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Person of Interest: Blunt

“Do you want some ice cream?”

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what to make of this episode.

Harper worked, even if she is another custom-order Team Machine applicant. The Brotherhood even sort of worked for me, which is hard to admit. Person of Interest has made them a toothless nemesis, but with Dominic’s foray into the legal security service business, the show seems to be working to correct that mistake. Trey’s classic stoner humor worked, and the banter between Reese and Finch really sparkled. So why am I left so unenthused?

Maybe it was that the episode was so all over the place. We went from a college campus to a dispensary to an armed robbery to a club to a kidnapping to a ransom, etc. Or perhaps it was the assorted villains? We had Harper, the cartel, and Dominic, which made for a bit of an overcrowded field.

It was a very unfocused, if ultimately enjoyable episode. And then what is going on with Root? She was in Sri Lanka, she mentioned recruiting more people to help in the fight against Samaritan, and tells Finch that the Machine wants her to make a “killer app.” The end of the episode sees Root joining up with a mysterious programmer, whose face we are clearly meant to know. If you were stumped, you weren’t alone. It turns out Caleb Phipps is the genius teenager Finch saved way back in season two’s “2 Pi R.” That’s a deep cut, Person of Interest. A really, really deep cut.

I wonder if Root’s app work at all relates to Dominic’s money laundering through gaming scheme. Finch mentioned that the money they used to pay off Dominic represented a big chunk of their funding. Is Root working on an alternate means of income for the team? Some way to upset Dominic’s stream of drug money? A highly addictive game with a kill screen that informs all players they are being watched by an all powerful artificial intelligence?

Bits and Pieces

This episode’s possible Shaw replacement: Harper the brilliant con woman. Pros: fearless, fond of violence, preposterously good at reading people. Cons: self-interested, a little bit of a sociopath.

This week in Fusco nicknames: Harper was Miss Mary Jane, Finch was Mr. Peabody, and Reese was Detective Sunshine.

Quotes

Finch: “Near as I can tell, college has been an overpriced bacchanalia full of entitled, oversexed binge drinkers.”

Reese: “Finch, how do you know so much about getting marijuana?”
Finch: “Mr. Reese, do you want me to call this in or not?”

Noah: “Some cop in a suit, when the shooting started, he came out of nowhere blasting everyone…”
Dominic: “…in the kneecaps.”

Harper: “My guess is former military with a side of hero complex.”

Fusco: “They know stuff.”
Harper: “Sounds very technical.”

Finch: “Detective Reilly and I are partners.”
Harper: “Didn’t see that coming.”
Is it wrong that I loved that they didn’t correct her misconception?

Dominic: “Which one is it? One of the pretty little brunettes or your partner Detective Fusco?”

Reese: “Finch, I think she just stole your watch.”
Finch: “That’s okay; I just stole her ring.”

two? out of four killer apps

sunbunny, person of interest and Bear the Dog fangirl

4 comments:

  1. Harper didn't really work for me at all, she was WAY too self-absorbed. Pathologically so. Even when her actions put others in grave danger, it barely seems to register with her, and has zero lasting impact on her outlook. I'd be quite happy if we never saw her again. We definitely seem to have gotten a few quasi stand-ins for Shaw ever since she went away. Of them, I probably liked Anna the computer-programming MMA fighter the best, though I do think Silva the cop was a bit better the 2nd time we saw her. I do think it'd be ok if the team expanded again eventually. Not right away, necessarily. But they managed to grow the team without it feeling overstuffed, and now they're two members down. At the very least, they need to clue Fusco in, or at least offer to. I get that big bad Samaritan is watching, but it's a matter of trust, and he's earned it.

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  2. This was one of my least favorite episodes in the series. I spent a lot of the episode rolling my eyes and I'm fairly sure I laughed out loud at a part that was supposed to be taken seriously. It's been a while since I've seen this episode and I definitely am not forcing myself to watch it again but my main gripes were with Harper and just The Brotherhood in general. Surprisingly, and in direct contrast to my dislike for Root, the only parts I found interesting were the parts with Root...even if I too did not recognize the Caleb guy. Thanks for the reminder.

    I'm with Patrick on his assessment of Harper, though I'm pretty sure if I got here first my comments may have been a bit saltier. She's just the type of POI I hate: know-it-all twenty-somethings sashaying around with cocksure grins on their faces at all times. And of course their plucky spirit even causes the initially disgruntled protagonists to begrudgingly admire them. And seriously, what is the deal with every character Reese meeting nowadays going "Charlatan TV Psychic" on him? It seems like all his conversations go something like "Hi my name i-wait...you're not a cop! You're just some mysterious military guy with a hero complex!" As if there are no ex-military police officers with gruff dispositions walking around in the world. How could it be that Reese was an unstoppable super spy on clandestine world-wide operations if every Tom, Dick, and Sally he runs into can make him the second he walks into a room?

    And the Brotherhood's just a joke. They're constantly getting one-upped and just come across as way in over their heads. Any victory against Finch's crew would just come across as disingenuous at this point. And Dominic's grand scheme in this episode? Gold farming, seriously? His diabolical ingenious plan that's putting him on top of the crime world is something that has been going on since like the birth of online gaming. I mean, I know it's supposed to be some nonsense to show the difference between the old and the new but come on. And to make matters worse, pretty much every actor in the gang is like C-list level in talent. It'd be one thing if it was just the Red-Shirts but the main offenders are Dominic and his Number Two or whatever she is. His Number Two is just like a walking tough black girl stereotype. And Dominic is seriously one of the doofiest villains I have ever seen. I could swear he stumbled over his words in a sentence in this episode and had to start again. Actually...now that I think about it he kinda reminds me Fezzik from The Princess Bride. Maybe if I imagine him and his Number Two as Fezzik and Inigo they'll actually become interesting to me. I might be onto something here.

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  3. This was pretty dull. I'm really not loving the Brotherhood stuff, perhaps because drugs/gang plots have been done with much more nuance elsewhere.

    It turns out Caleb Phipps is the genius teenager Finch saved way back in season two’s “2 Pi R.” That’s a deep cut, Person of Interest. A really, really deep cut.

    Wow. I had no idea. Thank you, Ms. Bunny, for your research!

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  4. Good Root gift, Ceylon black tea really is some of the best lol it's been my primary source of caffeine for years. I don't understand how sencha/green tea is supposed to have L-theanine because it still makes me anxious the way coffee does..

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