We Reach the End: Person of Interest Series Finale

S05E13 - "return 0"

This is it. The end of the line. The final episode of one of the best science fiction TV shows of recent years.

Here we go.

If you can hear this - you're alone. The only thing left of me is the sound of my voice. I don't know if any of us made it. So let me tell you who we were. And how we fought back.

As the Ice-9 virus Finch activated last week is causing some problems on a global scale, the man himself enters a building rooftop with a suitcase - out of breath, raising a gun at every sudden noise. As he nears a control panel, he talks with the Machine. She is in a bad shape herself, with only 8 minutes left of her life and very limited capacities - when asked by Finch what happened to everyone else except Reese, whose fate he knows, she is unable to tell him. He asks her if she managed to learn anything from keeping track of everyone - and her response is that everyone dies alone. There was more to it than that, but she's struggling to remember it. She tells Harold that he built her to predict people, and the only way to do that is to learn about them. And over the years, she learned that the moment when you truly find out who a person is, often is their last.

As she tells him that, she recalls a few images that set the tone of finality for the rest of the episode. An old person on a hospital bed. Shaw looking over Root's grave. A man lying on the ground, surrounded by EMTs. Fusco, badly wounded. A little boy at a funeral. Reese, kneeling as someone aims at the back of his head.

"Fair enough. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts, then. Because, in addition to this being now, it's also probably the end." As Finch says those words, the camera pans down to reveal his gunshot wound.

After we move some time back, we see that Samaritan, dying from the Ice-9 virus, is searching for the people who killed it, to have some good old fashioned revenge in its final moments. Shaw, standing over her loved one's unmarked grave, is saved by the Machine as she reveals she took Root's voice (also, Samaritan operatives robbed the grave of Root's body for her cochlear implant. Fuck those guys). Reese and Fusco are not so lucky, the latter arrested for the mysterious disappearance of Agent Leroux (the Samaritan operative he had to deal with last week), and John for his past as the Man in the Suit vigilante that Samaritan spitefully tips off their Lieutenant to. Instead of taking them to Rikers, the group of New York's Finest decide to kill them at the docks, as there's a substantial financial reward for Fusco and Reese to never make it to prison alive.

Lionel snarks that he always knew John would be the death of him - but follows it up with words of thanks. He realizes that without Reese to nudge him in the right direction, he'd still be just a dirty cop. Though, when asked by John what actually happened to Agent Leroux, Fusco replies that he's in the back of his trunk - so as he himself notes, he hasn't changed that much. The two friends are saved at  the last moment by a sniper hired by the Machine and are reunited with Finch, who takes them to the subway hideout where Shaw and the Machine (to whom Fusco is finally introduced) are already waiting for them.

The show cuts to Finch, remembering a moment he shared with Grace. He's interrupted by the Machine (whom, thanks to the blood loss and exhaustion, he hallucinates as Root standing in front of him). She explains that the reason their conversation is so morbid is because he built her to watch people die. He protests that he did it to prevent this - but, as she explains, to do that, she first had to learn how people die, what gets them to this point. He didn't build her a capacity for despair, so she had to make one from scratch. In one case she finally learned something - that everyone dies alone and something else... but she still can't remember what it was. Finch can't stop himself from laughing. "That's so perfect. You learned the secret of life and you've forgotten it".

Back in the subway, it turns out that Samaritan has a final backup copy, hidden in the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank. Finch and Reese go there (with a copy of the Machine's core heuristics in a suitcase) to infect it with the Ice-9 virus, leaving Shaw and Fusco behind to protect the Machine from the likely arrival of Samaritan operatives.

John and Harold make it to the vault with the active involvement of the Machine. But in the process of infecting Samaritan, Finch gets shot by a Samaritan operative whom Reese has to fight as well as  his buddies, while the ASI manages to upload a compressed version of itself to an orbital satellite as a last resort. If it manages to download itself back to earth, all their work will have been for nothing. 

The team has 18 minutes left until the satellite passes over them to send a similar copy of the Machine (from the chips in their suitcase). There, she hopes to beat her rival once and for all. She may have lost all those simulated battles before - but now she has nothing to lose. Finch locks Reese in the vault, not wanting his good friend to lose his life in this last ditch. On his way, Harold stops for a while as Samaritan takes over every screen in the vicinity to discourage and threaten him one last time.

Meanwhile Shaw and Fusco prepare to defend the subway train, but the Machine has other plans and tells them to plant C4 on the wall and prepare the train to leave. As the Samaritan operatives arrive, led by our "good friend" Jeff Blackwell (Root's killer), the two take off - but Blackwell manages to get on board. Thankfully he only manages to graze Shaw before Fusco takes him down and cuffs him. As the three ride the train for a while with the Machine's servers, Shaw recognizes from the bullets of the custom-made gun Blackwell is carrying that he's the one who killed Root. She's only stopped from killing him by the glitching Machine, who tells them that her and Fusco need to get off the train at the next stop, and to get ready because there might be Samaritan agents waiting for them. 
The Machine also tells Sameen what Root would've wanted her to know: "You thought there was always something wrong with you because you don't feel things the way other people do. But she always felt that was what made you beautiful. She wanted you to know that if you were a shape, you were a straight line. An arrow."

Shut up. You're crying. I've just been cutting onions.

As they finally arrive to their destination, Fusco lifts Blackwell to his knees - only to be stabbed in the belly, and for their enemy to get away. Shaw helps Fusco to get away before any of the other Samaritan assets arrive.

At the same time, in its last ditch to defeat its foes, Samaritan cracks the firewall on USS Garner and launches a missile at the building Finch wants to transmit the Machine from. They have one minute until the satellite is in range, and then three more until the upload is complete. That's when Finch realizes the antennas on the building will not be able to transmit the Machine's core heuristics to the satellite. She purposefully sent him to the wrong building - she and Reese had a long standing agreement to sacrifice John's life instead of Harold's. "Told you - I'll pay you back all at once," he tells Finch while standing on nearby building. 

He starts the transmission and tells Harold to move - it might get a little exciting up there. Finch tries to persuade him to leave and let the upload take care of itself - but that's when Samaritan operatives arrive and John has to fight them off until it's done.

"When you came to me, you gave me a job. A purpose. At first... well, I'd been trying to save the world for so long - saving one life at a time seemed a bit anticlimactic. But then I realized: sometimes one life is the right life. It's enough." he tells Finch, thanking him for their time together. That's when the Machine tells Harold she finally remembered what she learned that time. It was when a police officer had to notify the family of a man who died from a heart attack on his way to his 3 years old son's birthday. In response to his partner's words that everybody dies alone, he had said "But if you mean something to someone, if you help someone, or love someone... If even a single person remembers you, then maybe... you never really die at all."

As the heartbroken Harold leaves his old friend to his heroic sacrifice, the Machine asks him one last time: "I know I've made mistakes. Many mistakes. But we helped some people... didn't we?" "Yes. Yes we did." The Machine shuts down its core systems and records the message we heard at the start of the season and the episode, as Reese finally get overtaken by the swarms of Samaritan agents. But it's too late for them - the upload is complete. And even the finally arriving missile can't do anything about it. The Machine's copy reaches the satellite and begins the asskicking of Samaritan.

Some time later, the Ice-9 virus is finally contained and its effects neutralized. Jeff Blackwell is getting ready to leave his Samaritan-paid apartment, only to be stopped by Shaw who finally gets her revenge. He tries to defend himself by saying it was a job, not something personal, and Sameen replies that she had a few jobs like that herself: "In fact, a few years ago I would've just killed you without even a second thought. But then I met some people... some good people. And they taught me the value of life". Blackwell tries to use that to stop her from killing him, saying they wouldn't want her to do it. "You're right", she says. "But they're all dead." With those words, she guns him down.

She later meets with Fusco - now completely fine and back at his job. She takes Bear from him and departs, with both of them subtly expressing hope to see each other again. Meanwhile, Finch meets with Grace, finally revealing to her that he's alive and reuniting with her.

And that's when the Machine's core heuristics, victorious over Samaritan, are downloaded back to the servers in the subway train. The Machine's recorded message starts to play, explaining to itself anew why she chose to save human lives.

If you can hear this - you're alone. The only thing left of me is the sound of my voice. I don't know if any of us made it. Did we win? Did we lose? I don't know. So let me tell you who we were. Let me tell you who you are. Someone once asked me if I had learned anything from it all.

So let me tell you what I learned. I learned... everyone dies alone. But if you meant something to someone... if you helped someone... or loved someone... if even a single person remembers you... Then maybe you never really die.

And, as the episode ends, the New Machine calls Sameen on a payphone on the same corner Reese interacted with its old iteration. Thus it all starts anew, with Shaw replacing Harold and John as the recipient of new numbers. And before the final curtain, they get back to work, in a near perfect recreation of the final scene of the pilot.

And that's it. It has been my pleasure to recap the final episodes of this fantastic show to you. And though I'm even less happy about Root's death - in general the show stayed true to its themes. It continued the exploration of the rise of artificial superintelligence, and it continued its focus on saving ordinary lives. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings about a show I love dearly - and until next time.

Dominik Zine is a nerdy lad from northeastern Poland and is generally found in a comfy chair with a book in hand.

Person of Interest Recap - S05E12 - ".exe"

It's the final countdown to Person of Interest's finale and tensions are high.

Harold is making his final preparations for an assault on Samaritan. After his roadtrip takes him to San Jose where gets his hands on a propagation system for the Ice-9 virus, he is off to Fort Meade. There, in the building of the National Security Agency, Samaritan has its main operations center, and that's where Finch plans to upload the virus. Harold gets in via a cool sequence that wouldn't look out of place in a modern day spy thriller (though I'm not so fond of a distraction the Machine arranges for him that involves getting a black woman accused of carrying a gun into the building. Not cool, creators. Seriously). But as we learn, the enemy ASI's defeat will come at a cost - it will also kill the Machine. Harold's come a long way from distrusting his creation, so even though he knows this is their only hope - he hesitates just before he says the voice activation password. And that allows the Samaritan operatives to find him and stop him.

Finch is taken to Greer, who once again tries to convince him to join their side. At the same he's probing Harold to find out whether he told the Machine the password that would activate the virus. To that end, he engages him in a philosophical debate on the place of artificial intelligences in the world. He argues that humanity controlling them would be like apes trying to control humans, and that Samaritan is creating a better world. Finch will have none of that, and he retorts that humanity shouldn't cede control over itself to AIs. That's all Greer needed to hear - a person who that strongly believes in retaining control over his creations wouldn't allow it knowledge of a password that might end its existence. With that, he orders the room he is in with Harold sealed and oxygen flushed from it. Greer believes in Samaritan so much, he's willing to die for its continued existence. It seems like this is the end for Finch.

That's when Reese and Shaw come in. After saving the President last week, the two are back in New York, and more specifically - the team's subway hideout. Finch isn't there, though (which begs the question who is feeding and walking Bear?!). What they get is a number from the Machine - Philip Hayes, Greer's alias in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Which means they're off to Washington DC again (which seems a little counterproductive). Once they're at the building the Office is supposed to be in but hasn't been used in a long time, they get a couple of numbers from the Machine. The first two are coordinates to a recycling plant near the NSA building for their top secret documents - that's their way in. Once they get inside and manage to obtain some cover identities, they find what one of the other two numbers means - it's the number of an evidence room. And the final one - the evidence number for Edward Snowden's wireless modem. This allows the Machine to connect with Finch's phone and with a series of flashes send him the access code to the room he's trapped in with the now dead from suffocation Greer. Harold is free, and the trio is reunited. Reese and Shaw are adamant Finch leave the building with them, with the cover provided by the Machine's fake bomb alert. But in a fight with Samaritan operatives Harold slips out and tells the two from behind the closed door to leave. With that, he makes his way back to the Samaritan's operations center to finish the job once and for all.

The Machine has long figured out what the consequences of activating the Ice-9 virus for it will be. Throughout the episode it's been sharing with Harold visions of a world where it didn't exist.

In those It's a Wonderful Life-style sequences we learned that Nathan and Finch, having turned down the Department of Defence contract, would've continued working in their company - but Harold would never have met Grace, as it was the Machine's playing Cupid that led him to her and the laws of probability make it terribly unlikely he'd meet her without the AI's intervention. Fusco, having no one to reset his moral compass, would've stayed in the criminal organization H.R. - Reese wouldn't have killed Stills, who was the only reason Lionel ever joined and stayed with that crowd. On the plus side, H.R. would still fall thanks to Carter who would live and become their precinct's new lieutenant. But Fusco would still lose his job, only having the dubious honor of being one of the first crooked cops to flip. Meanwhile Shaw would continue working for the clandestine government operation she worked for before she joined the team. And Reese, in this alternate universe, would find out his ex-girlfriend Jessica's husband was abusing her and stop him. However, in the aftermath Jessica would see the murderous person he's become in the employ of the CIA and reject him, leading to him becoming the broken man we met at the very start of the show. And in the end, he would die, his body buried in an unmarked grave. As the Machine puts, ever since Finch found him, John has been living on borrowed time.

But perhaps the worst part of that alternate timeline is that, even without the Machine, the government would still be looking for a monitoring system - which would make them more open to Greer and Samaritan. And though that revelation has been left for last, there are hints scattered through those scenarios that foreshadow that reveal - just like we learned this season, there's been a drop in homicides and a parallel rise in missing persons cases. And Shaw (still working with her partner Cole) is still working cases that come from a mysterious source that is never wrong - like an ASI. But the worst part? Root would work closely with Greer, serving Samaritan with the same religious fervor she had as the Machine's analog interface. Which is very likely - with no Machine and no team, Root would have no impetus for growth, and instead would retain her attitude that some people are just "bad code" that need to be eliminated.

The Machine, in presenting those scenarios to Finch, seems to be assuaging his worries that his creation of the AI has made the world a worse place than it would've been in otherwise. This also reinforces a sentiment expressed by Nathan in the flashback shown at the season premiere, that even if Harold hadn't created an artificial intelligence, someone else would - and it would not be as friendly to humanity. With that, Finch enters the heart of Samaritan.

While all this has been going on, Fusco has had his own share of problems. The bodies of the missing people he found in the now demolished access tunnel have turned up, which put the whole precinct on high alert, with everyone suspecting a serial killer on the loose. This also brings back FBI Agent Leroux - a Samaritan operative who was in charge of the investigation into deaths of Elias and Dominic that Lionel seemed to be connected with. He kidnaps Fusco and deduces that he knows everything about Samaritan. So he decides to kill Lionel and make it seem like a heroic death after catching up to that nonexistent serial killer. But the shared weakness between every Samaritan operative seems to be their inability to shut the hell up about their beloved new order and he forgets to check if Fusco has a bulletproof vest. That allows Lionel to turn the tables on him, and as we leave him he ponders what to do with Leroux. He realizes that if he lets him go, the Samaritan operative will just keep coming back - so he's left wondering whether to finish it in the way Leroux intended.

Finch meanwhile is having a little chat with Samaritan, where the ASI claims he won't be able to pull the metaphorical trigger, as activating the virus would mean kill his creation - and stop it from achieving its purpose. Harold replies that she (this use of the pronoun Root has been using for the Machine is very significant of his change of how he sees the Machine) already has a purpose - protect humanity. And as he hesitates before activating the virus, the Machine reveals that she already knew what the password was, proving Finch right.

With that he uses the password - "DASHWOOD", the name of the "Sense and Sensibility" protagonists - and leaves, as the screens Samaritan has been using to talk with him begin glitching.

Does this mean the death of both ASIs? What havoc will wreak the death throes of two god-like beings? Who will survive and who will die? We'll find out in last week's series finale.

Dominik Zine is a nerdy lad from northeastern Poland and is generally found in a comfy chair with a book in hand.

Person of Interest Recap - S05E11 - "Synecdoche"

Last week, thanks to missing an episode the week before, I wasn’t able to give the needed focus to a certain plot development from "The Day the World Went Away”. This was necessary at the time, and will be fixed right away, before we get to the recap proper.

Root is dead. The half of a fan-loved same sex couple is the team’s first casualty in their war against Samaritan. Technically, Elias dies first, but he’s not universally considered a member of the team (and is definitely not a member of the main cast) – more of an informed ally. And there are two sides to my reaction to this – an angry one, and one looking at it more clinically.

I’m unhappy with the fact Root is dead. I – and most of the fans, I suspect – wanted her and Shaw’s reunion and happiness more than anything. And now that Sameen is back, they’ve only been actually, physically together for a single episode. To add insult to injury, this comes in the year of Lexa, Abbie, Laurel and multiple other important female characters being killed on TV – a number of which were LGBTQIA, and a number of them handled poorly. Root’s death isn’t as bad as some of those, but it still is an anger-worthy development.

On the other hand – this is the final handful of episodes from the show that promised the only regular major character guaranteed to survive is Bear. The characters are engaged in a losing war with an enemy of unimaginable capabilities. Characters will start dying. And I don’t think I’d be happy with any other character dying first – maybe Reese, whose skillset is similar to Shaw’s and who had a good run since the show’s start. Shaw just got back from months of imprisonment and psychological torture – to have her die as soon as she returns would be too cruel. Fusco is a single dad, and the possibility of his son stuck in a foster system in a country run by a malevolent ASI... yeah, I want none of that. And Finch is literally the most important character on Person of Interest. And the thing is, all or most of them will die. The producers already teased a bloodbath of an ending, and I expect Root’s death is just the first.

There’s also the fact that as much as she loved Shaw, she also loved the Machine. From the season 2 beginning, she’s expressed her desire for it (or her, as she called the AI) to achieve the potential it was denied by Finch. And in season 3, she became its analog interface. Not an admin figure or one of the primary assets – an interface. And she was fine with it. She wanted to be as close to the Machine as possible – even die for it. This isn’t different from a religious person dying for their faith.

I’ve mentioned in my recap of "6,741” that Person of Interest has the ability to make their use of overused tropes— that at the very least annoy me elsewhere— bearable (even if grudgingly at times). This is one of those moments – but then again, I most certainly am not happy with another dead lesbian character on TV, there are so few of them. So, while there isn’t as big a backlash in this case, there are people angry, and for all my rationalizing – I can’t blame them, especially since I feel similarly.

So let’s remember Root. Let’s remember Samantha Groves. And let’s hope Samaritan bloody damn pays for her death.

Also, TV executives – Amy Acker is free. Give her a TV show. Seriously.

S05E11 – Synecdoche

The team is in shambles – Finch is missing, Root is dead (buried in an unmarked grave, with only Reese and Fusco attending the funeral), and Shaw – still believing to be in a simulation – rejects the reality of it all to avoid mourning. John attempts to get her back to the fight. The Machine giving them a new number, a very relevant one at that – the President of the United States. Which is something that Samaritan is supposed to be handling – and the fact its ignoring it means there are some malevolent goals it wants to achieve that the death of the head of state will only help or be irrelevant to.

Who, by the way, is not Barack Obama in this universe – instead it’s some thin white dude. Pretty disappointing, to be honest.

He’s targeted by a group of domestic terrorists due to his surveillance proposals to the Congress – first he’s targeted at a fundraiser, then at a speech. The three remaining members of the team (Reese, Shaw and Fusco) manage to stop the former, find the terrorist group (which includes a mole at the Secret Service) and thwart the final attempt, which was supposed to happen by hijacking a Secret Service drone and bombing the President’s unmarked SUV. Even after getting on a nearby roof and getting a sniper rifle, Shaw was unable to shoot it down. So instead, she and Reese feigned an attempt at the President’s life to stop him from getting to the SUV – with Fusco at the terrorist hideout, monitoring the situation. They succeeded, but ended up in the crosshairs of the Secret Service – as did Fusco, after the terrorists’ mole sent out a tip of his location. All seems lost, with the team almost dead or arrested…

That’s when they’re saved by Joey Durban, Logan Pierce and Harper Rose.

Joey was one of the first irrelevant numbers Reese and Finch helped, an ex-soldier turned member of a bank-robbing gang of fellow ex-military. The team helped him get out and turn his life around. Pierce is another former irrelevant number, this time from the middle of season 2, creator of a Facebook-like Friendczar. Harper Rose was introduced in the second half of last season, a talented grifter (real identity unknown), whom the team helped and was helped by on several occasions. They’re the Machine’s new team dealing with the irrelevant numbers, serving a cause greater than themselves. And for all everyone knows, there might be more like them.

The two teams split up, the “New Avengers” off to deal with their new number – after giving the old team their new priority – Finch.

Since his prison break, Harold has been on the run, going southwest, and when we get back to him at the start of the episode, he’s deep in Kentucky, talking with the Machine. At first he’s uncomfortable with its choice of a new voice, which it can simulate with an almost hundred percent accuracy – which is completely understandable, as he’s in mourning. But so is the Machine – and greatly more so, too, as it experienced Root’s death thousands of times, simulating possible outcomes to her shooting, all of them tragic, unable to help her at all. By the end, he accepts the Machine’s decision, saying Root’s voice is one he misses the most.

Along the way to an uncertain destination, they discuss his decision to create the Machine. He compares himself to Thomas Midgley, the creator of Freon-12, which was in refrigerators in order to preserve foods and thus – save lives. But after his death, the gas has been banned due to its impact on the ozone layer. Similarly, Finch has created the Machine to save lives – but he has no idea what effect his accomplishment will have on humanity and the world. The Machine proposes a solution to his dilemma – allowing it to reach its full potential. It explains that with the access he gave it, the AI is able to watch and predict humanity’s cycle of violence – but powerless to do anything about it. They saved people – but so very few compared to so many who are in need of help.

In the end, Finch reaches his destination – an Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas, where he steals Ice-9 – a virus that he describes as their only chance to stop Samaritan. Which, as the Machine warns him, will cause considerable collateral damage. Finch, who has decided that his attempts to do good only lead to awful consequences, is however willing to risk it.

What is Finch’s goal? We’ll find out next week in “.exe”.

Sadly, there’s no Bear Moment of the Week, as the lovable canine didn’t make an appearance.

Dominik Zine is a nerdy lad from northeastern Poland and is generally found in a comfy chair with a book in hand.

Person of Interest Recap - S05E08-10 - "Reassortment" + "Sotto Voce" + "The Day the World Went Away"

Okay, as it turns out, last week there were three Person of Interest episodes – which I missed. So in order to be more up to date, I’m covering three episodes – last week’s "Reassortment”, this week’s "Sotto Voce”, and "The Day the World Went Away”.

By the way, the next three episodes will be released one per week. Because why be reasonable and keep to an already announced pattern, when you can suddenly change it so close to the end.

Oh - and get ready for a lot of crying. We're nearing the show's conclusion. Here be feels.

Person of Interest Recap - S05E06&07 - "A More Perfect Union" + "QSO"

This week, nothing is the same.

S05E06 – A More Perfect Union

Throughout this episode there was a feeling that this is the last time the show is going to be this lighthearted. That’s not to say it’s only going to be doom and gloom from here on out—the writers and producers know better than that, and there are going to be moments of levity in the future. It’s just that while the episode is interspersed with subplots hinting at an imminent turning point—which does begin at the very end, but we’ll get to that in a second.

The main plot is set at a wedding, and while I liked the mystery, the best part was seeing the lead trio—Finch, Reese and Root—in new roles and a new setting. It gave us Reese pretending to be a stripper cop while pretending to be an actual detective. We got Finch singing in an Irish accent. And, most importantly, it gave us Root saving the day while riding on horseback like a knight in shining armor, and then riding off with this week’s damsel in distress (a family photographer who accidentally stumbled on the crime of doping racehorses). I’m actually surprised the show hasn’t done a wedding episode before, as it feels like a perfect fit.

But as fun as the A plot is, it’s the subplots that’ll be more important going forward. First off, we return to Shaw. She has undergone thousands more identical simulations since we last saw her, as Samaritan is still trying to get her to reveal the team’s location. This time around Samaritan and Greer take a new route, with Samaritan still considering her its potential asset. They take her on a field trip, throughout which Greer shows her people who according to Samaritan, will cause countless deaths with their actions. And Samaritan is in position to prevent them, instead of just reacting to catastrophes. It’s an interesting and tempting idea—until we discover it’s all part of another simulation. It’s becoming harder and harder for Shaw to tell what’s real and what’s not.

Meanwhile Fusco continues his investigation, and with a new case given to him by Root (along with Bear), he finally finds out what happened to all those missing people. As everyone probably suspected, they’ve been killed by Samaritan—and hidden in an underground tunnel, which is set to be demolished by a mob-run demolitions company. Among the bodies are the man Fusco was investigating and Bruce Moran (Elias's friend), both of whom were investigating the fact that said demolitions company was contracted by someone other than one of the Five Families. And the bad news for Fusco? The demolitions begins this very instant.

S05E07 – QSO

Thankfully, Fusco survived the demolition of the tunnel—but ends up in a hospital room for the duration of the episode. And he’s officially had enough. He won’t talk to Reese and later chews out Finch over their decision to keep him in the dark. Finch claims they wanted to protect him, which is a hollow explanation after he almost died thanks to not knowing what he was up against. In the end Fusco winds up quitting the team and going out on his own. Luckily, even if he continues digging, he and his son have a shot at survival, provided by Root—who feels guilty over sending him on that case, and I suspect would gladly tell him what’s going on if she could. Instead, she provides him with an exit strategy—two fresh identities he can use to get off the grid.

The main plot in this episode is centered almost entirely around Root and her search for Shaw. After going through several identities, she finds herself in a producing role for a conspiracy nut radio show. The show’s host accidentally discovered weird static on the airwaves, sending what he assumes are undecipherable messages. Root guesses this has something to do with Samaritan, which will be very unhappy about someone learning something about it and will send its operatives. Sure enough, the host’s cryptologist buddy is killed and his death is set up as a suicide—and Reese discovers his body while the host seems to be still talking to him and trying to convince him not to end his life. As Root surmises, the killed person’s voice (who was a frequent caller for the conspiracy show) is simulated by Samaritan, using his own words to create an illusion of a living person speaking. And then it does the same thing with the host, while sending its operatives to kill him. Root saves him and that’s when Finch calls her with news. He has found the transmissions, while monitoring the ongoing failed wars between the clones of the Machine and Samaritan. Those sounds are transmitted by every electronic device infected with Samaritan’s malware in an attempt to contact other devices. Root realizes she can use that to send a message to the facility where Shaw is being held.

Meanwhile Shaw is at her wits' end. She’s taken on what she assumes is another simulated trip which is meant to glorify Samaritan’s oversight. This time it’s a scientist trying to bring the thylacine, an extinct marsupial, back to life. Shaw, in an attempt to cut the simulation short, shoots her—except this time, all of this was real (as astute viewers would pick up, noticing this is the first time we saw Samaritan watching her trip immediately after checking in on Root’s ward). After she finds out, and realizes she no longer has any idea what’s real and what’s not, she makes an actual attempt at an escape. But after months of imprisonment she’s in too weak a state to actually go through with it. And as she contemplates just ending it—Root gets through with her message, giving her renewed hope.

Root herself is attempting negotiations with Samaritan, giving herself up on the condition she goes to the same facility Shaw is being held. Those are cut short after Reese’s arrival, who later chews her out over that idea. On the plus side, they saved the conspiracy nut host who promises to stop talking about the signals he discovered.

A promise that he breaks pretty much as soon as he gets back to work—he’s too hungry for validation and recognition. And Samaritan’s operative kills him.

Finch is angry at Reese and Root for just leaving him alone—but he’s furious at the Machine that allowed him to be killed. It explains itself by saying the primary objective (contacting Shaw) was achieved, and the reason it allowed the host to die is that it allowed him an expression of free will. Finch and Reese are most decidedly not happy about what is going on with the Machine. Meanwhile Root is excited—she now has a clue how to find Shaw, and she and the Machine seem to be working on a plan to get her. A plan that involves going to Žemaitija National Park in Lithuania—and more specifically, to the nearby Dvina Missile Silo.

We’ll see where all this leads next time. Until then, we have a new Bear Moment of the Week— Sandwich Bear!

Dominik Zine is a nerdy lad from northeastern Poland and is generally found in a comfy chair with a book in hand.

Person of Interest Recap - S05E04&05 - "6,741" + "ShotSeeker"

This week, Shaw returns (kinda); the team have another battle with Samaritan while Fusco and other characters resolve to find out what in all hells is actually going on.

S05E04 – 6,741

While this week marks Sarah Shahi’s return to her role as Sameen Shaw, the episode is almost entirely a simulation created by Greer and his (well, Samaritan’s) employees, for the purpose of getting Shaw to reveal the location of the team’s hideout. To that end, she’s submitted to a scenario in which she escapes their facility and is supposed to lead them straight to the secret subway station. But Shaw is Shaw, and she just won’t play along, and by the end Samaritan is back where it started. And, unfortunately, so is Shaw.

While I’m generally not a fan of the "it was all a dream" cliché, I found this was a well-crafted plot that stayed true to Shaw’s character and actually made sense. It generally would be improbable for anyone to get out from Samaritan’s facility that easily, but given that it’s Shaw, who runs on action movie tropes (and high-calorie meals), our disbelief remains suspended. The episode works at the level of plot and at the meta level. Samaritan wants her to lead it to the team’s hideout – but not make it so easy that she gets suspicious. Likewise, the writers know we want her to escape – but if they made it seem too easy, we’d question the plot and suspect none of it is real in-universe.

The fact that we only see any of the other team members when they’re with Shaw (or when she hears them) makes sense – it’s a simulation, so of course she won’t know what they’re doing when they’re not with her. And neither do we, as this is Shaw’s big return in the final season, so of course she’d be the main focus of the episode, and of course it would also serve as a tribute to her debut, "Relevance."

The flashes Shaw experiences once in a while (after she wakes up from having done something out of character) also make sense – it’s the people running the simulation trying to get her back on track. But we don’t grow suspicious, because we (and Shaw) know she has a chip implanted in her that’s supposed to make her Samaritan’s asset – and after it’s taken out and we later learn it was a placebo, we suspect it’s Samaritan’s previous attempts at brainwashing.

The show also continues to impress me with its ability to take tropes that would make me at least annoyed, and actually make me admit the validity of their use (sometimes begrudgingly). Halfway through the episode Shaw and Root finally consummate their relationship (and their sex is as violent as we’d expect it from these two). But since it’s a simulation, it didn’t actually happen. But as the story gets darker, and Shaw gets more distrustful of her own mind (including killing Reese), we don’t actually want it to be real. And neither does Shaw, who, faced with the possibility she might kill Root, decides to kill herself instead. Thus everyone manages to eat their cake, have their cake, and eat it again. We got a story where Root and Shaw get together and the latter confirms her deep love for the former time and time again. The writers got to go as dark as possible with the character. And we didn’t lose Shaw at all – she’s still very much alive and well. Since the episode’s title comes from the number of simulations she’s found a way out of by the episode’s end, we can have faith for her proper return.

S05E05 – ShotSeeker

Shaw’s teammates are unware of all these goings on, and while they are still searching for her, they have other problems to deal with. This time around, Reese investigates a new number – Ethan Garvin, an NYPD analyst with a gift of highly sensitive hearing. He uses his increased sense at ShotSeeker – a program that uses CCTV output to analyze sounds and decide whether they are fired shots or something different. Garvin is investigating a case of the missing Krupa Naik – a female researcher whose star project could save millions of starving people. Garvin knew her from before and was surprised when ShotSeeker interpreted sounds from her apartment from the night of her disappearance as firecrackers, when he could clearly tell those are gunshots from a weapon with a similar sound. At the same time Feed the Globe, an organization Krupa Naik sold her research to, was hacked and her work was stolen. In the end, the team discovers that Samaritan and its operatives were behind the researcher’s disappearance (and likely death) and the Feed the Globe hack in order to bury the research. And Garvin’s investigation marked him as a potential threat. In the end, the team saves him by finding the original copy of Krupa’s research and making it public, thus removing the only reason the superintelligence had for killing the number of the week.

But, while this problem has been dealt with, the team is still in uncharted waters in the grand scheme of things. Using the code from Samaritan’s malware they obtained last week, Finch managed to incubate a miniature version of their enemy ASI. And after he manages to create a similar Mini-Me for the Machine, he connects both clones to a separate laptop so that they would both “fight”, allowing the Machine’s clone to find any weakness’ Samaritan’s code might have. And things are looking grim – by the end of the episodes, out of 10 billion potential outcomes the mini-Machine loses every single one of them.

Meanwhile Fusco is being pestered by Bruce Moran (played by James Le Gros), Elias’s childhood friend and his accountant prior to his death, who would really like to know (using Elias’s remaining muscle to threaten Fusco’s son) who actually killed his buddy. And it’s not just Elias and Dominic – multiple other gang leaders and mob bosses have been killed across the country and no one is rising up to take their spots. Samaritan really doesn’t want anyone in its way to total domination.

Even when Reese gets involved to dissuade Moran, he will not be stopped and ends up kidnapping John and demanding to know the truth – or John will be dead. Reese and Finch decide to reveal to Moran (and the audience) a shocking truth: Elias is alive and mostly well, staying at a safehouse the team set up for him. And apparently he knows the truth about Samaritan. He tries to warn his friend to get back into hiding, but Moran decides that if Elias won’t take his rightful place in New York underworld, he’ll do it.

At the same time Fusco has officially had enough. The decrease in homicides, the parallel rise of suicides and missing persons cases, the weird events surrounding recent cases, Reese and Finch’s unwillingness to spill the beans – it all ends up too much and he tells them he won’t stop digging into the truth. And given that the team would rather tell a mob boss the truth than him, I honestly can’t blame him.

We’ll see where all this leads next week. Meanwhile, today’s Bear Moment of the Week: Simulation Bear, happy to see Shaw!

Yeah, I’m all about twisting the knife.

Dominik Zine is a nerdy lad from northeastern Poland and is generally found in a comfy chair with a book in hand.

Person of Interest Recap - S05E02-03 - "SNAFU" & "Truth Be Told"

The Machine might be back to life, but the team still has a long way ahead of them before they can find Shaw and make a stand against Samaritan. This week, they fix bugs in their reborn artificial superintelligence and get back to saving lives.

Person of Interest Recap - S05E01 - "B.S.O.D."

If you can hear this… you’re alone. The only thing left of us is the sound of my voice. I don’t know if any of us made it. Did we win? Did we lose? I don’t know. I’m not even sure what victory would mean anymore. And either way… it’s over. So let me tell you who we were. Let me tell you who you are.

And how we fought back.

With these words spoken by Root, over the shot of the team’s subway hideout, now empty except for the signs of a gunfight, we begin the first episode of the final season of Person of Interest. The monologue, seemingly directed at the reborn Machine, sets the tone for the rest of the the season, promising a desperate fight against an all-powerful being with unlimited assets.

The season four finale saw Reese, Finch and Root leaving their temporary place to hide with the Machine compressed in a set of high capacity ROM chips in an impregnable suitcase, dozens of Samaritan operatives ahead of them. B.S.O.D. (fittingly named after an error screen displayed in older versions of Windows after the system suffered from a fatal error, commonly called Blue Screen of Death) opens sometime after that, after they split up in an attempt to reach their subway hideout. Reese and Finch manage to lose Samaritan’s assets following them and meet up at the docks. Good timing too, since during the shootout the suitcase was hit, which seems to have damaged the battery for the ROMs keeping the Machine alive. They get on the river ferry – which is especially hard for Finch, suffering from PTSD flashback from the last time he was here, when he was crippled in a bomb attack during which his friend Nathan Ingram died – and in the end manage to reach their destination, welcomed by the worried Bear. We missed you too, puppy!

Root meanwhile is having a much harder time getting where she needs to be. She’s got the most resilient Samaritan operatives hunting her, is constantly having the least ammo of every gun she gets her hand on – and is the subject of Samaritan’s newest tactics. When she tries to reach her destination via a subway, Samaritan manages to identify several people with a history of making citizen arrests and sends them information identifying her as a wanted shooter, armed and dangerous via a news alert. Finally, she manages to find a safe haven – a fellow hacker named Bela Durchenko, whom she helped out a few years back during her mercenary hacker days. She wants him to get her a new identity from the equipment his employees are mining for data, which he agrees to for old times’ sake. He also informs her that they’ve been finding malware in the equipment they got their hands on – malware that’s impossible to reformat and reinstalls itself after every reboot. While he just thinks it’s the NSA, Root (and we) knows it’s definitely Samaritan’s work, to get even more of a control over ordinary humans.

Meanwhile Fusco is having his own share of problems. At the end of last season’s finale he was part of a convoy carrying the rival gang bosses, Elias and Dominic. However both men were killed by Samaritan operatives during the Correction – an operation that took care of every potential threat to the AI’s rule. Now two major gang leaders are dead and Fusco is the only survivor of the event. Not surprisingly, it draws the attention of internal affairs and the FBI – neither of which seems to believe his story about a sniper. In a surprising twist, the FBI agent later brings a ballistics report connecting the bullet found in Dominic’s body to Fusco’s gun, and seems to interpret from this a scenario in which Fusco has attempted to stop Dominic and killed him in self-defense. Fusco keeps his mouth shut, but is very suspicious of this whole situation. Rightly so, as we later learn that the FBI agent is one of Samaritan’s assets, trying to keep Fusco from sharing what he witnessed. He failed – Fusco has had enough of being kept in the dark and when the visiting Reese (on his way to find Root) doesn’t share anything yet again, he decides to start his own investigation. He manages to find the shell from one of the bullets that killed Elias and Dominic. Unfortunately, he’s also noticed by Samaritan and marked as a potential disruption. And as it already killed the IA officer assigned to Fusco’s case by hacking his pacemaker and causing cardiac arrest just for pestering its asset in the FBI for the ballistics report.... Fusco is in big trouble, and he has no idea how big.

Root is in big trouble herself – her hacker buddy is contacted by Samaritan (or one of its operatives) via one of the phones his employees have been data-mining. When offered a substantial reward for turning her in, without a beat he double-crosses her, bringing Samaritan operatives to his hideout. Sadly for him, Samaritan isn’t interested in fulfilling its end of the bargain and has him and his men killed. Luckily for Root, that’s when Reese arrives and the two manage to defeat the Samaritan assets present.

Meanwhile Finch is trying to fix the battery keeping the Machine’s main heuristics alive. Problems start as soon as he hooks the ROM chips to the computer – because the Machine starts decompressing. That’s a huge problem, because the only reason they managed to fit the terabytes of its data is thanks to a compression algorithm and high capacity ROM chips developed by Finch’s one-time pupil from the season 2 episode 2πR. To function properly it would require a supercomputer. Finch’s workstation doesn’t have enough memory to hold the Machine, so he decides to rip the cables off – which knocks him out and sets the entire desk on fire. As he comes to and puts out the fire, it seems that everything is lost. That’s when Root and Reese bring their truckload of Playstation 3 consoles, taken from Durchenko’s warehouse (the real reason she went there). The suitcase battery has enough residual energy left that they have time to build the necessary supercomputer.

Throughout the episode Finch has experienced flashbacks to 2006, the time he made a huge and morally debatable decision regarding the Machine. In the season 2 finale we learned that he decided to impose a limitation on it – he implemented a code that had it delete all of its memory every day at midnight in the hopes of containing its growth. This episode flashbacks to the day he chose to do so. The Machine has already grown up enough to find out about his father, who died 25 years before on the same day, after suffering from Alzheimer’s for a long time. This, coupled with the fact that 42 previous iterations of the Machine tried to kill him and Finch’s general distrust of the potential evil an artificial superintelligence might bring about, has him spooked enough that he decides to impose said limitations. Throughout the day he discusses it with his friend and coworker Nathan Ingram, and Grace (Finch’s fiancée) – with the latter it’s veiled enough that she doesn’t learn about the Machine’s existence. Ingram points out the cruelty of submitting the Machine to the same fate Finch’s father suffered, as Finch considers how his father lost all his own memories due to Alzheimer’s, on the actual day he died. Finch says that a supercomputer capable of thinking a hundred times faster than the smartest human is automatically a potential threat to humanity (echoing recent voices in the science community like Stephen Hawking). Nathan counters that Finch has no way of knowing that, and that if the A.I. has even a sliver of human compassion, it could help mankind. He also warns Finch that someday someone is going to create an uninhibited superintelligence. It's not a question of if, but when. And that intelligence might not be friendly. Now we know Nathan was right, and Finch very much regrets his decision. He regretted it immediately as soon as he implemented the code, and just after midnight the Machine greeted him by asking him whether he is its Admin.

As the team gets ready to connect the ROM chips to their homemade supercomputer, Root gently chastises Finch for choosing to inhibit the Machine and not trusting the being he created in his image. The Machine is their only hope – and history is upon Finch to make the right decision. They begin the decompression and for a while, as the supercomputer overheats from the strain, it again seems as everything is lost, until Reese saves the day with a container of liquid nitrogen. After that, the Machine finishes decompressing and, as the episode ends, it begins to wake up.

I’ll see you next week for two episodes of the show (on a Monday and a Tuesday). Meanwhile, I’m going to try and post a Bear Moment of the Week, where we catch a glimpse of the best dog on science fiction TV. This week, Bear the Firefighter!

Dominik Zine is a nerdy lad from northeastern Poland and is generally found in a comfy chair with a book in hand.

Previously on Person of Interest

In one week, on May 3, begins the fifth and final season of Person of Interest. I’ll be recapping it for you, but first, let’s take a look at what happened in the show’s previous years.