Finally, Person of Interest was able to fill in the gaps of what happened between Ingram’s death and Finch hiring Reese. This was something that we’ve been wondering for a large portion of the show – and even more so ever since Root told Finch that she knew about the “helper monkeys” that he had before Reese. And my gratitude that the show has the character of Reese, and chose Jim Caviezel for the part. If Reese had been portrayed as Dillinger was in this episode, I would have given up on the show within minutes. In fact, for the first 10 minutes or so until Reese and Kara appeared, I genuinely thought this was going to be the worst episode of the show to date.
Thankfully, as time went on, the episode got increasingly better. But it still doesn’t diminish the hatred I have towards Dillinger. I have nothing against Neil Jackson, who portrayed him fantastically for the way that he was written, and the writers did a fantastic job of making the contrast between Dillinger and Reese. Obviously, there was no way we were ever going to like Dillinger more than Reese, or dislike Reese any less. Instead, the writers made me appreciate how lucky we are to have Reese around now.
Seeing Finch in his wheelchair (and then his first limps) was very enjoyable. We’re used to Finch’s limp by now, and we’ve seen him repeatedly walking as normal in flashbacks (I’ve said it before, but Emerson does a great job acting Finch’s disability), but seeing the in between was a lot different. Dillinger’s attitude towards Finch didn’t exactly help me sympathise with his character. In fact, at the point that he told Finch “you don't like the way I do things, you're more than welcome to come get dirty in the trenches.” I had serious problems with him by now.
The entire episode portrayed Dillinger as a complete a**hole. Saving a woman then sleeping with her, being aggressive with Finch about his secrets, bugging the library – the list goes on and on. By the end, I was far too angry with him to even care that he was killed (by Shaw no less). In fact, I do recall a small hint of celebration.
It was to be expected that there would be a connection to the mythology of the show (since, let’s face it, episodes involving the four main characters in the present day that are just a simple number of the week aren’t exactly that enthralling anyway). However, the endless list of connections is one of the things that really annoys me about LOST. Every character that we know just happened to come together in one episode that also filled in a lot of the gaps about the history of Finch and the Machine. Sigh.
Anyway, it was interesting to see more of Reese and Kara working for the CIA at the behest of the Machine. Kara was still the same, enjoyable to watch, psychotic killer type that tried to blow Reese up in ‘Dead Reckoning’. It was great to see Reese coming into the role that he plays now of protecting innocent people instead of killing them. After this, I’m not at all surprised the two were sent to Ordos to be killed. Doubly so if Control had found out about Reese disobeying orders and leaving Casey alive.
The aforementioned introduction of Shaw into the Machine’s world was fantastic. She hasn’t changed one bit in four years. “She said if we’d sent her sooner, she’d have killed them all.” “She said what?” “To be honest, her exact words were slightly more colourful than that.” Shaw, don’t ever change. I honestly don’t understand how any fans don’t like her. She gets things done, and has fun while doing it.
The end scene with Root was epic. It’s been way too long since Root was in an episode, and she returned in true Root style, equipped with the awesome background music and her usual level of creepy. Yet another past connection was the mention of Greenfield (the guy she saved from Vigilance in ‘Mors Prematura’), who is seemingly safe in Columbia. Presumably it was Control who sent the men after Casey at the end, but we don’t know. And what is his “higher calling”?
Some odds and ends:
- Nice to see acknowledgement that Control ordered Ingram’s death, and it wasn’t just an impulse decision by Special Counsel. Oh, and that Control was Control in 2010. We know that Special Counsel was Control at some point, but it was obviously before Ingram’s death.
- Greer was back, and even in 2010 searching for that laptop. Nice to see some acknowledgement on his name too.
- “That’s new.” I didn’t exactly expect him to jump out of the window either.
- The images in the time jump didn’t correlate to the dates.
On the whole, this wasn’t quite the episode I was expecting it to be. Hopefully tonight’s episode ‘/’ (otherwise known as root directory/root path in UNIX based operating systems – thanks arun279 for that info) will be better – it certainly looks it.
