So many feelings, so little time…. Person Of Interest through the eyes of Alyssa. And this isn’t just Root and Shaw feels, this is every character in the freaking show feels.
Two weeks in a row Person of Interest begins with a Shaw scene. She has made her way from South Africa to Mexico, by way of a human smuggling caravan. When the men driving the caravan kick out the family who had paid them to be transported across the border, Shaw emerges, staring out into the distance, with Old Western music playing in the background. As always, Shaw does what Shaw does best. You know just casually saving everyday people while covertly traveling from South Africa to the Big Apple. But, most importantly, Shaw in a cowboy hat.
Number of the week is Terry Easton, a locksmith who John discovers breaking into a security firm and getting ready to set off a bomb. John talks Terry out of blowing up the building and learns that Terry is being blackmailed. Terry’s wife was kidnapped in the middle of the night and the kidnapper threatened her life if he didn’t set this bomb off. And the person blackmailing Terry is…… The Voice.
Okay, well that was anticlimactic. Wasn’t The Voice only in one episode two seasons ago. To recap, we first/last heard The Voice in Season 3 Episode 15 “The Call” [Let me tell ya about the call that changed my destiny]. The Voice attempted to blackmail a 911 operator into deleting a 911 call by threatening to murder a boy and blow up a building. I mean, don’t get me wrong it was a pretty good episode that involved Harold going undercover, but still, I kind of had forgotten all about it. Harold on the other hand, has not forgotten The Voice. John tries to get Fusco to help him with the case, especially because Fusco still has not been assigned a new partner, but Fusco abruptly declines. He is, justifiably, still upset with the gang since they won’t explain to him why he was blown up in the basement of the building. He tells John he has his own police work to do and goes to interrogate a cab driver named Amir who turns out to be a hitman. I didn’t realize how emotionally invested I was in the Fusco/John relationship until this moment. Seeing the hurt on John’s face when Fusco gave him the cold shoulder really got to me. John is so much looser and fun when he was around Fusco. He was almost, dare I say it, enjoying himself.
John heads over to an abandoned warehouse, sans Fusco, to save Terry’s wife but the warehouse is a setup. Instead he ends up marching a dozen or so uniforms into a building that blows up moments later. Actually, let me just give you the quick version of this. Terry is actually The Voice. His wife was just isn’t real, and he purposely broke into that office building to get arrested. The reason he did this was so he could kill Amir (the guy Fusco nailed earlier) who was a former hitman of Terry’s. The reason Terry placed bomb threats all around the city was so the precinct would be empty for his Plan B which was to hire the Templarios gang to get arrested and then break out to kill Amir. As fate has it, John and Fusco are the only cops left in the building when the Templarios break out of their cell. As such, they are forced to work together to save Amir’s life (which they fail at), as well as their own (which they don’t fail at). And when Terry fires a shot at John, it is Fusco who jumps in front of Terry, to take a bullet for his partner. These two are partner soulmates! It is then, FINALLY, that John makes the decision to tell Fusco the truth. He brings Fusco up to the roof, throws Fusco’s phone over the ledge and reveals to Fusco that they are in the midst of an AI apocalypse. No these are not tears in my eye, it is just allergy season.
Meanwhile, Harold heads over to the safe house so he can get some information regarding The Voice from Mr. Carl Elias. After Harold gets the intel he needs, he attempts to pursue The Voice alone, but Elias will not allow this.
Elias: “I’ve already lost my two friends. I cannot afford to lose another.”
Elias considers Harold a friend! My heart!
Elias brings Harold to an abandon school, which is now that home to a very sketchy, very skilled bombmaker. The same Elias used to blow up his father in fact. If The Voice had a bazillion bombs made, this is the guy who made them. Elias uses his Elias charm to get the location of The Voice’s lair and they head to the Soho. I was a little disappointed here. They specifically said Soho when they were talking about where The Voices lair was, so I was fully expecting it to be on evil person lair in an elevator straight to the apartment penthouse. But no, it is just a crumby old basement. That basement might as well have been in The Heights. Harold and Elias discover that The Voice has been watching them for a while and planned this entire ruse. The Voice is …dun dun dun… Terry Easton the locksmith.
Harold heads to the precinct and tries to stop Terry as he is escaping to his unmarked getaway car hidden in a no-camera zone. He urges Terry to turn himself in. Ugh, hardcore eyeroll Harold. Turn himself in? Yeah that sounds like something this evil mastermind would totally do after setting off bombs across the city and causing a huge shoot in a police precinct. Luckily, Elias is there to protect Harold from getting shot by this psychopath and they let said psychopath drive away safe and sound. Well that is what would have happened if Harold had his way. After letting Terry drive a safe distance away, Elias flips a switch to explode Terry’s car.
Elias: “Come on Harold, you brought me for a reason, you must have known I would do something like this.”
I really do not understand why they made such a deal about bringing The Voice back. They treated it like it was this recurring villain when in reality we met him once. It was like they were trying to tie up loose ends of a story line that I thought already was packaged with a neat little bow.
The Machine has given Root a new mission this week: to track down a radio engineer who is either working for or about to be killed by Samaritan. The Machine has also given Root a new toy, a big ass gun. Root is set to go.
Root is on the roof casing the Samaritan radio guy, while talking to herself which is actually really cute. Just as she witnesses the engineer meeting up with Samaritan ops, they all get shot to death. Root moves the scope of her gun to see where the shots came from, and sees a petite female in all black fleeing from the scene.
I AM PRETTY SURE IT IS SHAW. Root does not realize that the blur from the adjacent roof thousands of feet away is Shaw, so she chases after what she thinks is a bad guy. Root follows the shooter down to Central Park where, after a little hand to hand tussle, she looks up and realizes who she had been fighting. IT IS SHAW! THEY ARE REUNITED!
As soon as Root is able to process that Shaw is truly right in front of her a smile forms across her face and she scrambles to pull Sameen into a loving embrace and caress her. But then reality sets in, prompting Root to ask what Shaw is doing there in Central Park. Shaw becomes distant, and after telling Root she is here to kill Samaritan agents of course, tries to peace out. Yeah, no, Root has been searching up and down the world for you, she is not letting you go that easy Sameen. Shaw reveals that she escaped a week ago, but she couldn’t get in contact because it wasn’t safe:
Shaw: “When they had me they put me through these tests. These simulations.”
Root: “Simulations?”
Shaw: “Over 7,000 of them and always with the same goal. To turn me against all of you. To kill you.
Root: “Well obviously they failed.”
Shaw: “No. They didn’t. Because in all the simulations. That’s exactly what I did.”
Oh Shaw, why are you lying to the love of your life right now?!?
Root tries to convince Shaw that this is real, she is not in a simulation and urges Shaw to go back to the subway, which couldn’t have been a worse move since that is what simulation Root said all the time.
She pushes Root away and pulls out her gun.
Shaw: “The simplest way to break someone is to rob them of their reality, and they did that well. And maybe you’re right, maybe I am safe but as long as I’m alive you’ll never be safe.”
Root: “What do you mean”
Shaw: “I could turn on you at any moment. And even if I don’t I could lead them to the Machine.”
Root: “That’ll never happen.”
Shaw: “I don’t know if I’m calling the shots anymore. And neither do you. 7000 simulations. I killed a lot of people, but the one person that I couldn’t kill was you. So I killed myself. Over and over again.” Shaw raises the gun to her own head “And I’d rather do that here and now than risk your life.”
It is now Root’s turn.
Root: “Okay Shaw. We’ll play it your way. You can’t live with me, I can’t live without you. So if you die, I die too” ::she raises her gun to her own neck:: “I really don’t know whats going to happen when we pull the trigger. I’ve never been much of a believer but hey, you never know. Guess we’re about to find out, aren’t we.”
Oh! My! God! This is Shakespeare type love right here! They are both willing to die for each other. The only thing keeping me together is knowing I have to finish this recap. So essentially The Workprint is currently keeping me alive.
Shaw is taken aback by this. This never happened in the simulation. And I have two theories for why this never manifested in the simulations. The first is that Samaritan does not have the capability to simulate something it doesn’t understand, and that is truly and fully putting yourself before others. That is why they couldn’t stop Sameen from killing herself instead of Root 7,000 times. On that same note, Samaritan could not understand love which follows the same reasoning as above. My second theory is that while Shaw loves Root, and she knows Root loves her back, I don’t think she was capable of letting herself realize how much Root loved her. Letting herself believe that Root loved her so much that she would sacrifice herself the same way Shaw would is a huge thing and even simulation Shaw couldn’t let herself be that vulnerable.
The next day, the sun is shining, and the grass is green as the whole gang gathers down under the bridge (including Fusco) so Root can introduce Shaw back into the fold.
The entire time, Sameen keeps rubbing her fingers over her neck to assure herself that this is real, that there is no chip. It is heartbreaking, but joyous at the same time. Everything is happy and perfect! Until next episode of course where the previews has promised us someone important will die.
Other Things:
- Did anyone else notice that when John first comes up to Fusco he is moving around the mouse like he has never touched a computer before.
