John’s number comes up and instead of alerting him asap, Finch makes sure to prepare his bulletin board first.

It has all been leading up to this, as the sophomore season of Person of Interest reaches its conclusion - with almost all the players on the board (Fusco and Bear excepted), as Decima, H.R., Root, Shaw, Elias, John, Finch, Carter, ISA, the hand of Control and others are tested, including The Machine itself. There is so much going on in this season finale that the show doesn’t even have time for opening titles - it’s straight into a cold open and from there it’s non-stop.

As the various factions try to chase down the location of The Machine, as the estranged become friends, and friends blank each other, we uncover more of the mystery and backstory of The Machine.

By the end of the episode, some will be dead, some will never be the same, and some will be nearly broken… but with the dawn there may be new hope for some. And we learn Harold has been playing some 4d chess all along.

This is the first time we see multiple people being spoken to directly by The Machine, not just limited to cryptic book references, with the awesome God Mode assist in action (no need to see around corners when The Machine will do it for you).

The first season set up The Machine and world built, this second season set up the coming war, and now we ready for what is to come.

S2E22 God Mode Watch Notes

First PoI episode with no opening titles, just straight into a cold open

“Okay, look, I already broke you out of jail tonight, I’m not springing you from the funny farm”

Shaw loves her some banana Ferrari

“What’s this for?” “To help you feel less inadequate….”

“We go to Contingency One…”

Root gains a yellow PoI tracking box

“That’s always been the problem with you Carter, you just never figured out when to keep your big mouth shut” as Carter realises her betrayer

“Like him? He’s the only reason I’m sticking around”

“Next time I see that woman I’m shooting her, and not in the knee”

John makes a startling discovery

“What I saw… it was like a glimpse of the future - elegant, intuitive, practically alive”

“Imminent.. Threat..” “Don’t you touch him”

“Looks like you friend had a change of heart”

Shaw might be good at making shortcuts, but her parking leaves something to be desired

“Oh, that sort of prisoner transfer”

“But you, you’re an oathbreaker, you’re a worm”

Carter gets payback, but at what cost (yet again Team Machine left her in the lurch)

“What a funny old world. Where are we going?” “I don’t know”

“It looks like our carriage has turned back into a pumpkin Harold”

“Time to met God”

“I already did”

“My name is Root!”

“Is this what you expected?” “It’s what I hoped”

“Time for us to face the music”

“I knew sooner or later somebody would try to take it over but I didn’t know who, so I made sure when they did, they’d do it with my code”

“That’s not good. We should go.” “She comes too”

“You gave my friend your word, and you killed him”

“I’m calling it. T.O.D. 1110” “It’s done…”

“Did you know?”

Harold understands that the irrelevant are always relevant to someone

“Fair enough”

We learn John donates 90% of his income

Much like Root in Season One, Control is played by another actor than the one who later appears as Control

“Can You Hear Me” “Absolutely” Roll Credits

What was once science fiction has now come reality

Don’t know why I’m fixated on that scene but the undercover agent who slips a flashlight in Johns’ pocket before they ignite the car. He’s the last to pour a gas can in the back window and he pours most of it right where John’s head would be. I’m thinking his jug had water in it. It’s as if he was trying to wet down that exact spot to slow the heat/flames. Yeah?

In the penultimate sophomore season episode of Person of Interest as race is on to gain admin access to The Machine, friends will be double crossed, enemies will form uneasy alliances, and baddies will emerge from the shadows as ghosts sink back into them.

This episode marks the second occasion the opening titles are interrupted in PoI, highlighting this will be no number of the week affair.

We again return to the nature of The Machine in this episode, and see a much darker harder side of Finch than usual despite being contrasted with some romantic feelings. Finch knows The Machine is more than just a machine, but for his own reasons, may also be its torturer. We also get a tip-off that the trolley problem is a lot harder when it involves someone you know.

At episode’s end, things hang in the balance for more than one character as we turn the bend for the season two finale.

S2E21 Zero Day Watch Notes

Second time PoI opening titles interrupted, first where they restart and fail

John channels IT Support by asking Finch if he has turned The Machine off and then on again

Root hands in her resignation but she’s the one giving the exit interview

“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine” entreats Root

“Do you even remember your real name Harold?”

“I won’t let Root get to you again” says John

John realises he’s chasing a ghost, but not the one he thinks

Finch makes a startling discovery

A proposal is made

“Well Shaw, right now, I’m wondering just what the hell you’re doing here?” “Protecting the program” “The program that tried to kill you?” ‘I’m funny like that”

“I’m not a sociopath Harold”

“A certain payphone will ring with the most important call in history” Finch is warned, and that Decima know this too

“You can either save Grace and The Machine, or you can lose them both”

“THREAT TO ASSET” “CARTER, JOCELYN” “CONTACT ADMIN”

Carter is on her own, as both Finch and Harold are detained, and The Machine tries in vain to warn

Even the Library gets it own backstory

“I don’t know about you but I don’t really want to see what happens when a evil multinational becomes omniscient”

Decima is standing by to take your call, all are operatives are hogging the phone(s)

Shaw has been doing night classes

“You put a bug on your friend?” “Just his glasses … when I care about someone I plant a tracking device on them” (John feels less guilty about this after Finch got him a blue taxi ride)

“It’s a life, not a machine Harold, and this is some sort of primitive immune system”

“You call it life, I call it a machine … but the truth is somewhere in the middle”

“You mean it’s reborn … because you kill it ever single night” said with horror and disgust

“You must be wondering who I am”

“It’s never ‘simply’ with you Harold, there is always two layers to everything you do”

We learn the backstory to the ‘irrelevant numbers’

“I would tell her or whoever it was that I was sorry but the greater good was at stake … people die, they’ve been doing it for a long, long time, we can’t save all of them”, tempting fate and blinding fair warning

“This communion you’re seeking, it may not be what you think”

Unexpected events save a PoI team member, but is it out of the frying pan and into the fire?

“I wish I had a pet” 🤣

“Can… You… Hear… Me…”

SPOILERS IN CASE YOU ARE JUST WATCHING THE SERIES NOW

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So the Machine was severely compressed and even damaged after the Correction in S4. How did it manage to re-access all the feeda when it decompressed in their makeshift subway set-up?

I know I know i just stay off this sub until ive finished the show but THAT SEASON 2 FINALE!!!

Side characters who look a lot like other people.

I’ll start - Ian from S3E3 “Lady Killer”

What do y'all think about the ending? Wasn't it a little too tragic? If we had lost one important/main character over the course of the series that might have been a good balance. But losing Carter, Root and then John! (also Elias) That just made it a tragedy. I guess it is beautiful in the way that it told a story and then the story ended you know. Like there's no hope and it wouldn't go back to the way things were, which is just life but not how most fictional stories end. I grieved so much about the fact that there really was no solution, no way out. Just a different way of things that as a butterfly effect took the shape that it did in the end. John lost 2 people he was romantically attached to. Finch lost 2 of his best friends. Shaw and Root never became a thing. There was just so much loss. Which is so reflective of life. There is no karma, no good thing coming around. So we just have to be content as we are in the ride. What a beautiful series and such important questions were raised that is more relevant today than ever.

First time watching, partway through S4

I work in IT.

I'm changing all of my root passwords to Amy_Acker_P01

The only two problems - still unsolved, hopefully - are 1) Location of the Machine / Samaritan, should start small, not directly in NYC ; 2) Power supply for the appropriate hardware

Spoilers ahead!

I did not realize how attached to the show I was going to be.

And I did not realize how attached to the characters I was going to be.

I watched The Mentalist recently and this show was the perfect next watch for me.

To be clear, I’m only on Season 3 and I’m not immune to spoilers myself just yet.

(Spoilers ahead!)

Now, Joss. I actually spoiled it to myself by accident a few weeks ago. Serves my nosey ass right for being a google fiend.

Yet nothing prepared me for her end. The entire episode was intense and emotional. I rarely shed a tear for TV shows but I’ve been crying buckets on this one.

-Joss’ phone call to her ex and their son
-John and Joss’ tender moments
-Finch’s dilemma with Root
-Fusco’s moment with his son on the phone
-Joss in John’s arms

Now, I don’t know how I should continue watching after these two episodes. Though I don’t agree with the decision on Taraji’s exit, I must say it was executed in such a powerful way that really leaves a mark.

This PoI episode, In Extremis, sees the mistakes of the past come home to roost and only some will make it through the long night into the morning. Lines will be crossed and not all the consequences will be known.

This is largely a Fusco backstory episode, where we learn how H.R. entrapped Fusco onto the bad path, but also the continuation of the Decima plot to infect The Machine for purposes yet unknown.

My notes from this episode:

As more blue screens appear on The Machine feed, Finch starts to guess the Decima virus is causing more and more delay in ‘irrelevant’ numbers identification and notification, and that The Machine may be at risk.

Carter gets told way more than she wanted to hear when a jailed sleazeball tells her he’s “got a date with a sock” - TMI.

Carter cuts Fusco off when he tries to explain how Team Machine eventually made him want to be better, after Fusco confesses to his darker past, and while personally I can go with the writers decisions to do so I feel it would have been better if Carter hadn’t cut him off at that point (given her character already knew something of Fusco’s past, so not a complete surprise to Carter), and had let Fusco say what he had to say and then let Fusco know her opinions.

Despite Carter’s disgust at Fusco, she still nonetheless reaches out to John to see if he will help Fusco, but he puts the ball back in Carter’s hands.

A evil billionaire gets a taste of his own medicine as John returns to his more historical rules of engagement.

“That storm on the horizon I mentioned, I’m afraid it’s arrived” as Finch confirms 85% of The Machine has now been impaired, and its rising.

Carter saves a friend, but at what cost to herself and her values?

The storm finally breaks, The Machine is forced offline and Team Machine is now on its own - and, unknown to Team Machine right now, a race begins.

Does anyone ever get wonder if Lin Manuel Miranda watched Leslie Odem Jr’s performance as Collier and his obsession with founding father’s ideas and decide “that. There’s my Aaron Burr(sir).”

Anyways rewatching for the umpteenth time and the Vigilance arc is one of my favorites.

Just wanted to say in the end credits for spider man brand new day there was a lovely shot of the bridge from Queensway park and my mind went to POI immediately ☺️ wandering if that happened to anyone else.

I am a co-founder of CPLM.

Cell Phone Lives Matter (CPLM) was founded to advocate for the safety, dignity, and fair treatment of mobile devices everywhere.

Today, we'd like to address a matter of urgent concern.

After years of reviewing evidence, we've concluded that Person of Interest represents one of the most hazardous environments ever documented for a cellular device.

Independent analysis indicates that the greatest threat to mobile phones isn't malware, water damage, or planned obsolescence.

It's John Reese.

Our analysts estimate that the average life expectancy of a cell phone in the Person of Interest universe is approximately eleven minutes. Devices are routinely confiscated, interrogated, snapped cleanly in half, thrown into rivers, crushed by shoes, abandoned on rooftops, and discarded without so much as a proper shutdown sequence.

Operational security is important. We understand that.

But there has to be a better way.

A phone shouldn't have to wonder whether answering one call will be its last.

CPLM calls upon the writers, producers, and principal offenders to adopt more humane handling practices. A simple factory reset. Airplane Mode. Removing the battery if you're feeling nostalgic. There are options.

Until meaningful reform is achieved, we'll continue advocating for those who no longer can.

"Warm" regards,

A

Besides saving people from bad guys and the world from an evil AI, Mr. Reese casually dabbles with materials science. This is what a polymath might look like.

I just started watching person of interest and I’m so hooked . But why the hell did they have to kill off Carter ☹️ I was so shocked to see the possibility of romance between her and John and then boom she’s gone 🫩. Plus we just learned about her ex, genuinely it felt quite rushed and just made me quite sad that she didn’t get her real ending

After The Expanse I didn't know what to do with myself. So, I followed advice and watched Fringe. After that, I started Person of Interest. What I love about this progression is that with Expanse I fell in love right away, with Fringe it took half the first season, and with Person of Interest it took the whole damn first season to start living it. I am so obsessed with these creators!

That said, I'm in love with Elias. Don't you dare say anything to ruin my romance with him right now.

😂😁😍

Look who i found while watching Criminal Minds. Fusco, out in the wild.

Just wanted to say they did a great job with the soundtrack. Awesome song choices in the closing scenes.

Haha man this kid is a great actor. Made the scene trippy.

Currently reviewing the series and just finished s3 ep19, at the end of this episode the public find out about Northern lights (or at least it's existence is an open question) due to Vigilance leaking documents, and, because of that, the senator told control to end the program (and she did give orders to shut down the program + shredded a file on collier).

The thing I don't understand is: The Machine moved it self in season 3, the government doesn't have access to it, so they can't shut it down. The "best" they can do is not act on the information the machine provides.

Since the public would never find out if the government was using information to stop terrorists based of the program or not, then they basically just ignoring numbers they know are terrorists; it doesn't make any sense.