Person of Interest S5E01 - B.S.O.D.

Person of Interest is finally back for the final season, and I am so happy.


Wow, this is super late. I have been enjoying the lovely weather we have been having here and also dealing with some mood swings. I'm still not feeling 100% fine, so this will be short and I will probably combine the two episodes airing this week. Apologies if this sounds rushed or seems incoherent.

So this episode starts with a in media res where Root, via voice-over, wonders if they won and what winning would even mean anymore, which sets a great, and slightly apocalyptic, tone for the season. Also, I think she is talking to the Machine when she says "let me tell you who you are". In a world were the Machine survives and the team might not, at least there is something besides Harold's coding to guide it.

After that we are thrown right back into the action where the last season ended. Root is fighting her own way back to safety, Fusco returns to the precinct after Samaritan took out Elias and Dominic, and Harold and John are trying to safely bring the Machine to the subway station before the batteries on the case dies.

Let's talk about Root first. What  I love about her is that she is so resourceful and just a plain badass. John and Harold might be worried about her, since she can't talk to the Machine anymore, but she is doing pretty well on her own. But the scenes with Root show once again how terrifying Samaritan's power is. In just few seconds it has turned the whole subway car against Root.

Fusco is also dealing with Samaritan, though he does not know it. He is put under investigation after Elias and Dominic's deaths, but Samaritan alters records to make it seem like Fusco shot the crime bosses after they tried to escape. But this does not silence Fusco, who only keeps silent about the sniper after John pleads him to stop drawing attention to it, or the Internal Affairs investigator, who has bad history with Fusco. Though Lionel agrees to let it go for now, he does not stop investigating the sniper, which keeps him on Samaritan's radar. The cop investigating Fusco is not so lucky and Samaritan has to resort into taking him out.

Harold and John are racing against time to save the Machine, though its fate is still left open. Harold has all but given up when Root comes up with a solution that could work. So using PS3s they are actually able to decompress the Machine, and hopefully we'll find out in the next episode how much of it has actually survived.

And there is actually some good news. It seems like Harold and John's identities are still intact, so at least they have that going for them.

Since this is Person of Interest, there are also flashbacks that explore the nature of the Machine. It's (obviously) not the first time this show has done this, so I don't have a lot to say about these scenes. Except that it is always amazing to see Michael Emerson argue ethics and the fact that watching that man talking to a machine can make me cry is a testament how great the writing and acting on this show is. Also, any scene with Grace is a great scene and I hope this is not the last time we see her. I'd love to see Harold and Grace united, though that does seem far fetched.

I'm looking forward to this week's episodes. It is sad that this is the final season, but I think it is going to be great and that this show will go out with a bang.