Summary: In flashbacks, Collier is chosen for Vigilance and is pushed to do big things to make a difference by the mysterious texts. In the present, Collier begins his trial of all of the government people. Rivera is killed immediately after Collier judges him guilty. Collier threatens to kill Control next when she refuses to answer his questions. Finch intervenes and reveals that he built the Machine to the public. Reese and Hersh get to the courthouse area and start fighting Vigilance members. Hersh discovers a massive bomb. Shaw joins Root to help her in her mission. Decima men attack Collier and defeat his men, kidnapping him. Greer reveals that he orchestrated Vigilance and planned for this to happen. He has planted a bomb and will blame Vigilance for it. The bomb goes off and Hersh dies trying to stop it. Greer kills Collier. Reese frees Finch but Greer gets away. Root sets up the servers in Samaritan but she is unable to shut it down because there are 100 other facilities. She has set up 7 new identities for herself, Shaw, Finch, Reese and the 3 hackers so they can hide from Samaritan. Greer calls Garrison who agrees that Samaritan must be activated. Samaritan is finally activated at the end as Root, Reese, Shaw and Finch all part ways to stay alive.
The Good: Well, a hell of a lot of stuff happened here. This must be the craziest episodes of the show in terms of what happened, the pace at which it happened, and the effect that this one episode will have on the show as a whole. This was an actual game-changer of an episode. From the get-go everything is intense and dramatic. The trial was pretty good and it led to a few really cool moments. The biased nature of the trial was established immediately, and Collier's murder of Rivera established a sense of danger for Finch. It became pretty tense right away and I was curious to see what information would go public. I thought there were good character moments for Control and Finch. Control showed some heart and proved to be a loyal servant of the United States as she refused to give away information and also stuck up for Finch. While Finch had an even better moment when he decides to repay Control's act by saving her life. Finch had to weigh his morals as he had to choose between the secrecy of the Machine or another human life. Finch is ultimately forced to reveal his secret to the public in a pretty good scene, once more choosing to save a life over protecting the Machine. Furthermore, the argument with Collier over the pros and cons of surveillance is a really strong scene. The best stuff of the episode came after the trial. Once things fell apart, Greer took total control of the situation. Last episode I addressed how Vigilance being the true threat was a fantastic twist that turned a side-story into something much more engrossing and important. But that was just another misdirection as we got the shocking reveal that Decima actually orchestrated everything about Vigilance. The reveal felt important, made sense and tied up the many loose ends, even explaining how Vigilance got all of their information in previous episodes. It's a surprisingly good twist and explanation, so good that I'm surprised I didn't see it coming. What makes the twist better is the emotional resonance it has on Collier's overall story. His life ended up being really tragic in the end, and the twist completely stripped away everything he had worked so hard to accomplish in the last 4 years. This trial was his dream and he was clearly enjoying the trial which was the culmination of all of his plans. This was his ultimate victory, even if he died, the world would understand the truth. To take this away by revealing that the broadcast never even happened is heartbreaking, and it's made even worse when Collier realizes that everything he had done for the past 4 years had been for nothing, and only served to further the agendas of his enemies. His entire campaign was meaningless. It's a heartbreaking moment and it's impossible to not feel some sympathy for Collier in this scene. Greer goes the extra mile to cement himself as a despicable villain though. Collier firmly believed he was doing the right thing, never killing innocents. Greer could have killed him while he still believed this. But instead Collier is allowed to live long enough to see Vigilance's name tarnished as just another evil terrorist group as a bomb goes off, taking tons of lives with it. After dedicating the last 4 years of his life for a cause that he believed to be just, Collier got absolutely nothing in return. The most shocking thing about this episode wasn't even the twist. It was the fact that Greer actually won. Vigilance played right into his hands and gave him the exact leverage he needed to activate Samaritan. The threat of Decima has never been greater because Reese, Finch and co. are all living in Greer's world. Or rather, Samaritan's world since Greer lived up to what he had said to Finch in the last episode and is letting Samaritan fully control things. Honestly, I never expected to see Samaritan coming fully online like this. I always assumed it would be a temporary 1-episode story. But that's not the case. The show took a massive leap that I wasn't expecting and permanently changed the landscape of the story by allowing Samaritan to activate. How many other shows would have the guts to pull off a major move like this? Not many, I'll tell you. The ending montage was one of the show's finest moments. The use of music was excellent (who doesn't love Radiohead), and it added to the haunting atmosphere of the entire sequence. Exit Music is a great song to accomplish this, and I recall it being used spectacularly back in an episode of "Black Mirror". Root's monologue may have been a little cheesy, but it definitely had heart to it and some of her lines definitely resonated with me, particularly the ending bit about Pandora's Box. The actual content of the montage was really heartbreaking too. After 3 seasons we have to leave the library, and it is every bit as emotional seeing the library destroyed as you might expect. The writers even throw in a picture of Carter to make it even sadder. Worse than this is seeing all of our heroes going their separate ways, forced to live a normal life. And they aren't doing this to save other lives; they're just saving themselves in a desperate act of survival. It's a painful defeat and it's rough to watch. Really powerful stuff. There are a few other things I loved about this episode. For one, the editing was really good. I've always liked the techno-Machine stuff the show does, and it was done astoundingly well in this episode. The cinematic effects seem to get a lot more creative during these season finales, and I liked the way that the show introduced Samaritan using some slightly different effects. I liked the character interactions as usual. Root and Shaw's side story was good fun and their flirty interactions are always a joy to watch. I also liked Fusco's brief scene. It served as a good way to foreshadow that the broadcast wasn't actually live while also reminding us that Fusco isn't aware of the Machine, which explains why Root didn't need to set him up with a new identity. Lastly, I really liked that Root mentioned that Samaritan couldn't be stopped since McCourt survived. It makes Finch's decision have some very real consequences. The Bad: It felt odd that Collier would be so emotional and aggressive during the trial rather than factual and calm. I understand that he has been waiting for this moment for a while, but surely he would want to provide a fair trial so that the general audience don't think of him as the bad guy. If he wants a revolution, surely he should provide more evidence on camera which would suggest that the government is guilty. Instead he goes for confessions at gunpoint and obviously frightened and biased jurors. It's hardly reliable and it makes me wonder why Collier didn't plan something a little more damning and fair. After all, the government are obviously guilty, so why not put more effort into proving it? Lastly, Collier totally lost that argument with Finch about surveillance. It makes him look really bad. Hersh's death was pretty disappointing. After all the hype surrounding his character in season 2, he did absolutely nothing of note in this season and we hardly got to see anything about his character. Furthermore, his stoic and badass vibe was sacrificed so he could make some dumb jokes like Reese. Reese's jokes are fun and in-character, but Hersh's feel like they were just tacked on to make him more likable before he died. Additionally, his death is practically meaningless since he accomplished nothing by dying. What was the point of his character if this was his pay-off? The Unknown: What are Samaritan's commands going to be? How will Decima enforce them? What happens with Reese and co.? Will they keep getting numbers and doing their job? Will they somehow stay in touch? Will the Machine help them? How do they plan to stop Samaritan? What lies in Control's future? Will she work with Decima then or will she have problems with listening to Samaritan? Best Moment: The ending montage was a stellar scene. One of the biggest scenes the show has ever had. Character of the Episode: Collier again. His tragedy is hard to overlook. Conclusion: This was an outstanding season finale that concluded the season in a near-perfect way. It's astonishing how significantly this one episode changed the entire scope of the series and I have to commend the ambition of the people behind the scenes. And even with such a heavy plot focus, the episode still stayed grounded in emotion, focusing on the effects that these events had on its characters and the emotions they would be feeling. This episode accomplished some really impressive feats and it ends up being one of my favourite episodes of the series. This season was undoubtedly the best of the show. The show strayed away from its usual formula in a vast majority of the episodes and that really helped the show. The serialized drama was always the best aspect of this series. The focus on Decima, Samaritan, HR and Vigilance throughout the season made it that much more gripping and interesting to watch with fewer weak episodes than both of the previous seasons. It's rare to see a show live up to its full potential, but "Person of Interest" is doing that right now. Even though there are still issues with predictability, dialogue and cheesiness at times, this show is being its best self and I'm having a blast watching it. Bring on season 4! Score: 81
1 Comment
Joe Y
8/14/2020 04:14:21 pm
"Liberty"-59 [=]
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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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