Summary: Flashbacks show Greer's past as a spy. In the present, the crew gets back to doing POI missions but notice that Samaritan is taking care of irrelevant numbers for them. Root meets with Lambert who sends a message that Samaritan wants to speak with the Machine. The Machine refuses so Samaritan continues reducing the crime rate. The next day, Samaritan causes total chaos and the crime rate skyrockets. The Machine agrees to a meeting. Root meets with Samaritan's avatar and they reach an impasse. Samaritan decides to go to war. Shaw goes out into the city to help with the increased crime rate.
The Good: This is how you do a set-up episode. For most shows, an episode which sets up a storyline fails to reach greatness, and is often overshadowed by the big climax. But "Person of Interest" has found a way to make set-up episodes hit a new high with expert use of its signature strengths like wonderful little character moments, a frenetic pace and philosophical discussions to name a few. This episode used all of the show's strongest tools to become something really special and feel like a climax of its own even though it is certainly just preparing for something bigger. The set-up was so enthralling to watch here. I absolutely loved the whole cold war that went on throughout the episode with Samaritan literally toying with humanity by proving a point to the Machine. It was the most Samaritan has ever felt like an actual character, and it impressively made me feel the tension and danger that I was expecting from a world living at the mercy of an AI overlord. Samaritan's methods were very cool to watch. I liked seeing it save the POIs on the first day, and cooler than that was how Samaritan completely threw the world into chaos the next day with some simple information leaks and nothing more. The not-so-subtle messages from Samaritan led into the huge climax of the episode where the two main deities of the series interacted one-on-one for the first time ever. There's no denying that this moment was huge for the show, and for the most part (see: The Bad), it delivered the goods. The scene was shot very well and I thought that it had a lovely atmosphere which unsettled me. The content of discussion was great and I loved the idea of two machines having a verbal spat about differing views that were programmed into them. I also really like the idea that both Samaritan and The Machine's motives were clearly stated for us to understand. Knowing what these two gods want to accomplish helps us understand their conflict much better and adds stakes to any Machine vs Samaritan drama that would follow. As for the rest of the episode, it was fantastic. The opening scenes of the episode were really good. It's a very strong use of the show's characters to create a fun intro that gets me excited to see more while also making me laugh. The interactions were strong, and while some things were cheesy, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Somehow this show has found a way to make cheesiness a staple of what it is without it being a bad thing. That's a remarkable feat, and I'm honestly pretty surprised that I enjoy it as much as I do. Had I watched the cheesier parts of this episode before I watched the show, I would have scoffed and dismissed this show as stupid. But the show won me over, and now the stupidly cheesy scenes are a joy to watch, and the episode was practically filled with them (the opening scene, Reese and Fusco, the church scene, etc.). The three-way philosophical discussion in this episode was superb. It reminded me of the ending section of "A House Divided" with the way that Finch, Root and Shaw all gave their opinions on the usefulness of an AI ruling the world. It was really nice to see the characters acknowledging this as a possibility, and all three of them were consistent with their known beliefs and morals when arguing their points. The dialogue on this show is hit or miss, but thankfully the writers always bring their A-game for big scenes like this. The flashbacks were a ton of fun too. I enjoyed the spy-thriller story that was given for Greer and it made for a really fun background story to the episode. Greer was given a nice backstory to let us know why he believes that putting a machine in control is way better than untrustworthy humans. I thoroughly enjoyed these brief scenes and I would love to see more like this, perhaps showing how Greer became the head of Decima. The Bad: Unfortunately the big meeting fell a bit flat because of the acting (and likely the directing too). For a scene with two AIs speaking, the interactions felt far too human for my liking. The kid actor was poor and Amy Acker is horribly out of her natural environment playing a robotic character since she has too much natural charisma for that. The two beings felt too emotional and human, and I feel like there was a much better way to have this conversation take place. Furthermore, I'm not sure that I like Samaritan's motives. Samaritan is a machine that was programmed not to have morals, so it feels very odd that it is naturally so pessimistic towards humans. I would be able to buy into this if I see Samaritan experiencing human nature, and turning against them because of it. But we don't have any scenes of Samaritan forming these beliefs, so its motives feel awkward and out of place. Greer's decreased role this season is a bit disappointing. With Samaritan becoming a fully fleshed out character, and Martine being its prime operator, where does that leave Greer? He hasn't had anything interesting to do since the end of season 3 and I don't find myself as engaged in him as a villain as I was before. He isn't even the brains behind the operation since Samaritan is making all of the decisions now. He just doesn't have anything to do anymore. Hopefully the show can correct this like it did with Elias. The Unknown: What are Samaritan's next plans? How does it plan to attack the Machine? What is the strength that Greer wants Samaritan to unleash? Was it the stock market crash? What will be accomplished from this, other than financial ruin? Did Root make it out of the meeting okay? Will she be fine? How about Shaw? Where has she gone? Will she be able to stay out of sight? Best Moment: The three-way discussion between Finch, Shaw and Root was an outstanding moment. Shaw is much more open about Samaritan ruling than Finch, which makes sense since she is an operative and hasn't really gotten a taste of leadership herself. But Finch, someone who has experienced more about leadership and philosophy than both Root and Shaw persists in his belief that Samaritan is definitely a bad thing for humanity. Character of the Episode: Root. Conclusion: This was an outstanding set-up episode. There was enough story to make this episode stand alone, and the fact that it seemingly sets up bigger things is the icing on the cake. Had the meeting between gods been a little better, I likely would have gone closer to (or maybe even over) an 80 for the craftsmanship and emotion that went into this episode. However, that shouldn't detract from the fact that this is still a seminal episode that does countless things right. The first part to this season was quite strong. Like all of the other seasons, this one is a slow out of the gates and it stumbled badly at a few points. Like all previous seasons, there were quite a few classic POI episodes, and most of those are only able to be good at best. But these last two episodes repaid my continued faith in the show and they suggest some really epic storylines to carry us to the season finale, and I cannot wait to see more. While not as strong as season 3's first half, this half-season was fairly entertaining. Score: 77
5 Comments
Ben
6/4/2019 11:27:50 am
I'll be honest, I was quite disappointed with the flashbacks this episode, but maybe that's just because I had been looking forward to Greer's backstory since last season and had unreasonable expectations. I have to say though, I didn't enjoy them very much and thought they didn't reveal anything we couldn't have already guessed from his conversation with Finch in A House Divided. Overall, I thought that episode revealed a lot more about this character than this one did. It also didn't help that he didn't have any significant scenes in the present-day. I was more looking forward though to his history with Decima and learning about how he came to believe an AI would be worthy of his devotion (we already knew that he longer trusted blind loyalty to individual countries, so that was the more interesting question). I enjoyed the episode more on rewatch, but it was quite a disappointment for me the first time.
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Aaronic
6/4/2019 03:43:56 pm
The reason the flashbacks worked for me is because I feel like there is more to his story. If not, that is pretty disappointing. I definitely agree that this episode didn't do much for Greer as a character. Despite the flashbacks, I never felt like the actual focus of this episode was on Greer. I enjoyed the episode so much because of other things.
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Joe Y
3/30/2022 02:18:49 pm
I agree with Ben's comment from a few years ago that there's definitely a piece missing from Greer's backstory, but I don't necessarily think that's the biggest problem in the world. It would've been nice to see how he built Decima to the point where it became so powerful, we're not really meant to find him all that sympathetic on a personal level. Aside from that, and the big scene with the young boy misfiring slightly, I agree with your original assessment (despite the fact that I know you think you overrated this episode in hindsight). It's interesting that this was primarily conceived to temporarily write off Shahi, because, for a set-up episode, it's remarkably well paced, packed with interesting ideas, dialogue, and wonderful little character moments ("How's your day going, honey?"). That's something that I feel is increasingly being phased out with tv--nowadays it seems like episodes all blend together instead of standing on their own as a satisfying unit.
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Aaronic
3/30/2022 05:40:39 pm
Thanks for your thoughts as always Joe. I agree with your last line a whole lot. With 10-13 episode seasons (or less!) being so dominant nowadays, it's hard to find episodes that stand on their own and feel special above the rest. It's a shame that finding TV shows that value stand-alone episodes is so difficult.
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Joe Y
4/7/2022 12:59:08 pm
Yes. It's strange. Because shows like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Leftovers still remember to make those episodes stand out and tell their own stories even as they all fit together in really clever ways. I vividly recall "One Minute", "Half Measures", "Ozymandias", "Chicanery", "International Assassin", "Certified", etc. But other, lesser shows just end up blending together into mediocrity. I remember Jonathan Nolan specifically saying that he liked the 23 episode season model despite the high workload because it allowed the writers to move the story forward exactly as it needed. Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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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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