PERSON OF INTEREST Recap: Oh, Baby!

Each week I find myself getting more and more hooked on Person of Interest and it seemed like too good a show to not be covered by NiceGirls. Starting this week, I aim to remedy that situation. Enjoy!

Episode 1.17: Baby Blue

Carter is sitting in a car outside of a prison. Reese climbs in the car and surprises her. Gianni Moretti, the father of Elias, the mafia leader we met earlier in the season (Episode 1.07, Witness), is about to be released from prison and Carter is hoping to get him to turn informant on his son. Reese, meanwhile, is on the case because the machine spit out Moretti’s number. Moretti leaves the prison and Carter approaches him and tells him that she can protect him. He rebuffs her and his car drives off.

Carter and Reese follow the car, which soon comes upon an accident scene, which is of course an ambush. The “victims” kill Moretti’s  drivers and bodyguards, but Carter and Reese take them out and rescue Moretti, putting him in a safe house (Seriously, how does Carter manage to explain how she always gets involved and is victorious in all these shootouts without giving Reese away?) The only people who know Moretti’s location are Reese, Carter and one other officer, Det. Szymanski, because she knows that there are dirty cops in the precinct.

Meanwhile, the machine has come up with another number. Finch investigates and finds out that it’s a 6 month old baby, Leila, who was abandoned at a hospital under the Safe Haven law. He impersonates a doctor and is at the hospital going through her record when he sees two men approaching. Realizing that the men are there to grab the baby, Fitch beats them to it, kidnapping her and taking her back to his book-lined lair. He sets the baby up in a “playpen” made of stacks of books and starts to investigate the clinic where she was left.

Soon there’s an Amber Alert out for the baby, complete with an amusing caricature of Finch, but he doesn’t let that deter him from running to a local store to buy baby supplies and meet Carter. She does not approve of him kidnapping the baby but agrees to go to the clinic and ask questions. Carter talks to one of the nurses and finds out that Leila came in with a bracelet that had the initials C.C. on it.

Finch investigates the clinic where Leila was left and finds out that the clinic got a big donation around the time she would have been born, and smaller ones each month since. By impersonating the IRS, Finch gets them to reveal the tax ID of the donor – Petrosian Construction. He looks for people associated with Petrosian with the initials C.C. and find a young receptionist named Claudia Cruz. Carter informs them that Cruz was killed in a fire a few days earlier – her death was ruled an accident.

Meanwhile, Fusco is dealing with the repercussions of being tossed back to the wolves (i.e. all the dirty cops he used to associate with) as a double agent by Reese. Mr. Bad Cop is not happy that Carter and her band of merry men (i.e. Reese) foiled Elias’ abduction of Moretti and hid him. He tasks Fusco with finding out Moretti’s location.

Although Carter is uncomfortable with Finch and Reese having the baby, she agrees to look into Cruz’s death. In the victim’s burned out apartment, she finds that the smoke detector had been disabled and determines from the autopsy photos that Cruz suffered head trauma before the fire. Carter finds a burned lamp that could be the murder weapon and takes it back to the crime lab.

Finch approaches Claudia’s parents who did not know that she had been pregnant although there was a few month period about the time that Leila would have been born that they didn’t see her in person. She did leave some papers with them a few months before her death and one of them was a picture of her and Petrosian’s son. Reese tails the son and quickly realizes that he was definitely not having an affair with Cruz and they shift their suspicions to Petrosian senior.

When Leila escapes her book playpen and Finch and Reese lose her for a while in the lair, they realize that they aren’t the right people to care for her, and decide to put her in the care of her grandparents, whom Finch has moved to a safe house for their protection. Unfortunately, they find their safe house has been compromised. Leila’s grandparents are unharmed, but while Reese is occupied inside taking care of the several intruders, Finch is attacked Leila is kidnapped from the car where they were waiting. One of the attackers left a medallion at the scene, which leads Reese to an eastern European gang.

Reese does a little house invasion of his own and confronts Petrosian. He admits to the affair with Cruz, but it turns out that his wife was the one that killed Cruz – Reese finds out from Carter that her fingerprints are found on the lamp that Carter found at the scene. Mrs. Petrosian tells Reese that she has no way of contacting the group, but Reese tracks them down in a bar and after taking on 4 of them singlehandedly, still doesn’t know the whereabouts of Leila.

Carter goes back to the safe house and Fusco follows her. Later, when Mr. Bad Cop asks him what Carter has been up to, he denies that he knows the location of the safe house. Bad Cop reminds Fusco about a certain dead body and tells him that he will happily rat him out and he’d better figure out where Moretti is.

Reese and Finch are distraught about the baby, knowing that she’ll be out of the country forever within hours. In desperation, Reese decides to contact Elias, because he certainly knows where she is or someone who knows where she is. Finch tries to talk him out of it but is unsuccessful. Reese meets with Elias and asks him about the baby, reminding Elias that he saved his life. Reese tries to appeal to Elias’ humanity. Elias finds out where the baby will be transferred to another gang to get her out of the country and gives this information to Reese.

Reese heads to the meet location, shoots everyone and rescues Leila. Unfortunately, before he can leave with her, Elias shows up. He locks Reese and Leila in a refrigerated truck and turns the temperature way down. He will let them out when Reese tells him the location of the safe house where Moretti is (via a baby monitor – natch). As the truck gets colder, and Leila gets quieter and quieter, Reese finally has to sell out Moretti (and Carter) to save the baby. Elias lives up to his promise and gives Reese the key to his handcuffs and he is able to escape the truck with Leila, who seems to be okay. He passes her off to Finch, who has just arrived, and races to the safe house.

On the way, he calls Carter and tells her that Elias knows about the safe house. She calls Det. Szymanski  and he tells Moretti that they need to move. Carter and Reese arrive at the scene too late. Szymanski’s on the floor with a gunshot wound to his abdomen, alive, but barely. Carter calls the dispatcher for help and then asks how Elias found out about the safe house and Reese admits that he told him, to save the baby. Carter is ticked – she wasn’t happy that they had the baby in the first place – and tells Reese that she can’t do it anymore – she can’t be involved with them. She stays with Szymanski and encourages Reese to leave before other officers show up. (Will Szymanki remember that Reese was at the scene, or remember their conversation?)

Reese and Finch take Leila to her grandparents.

Moretti is brought to where Elias is waiting by the river. He is hooded and handcuffed. The hood is removed and the two stand facing each other. “Hello, Dad”.

I think this just might be my favorite episode of the season, after Witness. The whole series is really gelling and this episode really had a lot going for it. I love the return of Elias, leading to Reese having to decide between his loyalty to Carter (and  potential desire to use Moretti against Elias) and saving Leila. Elias outsmarted Reese big time when they first met, and he continues to seemingly have the upper hand on Reese, who seemed completely invulnerable prior to Elias.

This episode also served to put a wedge between Finch and Reese and Carter, who seemed to have finally accepted them as partners. Carter has a strong moral compass and doesn’t back down – seeing how she deals with her sense of betrayal combined with her perpetual distaste for Finch and Reese’s methods should be very interesting.

I find myself feeling bad for Fusco. Just when it seemed like he had redeemed himself and turned his life around, Reese forced him back under and now he’s caught in the middle between the crooked cops and Carter. The interaction between Fusco and Carter has become particularly interesting since they both started working with Reese and Finch, unbeknownst to each other. I’d like to think that he will continue to do the right thing and protect her, but at some point he may have to give something up on her just to keep his double agent status, or because he just can’t hold out against Mr Bad Cop anymore.

The scenes with Finch, Reese and Leila added a welcome bit of levity. Their “two men and a baby” gig not only emphasized their human qualities, but also was a fun contrast to their normal organized personas. You’d think two guys who can come up with the elaborate plans that they do could manage to pick up a “[easyazon-link asin=”B005UV0UEA”]Pack ‘N Play[/easyazon-link]”, rather than relying on a stack of books to keep a baby out of their grenade stockpile. It was fun to see them frazzled, vulnerable, and even paternal.

Memorable quotes and scenes:

Is this one of your ties, Finch? I hope you gave her some food and not just your hand-me-downs. – Reese

John! John? You trust him with a baby!? – Carter

Finch teaching Reese how to change a diaper

If we dive into that swamp of indiscretion known as social media… – Finch

I told you to move your arsenal! – Finch

You’ve heard what I thought of the episode. Now’s it’s your turn to tell me in the comments!

Catch Person of Interest on Thursdays at 9/8c on CBS