PERSON OF INTEREST Recap: Privacy Concerns

POI 3.02: Nothing to Hide

Carter puts flowers on Beecher’s grave. While she’s there, Alonzo Quinn approaches and tells her that he heard that Elias’ boys were involved in Cal’s death but Carter tells him that she’s not so sure. After Carter leaves, Quinn calls someone in HR to tell them that Carter may still be a problem. Meanwhile, Carter gets Fusco to look into the Beecher file and he finds out that the file has been frozen.

This week’s POI is Wayne Kruger, founder of LifeTrace, which is marketed to help you find old friends, etc, but in actuality, it collects data and then Kruger’s company packages and sells it – called data broking. The program is not unlike the Machine – it collects data and make assumptions about people – but it’s available to the highest bidder, which Finch sees as a big moral distinction. Despite his outward lack of concern for privacy issues, Kruger has worked hard over the years to keep his own life private and keep negative publicity about his company off the internet – including squashing multiple lawsuits, including a large class action suit.

Shaw infiltrates Kruger’s office and blue jacks his phone. She listens in as attends a high stakes sales meeting and also overhears that he is hosting a big party that evening. Reese and Shaw crash the party and watch as his photo montage to celebrate his anniversary gets hijacked by scenes from a sex tape starring Kruger.

Carter gets assigned an enthusiastic rookie cop as a partner, in return for the chance to work the day shift, which makes it harder for her to help out Finch and Reese. In a departure from Detective Carter, “Officer” Carter treats the poor kid pretty badly.

Finch asks her to look into a girl who worked as a waiter at the anniversary party – she was one of the plaintiffs in the class action suit against LifeTrace. Carter finds her car, pulls her over, and under the guise of giving her a ticket for going through a stop sign, finds out that LifeTrace cost her her fiance. She got an anonymous package in the mail telling her she could get back at Kruger by playing the DVD at the party, so she did. Carter tells her to take the package to Fusco.

Kruger’s life only gets worse as his bank accounts are emptied, his LifeTrace account is hacked and a mug shot and a bunch of data from when he declared bankruptcy and was previously arrested are put up on his page, causing him to the major deal he’d been working on. His assistant also gets a voicemail with a tape of him telling a coworker that she is incompetent and he only keeps her around because he likes to look at her.

Kruger’s day goes from bad to worse when his partners force him to take a leave of access and he enters the elevator to leave the building. His phone rings and a voice tells him that he needs to understand and then the elevator begins to free fall, only slowing just in time to stop at the parking garage. He stumbles out and goes to his car, where he gets a gun from the glove compartment.

Finch finds out the name of the man who cleaned out Kruger’s bank accounts – he was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit and he also received an anonymous package with Kruger’s bank account numbers and other info.

Kruger is driving and his car gets hacked, taking over the steering and acceleration and causing the car to flip over and roll across the street (guess Jonah Nolan is a bit paranoid about the whole concept of self-driving cars?). Reese is driving behind him and helps Kruger from the car and takes him to a safe house where he meets Finch and Shaw.

They tell him that the people that filed the class action suit against him have been responsible for all of the things that have happened to him. Finch finds a picture of the father of a woman who was killed by a stalker who found her on LifeTrace. Shaw recognizes him – he was working at LifeTrace as a janitor. The man, Sommers, is an aeronautical engineer by trade and would have the skills needed to plan all the cyber attacks. Reese and Shaw leave to look for Sommers.

Finch tries to trace the call that Kruger received in the elevator while Kruger tries to make a call using a landline, but Finch has unplugged the phone. They have a heated (for Finch) discussion about his company and privacy. Finch checks his voicemail for him via his phone company’s website and finds a call from the head of the company for the deal that fell through. They are willing to give him another chance, but they need to meet that evening before their plane leaves.

Finch notices that someone, probably  Sommers, has already listened to the message and warns Kruger that it is probably an ambush. Finch tries to call Reese to meet them at the hotel, but Kruger hits Finch on the head with a bottle and leaves.

Bear wakes Finch up and he contacts Reese, who is at LifeTrace, to let him know that Kruger is headed to the Mayfield hotel. He suspects Kruger may try to kill Sommers.

At the hotel,  Kruger confronts Summers in the lobby with a gun and tells him that he needs to help him fix everything. He drags Summers into his meeting. Only one of the company representatives is there, though, because they changed their mind last minute about working with Kruger and left one man to let him know.

Kruger loses it and draws his gun, telling the company representative that Sommers has been trying to ruin his life. Sommers disarms him and then holds the gun on him. Reese arrives and listens to Sommer tell Kruger that his daughter died because her ex-boyfriend kept finding her using LifeTrace and Kruger’s company repeatedly refused to take her profile down.

Reese manages to talk Summers into handing over the gun. Finch calls to let him know that the phone signal from the elevator was tracked to the hotel they are at. Just then, the company representative who was waiting to meet with Kruger pulls a gun and shoots Reese and Kruger. The whole deal was a set-up to teach Kruger a lesson about privacy – the “first lesson”. He shoots him one more time in the chest and kills him before leaving. Reese has a broken rib but is otherwise okay and Shaw soon arrives and helps him leave.

Carter’s partner tells her that two other rookies asked to be reassigned rather than work with her. He purposely asked to be assigned to her because he respects her so much for her ethics and taking down corrupt cops. He asks her to tell him if he isn’t willing to train him. She responds by treating him better.

Finch tells Reese that the man who killed Kruger took his job several months before so he could meet up with Kruger. He sent all the packages to various plaintiffs through several mail depots. Finch is worried that this “first lesson” may be just the beginning.

My Thoughts:

Am I the only one who wonders if the Machine’s new agenda is to punish its competitors, or others that it feels interfere with its duties or cross its “moral” line?  When the elevator fell, that’s really all I could think of is that the Machine was behind it –  – we’ve certainly seen it set up similarly complex situations at the end of season 2 to protect itself.

Shaw seems to have really thawed in her time working with Finch and Reese. She’s much more human in this episode than she was even last episode. Carter, meanwhile, was rather unpleasant to her poor partner, I’m glad they seem to have an understanding now. It will be interested to see how he will affect her ability to help Finch and Reese. Maybe he becomes her new conscious now that she’s kind of given up her role as Finch’s and Reese’s Jiminy Cricket.

This show has always done a good job of writing POI plot lines that allow it the characters to have some commentary on the ambiguous ethical and moral grounds of what they do. The similarities and contrasts of the Machine versus LifeTrace were interesting to think about this week.

No Root this week – I wonder what happened to her after her latest revelations to her therapist…

Memorable Quotes:

You doubt her ability to be discreet? – Reese
I doubt her ability to keep from shooting someone – Finch

People who say that they have nothing to hide almost always do. – Finch

Wanna go to a party, Shaw? – Reese
Only if you promise to wear something pretty – Shaw

You can’t expect me to shoot someone on an empty stomach – Shaw

Watch Person of Interest at 10/9c on Tuesday nights on CBS!