PERSON OF INTEREST RECAP: Root of the Issue

Person of Interest 3.17: /

Root has apparently been spending her time traveling the world, picking up specific people and using them for specific tasks, guided by the Machine. She busts a prisoner out of a prison transport bus (the always welcome Colin Donnell!) and uses him to impersonate a German man to obtain a top secret delivery from a US military official. She turns the guy back over to the cops and then takes a janitor out to breakfast at the Machine’s behest.

Later, walking with the janitor, Cyrus Wells, in a park, she runs into Finch – he’s also on the case as he got Cyrus’ number from the Machine. He thinks Root is going to get the man killed, but she’s confident she can protect him.

Apparently the Machine is very worried about the existence of Samaritan and Decima’s plan to bring it to life. Root assures Finch that Wells is safe and send him off with a cell phone ad for a male enhancement supplement (ha!) that is supposedly a message from the Machine.

Shaw camps out beneath Well’s apartment window while Root tries to get the reluctant man to pack a bag and leave. A sniper shot through his window changes his mind a bit. Shaw goes after the sniper while Root gets Wells out of the apartment. Before she can get any info out of the man, Vigilance snipes the sniper. Collier offers Shaw a change to “join or die” and get revenge on the government.

Finch decodes a message hidden in the supplement ad and realizes that Decima and Vigilance are apparently both after Wells. Root gets Wells arrested by framing him for throwing an egg at a police car. Fusco gets the charges dropped and tries to get Wells safely into Reese and Finch’s custody but before he can Root shows up with an FBI badge and a federal warrant (because she can!).

Root finds out from Wells that his best friends used to own a financial services firm and their company really boomed when other companies failed. Sometime later, a gunman came into the office and shot 5 people, killing his best friends and putting Wells in the ICU. The gunman was never caught.

Reese walks by a ringing payphone – it’s Root. She wants him to trust her, fat chance of that and he’s quickly proven right. Decima uses a device to block the Machine’s communication with Root and then manages to abduct Wells before Reese can get to him.

Shaw is cornered by Vigilance men and Shaw gets treated to a recruitment speech from Collier. She’s not convinced and takes out his men while he escapes.

Finch learns that Wells is one of a small number of people who has retinal scan access to a certain door – it’s on the top floor of the building where he works. The company there is set up to handle some major computer processing power – it’s an NSA lab that has just invented the next generation computer processor. Turns out Samaritan crashed because there wasn’t a fast enough chip to run it. Now there is, and Wells is a pawn in Decima’s plan to acquire it.

Root tells Finch that she lost her link to the Machine. She needs him to help her set up a new link. She believes that there was never a God or a plan until the Machine was invented. She tells him that Well’s friends died and he was injured because someone wanted them dead… and paid *her* 15 million to do it.

She also tells Finch that in the first 30 minutes after Samaritan comes online, lots of people will die, but the first 4 will be her, him, Reese (the “helper monkey”), and Shaw. She tells Finch that she’s doing “all of this” to save him.

After leaving Finch, she goes to the office of an otolaryngologist and forces him to fix her ear by placing a cochlear implant that Finch set up for her, giving her a direct connection again to the Machine.

Decima uses Wells to open the door to the NSA facility and then they are about to kill him when Reese and Fusco show up. Root arrives and Decima tries to use their signal blocker but it doesn’t work on the cochlear implant. Root gets Wells out (and gets shot doing so) while Reese and Fusco continue the firefight with Decima men. Unfortunately, during the fight, Decima gets the chip.

Finch helps Wells to disappear. Root asks Finch whether having her work with Wells was intentional. The Machine won’t tell her, but neither will Finch. She tells him that she needs to catch a plane to Paraguay. Finch suggests that they collaborate, but her ride (Fusco) has arrived.

My Thoughts:

Hats off to Amy Acker – as usual, she manages to play Root so she’s absolutely insane and diabolical, yet completely believable and likable at the same time. This week’s episode was a study in contrasts – Root and Shaw are very similar, yet definitely different in ways that matter. Root and Finch are also very similar, yet they took very different paths.

One of my favorite aspects of POI is moral ambiguity – how do we separate Root, who has done so many horrible things, from Finch whose actions have caused similar traumas, despite his lack of intent? In a lot of ways, they want the same thing, but for different reasons. Yet, for this biggest mission, the Machine seems to have picked Root – why?

Reese (and also Shaw) was underutilized in this episode, but Root steals the show to such an extent that I really didn’t miss him all that much. It seems that the season finale will likely bring us the rise of Samaritan and potentially we’ll see what happens when “Gods go to war”. With the not-surprising news that POI has been renewed for a 4th season, I wonder where the show will go from here.  Based on the last three seasons, I think we can trust the powers that be that it will be an exciting ride!

Memorable Quotes:

Where were you when I got busted? – prisoner
Bridgestone psychiatric facility – Root

Did you not hear about my chat with Control? She’s fun, in an unnecessary stapedectomy kind of way – Root

Do you really want to see what it looks like when two Gods go to war? – Root

I know it seems weird, but I’m one of the good guys now, Harold – Root

Hey, nice try Coco Puffs – Fusco

What was I supposed to say? Sorry boss, Agent King is actually a super powered nutball, just ask my buddy, the urban legend – Fusco

If anyone would know about hubris, it would be the man who built God. She’s worried about you, Harold. – Root

By your own definition, Cyrus is irrelevant. Everyone is relevant to someone. – Finch

How badly did you have to break it to make it care about people so much? – Root
That didn’t break it, it’s what made it work – Finch

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