Person of Interest Season 4

[coolghoul]

I too would like for Shaw to come back quickly. I hadn't heard about her real-life reasons prior to watching the show where she gets hit by all those bullets.

I didn't really discover this show till mid-way in the second season. I caught up most of the police-HR episodes in the reruns last season.

One thing I did notice is that the show's starting voiceover is now almost completely wrong. It doesn't talk about two superintelligences at war at all. In fact, there is almost no explanation of Samaritan. So for any new people coming in - it makes no sense.

Also - my understanding is that the kid shown as Samaritan ( a couple of eps back) was an actual human interface used by Samaritan. Earlier in the ep there's talk of human-machine hybrid interactions/research. So I thought that the kid wasn't "listening" to Samaritan and then repeating what was said by Samaritan... That is something that Root does for the good-guys side. My thought was that the kid was more of Samaritan's actual interface into the "real" world. So while the Machine talked (via Root, as intermediary), Samaritan was actually taking over the boys "human body" and addressing things directly as the boy.

 

[auntiehill]

This was a pretty good episode; I love Finch. I thought his scenes with the girl were really interesting. I also liked him being upset at having dented the urn.

So I suppose he has now planted the seeds of doubt in the girl?

 

[Christopher]

Throughout the whole first half of the episode, I was yelling "It's a trap, Harold!" at the screen. The snipers wouldn't have missed if they'd really intended a kill shot, since she was just standing right there. And she was far too insistent about getting Harold to plug the drive into his laptop. More generally, she was just too good to be true, promising everything Harold could've wanted. I was glad that Harold had some basic skepticism, although it took him a while.

Really, Harold should have a separate, isolated laptop or tablet for looking at potentially dangerous software. Just basic quarantine procedures for security.

While I'm glad they picked up the thread of the hacker girl, I got so sick of her saying "Samaridan" all the time.

As for the PoI of the week, was there really any reason for her to be an MMA fighter? That didn't have any actual relevance to her storyline about exposing search-engine corruption. It just seemed to be an excuse for some tough-girl cheesecake.

 

[DWF]

As for the PoI of the week, was there really any reason for her to be an MMA fighter? That didn't have any actual relevance to her storyline about exposing search-engine corruption. It just seemed to be an excuse for some tough-girl cheesecake.

It's obvious they're still looking for some short term replacement for Shaw, the former IA woman and now the app designer/MMA fighter.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

As for the PoI of the week, was there really any reason for her to be an MMA fighter? That didn't have any actual relevance to her storyline about exposing search-engine corruption. It just seemed to be an excuse for some tough-girl cheesecake.

Not only that, but I didn't like how she decided a career as an MMA figher would provide her a better future than as a computer tech.

 

[Christopher]

And the promo really played up the MMA fight scenes even though they were an incidental part of the story. I think it was just a sweeps stunt.

 

[JD]

I thought maybe she was a real world UFC fighter, but I just looked her up and apparently she is just an actress.
I do agree it was kind of random.
Other than that, I really enjoyed the episode.
I though the case of the week was pretty interesting, even if the MMA stuff was unnecessary. I liked the connection to Samaritan at the end.
The story with Finch and the hacker was good too. I have to admit I didn't really start to suspect something was up with her until just before the reveal. The idea of Samaritan running a school is creepy.
I loved Root saving Finch.
I'm wondering if Claire is going to be recurring baddie? This certainly seemed like a good set for a recurring role.

 

[Jax]

As for the PoI of the week, was there really any reason for her to be an MMA fighter? That didn't have any actual relevance to her storyline about exposing search-engine corruption. It just seemed to be an excuse for some tough-girl cheesecake.

Maybe they felt why not portray a female character even one who was the supposed victim to be a strong not weak one. If the character was male I bet we would not be having this conversation.

I liked how Samaritan basically played the "I can create you a perfect world" but just give up your free will at the end with that whole classroom scene. I wonder how many people in real life would be willing to go along with that.

 

[lambror]

I would like a serious relationship between the two without degrading

 

[auntiehill]

I liked how Samaritan basically played the "I can create you a perfect world" but just give up your free will at the end with that whole classroom scene. I wonder how many people in real life would be willing to go along with that.

Sadly, quite a few, I would imagine.

 

[Christopher]

As for the PoI of the week, was there really any reason for her to be an MMA fighter? That didn't have any actual relevance to her storyline about exposing search-engine corruption. It just seemed to be an excuse for some tough-girl cheesecake.

Maybe they felt why not portray a female character even one who was the supposed victim to be a strong not weak one. If the character was male I bet we would not be having this conversation.

Now, that's uncalled for. We absolutely would be having this conversation, because it's not about gender, it's about wondering why they'd include a sports angle that had no relevance to the story. I'd be just as confused by it if it had been a male MMA fighter; that would still strike me as an attempt to grab ratings by including a gratuitous tie-in to a currently popular sport. And if the MMA angle had actually been relevant to the story, I wouldn't have any objections either. I just don't see what role it played in a story that was about search engines and corporate corruption.

And it's invalid to equate personal strength with whether one is able to beat people up in a ring. That's a simplistic and misguided way to define a "strong female character," and one that plays more into male power fantasies than anything else. A strong character, of either sex, is one who has agency and the ability to make a difference in a story. Anna's agency, her strength, came from her desire to help that suicidal client and to obtain justice for his death. And that came from her empathy for her sister. It would've been just as much a part of her story whether her hobby was MMA fighting or beekeeping.

Not that I have anything against physically strong, muscular women -- quite the contrary. I'm not the chauvinist you seem to be accusing me of being. I just wonder at the disconnect between the MMA angle and the rest of the plot.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Really, Harold should have a separate, isolated laptop or tablet for looking at potentially dangerous software. Just basic quarantine procedures for security.

I thought the same thing.

On the final season of the Newsroom, they bought an "air-gap" computer -- a laptop that had no way of connecting to the Internet and was built with a one-inch gap inside between its inner components and any outside components that could've ever even connected to another computer system at one time. The characters mentioned that these air-gap computers are quite expensive, but I think Harold could manage it.

Maybe in a post-Samaritan world, even these computers could not be trusted. Samaritan has its hands in a lot of random cookie jars and we've seen earlier this season it's involvement with tablets for school children, so it's not out of the question to believe that Samaritan could influence a component maker for most computer manufacturers and slip in a hidden "feature."

 

[The Nth Doctor]

The only thing I really have to say about this episode is that I'm surprised it took someone this long to refer Harold as Mr. Peabody.

 

[Christopher]

The only thing I really have to say about this episode is that I'm surprised it took someone this long to refer Harold as Mr. Peabody.

I loved that. Although he looks more like Sherman.

Always nice to see Annie Ilonzeh, though. She's a lovely lady. And I like her hair. There's just so much of it!

Was the situation presented here true, with regard to the legality of medical marijuana in New York vs. federal law? Although a lot of what they were offering at that dispensary seemed marginally medicinal at best.

 

[JD]

This was a good one. I didn't hear about Dominic and the Brotherhood being in it, so that was a nice surprise.
The app that Root was meeting the guys about was the thing she wanted to use to recruit help fighting Samaritan, right?

 

[Aragorn]

This was a good one. I didn't hear about Dominic and the Brotherhood being in it, so that was a nice surprise.
The app that Root was meeting the guys about was the thing she wanted to use to recruit help fighting Samaritan, right?

She might be recruiting and the app means nothing. The boss was the kid from season 2 when Finch went undercover as a substitute teacher.

 

[Christopher]

The boss was the kid from season 2 when Finch went undercover as a substitute teacher.

I was wondering about that. He was clearly supposed to be someone we recognized, but I had no clue who he was.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If the boy genius is already Finch's friend, why be so shady about asking for his help?

Ever played Othello?

The Machine cannot fly a flag, or admit to any alliances, without all and sundry being stamped on by Samaritan. The machine's Army cannot surface until it has the numbers and presence not to be immediately surrounded and lynched by endless mass that is Samaritan.

Root is grooming an army who is not even aware that it is lacing up it's combat boots.

 

[DWF]

It'll interesting to see where Root's sub plot is going. And it does seem like Dominic has his fingers in a large number of illegal money making enterprises. And it was cool that this ep. maked the first meeting of Dominic and Reese.

 

[JD]

Yeah, that was a pretty cool moment.