Person of Interest: The Endgame

[mauve]

Does anyone else watch Person of Interest?

I started watching several years ago and for the most part I quite enjoy it. Reese has always been kind of a flat character, in my opinion (I find Joss and Fusco far more interesting) but for the most part I've really enjoyed the show. Finch is boss.

For those who don't know, Person of Interest revolves around a reclusive computer programmer/billionaire/probably wanted by the FBI for cyber crimes because REASONS named Harold Finch, who invented a surveilance super computer which can accurately predict major crimes before they happen. He sold said computer to the US government to stop acts of terrorism, but realized that the machine could also predict murders. The government, however, was only interested in large scale terrorism attacks and ignored all other data. So Finch hires an ex-CIA agent named John Reese to help him prevent these murders. The machine sends Finch a social security number of a person who will somehow be involved in a deadly crime within the next 24 hours. It does not, however, tell him if the person of interest is a victim or a perpetrator. The episodes revolve around Finch and Reese (Along with a cast of side characters) trying to prevent these murders while avoiding detection by the police.

I don't really follow much in the way of news regarding the show (and to be honest, CBS spent the last two seasons actively NOT advertising it until they realized a show about eeeeevil government spying would probably be popular in the post-NSA scandal America), and now out of the blue there's a three-part episode simply called The Endgame. As far as I can tell, CBS hasn't decided whether this is a season finale, a series finale, or a last-ditch "OH GOD NEILSEN RATINGS MONTH ENDS IN TWO WEEKS HURRY AND GET SOMETHING ON THE AIR" effort.

So far we're two episodes down, one to go. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it so far. One of the nice things about Person of Interest in its older seasons was that it rarely dragged recurring plotlines out longer than necessary. This season, however, has crazy psycobitch character Root hanging around doing nothing because... reasons. She was interesting, scary and super threatening during the season 2 premiere episode. Now she's just annoying. The promos for Endgame hinted that a major character would die, and I really, REALLY hoped it would be her. It wasn't. :( So far she's spent six or seven episodes locked in a room wearing an ankle monitor, because even though she gunned her way out of a mental asylum and beat the shit out of a Navy SEAL earlier in the season, a chain link fence and an ankle cuff keep her safely trapped in a library back office. Because keeping a sadistic psychopath in the same building as a man she's kidnapped and tortured TWICE (leaving him with PTSD) is a REALLY GOOD IDEA.

The actual Endgame episodes have decent writing, although some very skewed character motivations. ("Hey Joss, we're both single parents with teenage sons who are alone at home all the time. Wanna go take on the deep-reaching crime syndicate who know exactly where we live and that we don't like them?" "Oh sure, Fusco! Suddenly I've decided that my entire dedication to fairness and justice is total bunk! I'm gonna go steal a grenade launcher and go after the crime boss who runs the police department now. By myself." "I'm sure my kid will be fine when the crime syndicate finds out I betrayed them." "Ha! Mine too!")

The events in Tuesday's episode make me think this will in fact be either a season or series finale JOSS NOOOOO WHY COULDNT IT HAVE BEEN ROOT?!? but there's still a lot of unanswered questions they'd have to rush through if this is in fact the end.

If it is the end of the series, there goes my only reason for watching CBS.


Also where the hell is Zoey? Shaw's okay, she's growing on me, but I liked Zoey a lot. She should've been in on this party.

[Magus]

I kind of fell out of love with Person of Interest sometime early in its second season. It's certainly far better than the usual CBS fare, and I enjoyed the fact that it was almost a direct Batman analog without the superhero elements. But over time I just got tired of it. That said, hearing it has this sort of attempt at an ending (assuming it doesn't get renewed) is quite heartening, as that means it's not going to dragged out absolutely forever and will have an "endpoint" if they deem it can't go another season.

[BloodyMage]

I think it's just a mid-season break, so the three parter will probably end on a cliff hanger. Person of Interest can lose a lot in the week to week episodes but I think they do cliff hangers very well. I can't see it being the end though because in terms of ratings, on average, it's still doing pretty decently. Although, I'm just looking at the schedule now and apparently this three parter isn't even the last episode before the mid-season break, though there is a two week gap between the third part and the episode on Dec 17.

On Joss though, I didn't really mind the swing from justice and fairness because it kinda made sense given the HR has pretty much beaten her at every turn in the past two and a half seasons. She had reached breaking point. And she was savy enough to know that HR would come for the kid, so she sent him out of town. Yeah, Fusco wasn't as smart but he was acting out of loyalty.

I agree that Reese is probably the least interesting character and that Finches efforts are far more impress. Zoey seemed like an odd omission but maybe she will pop up in part three.

[Dracorion]

I started watching several years ago and for the most part I quite enjoy it. Reese has always been kind of a flat character, in my opinion (I find Joss and Fusco far more interesting) but for the most part I've really enjoyed the show. Finch is boss.

I do agree that Reese hasn't had much to do since the halfway point of season 2, but I still like him for his dry humor and penchant for defenestration.

This season, however, has crazy psycobitch character Root hanging around doing nothing because... reasons. She was interesting, scary and super threatening during the season 2 premiere episode. Now she's just annoying. The promos for Endgame hinted that a major character would die, and I really, REALLY hoped it would be her. It wasn't. :( So far she's spent six or seven episodes locked in a room wearing an ankle monitor, because even though she gunned her way out of a mental asylum and beat the shit out of a Navy SEAL earlier in the season, a chain link fence and an ankle cuff keep her safely trapped in a library back office. Because keeping a sadistic psychopath in the same building as a man she's kidnapped and tortured TWICE (leaving him with PTSD) is a REALLY GOOD IDEA.

Well, last time Finch locked up Root somewhere far away, she broke out and shot up a navy SEAL. As for her mad skillz, while she hasn't shyed away from capping bitches when necessary, every badass thing Root has done this season has been with the Machine whispering in her ear, giving her step-by-step instructions.

Also she seems to respect Finch enough not to just tackle him and escape every time he opens her cage to drop off her food tray.

The actual Endgame episodes have decent writing, although some very skewed character motivations. ("Hey Joss, we're both single parents with teenage sons who are alone at home all the time. Wanna go take on the deep-reaching crime syndicate who know exactly where we live and that we don't like them?" "Oh sure, Fusco! Suddenly I've decided that my entire dedication to fairness and justice is total bunk! I'm gonna go steal a grenade launcher and go after the crime boss who runs the police department now. By myself." "I'm sure my kid will be fine when the crime syndicate finds out I betrayed them." "Ha! Mine too!")

That's been a thing for Fusco and Carter since the very beginning and, frankly, I'm okay with it. Neither of them is going to give up on pursuing justice and doing their jobs just because of fear. There are plenty of officers, federal agents, detectives and whatnot in the real world who are in the same situation.

If it is the end of the series, there goes my only reason for watching CBS.

It's not the end of the series or the season. Near as I can tell, the creators just wanted to shake things up by doing something big in the middle of the season instead of the end, and they were nice enough to give us fair warning instead of blindsiding us with Joss' death.

Speaking of Joss, I'm sad to see her go, but she went out like a boss and she earned that yellow box all by herself.

Also where the hell is Zoey? Shaw's okay, she's growing on me, but I liked Zoey a lot. She should've been in on this party.

Considering her fairly specialized skillset and lack of propensity for kneecapping, I think Zoe's meant to just remain as a recurring character, which I'm okay with. I'm not sure there's a lot of room for character development there.

I think it's just a mid-season break, so the three parter will probably end on a cliff hanger.

I doubt it. Next episode will likely be about the hunt for Simmons and then deal with the new status quo in the end.

At least, I hope there'll be a new status quo. Finch staring while Joss died and the phone rang pointlessly in the background just underlines the flaw in Finch's relationship with the Machine. If he'd had a direct line to it like Root has, he could've known right away and warned Joss so she could shoot Simmons before he did anything.

This probably has something to do with the previews showing Root free and dual-wielding pistols.

On Joss though, I didn't really mind the swing from justice and fairness because it kinda made sense given the HR has pretty much beaten her at every turn in the past two and a half seasons. She had reached breaking point. And she was savy enough to know that HR would come for the kid, so she sent him out of town. Yeah, Fusco wasn't as smart but he was acting out of loyalty.

Yeah, the thing is, Joss didn't have any evidence on Quinn being the head of HR, except for a dead detective's bloody fingerprint on a photo. HR's influence was too far-reaching for her to just use any above-board methods of getting information, so she got her hands dirty. Starting the war between HR and the russians was pretty much her plan to get Yogorov alone just so she could get him to implicate Quinn as the head of HR.

The recording she later got of him ordering her execution couldn't hurt, either.



All in all, the HR storyline has been in the show since literally the first episode, and it makes sense to me that they'd dedicate three episodes to wrap up something so important. After the next episode, the rest of the season will be wide open to deal with Root, Decima, Northern Lights and Vigilance. Maybe they'll even touch on who the hell Finch really is.

Honestly PoI might be my favorite show right now, just for the compelling characters as well as the interesting storylines.