Human Target season 2 episode 13 review: Marshall Pucci: season finale

This review contains spoilers.

2.13 Marshall Pucci

The second season finale opens with Ilsa in her office, thinking about Marshall’s affair, when Chance shows up and they kiss. The next day, it turns out Ilsa is moving back to London and the team are all gathered to say goodbye.

As Guerrero is leaving, he is confronted by Julia (Emily Foxler), the girl in the photo with Marshall, who asks for protection. Chance races to the airport to stop Ilsa taking off, telling her they’ve found the mistress and that she knows who really killed Marshall.

Julia explains that Marshall had found weapon caches in his aid shipments and was trying to expose this. Ilsa asks about the affair and Julia tells her that Marshall would never have cheated.

The plan to help Julia involves calling the men who killed Marshall and arranging a meeting, which is to take place near a public park. Chance quickly realises it’s a setup and when Julia’s phone starts ringing, things go wrong quickly.

The team’s communication goes down and we then see the guy behind it, Bill Fickner (Jake Weber) in another location, surrounded by a team of people with computers. Shortly after, a bus pulls in front of Ilsa and Julia’s location, where the team was keeping an eye on them, leaving them out of sight and sending Chance on a wild goose chase after a couple of decoys dressed as the two women.

Traffic lights are then changed by this other team to slow down Guerrero and Ames and impede their aiding in finding Ilsa.

Once on a subway car, Julia pulls a gun on Ilsa and tells her she killed Marshall and that she’s after Marshall’s pictures of the weapon caches. Ilsa manages to escape using the train’s emergency brake, which Chance hears through the grates in the sidewalk. Just when she’s about to get hit by a train, having caught her foot in a rail on fleeing, Chance shows up to save the day.

Back at headquarters, the team figure out that it’s the CIA that are after them, and escape the offices just as a CIA team go in. This CIA team then take over the offices and begin looking for them.

While Chance, Ilsa, and Winston hide at a motel, Guerrero decides to head back to the offices, much to Ames’ dismay.  Luckily, Guerrero was still bugging the offices and listens in while Fickner is talking about going after his Guerrero’s, which leads to him going in after them.

Chance and Ilsa figure out that Marshall might have hidden the photos at a hotel suite he and Ilsa had rented out. At the hotel, Ilsa gets the room key from the office, while Winston hacks into the security cameras. Knowing that the CIA are also watching, the team use Ames as a decoy to let Ilsa go to the real hotel suite and look for the photos.

When Ames is caught, Chance takes out the CIA operatives that have her.

Ilsa finds a memory card with the photos on it, but before she escapes, she decides to take Julia up to the roof for revenge. While Chance is climbing the side of the hotel to get to the roof, where Ilsa has taken Julia, Guerrero takes out the power back at the offices.

Back on the roof, Chance shows up before Ilsa pulls the trigger, just as a CIA team come through the roof door. Chance then grabs Ilsa and jumps off the roof.

Back at headquarters, Guerrero captures Fickner and forces him to get his team to surrender. We then see Chance hanging off the side of the hotel holding onto Ilsa.

In the final scenes of the season we see Guerrero blowing up his car, which happens to have Fickner sitting in the driver’s seat. Ilsa says goodbye to the team again before heading to the airport. Chance then races to the airport to stop her leaving.

Story covered, then, was all this any good?

This episode was a mixed bag for me. The main part of the plot, the team being basically outgunned by the CIA, I thought was done really well. It was good seeing them not being in control of the situation.

Like so many episodes this season, though, the rest of the plot revolved around the Chance-Ilsa romance, which, for me, has been the worst thing about this season. It just feels so out of place in the show.

I felt the finale was very fitting, as it encapsulated everything I thought was good and bad about season 2. The over reliance on the romantic subplot just seemed to weigh down the rest of the episode (and season) and the underuse of Ames, who could have been really good, but ultimately, the story (and season) would have got by without her. The action set pieces were, again, fantastic and the performances by the actors were also pretty much perfect.

As of writing this, I am unaware about the future of the show, but I really hope it gets renewed, as the elements of a truly great show are there. The execution just hasn’t been pulled off this season, and with a few small changes, it could be fantastic.

Read our review of episode 12, The Trouble With Harry, here.

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