Summary: HR puts out a hit on Reese to get him killed. Reese and Carter traverse the city secretly with Quinn while Finch sends Shaw and Fusco to find them. Reese and Carter end up holed up in a morgue. Fusco gets captured by HR and is tortured to reveal where Carter's evidence is. HR try to kill his son Lee, but Shaw intervenes and saves Lee. Fusco escapes and kills his captor. Reese and Carter kiss. Reese uses himself as a decoy so Carter can leave. Finch helps out too. Reese is arrested by good cops and Carter makes it to the feds and turns Quinn in. Carter goes to free Reese and they leave together but suddenly Simmons arrives and shoots Reese and Carter, killing Carter.
The Good: I'll address the big point first. After last episode and the conflict seemingly being resolved in this episode, I thought the episode would end peacefully. Carter's sudden death came right out of nowhere and totally stunned me, ending the episode in a big emotional way, and making me absolutely loathe Simmons, a character who I already disliked. It was an excellent cliffhanger and an unexpected death that closed out Carter's story in a tragic way. I especially like the way the death scene was executed. Reese's tears mixed with Finch's shellshocked face as the phone rings in the background was chilling, and helped make this death scene so memorable and affecting. It will go down as one of the show's best scenes so far. The rest of the episode had some lovely moments too. I loved the callbacks to the pilot episode with Reese and Carter's final conversation as well as the subway scene. I also thought that the commercial break cutting between Reese getting confronted on the subway and him disposing of the knocked out bodies was an excellent transition. The action was enjoyable for the most part. The episode had lots of momentum with the desperate attempt to get Quinn to the feds and Shaw's attempt to save Fusco. The storylines were told and developed nicely as the episode went on. I really liked Shaw choosing to save Fusco's child and earning some respect from him as a result. It was a nice little background story that developed their story really like. I could watch Finch as the awkward action hero for days on end; his scene tasing the guard was hilarious. There was great tension created by Quinn, and I enjoyed his little acts to help himself, like breaking Reese's phone and leaving a handprint on the ambulance. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the Finch and Root scenes were spectacular. Finch was left with a tough decision to make, and that created some great suspense. Root was also nice and persuasive, making me believe that Finch may let her go. It's telling of his character that Finch doesn't give in to her offer, instead choosing to go help Reese himself, and it also led to some good drama. The Bad: Having Reese and Carter fall in love was really bad. The story wasn't built up properly at all and it happened just out of nowhere. This really annoys me because it ruined what I love about their relationship to begin with, plus I just can't buy into them as a couple. Furthermore, the entire development seems pointless since Carter dies at the end. It seems like a weak attempt to make us sympathize more with Reese when Carter dies. Yet this is insulting, because it shows that the writers assume that we won't feel bad for Reese losing Carter unless they are in love. The Fusco storyline doesn't work that well. The torture bits are pretty tense, but the resolution wasn't very satisfying. Introducing this new guy to torture him felt like a weak way to give him some revenge on HR. It really should have been Simmons that was beaten by Fusco since Fusco's story with him has been ongoing for so long. I thought Lee's involvement was poor. The show only gives screen time to Lee and Taylor when they can be used for leverage which I think is a really poor way to utilize characters. We hadn't seen Lee for so long that I actually forgot he existed, so when he appeared, I knew that he would be leveraged against Fusco. It's a bad habit of the show. Had it not been for the Fusco/Shaw developments, this side story would have been a total waste. HR were disappointing as villains, and I thought that Quinn was defeated far too easily. One of the reasons I love "Prisoner's Dilemma" so much is because of how intelligent and threatening Donnelly was. Reese was in a real pickle, and I think the most satisfying thing was how he was actually unable to fully escape because of how capable Donnelly was. In this episode, Reese and Carter are in a similar pickle with the capable HR literally surrounding them and infiltrating the building. Yet they become so incapable so fast despite all of their power. It seems like they all enter the main building and none of them attempt to blockade the federal building that Carter was trying to get to. Somehow Reese and Carter aren't located in the morgue (all they had to do was locate the one room with the light on, come on), and somehow all the cops are distracted on Reese and Finch (even though we only see one cop after Reese). It's not clear how Carter evaded all of them, and it makes them all look especially incompetent. The Unknown: Is HR actually put away now or will they still kick around? We know that Simmons is still around, but does he have anyone else? What happens to Quinn? Is he really taken down? Best Moment: Carter's death was one of the show's best moments. Character of the Episode: Carter. I'll miss her. Conclusion: This episode was tense and had some awesome moments, particularly the ending. But the episode indulged in many of the worst drama tropes, making it more of a mixed bag of an episode than I was expecting. Sure, it was an exciting episode, but I was expecting better. Score: 68
2 Comments
Ben
4/3/2019 02:03:38 am
Interestingly, the kiss between Reese and Carter wasn’t actually in the script. It was improvised by Jim Caviezel during shooting, and Taraji Henson went with it because she too felt it was fitting for their characters. Both actors felt they were just reading between the lines. Personally, I agree with you. I think it wasn’t built up to enough, and the episode would have been stronger without it. I still think it's a great episode though. What I like most about it is that it seems like any number of the characters could die at any point. CBS had been releasing teasers and promos all season that someone was going to die. Last episode, it seemed for sure that it was going to be Carter, but then there comes a point this episode when you think she's safe and it might be Fusco, and there came a point when I even started to wonder if it would be John, especially after Root reveals that Finch had other helpers before him. Shaw saving Fusco's son is one of my favourite moments of the show, but I agree it would have been more effective if the boy had been utilised more during other episodes.
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Aaron
4/4/2019 11:36:37 am
Great points about the feeling that characters could die at any moment. Of course, I wasn't aware about the promos while watching the episode, but it sounds like they really added to the experience. "The Walking Dead" tried something similar in season 9 and it failed miserably. But on a show like "Person of Interest" which is so good at misdirections, I can certainly see why it would work so well. I'll definitely need to give the episode another watch with the knowledge that I'm supposed to be expecting someone to die.
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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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