Best damn show on television. Wow, what an opener. Their premieres can sometimes be a little hit and miss, but they knocked it out of the park with
Panopticon. "A."
Just the title of the episode itself is already a multilayered reference to the team's and indeed the world's new reality under Samaritan:
The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow a single watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour constantly. The name is also a reference to Panoptes from Greek mythology; he was a giant with a hundred eyes and thus was known to be a very effective watchman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
Jeremy Bentham --the Panopticon's inventor-- was also the
alias Locke was using when back in the US on Lost, so it's a nice little side reference to Michael Emerson's and JJ Abrams' prior series as well.
Between Greer wanting to bump him off and John Doman playing Carmine Falcone on
Gotham, I suspect Samaritan will change its mind soon and Senator Garrison will not be long for this world. Little reunion of
The Wire with Rawls and Marlo Stanfield (playing the drug dealer threatening Hasan), which was nice.
I suspect that the mysterious and unseen "Dominic" orchestrating things in the Brotherhood might turn out to be Samaritan setting a trap for Finch, John, Sameen, and Root by giving them adversaries to take out, which will eventually expose them. Samaritan was keywording things like "gangs" (while listening to Reese and Shaw's conversation) which would normally fall under the "irrelevant" heading.
Interestingly, we never got a resolution to who killed the Brotherhood member on the roof that began Reese/Det. Riley's investigation. Possibly Elias orchestrating events to return to power, hoping to get John back in the game? Reese is going to regret his decision to use him to carry out his plans out of Samaritan's view, since now they've taken out their chief rival in the drug trade and made themselves invaluable to the cartels, and they've acquired the secret communications network phone.
Brilliantly done the way they seamlessly incorporated not only the mythology, but also the case-of-the-week procedural structure by making the standalone story serve the Machine's and the team's larger interests by giving them a secure communications network. They also managed to have some lighthearted comedy with the team's new jobs, show us all the major players, introduce some new recurring villains in the Brotherhood and Samaritan's awesome evil Shaw-like assassin (one of her many aliases is named Russeau; possibly another
Lost reference), revisit old villains like Greer and Elias and Scarface, and show how all the team members (even Fusco, who felt a little left out parts of last season) are dealing with their new reality. Even Bear got some facetime again (sixth member of the team!).
Speaking of Fusco, it's great to see the new dynamic between him and Reese as his new partner, which should be interesting and give him a chance to play a bigger role again. I loved the pause and the shared look between them as Reese was about to sit down at Carter's desk. What a great way to acknowledge the character's passing for long term fans while not bogging the scene down with excess sentimentality or references new viewers this season won't understand.
I love the juxtaposition of roles this season, where Root of all people is acting as the moral compass for Harold, and encouraging him to do the right thing, albeit in her guise as the avatar for The Machine. I loved the way how The Machine not only secreted away a nine million dollar operational budget for the team but also made contact with Harold through the intentional typos in his dissertation. The final musical montage when Harold descends into the new Batcave set to Jetta's version of
I'd Love to Save the World was just stunning. The show has always done a great job of mixing music and imagery, but that was easily one of their best.
Another role reversal was that John was the one convincing Harold to come back to saving lives again after he was the one quitting last season after Carter's death, until Harold turned him around. And Shaw then had to act as the cool, collected one tempering Reese's wilder impulses when he went full bore after the gang, breaking out his mask and grenade launcher, season one style. He even gave the same advice about not firing your guns sideways.
The whole episode was full of great scenes like that. I really hope they can keep things up and that CBS takes into account DVR views instead of just ratings, because sadly the ratings were apparently kind of lackluster. It's disappointing that this show can't build a larger audience and isn't recognized during awards season, because it really deserves it. I'd rank it up their with the best of cable television series. It's really some of the best and most consistent and fulfilling writing I've seen on TV, with countless balls in the air being balanced amazingly well and brought together to a satisfying resolution time and time again.
