Summary: Greer places a chip inside of Shaw's head. Shaw eventually stages an escape and successfully gets out but she is fragmented mentally from the chip. She orchestrates a trap to get the attention of Finch, and reunites with the crew. They remove the chip from her head and Root and Shaw have sex. However, the crew doesn't trust Shaw, frustrating her, plus her mind is still fragmented despite the chip being removed. Shaw calls Samaritan and they hastily form a plan. The team captures Greer and get the Samaritan kill switch from him. But it's a trap and Samaritan locates Finch's base and The Machine. Shaw kills Greer when he reveals that the whole thing was a set-up and Shaw is theirs. Shaw and Reese go to save Finch. Shaw's mind fragments again and she kills Reese. Shaw meets up with Root and can't bring herself to kill her. Shaw kills herself. However, this is all revealed to have occurred in a simulation as Samaritan attempts to break Shaw and get her to give away the location of The Machine.
The Good: It shouldn't come as a surprise that an episode that dedicates its entire runtime to Shaw is excellent. Like most shows, "Person of Interest" has been at its best when focusing on a single story ("Terra Incognita", "Relevance", and to an extent "Prisoner's Dilemma"). Shaw's story here is terrific and Sarah Shahi did a wonderful job with the role. We get to catch up with a beaten up and mentally unstable Shaw who has escaped Samaritan. The story is immediately engrossing with high stakes, high interest and the feeling that we are watching something out of the ordinary. I've consistently praised episodes of this show for these same reasons, so what is it that makes this episode so exceptional? I think the answer lies in Shaw herself. Along with an interesting plot, this episode shows us something unique from Shaw as she battles herself throughout the episode. Her random seizures were pretty terrifying, and her confusion and fear when she acts abnormally are quite scary. These moments build tension wonderfully and they give us a nice look at Shaw's character when she is faced with doing things that she wouldn't want to do like killing Greer, Reese and then Root. We learn more about her devotion and dedication from this episode, and it's genuinely heartening to see her fighting so hard to not give in to Samaritan even after going through this simulation almost 7,000 times. When given this exposition, it's very easy to understand why Shaw seems so tired and mentally drained throughout the episode. I imagine that after every simulation Shaw loses more and more of her fighting spirit. It's damn impressive that she has lasted this long and it says a lot about her character and the bond she has formed with the team. The exploration of Shaw's paranoia in the episode is pretty interesting, and it leads to some very good moments. I really liked the scenes of her trying to avoid Samaritan, such as the bits inside the taxi. I also thought her plans were very good. I particularly liked how she was able to draw Root and Reese to her as it was both clever and fitting with her badass personality. Better yet are the subtle parts of the episode where we see Shaw losing her mind, trapped and helpless while still trying to maintain her tough exterior. Her actions are strange, and even unhinged at times and that not only makes the episode more exciting and dramatic, but it also raises concerns about Shaw's character and how Samaritan may have changed her. Then we get to the wonderful ending twist. It may not have been the most surprising twist (I predicted it when Shaw killed Reese), but it was still very effective as a storytelling tool. A TV show doesn't need high stakes and constant plot movement to be effective. It just needs to tell a story. Even though the twist results in every scene of this episode accomplishing practically nothing for the plot, there is a concise story being told here, one that is powerful and affecting and I think that's what really matters. The twist doesn't kill the episode, rather it corrects some of the plot-related issues I had with the episode by making it clear that this is an episode that cares more about character instead of plot. Reflecting on the episode is so rewarding since many of the problems I had end up being hints/foreshadowing for the twist reveal. For example, at I thought this episode had weird dialogue for some characters, a very rushed plot and a lack of detail about what was happening. These actually ended up being very deliberate hints. The weird dialogue seems to stem from the fact that this is Samaritan and Shaw's interpretations of the characters rather than the actual people. The rushed plot comes from the fact that all of this is happening in Shaw's head. Of course every plan she comes up with will work smoothly, regardless of its flaws, because the execution of the plan is taking place in her head. I also loved the subtle hint of this since the trick Shaw uses to bring Root and Reese to her is actually the exact same thing she did to capture Greer. Shaw has never been particularly clever so it makes sense that she has to resort to the same trick twice. Root and Shaw's big scene also fits as subtle foreshadowing. Their scene is so awkward and overly-dramatic, coming off as more of a fantasy than an actual moment. Yet that is the point since we eventually realize this is all in Shaw's head. It's not a case of Shaw doing something out of character so that the show can force a sex scene, it's instead Shaw indulging the feelings that she holds in the back of her head. Plus it allows the writers to go with the hilariously dramatic plate-breaking throughout that scene which was pretty funny. As a side note, it's funny to think that the Samaritan agents have seen Root and Shaw have sex thousands of times by now. The best parts of the episode were Shaw's triad of kills. The first, the killing of Greer, was a pretty spectacular moment. The two of them had a wonderful conversation that escalated the drama hugely when it was revealed that Greer had orchestrated everything. It was a perfect Greer moment, the likes of which we haven't seen in a very long time. Furthermore, it gave us the surprising twist where Shaw has an outburst and murders Greer. This moment works so well because it is unexpected and it nicely sets up the idea of Shaw being used, but more fascinatingly, it plants that very idea into Shaw's head. Next up was Shaw suddenly killing Reese, which pays off of the idea of being a double agent being placed in Shaw's head. You can evidently see Shaw's fear throughout the entire sequence between her and Reese, and the cold-blooded killing is shockingly effective, even considering the fact that this moment was where I realized that everything was likely a simulation. Somehow the episode still got better though as Shaw's next test was killing Root. This scene between Root and Shaw was extremely sad and powerful, showing Shaw's willpower while also confirming that Shaw does care about Root, and by extension the team, more than herself. The Bad: I wish the episode had spent more time on the reunions between Shaw and the rest of the crew. I understand why they were cut short now, since they weren't actually real, but I still think that there should have been more of a reaction from Finch, Root and Reese when Shaw suddenly returned. as it stands, Shaw's return ended up being an awkward part of the episode that didn't have the same emotional resonance as the rest of the episode. The Unknown: Will Shaw break before she is rescued and reveal The Machine's location? Also, did Shaw actually break before this, or did Greer get all of his information from this simulation? Were all of Shaw's memories int he simulation genuine or were those planted in her mind as well? Is ther actually a chip in her brain? Did her memory of the playground actually exist? How about her memories of being tortured? Best Moment: Shaw admitting that Root was her safe place to go to when she was being tortured is really powerful and Sarah Shahi killed it. Character of the Episode: Shaw of course. Conclusion: This was outstanding by every definition of the word. This was a unique experience that managed to remain very interesting, suspenseful and emotional throughout. I think this is the best episode of the show so far. Score: 85
2 Comments
Ben
7/12/2019 02:32:37 am
I loved this episode too for all the same reasons. I'd put it in the top three of the show myself, along with "Relevance" and "If-Then-Else". It's a tired trope, but the show manages to make the whole simulation sequence work because it tells a genuine story that still feels as though it matters even if it wasn't "real". As much as I like John and Finch, I personally think Shaw and Greer are the best characters of the show so I always enjoy an episode that features either of them heavily. On a side-note, I also really like the title sequence this season with Finch and Greer's voice-overs combined.
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Joe Y
8/14/2020 05:15:55 pm
The twist in this episode lands so well because it's an insightful character study--not just a twist for the sake of it. It shows us how Samaritan views people and far Shaw's willing to go to save her friends. Really excellent stuff on every level.
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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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