Summary: Control captures a woman, Shelly, who she accuses of being in contact with Samaritan. Despite initially protesting innocence, Shelly gives in and tells Control that Samaritan is planning something called The Correction. Control kills her. The next POIs are Elias and Dominic. Reese and Fusco intervene by contacting Elias but they are both captured by Dominic, along with Elias. Harper has sold them out. All three are tortured for information that Dominic wants. Elias tricks Dominic into thinking that the Brotherhood has a mole, so Dominic kills Link. Laughing, Elias reveals his ploy. Root and Finch get a call from Shaw and track it to a psychiatric ward. They soon discover they found Samaritan's headquarters when Root sees Greer. Root is too late to save Shaw and is captured by Martine and others. Once confined, Root kills Martine as a final act of resilience Greer captures Finch and intends to threaten both their lives so The Machine reveals its location. The Machine gives in and Finch and Root are freed. Samaritan dispatches men to hunt down The Machine.
The Good: This episode was divided into 3 distinct storylines, all very interesting. The episode starts off with a rapid pace and continues to build until all 3 storylines reach a pivotal moment, perfectly setting up the season's endgame. Root and Finch's story was the strongest of the three. Their mission through the psych ward was very tense and it was packed with lovely moments, whether it was the lightheartedness of Finch faking schizophrenia or the heartbreaking close encounter Root had with Shaw. The show also knew when to raise the stakes throughout the episode. The urgency was there from the beginning to save Shaw, and the stakes became more and more intense as you quickly realize that Root and Finch's lives are on the line, and ultimately at the end that the fate of The Machine is on the line. It's a very natural progression that escalates the tension throughout the hour. A lot of the character moments were really nice. I really liked that Root threatened her own life to force the Machine to give her admin access. I laughed when Root got her petty revenge by killing Martine. I thought that Root begging The Machine not to let itself die was very well done, and carried and impressive amount of weight. The Machine saying that it won't fail Finch and Root was a pleasant surprise and an unexpectedly human moment for an all-powerful AI. I'm pleased to get back to the war between Elias and Dominic. I thought that the motives of the Brotherhood made a lot of sense here as their infatuation with Reese and Fusco does have a deeper purpose: they want the system that Finch has been using. I really enjoyed the torture scenes as they didn't go overboard, but still made it clear how far the Brotherhood is willing to go to get what they want. I also enjoyed how each of the 3 characters who were tortured got to show their grit in three very different ways. I really liked the ending where Elias tricked Dominic into killing Link, giving him some great revenge for Anthony's death. I get the sense that Elias never really wanted to defeat Dominic and was more than pleased by just giving him a piece of his own medicine. Control's story was the simplest, but still was very interesting. She interrogated Shelly, a teacher who worked for Samaritan. I enjoyed the interrogation scenes, especially when Control saw through Shelly's act and got her to reveal some secrets. All the talk about The Correction was very interesting and added to the build-up to the finale when we will likely see this event take place (see: The Unknown). The Bad: This episode was a part 1 and it felt like it. Outside of some excellent moments in the Root/Shaw story, nothing was fully resolved here and the episode was all about building hype while paying off very little - that pay-off will be saved for the next episode. While I take no problems with some set-up, it doesn't allow the episode to really stand on its own despite having a lot of good things going for it. This episode reminded me a lot of "Zero Day" in that regard. It was very awkward going from the melancholy and beautiful "Terra Incognita" into this fast-paced frenzy of an episode. I found myself wishing that we got to see some follow-up to the events of the previous episode, especially considering how good of an episode that was. To ignore one of the show's greatest episodes completely is a mistake in my opinion. I wasn't happy with Elias getting captured again. For some huge villain with a lot of power, he never seems to actually have very much control over things. He comes off pretty weak and he's beginning to lose credibility in my eyes. We have seen him get bested easily so many times, and it does bother me that Elias' great plan to get revenge is to just get captured once again. It seems that Elias is incapable of actually winning a battle because he is never shown with any more than 5 men working for him, which is absurd. Martine's death was a total disappointment. After the show did such an outstanding job building her up in the first half of the season, her conclusion came across about as well as a wet fart. She just fizzled out of existence for a while and returned only to get completely outclassed by Root (twice!). This was a really disappointing ending for a villain that caught my interest in the first half of the season. The Unknown: What is The Correction? Is it really a terrorist attack by Samaritan? What will be the consequences of this event? Where is The Machine located? Will Finch and Root be able to get there in time to save it? How will Reese, Fusco and Elias escape from the Brotherhood? Will Dominic be made aware of Samaritan? How will the Brotherhood factor into this season's endgame? If Harper was getting texts from The Machine, why did The Machine allow her to throw in her lot with the Brotherhood? Where was Shaw taken? Did they really break her? How? What else did she reveal? Best Moment: Root begging The Machine not to give up and that they are all replaceable was a very sad and human moment. Better yet was when The Machine responded and in the riskiest moment since its creation, it affirmed to Finch that it is worth trusting and does care about all of its crew. Character of the Episode: Root. Conclusion: This was a fast-paced episode that did a whole lot of set-up. Some moments really shined and were tremendously powerful, though the episode had some pretty big flaws stemming from its overall structure. Score: 68
2 Comments
Joe Y
8/14/2020 10:52:48 am
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Aaronic
8/14/2020 11:04:20 am
Hey there, thank you for all the comments! I'm glad to see that you've been reading my reviews even though I likely disagree with a lot of your opinions. One thing I'd like to clarify: being a set-up episode isn't a bad thing in my eyes. But a set-up episode is fundamentally going to be weaker than a climactic episode in my opinion. I don't dislike set-up episodes, I'm just pointing out that because it's set-up, I won't be rating it as highly as I would an episode that has a lot of emotional pay-off.
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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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