- Title: Human Target – Embassy Row
- wiki: link
In an episode that finds our hero poisoned and forced to break into a Russian Embassy to find a cure for both himself and an old friend’s dying brother “Embassy Row” introduces Emmanuelle Vaugier as my favorite recurring character of the entire series: FBI Agent Emma Barnes. The episode begins when Aaron Cooper (Firefly‘s Sean Maher) is given Christopher Chance’s (Mark Valley) number by his dying brother who knows Chance is the one man who may be able to save Aaron from a similar fate.
Following the breadcrumbs left by the dead man leads Chance to the Russian Embassy under an assumed name where he discovers both he and Aaron have been poisoned with a radioactive material a spy plans on auctioning off at the embassy. Slowly being effected by the poison, which begins to effect him more and more over the course of the episode, Chance’s latest adventure leads him to meed Emma Barnes to whom he becomes handcuffed to for much of the episode. Together the two break quite a few international laws to stop the sale, find the spy, get out of the embassy, and stay alive long enough for Winston (Chi McBride) and Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley) to administer the cure.
Vaugier’s two episodes (she’ll return later in the season to help Chance battle another of my favorite recurring characters) rank high for me on a list of the show’s best episodes. Over the years I’ve seen her in other roles but it’s hard not to think of her first as the smart, sexy, ass-kicking FBI agent who proves equal to Chance. Chance even becomes so smitten with her he even leaves a breadcrumb of his own in hopes of meeting sometime in the future. Hey, who can blame him?
