Human Target - Episode 2: Rewind

Say a guy comes to you with a key. Says this key will open any safe anywhere. Money, jewels, all the secrets in this world would suddenly be at your fingertips.

Do you take it?

That’s what happens here.

Phil Tennant is a cyber security businessman, a developer of the latest and greatest firewalls. Casper is a freelance hacker hired by Tennant to test his company’s security defenses. Casper’s attack accidentally exposes a flaw in the Internet itself, capable of cracking any code, allowing access to things like bank information, FBI and CIA databases, White House secrets, missile codes, you name it.

Casper is on a flight to Tennant’s headquarters to deliver the key and help patch the flaw that allows it to work.

But Tennant’s office was broken into. And the only information the thief got was Tennant’s correspondence with Casper, along with Casper’s flight information. Tennant can’t contact Casper because he has no idea who Casper is. The only way to save Casper and protect the key from being stolen is for Chance to get on the same plane.

The Problem:
Chance has no idea what Casper looks like, or who maybe after him.

The Target:
Casper

The Threat:
Unknown

The Cover:
Martin Gill, an insurance salesman for Quality Mutual Insurance.

The Plan:
Talk to other passengers in order to identify both the target and the threat.

What surprised me about this episode? Three words: In Medias Res. I love it when a story starts in the middle. It pulls me in, and now I have to figure out who’s who, what’s what, and how everything got to where they are right now.

Big Comic Book Moment: The hacker’s name is Casper, as in The Friendly Ghost, which most hackers are. Ghosts I mean, not necessarily friendly.

Here’s what we learn this episode:
1) Winston (played by McBride and Chance’s means of getting false IDs) did something that would cause him to go to jail for either being on a plane…or for pretending to be a flight attendant.
2) Chance has a friend at TSA, which stands for Transportation Security Administration, and is part of the U. S. Department of Homeland Security.
3) Chance knows how to fly a plane, just not one this big.
4) Chance hated his old job, feeling that he had more potential.
5) Chance has had access to a flight simulator in the past.
6) Chance is always looking to hire more help, even offering the assassin a (wait for it) chance.
7) Chance said that he was once in the same boat as the assassin. Maybe he was a former assassin himself?
8) Guerrero (played by Haley and worth every dime) has lots of connections with bad guys.
9) It is unclear where Chance’s headquarters is. We’re assuming somewhere in California.
10) Winston was with Chance from the beginning of what they’re doing now.
11) It’s possible that either Chance, Winston, or both of them are Jewish.