PERSON OF INTEREST RECAP: Surveillance State

POI 3.22 A House Divided

2010 – Collier is with his older brother and his son when the FBI shows up and arrests his brother for something involving national security Reese and Shaw corner a Decima guy and he jumps to his death. Root tells them that Finch isn’t in immediate danger and the Machine needs their help. She takes a tracking device out of the agent’s car and delivers it to her IT team, which is made up of several techies that the Machine has previously saved.

Greer has a little chat with Finch and Finch warns him against putting too much faith in Samaritan. Greer is going to keep Finch until Samaritan is totally ready and then will use him to shut down the Machine. Finch explains that he soon realized that the Machine was smarter than him and that he couldn’t control it. He begs Greer not to let Samaritan go online but Greer’s not buying it. He apparently wants to set Samaritan free and see what it does.

Greer meets with the Senator and lets him know that he has no intention of giving Samaritan to the government. He’ll use the surveillance feeds and sell the data back to the government, giving them plausible denial.

Reese and Root walk by a payphone and it rings with several new numbers and the first one belongs to Control.  Shaw sees her enter the hotel that Root sent her to stakeout, along with some Secret Service agents. Root sends her to a room and she takes out the two agents inside and gains access to surveillance of a meeting between Control and the Senator (another one of the numbers) in a neighboring room.

The Senator tries to convince Control that Samaritan is a good idea. He needs her help to convince the President’s chief of staff. He tries to sell Greer’s vision to her. Two more of the numbers show up – they are high ranking US officials. Shaw is unhappy that Root won’t let her kill Control yet. Control tries to convince the new men to let Samaritan work specifically to go after Vigilance to prevent them. Vigiliance’s ears were apparently burning, because they soon show up to kill the group of them.

Reese and Root collar a hacker in a coffee shop that works for Vigilance. He tells them that they are too late to stop “the Revolution”.

2010 – Collier is trying to get more info about his brother. He is told that his brother has connections to known Islamic terrorists and is shown numerous surveillance pictures of his brother with a suspected terrorist.

Shaw drops by to say hi to Control (and reluctantly rescue her). They engage Vigilance in a firefight in a hallway and Vigilance gets away with the government officials, including Control. Reese shows up in time to help Shaw and seconds later Hersh also shows up, late to the party.

Root’s geeks find out that Vigilance has inserted a virus into the power grid, just in time for the power to go out across the city. In about an hour the whole city is starting to look like a scene from Revolution with horrific traffic and people panicking.

2010 – Collier is talking with his brother’s wife. His brother has killed himself. At the funeral, the man from the surveillance pictures approaches Collier and tells him that he’s a friend of is brother, Jessie, and gives him Jessie’s two year sober chip. Jessie was his AA sponsor and saved his life.

Finch finds out that Greer used to be MI-6. Apparently he’s fed up with the world’s current leaders and thinks Samaritan would be a much better ruler.

Root heads to New Jersey to avoid the blackout. She talks to the Machine and gets the final of the 5 numbers – it’s Greer, which means Finch is also in danger as Vigilance is after Greer and Finch. Root tells Shaw that Hersh knows where Greer is. Reese and Shaw try to convince Hersh that they are trying to save Control, not kill him.

Meanwhile, Greer is meeting with the Senator when Vigilance arrives. Collier’s happy to see that Finch is also present and abducts him. Reese and Shaw show up way too late. Collier comes over a TV screen and they see him in a live video – he’s putting the US government on trial in a way very reminiscent of Islamic terrorist videos.

2010 – Collier meets with a federal prosecutor and tells her that his brother was innocent but obviously it’s too late. As he leaves, he gets two anonymous text messages promising him answers.

Root takes her tech guys to the location where Samaritan is.

My Thoughts:

As I’ve frequently said, one of the most intriguing aspects of POI has always been the complicated morality. This episode finally provided us some back story on Collier that made him seem much more human. It also lead us to believe that Greer’s desire for Samaritan, while not necessarily altruistic, may not be based in greed, either, as I had assumed. Clearly both men (and also Finch, Root, Shaw, and Reese) are in their current positions because of how they reacted to formative events in their lives.

Speaking of morality and characters becoming more human, somewhere in the past dozen episodes Root went from being a conniving psychopath to someone who almost seems like part of the team. It’s easy to forget that she likes to torture people and held Finch captive at the end of Season 1. While her relationship with the Machine is interesting enough, I kind of miss the really crazy Root and I can’t shake the feeling that she’s not long for the world once her work for the Machine is done.

Next week’s “surveillance on trial” finale looks to be intense, and dare I say it “a game changer” for the series. Here’s hoping it lives up to the hype.

Memorable Quotes:

This is really what the Machine wants us to do? Drink really bad coffee with unemployed college grads? – Reese

Control just went in for the full court press on total world domination. Can I kill her now? -Shaw

Long time, no gunfire! – Shaw

Why are you protecting me? – Control
Honestly, I really don’t know. – Shaw

Catch the season finale of Person of Interest next Tuesday at 10/9c on CBS!