PERSON OF INTEREST Recap: Life’s a Gamble

Person of Interest 2.18: All In

Leon is getting all hot and heavy with a trashy woman named Candy when she handcuffs him to the bed. Turns out that foreplay is not what she has in mind – she works for a bunch of Nigerian scammers that Leon out-scammed. They’ve had it with him and plan to kill him, but he’s confident they won’t be very successful. His confidence is well-placed as seconds later the door of the hotel room bursts opens and Bear bounds in with Reese close behind. They subdue both men and rescue Leon (again!!!).

Reese tries to figure out what Mitchell is up to

After saving Leon’s skin, Reese heads to Atlantic City to protect their new POI, Louis Mitchell, widower who has retired from his career as a watch repairer. Reese observes him losing money at baccarat at a casino and then follows him to a pharmacy while Finch hacks his bank accounts. Finch finds that Louis withdraw all of his savings when his wife died. Reese and Finch assume he potentially has a gaming addiction. While watching Louis have coffee at a diner, Reese notices that his fingers have been previously broken – maybe he crossed the mob early in life. A waitress tells Louis that Dan Makris, the owner of the local casino wants to tear down the diner to put in more parking. He’s clearly unhappy with the news.

Carter and Szymanksi look into Mitchell and find out that he did have some mob dealings in his past, but nothing in years.  Szymanski also dug up that there are suspicions that Makris, the owner of the casino that Louis frequents, might be running drugs. Beecher shows up and asks Carter out – he took the liberty of making a reservation for them for Friday night. She doesn’t give him an answer, but asks him to help her look into the casino.

Mitchell heads back to the casino and trades in over a grand (that he doesn’t seem to have) for some more chips. Finch hacks into the casino’s video gaming machines and the into their customer loyalty program. They find out the Mitchell had wracked up over 320k in losses over the past 6 months.

Carter looks into Officer Simmons’ record with IAB but can’t get much info. Not long after she gets this info, Szymanskiis brought into the station in handcuffs by the same officer. He asks for Carter’s help – he’s being set up because he was set to testify at a trial that day – they found offshore accounts in his name, a condo in Florida, and a pillowcase full of cash in his apartment.

Meanwhile, the defendant in the case, a leader of the Russian mafia, gets a visit from the head of HR, Alonzo Quinn, who suggests that the man owes him big time for framing Szymanski. HR needs cash and the inmate agrees to provide it in exchange for him and his brother getting home safe to Russia.

Reese roughs up some two-bit mobsters and finds out that Louis is the last alive of his mobster buddies. Finch is tailing him (apparently poorly) as he once again goes to the pharmacy. While waiting for Louis, Finch recognizes other seniors in the pharmacy from the casino. Leon helps him investigate the pharmacy – it’s owned by a shell company but Leon traces it back to Makris, the casino owner.

Finch is made by Louis when he follows him to the diner. Finch claims to be IRS investigating the casino. Louis offers him answers in return for winning hands of baccarat. The winner of each hand get an answer and Finch loses the first couple hands, which makes him awfully suspicious. He tells him that he thinks he may be in danger but Louis shrugs him off and leaves him with the check, after stealing his keys and dumping them into a lobster tank.

Finch and Reese review the evidence

Finch suspects that Mitchell is throwing games. He soon realize that others at the casino are also losing enormous sums of money. Finch thinks he’s figured it out – the casino owner, Makris, uses the seniors to launder money for him in his casino. Reese sees one of the seniors pull money out of a pill bottle and dump the bottle in a trash can.

Carter finds out that Beecher was the one that got Szymanski arrested based on a CI . She confronts him, but he won’t reveal his informant. She goes to Fusco and asks him about HR. He tells her that HR is down but not out. He doesn’t know anything about Beecher, but suggests that if she follows the trail of the money found on Szymanski that she’ll find something that she doesn’t want to find.

Mitchell gets caught skimming funds and one of the casino owner’s thugs tries to take him out, which is prevented by Reese. Finch and Mitchell talk and Mitchell explains that he is good with cards and used this ability to finance his wife’s cancer treatment. His wife met him when he hit rock bottom and she saved his life – he cleaned up everything in his life for her. After she died, the casino owner caught on and forced Mitchell to work for him.

Finch gives him a bus ticket and money and tell him to go to Chicago where an apartment awaits him. He doesn’t want to go because he feels like he owes it to his wife to stay and save himself. Finch commiserates with him, telling him that he, too, has lost the love of his life. Finch watches while he gets on the bus. He arranges for Makris to think that Mitchell is dead.

Reese and Reese are determined to take down the whole laundering ring. They make a plan to steal the casino’s ledgers. Enter Leon, now re-christened as a playboy millionaire. He’ll make some big bets (and drink lots of tequila) to distract everyone while Finch sneaks into the computer system and Reese keeps an eye on the floor. Reese soon realizes that Leon isn’t the only potential distraction – Mitchell is back, and he’s betting every chip he ever stole, which is certain to attract Makris’ attention.

Mitchell scams the casino while Reese stands guard

He tells Finch that he made a promise to his wife to not throw his life away and he feels like he needs to take back every dime that he laundered for Makris. Finch decides to stake him 2 million (likely a better bet than Leon!). Both Leon and Mitchell are winning (Leon by dumb luck and Mitchell by cheating) and Makris’ attention is drawn to Mitchell. Reese intercepts him and tells him that he will let Mitchell play and not call security or they will send incriminating documents they found to the IRS and FBI. He begrudgingly agrees. Mitchell eventually wins 20 million back while Leon gets trashed on tequila and tries to pick up another woman.

Finch alerts Reese that he has gotten the data they need and Reese and Mitchell leave the casino after picking up his winnings. Out on the street, they are confronted by Makris and some goons. They’ve already captured Finch.

Finch, Reese, Leon, and Louis are all tied up around a table in a back room of the casino. Makris confronts Louis and forces him to play Russian roulette around the table. The first two shots at Leon and Reese are blanks and before he can take  the third at Finch, Reese manages to get loose. Makris tries to shoot him with the gun, but it’s only got blanks – Mitchell used his sleight of hand to remove the bullets from the gun. Makris is quickly overpowered by Reese.

Leon tells Reese that he’s turning over a new leaf – he wants to learn to save people (and himself). Reese isn’t impressed and makes him turn over the remainder of the casino chips from his stake – $100,000.

Carter traces the money from the Szymanski case back to a bust against Elias. She shows the evidence to IAB to free Szymanski. Fusco advises her to watch her back.

Finch and Mitchell have coffee together in Michell’s favorite diner. The money is currently being held up as evidence in the case against Makris. He wanted to use the money to buy the diner because it held such great memories for him and his wife. So he can save the diner, Finch gives him a broken watch to fix- the one that Reese was given that is worth $2 million.

Mitchell tells Finch that he’s a good man and that his dead wife is surely smiling down on him from heaven. Based on Finch’s expression, he realizes that the love of Finch’s life isn’t actually dead. He encourages him to go to Grace while he still can.  Back at the library, Reese tells Finch that he overheard the conversation and tries to reassure him that he is doing what he needs to so that Grace stays safe. Reese seems to want to discuss it more, but Finch shuts him down. As soon as Reese walks away, though, he pulls up a picture of him and Grace on his computer.

Simmons get a phone call from the Russian mob boss in prison – more charges, including tampering with a witness, were added rather than them being dropped. Simmons tells him that he should have more faith in Quinn.

Meanwhile,  Quinn meets with Szymanski and his lawyer and they tell him their concerns about HR, hoping to get the mayor’s support. After learning what they know, Quinn pulls out a suppressed gun and shoots them both in the chest. Detective Terney comes in right after and takes the gun with gloved hands. At his request, he shoots Quinn in the shoulder with the same gun so that it will look like an outside shooter was involved.

My Thoughts:

Fun episode! I have to say that I do enjoy Leon – he’s a great comic foil to the super serious Reese, Carter, and Finch and he has enough skills to make it seem reasonable that they include him.

The HR plot really thickened this week. It sure seems like Carter’s number is soon to come up again (I’m betting within an episode or two of the season finale). She’s getting closer and closer to Quinn and he’s not going to stand for it. I can see it getting very complicated – like Fusco or Beecher being tasked with killing her. It seems highly unlikely at this point that Beecher is not part of HR, but I still wouldn’t put it past the writers to have him later shown to have been a pawn.

The Machine seemed to be working pretty well this week. The graphics of it watching Mitchell cheat the casino at baccarat were very cool.

The heart-to-heart between Reese and Finch in the library was a great scene. For all his bad assery, Reese still seems to be a romantic at heart and hasn’t let everything that he’s seen harden him, as we’ve seen more and more this season. It’s still remarkable to me what a deep friendship has developed between the two men when they started out so adversarial.

Amusing Quotes (a lot of good ones this episode!):

Are you the Nigerian scammers? I can’t believe you’re actually Nigerian! – Leon

I was an international spy, Finch. I know how to play baccarat – Reese

Remind me never to cross you, Finch – Reese

When he deposited my keys in a tank full of crustaceans, I got the distinct impression that he didn’t like being followed! – Finch

A million? You trust Leon with that much of your money? – Reese (this is after Reese spent 10 million on a letter from Einstein a few weeks ago to prove a point!)
Absolutely not, but I’m afraid it’s the cost of doing business – Finch

Makris is not going to like it when he sees a dead guy winning his money – Reese

Watch Person of Interest on Thursdays at 9/8c on CBS!