5x07 QSO & 5x08 Reassortment
Go Root! Go Shaw!
Go Root! Go Shaw!
Person of Interest season 5
- Thread starter JoeZhang
- Start date
I'm starting to get a little tired of all the bits where Harold is shocked to realize that only Samaritan could be behind the intricate, evil plan of the week. You'd think he'd expect it by now.
Also, if Samaritan could fake the radio host's voice before, why didn't it stop him from spilling what he knew later? I mean, yeah, it did have an operative kill him, but it could've just blocked the signal like before. And you'd think the guy would already be in trouble for apparently encouraging a guy to kill himself (something he couldn't prove was faked). That alone would get him fired and discredited at the very least. (Although surely the coroner would've noticed that the caller was killed hours before the broadcast, so that shouldn't have held up, unless the coroner is also One of Them.)
But the episode did confirm what I'd speculated before -- that the reason the Machine still gives out cryptic numbers instead of providing full information up front is because she believes in preserving human free will above all. Harold instituted the number protocol in the first place to ensure that privacy would be protected, that the Machine would just nudge people to notice something and leave it in their power to investigate the problem and decide what to do about it. And even as an open system, the Machine still takes that principle to heart.
What Elias said to Harold about how he was the darkest one of them all, I felt, resonated with Harold's own reluctance to exploit the full power of the Machine. As he's said to Root, it's not about mistrusting the Machine, it's about mistrusting himself and what he might do with unfettered power. He told Elias that he was mistaken, but I think Harold has already known that Harold himself is the one who most needs to be kept in check. The best people are those who recognize their own capacity to do wrong and strive the hardest to contain it.
Too bad that Greer hasn't been around lately, with the Samaritan-representative role shifting to the "Mini-Greer" with Sameen and the rather striking woman giving Jeff his marching orders. Although I did notice that one of that woman's scenes was scored with what was formerly Greer's personal musical motif, a ponderous four-note phrase on bass strings. I guess it's been broadened to a "Samaritan senior operatives" theme.
Also, if Samaritan could fake the radio host's voice before, why didn't it stop him from spilling what he knew later? I mean, yeah, it did have an operative kill him, but it could've just blocked the signal like before. And you'd think the guy would already be in trouble for apparently encouraging a guy to kill himself (something he couldn't prove was faked). That alone would get him fired and discredited at the very least. (Although surely the coroner would've noticed that the caller was killed hours before the broadcast, so that shouldn't have held up, unless the coroner is also One of Them.)
But the episode did confirm what I'd speculated before -- that the reason the Machine still gives out cryptic numbers instead of providing full information up front is because she believes in preserving human free will above all. Harold instituted the number protocol in the first place to ensure that privacy would be protected, that the Machine would just nudge people to notice something and leave it in their power to investigate the problem and decide what to do about it. And even as an open system, the Machine still takes that principle to heart.
What Elias said to Harold about how he was the darkest one of them all, I felt, resonated with Harold's own reluctance to exploit the full power of the Machine. As he's said to Root, it's not about mistrusting the Machine, it's about mistrusting himself and what he might do with unfettered power. He told Elias that he was mistaken, but I think Harold has already known that Harold himself is the one who most needs to be kept in check. The best people are those who recognize their own capacity to do wrong and strive the hardest to contain it.
Too bad that Greer hasn't been around lately, with the Samaritan-representative role shifting to the "Mini-Greer" with Sameen and the rather striking woman giving Jeff his marching orders. Although I did notice that one of that woman's scenes was scored with what was formerly Greer's personal musical motif, a ponderous four-note phrase on bass strings. I guess it's been broadened to a "Samaritan senior operatives" theme.
I had to agree with The Machine as well. I was sort of shocked Harold was so upset at The Machine. They prevented his death but he went ahead and got himself killed by his own free will.
It was cheesy that the receptionist was also a Samaritan agent. Why bother with the building shutdown and sending agents, if you could just poison the drinking water? I know the main focus was to get a message Shaw so did they really need to add a 'number' to the mix? I guess they had to keep up the 'number' of the week to maintain the status quote of the show.
Ah poor Jeff or not, I was totally wrong. Samaritan is turning people into killers. I really see what they were doing with the whole VR/not VR with Sameen. I liked what they did and her final escape was really fun.
Yeah. When Harold said "I'm uncomfortable with where this seems to be going," I thought, "You always are!" He was uncomfortable with giving the Machine too much power to manipulate people's lives, and now that she's proven she's determined to protect free will at all costs, he's uneasy with that too.
But that's always been the way. Even when the plot involved the larger arc issues like threats to the Machine's safety, she'd still give them numbers of people who were endangered by that overall plot and needed protection. She's never lost track of her mission to protect "irrelevant" individuals even when there was a bigger threat to address.
I was actually expecting in the first episode that they were taking Sameen to the radio station, and that she'd come up against her teammates and assume it was just a simulation and play along with trying to kill them.
Oh! man -- that would have been interesting.
I had the same thought.
Perhaps its primary objective was less about suppressing the information (which was co-opted into even more outlandish conspiracies by his listeners and thus rendered meaningless) than it was about weeding out a couple of troublesome nonconformists who might stand in Samaritan's way in the future.
It sounded like the other producer who introduced Root had been around for at least a few of Root's predecessors, so it's possible Samaritan had been monitoring this radio host and his listeners for quite some time, looking for potential threats to its plans among him, his guests, and his audience. Initially it might have wanted to keep the other producer's cover safe so she could continue to work at the station, which is why it originally sent armed minions after the host, but when that failed, it went to Plan B and had her poison him.
Maybe in a way, Samaritan is forgiving as well - killing is the last option. For example, that female scientist, who was developing something Samaritan did not want to happen -- after several attempts to derail her & failing to stop her, killing her was the only option left, (edit) apparently or so we were told?!? Samaritan could have just been lying.
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That's called "CBS dialog." Like how on Elementary Watson, Bell and Gregson have to be stupid for a minute and ask a question they already know the answer to so that Sherlock can explain it to the audience.
Tonight, 5x09 Sotto Voce (how do you pronounce this?)
edit: ah, I looked it up -- it's italian for 'whisper'.
edit: ah, I looked it up -- it's italian for 'whisper'.
Here's a Buzzfeed article about how CBS continued to demand case of the week episodes as well as make no effort to tell anyone they were going to cancel the show.
And in the comment section is an example of why CBS doesn't go for shows like Person of Interest and Limitless, and instead would rather make NCIS: Topeka and CSI: San Jose.
And in the comment section is an example of why CBS doesn't go for shows like Person of Interest and Limitless, and instead would rather make NCIS: Topeka and CSI: San Jose.
Hooray, the team is back together and Fusco finally knows the truth. Plus, Elias is back in the game. Time for the showdown.
Thank god Elias was there to do what needed to be done.
edit: up next -- 5x10 The Day the World Went Away
edit: up next -- 5x10 The Day the World Went Away
I still wish they'd address why Fusco wasn't curious in "If-Then-Else" and "Control-Alt-Delete" when Harold and the others were talking about Samaritan right in front of him. What did he think Samaritan was, if he didn't know it was an AI?
I'm glad they decided to give some closure to "The Voice" from the 911 episode, but it turned out to be kind of an anticlimax. So the plan of this evil mastermind who blackmails others into doing his dirty work is to pretend to be one of his own victims? Okay, yeah, he was going after someone who could expose him, but it seems out of character. And their need to wrap up the story arc within one episode meant they had to cram in a lot of mythology all at once, and it felt like something that would've worked better if it had been spread out over a longer arc.
I like how Root kept Shaw from shooting herself -- by threatening to shoot herself. One thing Samaritan couldn't simulate was just how crazy Root can be.
Yeah, I loved that bit. A lovely testament to the strange and beautiful relationship between Root and Shaw.
Oh, man.
At first, with Harold asking the Machine about whether there was a path that would let his friends survive, I was assuming that what we saw next was just another simulation, the Machine gaming it out like in "If-Then-Else." So characters would get their covers blown or get killed, but it would turn out okay in the end. But then, the more that Root talked about how everything is a simulation, I began to realize that the writers were deliberately trying to make us think it was a simulation, which meant that they were going to surprise us by having it be real. And, sadly, it was real. And Root's speeches about how they all live on in simulation within the Machine, a digital afterlife, was meant to give us a ray of hope about what was coming for her.
Damn. At least Amy Acker is still with the show in voice form... but I was afraid they'd do something like this with Root and Shaw, get them back together only to kill one of them off before they could really be together. TV loves killing off lesbians lately (well, for quite a while, really, but this is like the third time this year, after The 100 and one other I've heard about).
And I should've known they were putting a coda on Elias's arc when they brought him back to the same housing complex where John first met him and saved his life. Storytellers love symmetry.
With only three episodes left, I guess we're in the endgame now, and it only gets bigger from here. Apparently the twice-a-week showings are over, though, and it'll just be Tuesday nights for the next three weeks.
At first, with Harold asking the Machine about whether there was a path that would let his friends survive, I was assuming that what we saw next was just another simulation, the Machine gaming it out like in "If-Then-Else." So characters would get their covers blown or get killed, but it would turn out okay in the end. But then, the more that Root talked about how everything is a simulation, I began to realize that the writers were deliberately trying to make us think it was a simulation, which meant that they were going to surprise us by having it be real. And, sadly, it was real. And Root's speeches about how they all live on in simulation within the Machine, a digital afterlife, was meant to give us a ray of hope about what was coming for her.
Damn. At least Amy Acker is still with the show in voice form... but I was afraid they'd do something like this with Root and Shaw, get them back together only to kill one of them off before they could really be together. TV loves killing off lesbians lately (well, for quite a while, really, but this is like the third time this year, after The 100 and one other I've heard about).
And I should've known they were putting a coda on Elias's arc when they brought him back to the same housing complex where John first met him and saved his life. Storytellers love symmetry.
With only three episodes left, I guess we're in the endgame now, and it only gets bigger from here. Apparently the twice-a-week showings are over, though, and it'll just be Tuesday nights for the next three weeks.
I noticed that too, Christopher - the sneak peek for next week's episode said Tuesday's only. No more two-days a week fun...
I have waited longingly for POI to resume since that season ender. And this season which is going to be short (and final!) is just rushing by way too fast.
I wonder why Samaritan has need of Finch and why Greer thinks that once he knows all, he will work for Samaritan of his own accord. It seems clear that Samaritan knows that the Machine still exists (or remnants of it still exist). And they used the simulations with Shaw to try to find the machine.
I just love how POI just chooses the right "song" to go with the episode. Today's was "The Day the World went Away".... And today's episode was a little bit of a bloodbath. Elias' death was a shocker. I did a "wait... what?! WHAT??!" and had to rewind the DVR to check it out. It's clear from a very brief moment as Elias turns back from the dead driver and looks at Harold, that he knows that this may be it. But he's still shocked (and so are we) by what happens next.
Root's sacrifice was kinda telegraphed (all the way from Amy Acker's interviews about this season). But I really liked that they gave her the speech with Shaw, and then the speech with Harold. Michael Emerson is really fantastic in this one. His first scene at the cafe, the scene at the Police Station with the old Federal Agent, the call with the Machine's voice.... He was top notch. So was Amy Acker... I started watching POI from it's season 2 where she is in the loony bin and seems to be hearing voices. So I'm really sad to see her go. So is Sarah Shahi in the scene where she learns about Root from that shake of head from Reese. I think the only person I see as being safe is Fusco - he's the Sam Gamgee that will make it back to the Shire...
I wonder what the Machine will choose to call itself. I hope they do answer that. Or perhaps end on it. She will decide what her name will be...
But this means that the Machine must survive. Otherwise like Root says - everybody that died, would be dead *and* Gone. I thought that the Machine would choose to do a virtual Holmes-pulling-Moriarty-with-him-over-the-Reichenbach-falls.
I don't want this season to end. And I can't wait to see what happens next.
I have waited longingly for POI to resume since that season ender. And this season which is going to be short (and final!) is just rushing by way too fast.
I wonder why Samaritan has need of Finch and why Greer thinks that once he knows all, he will work for Samaritan of his own accord. It seems clear that Samaritan knows that the Machine still exists (or remnants of it still exist). And they used the simulations with Shaw to try to find the machine.
I just love how POI just chooses the right "song" to go with the episode. Today's was "The Day the World went Away".... And today's episode was a little bit of a bloodbath. Elias' death was a shocker. I did a "wait... what?! WHAT??!" and had to rewind the DVR to check it out. It's clear from a very brief moment as Elias turns back from the dead driver and looks at Harold, that he knows that this may be it. But he's still shocked (and so are we) by what happens next.
Root's sacrifice was kinda telegraphed (all the way from Amy Acker's interviews about this season). But I really liked that they gave her the speech with Shaw, and then the speech with Harold. Michael Emerson is really fantastic in this one. His first scene at the cafe, the scene at the Police Station with the old Federal Agent, the call with the Machine's voice.... He was top notch. So was Amy Acker... I started watching POI from it's season 2 where she is in the loony bin and seems to be hearing voices. So I'm really sad to see her go. So is Sarah Shahi in the scene where she learns about Root from that shake of head from Reese. I think the only person I see as being safe is Fusco - he's the Sam Gamgee that will make it back to the Shire...
I wonder what the Machine will choose to call itself. I hope they do answer that. Or perhaps end on it. She will decide what her name will be...
But this means that the Machine must survive. Otherwise like Root says - everybody that died, would be dead *and* Gone. I thought that the Machine would choose to do a virtual Holmes-pulling-Moriarty-with-him-over-the-Reichenbach-falls.
I don't want this season to end. And I can't wait to see what happens next.
It actually is. I remember hearing a report on it on NPR. Turns out that it's being sold to a lot of police organizations. But they guard their data very closely. And the system is proprietary and keeps all data related to shots within the system. Police orgs can only lease the system. Not truly own it.
Damn. Fuck. That didn't last. At all. 
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