It turns out with all the saving that Christianity does, it can't save itself, but Christopher Chance can. Well, he can save a double-crossing thief who joined a Canadian monastery in order to secure a mythic scroll, which would net $4.5 million if found. It's no longer just super-train designing damsels in distress for Human Target. This episode had its branded hyper-action mixed with broad goofy comedy, though the blending of the two wasn't that smooth; at least it's trying. Also, look out for the best physics-busting move of 2010; I'm already calling it.
It's Case #386. John Grey (Sam Huntington) was part of a gang of thieves, headed by Sam Fisher (William Mapother), a mastermind psychopath. Due to a relationship with a girl (go figure), John wants to excise himself of his criminal ways. So he sets Fisher up, and gets away clean. Fisher escapes jail and wants John's head on a platter. Due to a purchase he made months before, John needs to make the one last score, the scroll, at the monastery located high in Quebec's mountains, reached only by cable car from the mountain base. Enter Chance as a visiting Father Mitchell, who must identify and remove John Grey from harm's way.
Chance finds John heading a small meeting in the library, discussing the Crisis on Infinite Earths comic series. Of course by this time, Fisher and his gang of marauders have already taken out a lookout cop and are on their way up to the mountain. Seeing this through his binoculars, Winston slightly panics and calls Guerrero to contact a helicopter pilot to take him up to the monastery. Guerrero isn't able to help because he's doing a job for someone else, one that involves some snooping through Winston's office. Angry, Winston becomes a tough guy and makes his own way up the mountain. The interesting dynamic here is that Winston is tired of taking jabs from Guererro about his desk jockey position, and is branching out because of it. That's great, because McBride needs more meat in this show.
Chance and John, with the help of an all-too compassionate monk, discover a crypt hidden beneath the pulpit in the church where Fisher and his men are keeping all the other monks hostage. They find the box containing the scroll, one which can only be opened with a papal ring, one that John Grey purchased online months before. When questioned roughly about John's location, the compassionate priest tells Fisher to go to hell (very on the nose), and another priest is forced to rat John out in order to stop any bloodshed. After adding Chance to the hostages, Fisher takes his entire team of men along with John to a safety deposit box at the base of the mountain. Inside is the ring needed to open the scroll box. Fisher leaves behind one man and a detonator connected to C4 explosives placed all over the area, intending on killing everyone after the box is removed.
Winston takes out the single gang member, but the thief's dying move was flipping the switch on the detonator. For the umpteenth time, Winston calls Guerrero, who dodges Winston's begging with quippy retorts, leaving Winston to use his gut in figuring out which wire to cut inside the detonator. Go Winston! He cuts Chance loose, and Chance is free to blow your minds for a few minutes. Here's the big move: Chance manages to find a random link of chain and uses it to zip down the cable car line in order to catch Fisher. We see him positively flying down the line before he smashes through the way-too-small door window, into Fisher, who is sent flying forward, and Chance lands on his feet in a fighting position! On his feet! That made me laugh hysterically, because I couldn't possibly imagine how they could shift his momentum so quickly, and they just didn't mess with it at all. Hilarious. Then of course there's a fight scene in a cable car, which John finds himself hanging out of at one point before Chance's quick thinking saves them from certain death. I do not have the upper body strength to do near the amount of things that people on TV can do with hanging off of things. I would be a casualty.
The Guerrero side-plot is kind of boring, but is being used to develop a backstory for Chance and Winston, and perhaps a way to stretch a storyline rather than one-off every episode. A shady man with an undisclosed employer has tasked Guerrero with retrieving a file, which turns out to be Winston's first case file, complete with his taped case-logs. The case was Katherine Walters, who died despite Chance's involvement. Apparently Chance hasn't gotten over this yet, as the corny final scene voiceover tells us. After showing the shady man the file, Guerrero asks a last time who the man works for, and is denied the information. Guerrero shoots the man in the back, and re-retrieves the file. The man says Chance can't be saved. Spooky. Who is this dead woman? What will Chance leap from next? Tune in next week. Same batshit crazy time. Same batshit crazy channel.
