PERSON OF INTEREST: Life’s a Con

Person of Interest 3.07 The Perfect Mark

Finch (AKA Wren) is seeing a hypnotherapist to work on his “anxiety and paranoia”. The hypnotherapist, Hayden Price, is this week’s POI and he’s using hypnosis to collect information to allow him to access his rich client’s bank accounts. He’s apparently saving the money to run away with his girlfriend. Reese and Shaw investigate his clients to see who might be trying to kill him.

Quinn meets with Carter to see what she knows and she tells him that she thinks HR could be involved in Beecher’s death. He offers to get the mayor involved but she declines. Later, Simmons meets with Laskey and orders him to shoot a money launderer that they’ve been working with. They take him to an auction and show him his target – one of Price’s patients, an antiques dealer.

While Carter is outside listening in on Laskey’s discussion, she sees Reese and Shaw arrive. Reese and Carter compare notes and realize that Price’s client is laundering money for HR. HR found out and wants them both dead.

Price makes plans with his girlfriend to leave the country. He goes back to his office to destroy his computer and shred documents and is interrupted by two gunman on a window cleaning platform. Before they can kill Price, Reese and Shaw also arrive and find out the would-be murderers are HR cops.

They drag Price to a safehouse and grill him. He denies knowing about his patient’s connection to HR. However, Finch finds out that Price had hacked into the antiques dealers’ email based on info he got from him under hypnosis. They take him to a motel where his girlfriend is and when Reese gives them privacy, he escapes down the fire escape.

Carter meets with Elias to get his input on the money launderer. He tells her that the money is a kickback from the Russians for letting them work. The man launders the money by spending it on worthless “antiques” put up for auction by HR.

Laskey tells Carter that he can’t kill the man and he didn’t think when he got involved with HR and that she’s the only one on his side. Carter tells him off and assigns him to call in sick and follow Simmons all day.

Carter confronts the antiques dealer and he pulls a gun, but Fusco has her back. They tell him that Price wasn’t a therapist but a con man. They learn that Simmons blackmailed him into laundering the money and the stakes kept getting higher and higher. Turns out that Price altered the email telling him what to bid on and the dealer accidentally bought a baseball worth 4 million, which he then sold to a kid for $5. Fusco and Carter fake the man’s death so it looks like Laskey killed him and tell him to leave the country.

Carter and Fusco are worried HR will go after the kid for the ball, but he doesn’t have it anymore, because he bought it for Price and he came to pick it up. Finch tracks Price’s girlfriend’s phone to try to find him and soon Reese and Fusco have him and the baseball.

Quinn is pissed that Laskey “killed” the dealer before the ball could be recovered and tasks Simmons with finding Price and recovering the ball. HR kidnaps Price’s girlfriend to get him to return the ball. Price asks Reese to help him save her life.

While the men go inside to authenticate the ball, they leave Laskey to kill the girlfriend. Instead, Carter and Shaw stage Laskey getting beat up and rescue the woman. Inside, an expert determines that the ball is fake. Price swears that he didn’t know. Reese rescues him.

He calls his girlfriend to make sure she’s okay and he finds out that she played him – she has the ball and she’s leaving the country with it, living out their dream. The whole time, she was conning the con man.

Tierney reports to Simmons that the ball was a fake and that the man in the suit took out Laskey and then escaped. Simmons tells him both Laskey and he are dead if they can’t find the ball.

Carter and Laskey are looking at some pictures he took of Simmons and other HR officers. Laskey is finally totally, 100% on Carter’s side and dreading his past actions and Carter is starting to warm to him.

Tierney shows up and tries to get Laskey to help him kill Carter. Laskey reaches for his weapon to aim it at him and Tierney shoots him in the chest, killing him instantly. Carter shoots Tierney and as he’s dying, asks him who is in charge of HR. He points to Quinn in one of the photos.

***

Root is still captive in the library and Finch and Root have a nice, friendly, super weird chat. Root tells him the future is coming – he started it and she’ll finish it.

My Thoughts:

I loved the twist at the end of this one – I never suspected the girlfriend. Rather a risky proposition on her part – HR could have easily killed her if it wasn’t for Finch and Reese. Did she assume they would follow her and protect her, or did she just get lucky?

The HR plot keeps getting darker and darker as it reaches a head. So sad, but not unexpected, that Laskey gets killed after he fully commits to helping Carter bring down HR. At least Carter now has a lead on Quinn.

It’s amazing how far Carter has changed since season 1 – now she’s killing guys, planting evidence, lying, faking deaths, and otherwise doing things that we would have never seen her do previously, and stuff that she was furious that Reese did. She certainly has a noble motive (and to quote my favorite scene from True Lies, “did you ever kill anyone?” “yes, but they were all bad”) but all of the gloom and doom and death has to be weighing heavily on her at this point and I hope her character gets some much needed levity soon. There are more than enough broken characters looking for redemption on POI already.

Fusco has really not been a big part of story lines this year, which has been disappointing. Expanding the cast has definitely led to more scenes where it seems like characters are included just to say that they were part of the episode, rather than to further the plot. I’d really like to see more of Fusco and Carter and less of Shaw. Judging by the previews for next week, I will probably get my wish with regards to Fusco.

The relationship between Finch and Root is so bizarre. She’s stark raving mad and has tormented him mentally and physically for years, yet they still have this odd bond between them. Will the Machine really chose her over its maker and father figure?

Memorable Quotes:

For $200/hr, I hope you get more than just an expensive nap – Reese

Mr. Reese is upstairs with an unhealthy number of firearms, so don’t try to run – Finch to Root

Finch, did you ever notice how our job is a lot like babysitting? – Reese

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