DJ Watches: Arrow Season Five: Episode Five: Human Target
As we return into the arrow filled adventures of the Vigilantes of Star City, Rene, Wild Dog, is not in a good place. Having been captured by Tobias Church last week, he’s, as expected, being tortured continuously by the would be crime lord, and it’s going badly. Or greatly, if you’re Church. Waxing poetic about how it’s not the pain but the fear that makes people break, we get a series of flashes showing Rene’s “interrogation,” some from his hazy, broken perspective.
So things could be better.
Back at the Quiver, the team is trying their hardest to track down the missing Wild Dog, but without a whole lot of luck, unfortunately. Still, after some tense moments and some sleuthing, they stumble across the abandoned warehouse where Church was torturing Rene, and manage to track down where he’s been taken. Once there, they see that Church has apparently gotten exactly what he wanted out of the vigilante and is ready to put him down, but fortunately Ollie jumps in just in time and saves the captured Wild Dog. Green Arrow, however, notices that they didn’t put up much of a fight at all, and his observation is confirmed when Rene admits that, through all the torture, he broke, and now Tobias Church knows that Mayor Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow.
Church has naturally wasted no time in putting this information to use, as he has already hired a mercenary named Scimitar, looking like he shops at the same place as ol’ Slade Wilson, to do the deed. None too soon as well, as Church gets another visit from Prometheus, who once again warns him that Green Arrow is his, and he best stop meddling – it’s only Scimitar’s quick intervention that keeps Tobias from receiving another scar from this other evil archer. The crime lord, with a knowing smirk, responds that it’s very much not “The Green Arrow” he’s sending the mercenary to take down.
And so, on his way to a city function after seemingly deflecting and making a deal with the troublesome reporter from a couple episodes back, and completely ignoring Thea’s warnings about how there’s a threat on his life with his secret known, Oliver walks out of city hall, and is immediately gunned down on the steps. Despite being rushed to Starling General as quickly as possible, there soon comes a press conference, where with a heavy heart, Quentin Lance announces to the city that their beloved, if a little odd, mayor Queen, has passed away from the assassination attempt….
…which Oliver watches alongside the rest of the team back in HQ. It turns out, Diggle had referred Ollie to an old friend of his, Will Simpson Christopher Chance, aka The Human Target, who manages to uncannily disguise himself as and took the place of the Mayor to make Tobias think that the Green Arrow would no longer be an issue. Christopher is actually a surprisingly pleasant guy, who despite the creepiness of his job essentially turning into someone else, at least seems pretty mentally balanced and centered about the whole thing, even cracking a couple jokes.
With that out of the way, we join Rene, who’s been hanging out with Diggle in his safe house in order to recuperate form his cruel and unusual interrogation. John knows a thing or two about torture and tries to help him through the process of coping, and points out that while it’s unpleasant, Wild Dog is going to have to try and think about his time with Church. Resisting at first, Rene relents after John makes it clear that they need to use anything they can to find out what Church’s plans are, and this is also the only real way to fight through the experience and move on. After some hesitation, Rene calms his mind and realizes that he knows exactly what’s going to happen. Telling the rest of the team, Ollie gets everyone to suit up, and after a small heart-to-heart, that includes both a returning Spartan and a freshly re-focused and determined Wild Dog. Rene had admitted, finally, that he was being far too impulsive and hot headed, and blames himself for everything going bad, and is determined to b part of the solution and finally actually be part of the team.
Tracking Church and his crew to an Airfield where a deal is about to go down, Team Arrow strikes, finally working closer as a coordinated team then they have before, and having each other’s backs as they take down Church’s goons. While Artemis and Mr. Terrific deal with Scimitar, Wild Dog has his reckoning with Church himself, and while it’s not a total reversal at all, he does quite a bit better, and in fact, the fight ends when Church takes off. Scimitar, on the other hand, is dispatched by a seemingly traitorous member of the gang…except it turns out to be Christopher once again in disguise. Church doesn’t get too far, as Green Arrow confronts him for one final showdown. Tobias seems to relish this, and after some tough talk, goes to take down the hero……and Oliver proceeds to pretty much just body Church. Like, he got a couple of hits in, but it’s an even more one sided beat down then their first encounter.
Welp.
So, Oliver comes out of hiding to the city and says that his faked death was all part of a sting operation to draw out Church and take him down, and it worked swimmingly, though he apologizes for whatever pain and inconvenience he may have caused. Tobias Church has been taken don, the new team coming together and starting to work swimmingly, and somewhere in all this, Oliver and Felicity had a conversation about the nature of their relationship much to the chagrin of those who weren’t find of last season everywhere. Still, Church is being taken away for holding in a tougher prison with a full armored escort, and it looks like everything’s turning out just fine. Except Church, now holding the fear he spoke of so well earlier, realizes what’s going on as soon as the escort comes to a sudden halt. Systematically, Prometheus has put a stop to the caravan and utterly murders everyone in the caravan, coldly and efficiently. After he opens the doors to the paddy wagon, Church pleads with him to bargain, exclaiming that the Green Arrow is Oliver Queen. Prometheus takes the information, but no dice, as he kills Church as well, before drifting into the night, away from the massacre.
Oh yeah, in flashback land, Ollie is welcomed into the Bratva, and discovers that other members of the group are not as welcoming of him as Anatole and his men, as they set a trap and jump him outside the bar the celebration is being held at. Fortunately, Anatole knew this would happen and had hired – surprise! – The Human Target himself to deal with the would be assassins, and comes to Ollie to explain that of course he has his back in what’ coming. And none of that has to do with anythi-
Wait. Actually, as we see the sneaky reporter from before discussing something with a source, she discovers a picture of Oliver from that very flashback, showing that he was, in fact, not on the island for all five years. Hmmmmm…
This was another good episode of Arrow, and it might be time to admit this season might actually turn out good. It was paced well, the characters mostly made decent strides forward in both their characterization and the main plot, and those damn flashbacks might actually have a real, honest, effect on the modern day for once. Rene finally seems to have accepted his faults and confronted them earnestly, and seems to be turning a corner in how much of a problem he’ll unintentionally be to the team. I appreciated the connection he made with Diggle, and it made sense since the two of them certainly have a decent chunk in common, though John has it more in control. The new Spartan helmet isn’t great or anything, but it’s definitely better then that poorly designed Magneto wannabe one he had last time.
Look, I’ve been saying it already, but I’ll put it out there again now that we’ve probably seen the end of him – Tobias Church sucked. He was a loser villain through and through, despite how effective the show made him seem to be. Sure, he took over the criminal underworld in the power vacuum and tortured the heck out of Rene, but since day one he has never been a believable threat to Oliver. Even after seeing the beat down he was on the receiving end of in the first episode, he somehow looked even more pathetic here getting his ass handed to him thoroughly by Oliver in their final battle. Church got, what, two hits in? Otherwise it was just a sad, sad beating. Still, it looks like Prometheus is finally going to make his move, so we’ll see if this has all been worth it or not.
Human Target was a decent guest star, though I kept getting distracted by how this is the guy who played Nuke in Jessica Jones. Between him, the guy who played the poison smoke meta in the Flash also being Victor Zsasz in Gotham, and Daisy/Skye’s mom from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. being Roulette over on Supergirl, there’s a lot of crossover in smaller guest spot actors in all these superhero TV shows. I did like that he had crossed paths with Olive before, and while it’s a nice nod, I wonder if it’ll come up again since it seems like that reporter has forcibly made those flashbacks have modern context now.
So this series is in a good place for right now. I’m finding myself actually looking forward to this show every week again, ad I honestly hope it stays that way, I’d like to take one more show off the “Shows I Watch, but Not Enthusiastically” List.