts him about spying on them and returns the briefcase, he says, “Fine. I’ll stop watching everyone’s back.” He is a man of constant surprises, and that’s why we love him.

I’m not as sold on this episode as I was the one before it, but I think that’s a personal choice, because I’ve seen the “heroes in prison” story before (most recently this season with Burn Notice). For me, it’s been there and done that. It is, however, great to see James Remar outside of Dexter again. (Am I the only one who remembers when he was on The Huntress?) It’s a decent enough adventure, it’s just too familiar territory for me to really love it. That being said, it’s still an entertaining way to end a very long Friday, and was worth the wait. My only complaint is that we have to wait so long for another new episode!

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