PERSON OF INTEREST RECAP: Two Gods at War

POI 3.21 Beta

Root shows up to let Shaw and Reese know that Decima is after them. She tells them that Samaritan is online and the system is tasked to get them. She also tells them that Samaritan can’t learn, just watch. The Machine helps her guide Reese and Shaw to safety but their flight is interrupted by a new number. Apparently the Machine has a multiple personality disorder and wants to send them off on a mission while it’s supposed to be protecting them from Samaritan. Or it realizes that they must protect Finch’s fiance, Grace, at all costs.

The Senator meets with Greer for an update on Samaritan. Greer shows him a number of probable terrorists and their whereabouts and assures him that he’ll have a hard target for him soon. After the Senator leaves, we find out that Greer’s goal is to find Finch before finishing the test and that Samaritan does have a program that would make it rather sentient, but they lack the hardware to use it. One of his programmers suggests looking for someone close to Finch and somehow Samaritan finds Grace.

2010 – We see Grace at Finch’s funeral. It’s just her and the priest in the cemetery. Grace is saddened that not one other person came to say goodbye to the empty grave.

Grace is headed to the airport for an interview in Italy and her driver is Greer’s man, sent to abduct her. Thanks to the Machine, Reese and Shaw get there in time to protect her, but Samaritan catches them in the act on camera. They take Grace to the precinct and ask Fusco to keep her safe. Meanwhile, Decima surrounds the precinct.

A federal agent shows up for Grace with a warrant. Fusco manages to get him alone where Reese takes care of him. Just then Root gets arrested and is brought in. She needs a number of items from evidence lockers – copper wire, duct tape, wire cutters, etc (sounds like quite a party!). She uses the supplies to short out all the precinct cameras.

Root, Reese, and Shaw take Fusco’s phone and an unmarked car and escape the station. Decima isn’t far behind, though, and they T-bone the car (how many times have we seen this happen in 3 seasons?) and take Grace before Reese can recover.

The team regroups outside of Manhattan and Samaritan’s reach. Root has a map of sites in Manhattan that are off the grid – Grace is likely in one of them. Now they just need to get to her. Reese, Shaw, and Root hitch a ride in a delivery van.

Reese and Shaw check  out a container ship that is at port in one of the off-the-grid areas. The ship is eerily quiet and they soon find the entire crew has been killed with botulinum toxin. The ship is full of containers of state-of-the art computer equipment – the hardware Greer needs to make Samaritan really come alive.

Greer interrogates Grace in his polite English manner. After he subtly threatens her parents, she tells him that she was engaged once, but her fiance died in the ferry bomb. Greer tells her that Finch was lying to her, but she assures him that Finch wouldn’t have lied to her because she trusts him completely. She asks him why he wants to know about Finch with him being dead, but he doesn’t answer.

The team sends a decoy to the other side of the city and then approach the location of Decima as they are trying to pack it up. Greer and Grace are gone, however. Reese wants to torture Greer’s IT guy for info, but Greer decides to do a spooky videochat on a massive screen. He tells his IT guy to commit suicide, and tells Reese and Shaw that they need to tell Finch to meet him and Grace the next morning.

Root alerts Reese and Shaw that the security camera in front of Grace’s building has gone out. They find Finch sitting on her front steps. He realizes he’s too late to warn her and insists that he will trade himself for her. Reese and Shaw need to ensure that Decima keeps up their end of the bargain, avoiding violence. Unless they harm Grace, then he wants them to kill them all.

They go to the meet up point and Finch waxes poetic about how he always knew the moment was inevitable. A blindfolded Grace walks past Finch and stumbles, so he catches her without a word. She thanks him and walks on while he stands in silence and then keeps walking. Grace gets to Reese and Finch to Greer’s men.

Fusco takes Grace home but she’s quite rightly not convinced that she’s safe. Reese arrives and hands her an envelope from Finch. In it is a new passport and identity. She got the job in Italy and her plane leaves within hours. She asks Reese if he knew Finch. He tells her that all he knows is that she loved Finch and he loved her.

Greer completes the test and gives the Senator the information then takes Samaritan [temporarily] offline.

Reese and Shaw meet Root – she assures them that everything is not lost – she’s stolen seven of Samaritan’s servers.

Greer confronts Finch as the episode ends. Finch thanks him for blindfolding Grace.

My Thoughts: Boy, you want to feel paranoid, consider the idea of not one, but two supercomputers watching your every move, with one potentially not as benevolent as the other. Right now, the Machine’s ability to learn gives it the edge, but it seems that Samaritan is 7 servers away from possessing similar abilities. This episode brought up some interesting questions on the reach of these systems. Samaritan is limited to NYC – is that just for the test because that’s all the feeds it was given access to? The Machine seems to cover the entire world based on Reese and Kara’s past exploits, but yet the irrelevant numbers seem to all be within two hours’ drive of NYC.

I’m not sure what Greer’s endgame is here. What does he care about terrorists? I’m assuming that he’s just making it appear that Samaritan’s main purpose is thwarting terrorists to gain the trust of those that can provide it access to massive amounts of data that he can then use for his own purposes…which are what?! I also wonder what Greer’s plans for Finch are – does he need his help with Samaritan? Clearly the goal isn’t just to kill him or he would have done it already.

Clearly we’re in for two thrilling episodes to close the season!

Memorable Quotes:

Who died and made you Finch? – Shaw

Two Gods playing with the same deck of cards – Root

Finally, a chance for some good old fashioned recon. – Shaw

The next time we have to hide from an awesome super computer, we’re getting separate trunks! – Shaw

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