Summary: Flashbacks reveal that Stanton survived the blast and was hospitalized. She is met by a mysterious man who offers her revenge. Carter escapes the scene of Donnelly's death and notices Reese is gone. Fusco gets involved and learns what happened. Finch tries to locate Reese to save him. Reese awakens wearing a bomb vest with Stanton and Snow. Stanton tasks him with obtaining a specific hard drive from a secret laboratory. Reese deduces that Stanton is trying to get a cyber weapon and secretly deletes the drive data to Snow's chagrin. Stanton reveals she actually wanted to upload something to the laboratory instead. She triggers the bomb vests and Snow and Reese are both on borrowed time. Finch arrives and manages to defuse Reese's bomb. Stanton gets a call from the man and receives a name to get revenge. Snow shows up in her car and the bomb blows up, killing both of them. The name is revealed to be Finch.
The Good: It was always going to be hard to follow the prior episode, but this did a damn good job. While the episode isn't as relentlessly intense as "Prisoner's Dilemma", it follows a more basic method of building up to a climax which then delivers as much of a bang (literally) as possible. This ended up being a very smart approach since it ensures that this episode won't be overshadowed by doing a completely different story. And the story was really great. Stanton was excellent in this episode, and while I was saddened to see her go so soon (see: The Bad), her storyline has successfully set up yet another mysterious background character who will most certainly be showing up again. It's good to know that Stanton was just the beginning of a storyline which is even larger in scale than I initially imagined (see: The Unknown). Stanton's story was really good too. Her character works really well in opposition to Reese. Stanton is everything Reese isn't. She is a psychopathic monster and perfectly fits with the description of Reese that Donnelly gave in the previous episode. She comes off as pure, cold evil and Annie Parisse plays the role extremely well. I think Stanton works so much better as a villain than Donnelly due to her connections to Reese, her charismatic personality and the background she is given in this episode to give her some motivation. We learn that Stanton is entirely driven by vengeance towards the people that tried to murder her. It gives her some necessary depth and makes her overall goal in the episode more interesting. I enjoyed the main plot line a lot. Watching Reese and Snow work together to do Stanton's dirty work was fairly enjoyable. There were some fun sequences and I really enjoyed all of the three way conversations between Reese, Stanton and Snow. The tension slowly built up as Reese continued to defy Stanton and I was waiting for the ball to drop by the end of the episode. It all happened at the DoD lab when Reese fully started to go against Stanton after he lost contact with her. The scenes at the DoD were very tense and I liked the action scenes. The brief fight between Snow and Reese was great, as was Stanton's sudden arrival, revealing that she wasn't after a cyber weapon after all. It was an effective twist and raises a lot of great questions (see: The Unknown). The final stretch of the episode was superb. Stanton armed both Reese and Snow and they both turned into time bombs ready to explode. Reese resigning to his fate was sad, especially as he dismissed Carter and Fusco to head to the roof, where Finch was naturally just there. Then we got a lovely sequence as Finch defused the bomb (I caught that subtle nod to "Goldfinger"). The scene wasn't tense since I was fairly sure that Reese wasn't going to die. Instead it was emotional and was all about the risks Finch was willing to take to ensure Reese doesn't die. We have heard over and over how much Finch means to Reese (he gave me a purpose), but we don't often get these long emotional scenes that show how important Reese is to Finch. This scene effectively conveyed those emotions in a big way. On the other side of the episode's climax was Snow and Stanton. I thought their deaths were very well written. Snow was given a great final line, and having him kill Stanton as well as himself was a fitting end to his character. I also enjoyed the detail that Snow chose not to kill Reese. It seems that Reese's insistence on not killing anybody changed Snow's opinion of him. Stanton was too dangerous to keep alive, but Reese had become a decent man. Then, there was that amazing cliffhanger. Honestly, Finch had lost most of the mystery surrounding his character this season. He had become just another member of the crew, and while I still enjoyed him, he wasn't as fascinating to me as he was in season 1. This episode rejuvenated his mystery in a big way. The final reveal that he sold this mysterious laptop and is apparently the target of this mysterious new corporation is really big and I cannot wait to learn more. As a final point, I liked the first few scenes with Carter and Fusco too. Carter making her escape was suitably tense and I really liked that Fusco got involved with the main story through something as simple as finding Carter's missing earring at a crime scene. The Bad: Well that's the third time we have seen the same Ordos flashback. I don't think I need to see that flashback ever again. Having Carter, Fusco and Finch just show up at a building that has a bomb threat was really bad. The cops were blocking people from going up the elevators but apparently nobody was watching the stairs which is dumb. Furthermore, there was a lot of security preventing people from taking the elevator up to the 21st floor. Yet Carter and Fusco can just walk up some random staircase and get all the way up there somehow. And Finch can just teleport to the top of 20 story buildings at will apparently. It was disappointing to lose Stanton so quickly. There was so much build up for her character, and her role as a villain was too good to be used up so quickly. Even though her story did build up another set of bad guys, I feel like more should have been done with her character. With both Snow and Stanton dead now, it feels like Reese's past has just been brushed under the rug. The Unknown: Who is the man who has the laptop now? What are his motives? He had Stanton upload something at the laboratory. What was it? Will it affect the Machine? How does he know Finch? Apparently he works for Decima Technologies. What does the corporation do? Is it a British corporation? Does that mean it ties in with Wesley? What are Finch's ties with Decima? What has he done in the past? What is on the laptop and why did he sell it? Did he program whatever it is that is on the laptop? Best Moment: Finch defusing Reese was fantastic. Character of the Episode: Stanton. Conclusion: This was another great episode. It built up nicely, felt important and had a terrific climax while also opening up several big mysteries for the show to explore. A great hour of television. Score: 71
2 Comments
Ben
2/24/2019 10:57:26 am
The representative of Decima Technologies is played by British actor, John Nolan, who is the uncle of the Nolan brothers. He frequently has small roles in their projects, but his character in Person of Interest is a very interesting one. I possibly enjoy this episode even more than the previous one. I really like the dialogue between John Nolan's character and Stanton in the hospital about the Titans, it's the beginning of a very important story, and the scene with Finch and Reese atop the roof is one of my favourites in the whole show. Reese thanks Finch later in the episode for pulling him out the gutter, and Finch says not to mention it; it's a line that has a whole new meaning once we learn that Finch sold the laptop. Presumably, Finch give Reese a life line, not just because he required his skills, but because he felt largely responsible for what happened to Reese. I never thought much about Snow's character, but I think you're right about him changing his mind about John and probably deciding the world was better off with him in it, as opposed to Stanton who the world would be better off without.
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Aaron
2/24/2019 11:25:09 am
Interesting details about the casting of the man from Decima Technologies. I hope to see more of John Nolan going forwards. Great analysis on the Reese/Finch scenes. The depth of their interactions is wonderful to see and it makes the episode feel even better when you start thinking about it.
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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