Arrow, Season 5, Episode 5: Human Target
Holy shit, what a masterfully crafted episode. It's an epic, mid-season finale that brings together all the characters that are in play in this season into one big conflict as both Tobias Church and Green Arrow unleash their respective master plans to topple the other.
We start off with a very gruesome depiction of Wild Dog being tortured. He talked a big game at the end of last episode, but the beatings both physical and mental to him eventually caused him to break so hard that he's actually digging his own grave in a scene -- something the Wild Dog of a couple episodes ago would not do. I mean, at the slightest notice of rescue he did use his shovel to take out like five mooks, but he did apologize to Oliver for giving away his secret identity to Church, and it took a therapy session with Diggle that lasted nearly the entirety of the episode for him to get over his trauma. It's a very... visceral torture scene that didn't outlast its welcome and just become 'oh god more of this' the way similar to how Ramsay tortured Theon in Game of Thrones where it lasted an entire season. No, the torture was more implied than anything, and the episode, if anything, focuses more on the aftermath more than the torture. And to see someone as... well, wild as Wild Dog get humbled like that is actually very well done.
Wild Dog's relationship to Oliver and the grudging respect he's built over the past few episodes is exemplified well. He's not too keen on Diggle playing therapist and he's not about to share his sob story to Diggle, but his string of failures, especially this newest one, has made him... a pretty obedient dog to Oliver, seamlessly obeying every single one of Oliver's commands and being more of a team player. That really only leaves Artemis as the only member of the main cast to be lacking a solid personality, but we still have so many more episodes to go through, so that's okay.
But while Wild Dog is recovering, Oliver has to deal with a very important zoning deal thing as well as the affections of the reporter lady Susan Williams, in addition to being targeted for murder by Tobias Church. Oliver decides to call in help from Diggle... and I keep scratching my head as to who this mysterious 'guy with a very specific set of skills' was going to be.
And as Oliver breaks down his political rival by reverse-blackmailing him, gets on Williams' good side and generally solves the problems of his alter-ego, he gets very graphically riddled with bullets and fall to the floor... apparently someone is impersonating Oliver. And it's someone we've never seen before... Christopher Chance, the Human Target! Which would be a big 'who?' moment to most viewers, but I know enough comics to know who he is to go 'okay, cool cameo' when he shows up. Like John Constantine before him, the Human Target has been the star of his own short-lived TV show, and it's very cool to have him brought back for a cameo, even if it's not by his original actor (nor have I actually watched a show about the freaking Human Target).
Chance doesn't steal the episode like Constantine did, though, only appearing in a couple of brief scenes... though he has such a wonderful, hilarious personality and lines that those scenes are absolutely memorable. From his swaggering introduction and the suspense-of-disbelief powers of disguise where he apparently can impersonate someone down to their mannerisms, to the hilarious unexpected help in the climax where he's apparently disguised as one of Church's thugs, to the bit of sage advice to Oliver in the end... perhaps the only scene that didn't work well was Chance randomly showing up, apparently hired by Anatoly, to save Oliver from a bunch of Bratva people who aren't too happy about a non-Russian joining them. Chance's role in the flashback was a bit unnecessary I think, but not one I would complain.
And it's amazing how this episode still managed to fit in Chance's debut and return to the small screen without making it its star potential, and I guess it's to the episode's benefit that the random new character was given a small bit role as to not distract from the larger conflict.
And, shit, there was a lot at play. In addition to the aforementioned Wild Dog drama, Church big plan and Oliver's own mayoral problems, there's also Prometheus, there's Church's weird Genji-esque assassin enforcer, there's also Susan Williams doing her shady reporter thing, there's Diggle suiting back up for the first time this season, there's Oliver finally discovering that Felicity has a boyfriend now... Thankfully that last bit was more of a wave-away with Oliver showing up, hurt that Felicity didn't tell him but supportive in that she's moved on. It's a plotline no one wants to see expanded, and I'm thankful that it isn't.
Ragman, Artemis and Mr. Terrific don't get much to do but bat dialogue around, and neither do Quentin and Thea, but it's okay. They're around, they help to introdump some information and they do fighty stuff so that's fine. Ragman, of course, steals the show by his awesome rag powers (I can't believe I just typed 'awesome rag powers') in the cold open where he just doesn't give a fuck about bullets, and later tosses the random guy they interrogated towards the audience that the camera angle ends up being sort of fucked up.
But the eventual raid on Tobias Church's complex, with some familiar Amertek bosses from previous episodes as well as Church's... ninja-man bodyguard who's apparently named Scimitar serving as elite troops for the New Team Arrow to fight. We've got Green Arrow, Spartan, Wild Dog, Mister Terrific, Ragman, Artemis and the Human Target all gunning in with their own roles to play, and it's an awesome fight scenes all over, from the huge raid, to the B-team taking on Scimitar, to Wild Dog finally getting his balls back and doing toe-to-toe with Church, and to the final confrontation between Green Arrow and Church.
That scene, though. This episode and the previous have done wonders in raising Tobias Church's credibility as a villain, in particular the torture scenes, but here Oliver just absolutely shows him with a single minute of very, very awesomely choreographed fight scenes where Church makes it clear that he's not holding back, but every strike is parried and returned with vengeance by Oliver, who only gets hit by like a single shot or two. It's a very awesome fight, and very cathartic once Church goes down.
It really, truly feels like a mid-season finale, except it's the fifth episode. Fuck, man. Prometheus shows up midway through, warning Church not to fuck with Green Arrow only for Church to protect himself with the mysterious Scimitar. Prometheus later shows up with a very chilling scene as he massacres an entire police patrol off-screen, with us only hearing what's going on from the POV of Church and the one cop with him in the transport vehicle, and Church is so scared he's actually telling the cop not to go out there or he'll get killed. Church tries to sell Green Arrow's identity to Prometheus, but he gets a shuriken in his head for his troubles.
The Bratva storyline is a bit more detached to the main plotline in this episode, with Oliver being fully integrated into Bratva in a meeting with the head honchos, but one of them, Victor, isn't keen on having Oliver around and sends assassins -- upon which Oliver is saved by the Human Target as detailed above. The only real connection is a very interesting one, where the details of this particular event ends up getting shown to asshat reporter Susan Williams, who, while making a deal with Chance!Oliver to leave him alone and let him try to rebuild Star City for a month... seems pretty keen on proving things about Oliver isn't all what it seems to be. It's a bit odd why Oliver and Thea would spend so much more effort into getting her on their good side, but eh.
Overall, though? A very, very excellent episode. Holy shit, Arrow has been the most solid of all the CW shows this season, and I actually feel bad about watching it the last compared to the other three.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Christopher Chance is the third DC character to call himself the Human Target and is by far the most iconic one. The Human Target, a man with the uncanny ability to mimic his clients either for protection or assassination (but with the danger of losing his own personality in the process), is the subject of a obscure but very well-received miniseries, as well as two live-action shows that aired in 1992 and 2010 respectively. His actor this time around also played Nuke, a.k.a. Wil Simpson, on Jessica Jones.
- The dude in body armour with a sword and a robotic-looking mask is never named, just noted as a 'freak' bounty hunter ninja dude that Church hired to protect him from Prometheus and Green Arrow, but is identified by the credits as Scimitar. There is no DC character called Scimitar on either side of the spectrum, though -- all references in the internet only lead to a Marvel villain, but this is a DC show so either someone got their comic books mixed up, or this is just a brand-new character.
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