So I recently decided to quickly re-binge Alcatraz, the unexpected flop of JJ Abrams' and his Bad Robot team, and decided that I would share with you my thoughts over its plots and my outrage over its cancellation.
Because Alcatraz is rather a statistical anomaly. Unlike the shows Abrams has previously created, directed or executive produced (such as Felicity, Alias, Lost, Fringe, Person of Interest and Revolution, six shows which altogether have clocked up a whopping 27 seasons of TV time), Alcatraz seemingly met no one's expectations when it completely flopped and was cancelled at the end of just one.
Alcatraz was a typical JJ Abrams-style show: a simple premise that is twisted in a science fiction manner (Alias's overlying mythology was of a Da Vinci-like prophet who supposedly created the key to immortality, Lost's island setting was an unpredictable lifelike character of its own, Person of Interest was about a Machine that can predict crimes).
I admit, I didn't know much about it at first back when it was airing, but the fact that it had Jorge Garcia (Hurley, Lost) and Parminder Nagra (Dr. Neela Rasgotra, ER) among its main cast was enough to pull me in. Of course, that and the premise. The below is the Wikipedia summary of the show.
On March 21, 1963, 256 inmates and 46 guards disappeared from the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary without a trace. To cover up the disappearance, the government invented a cover story about the prison being closed due to unsafe conditions, and officially reported that the inmates had been transferred. However, federal agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), a young San Francisco police officer tasked with transferring inmates to the island in 1963, is one of the first to discover that the inmates are actually missing and not transferred. In present-day San Francisco, the "63s" (as the missing inmates and guards are called) begin returning, one by one. Strangely, they haven't aged at all, and they have no clues about their missing time or their whereabouts during their missing years; however, they appear to be returning with compulsions to find certain objects and to continue their criminal habits. Even more strangely, the government has been expecting their return, and Hauser now runs a secret government unit dedicated to finding the returning prisoners; this unit was set up long ago in anticipation of the prisoners' returns. To help track down the returning prisoners and capture them, Hauser enlists police detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) and Dr. Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia), a published expert on the history of Alcatraz and its inmates.
That's quite an inspired premise - and carries a vastly different appeal to the typical cop procedurals that usually air on broadcast networks. And its casting, on top of Parminder Nagra and Jorge Garcia, also boasted Sam Neill (middle right), Sarah Jones (middle), Robert Forster (far right), Johnny Coyne (far left) and Jason Butler Harner (inside left). (Don't ask me who the other guy is between Neill and Nagra, I genuinely can't work him out from this picture).
What happens in Alcatraz?
The show focuses on its mythology of how the 63s came to vanish from the island and why they are coming back now, although not directly. It sidesteps some of those questions (as you might expect from a first season) by presenting others at the forefront: namely what is behind the door that the keys, which the prisoners are returning to retrieve, and which used to belong to Warden James, open? And why was Tommy Madsen, Rebecca's grandfather, being experimented on? What was his blood being used for and why do some of the returning prisoners have colloidal silver in their blood, which gives them advanced healing properties.
The plot was thickened when it linked Rebecca's uncle Ray more closely to Tommy than she expected, and when an Alcatraz inmate, Harlan Simmons, was revealed to have been helped off the island by Warden James and in the 50 years since has become a reclusive and untouchable billionaire with strong links to what is going on with the 63s.
Some of the subject matter with regards to the inmates was particularly dark - child killers, emotionless thieves and many, many styles of murderer and serial killer - but that's probably to be expected given the show's setting. And all of the inmates were interesting in their own way, because their crimes occurred in the 1950s and 60s. Their methods didn't involve any modern technology, and that's what made the style of the show standout from the rest of the pack.
But more interesting than that were the flashbacks to Alcatraz themselves. Prison life was depicted honestly and showed only what was necessary to the plot (which was often a lot) and Warden James and his fencesitting Deputy E.B. Tiller were compelling villains. Perhaps it's just my interest in all things past that made the Alcatraz flashbacks more captivating and revealing than the inmates' travails in the modern-day world.
The recurring characters were also very well done. It must be hard to sell a guest starring role to an actor and then request that, for continuity of character, they return for a large number of prison scenes to make cameos in episodes where no one but the observant will notice them, but for the most part whenever we saw a prisoner captured in the modern day, they did return for small cameos in Alcatraz flashbacks - but also in their secret present day prison too. That's credit to the writers and the actors, who, every time I wondered if continuity was going to be difficult for the show, managed to show up and remind me they had their eye firmly on the ball.
Season 1 was filled with enough twists and turns to keep the story plodding along, had great character continuity, was cast well and was incredibly well-written.
So why in the hell didn't it come off?
The answer is a number of factors. One of the biggest is naturally viewership, and having started at 10.05 million viewers for its opening double header, Alcatraz closed with just 4.75m. That sounds bad, but the ratings' decline had been slowing in the last few episodes and it's not as if 4.75m is low for FOX. Look at that wonderful Andy Samberg sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which has drawn in bigger ratings than Alcatraz's finale on only four occasions at the time of my writing this - and is currently filming season four. FOX's judgement of ratings baffles me, but that isn't the only reason Alcatraz was cancelled too soon.
Another big factor is that it was broadcast ... by FOX. FOX who already slaughtered Firefly, and who are quick to snip the purse strings to any show they deem unsuitable, are the network Abrams shopped Alcatraz too. And so, predictably, it was cancelled after one season, despite its first-season figures achieving and outdoing the third season of Fringe (which somehow still got two more seasons afterwards, neither of which had an episode with ratings above anything Alcatraz fell to), and equalling the numbers for NBC's Grimm, which was considered a "breakout hit". Someone tell me the logic there.
Also, Alcatraz had the bad luck of getting absolutely trashed because of its timeslot. Competing with The Voice and Dancing With The Stars was never going to do Alcatraz any favours, although that's something that would have been easily fixable with a season 2 - just don't put it in a Monday timeslot where it's likely to get mauled to death by other major network reality shows.
Was it then a character thing, why the show didn't work? It can't have been for me. All right, the main character Rebecca Madsen (played by Sarah Jones) was a bit boring, but it's other present-day characters - Diego Soto (Garcia), Emerson Hauser (Neill) and Lucy Banerjee (Nagra) - were all intriguing enough to make up for whatever deficiencies Jones's character had. And the great thing about Alcatraz was, because of its shifting timeframes between 2012 and 1960, there ended up being a genuinely equal balance in airtime between the guest stars and the main cast. You don't see that in most shows and it was refreshing, although maybe that's part of the reason some of the present-day characters couldn't be more strongly developed. (Special mentions to Johnny Coyne, who played creepy, corrupt Warden James {see image} [his acting was the best of anyone's], and Harner, who played the Deputy Governor E.B. Tiller, both of whom shone in the flashback scenes in the prison.)
So maybe it was a story thing? After some early revelations, it's true to say that the middle of the show slowed down the overall focus and gave us some inmate focused episodes rather than expanding on the colloidal silver or why the prisoners were returning. That may have upset a few people who were hoping for more, but I maintain the show was well-paced and nothing was left out that shouldn't have been. Some things were even included so subtly as to link the overall plot to the inmates without us even knowing at first: for example, Harlan Simmons was introduced early on in flashbacks but isn't mentioned by name, so when he is revealed later on as a major player in the present day it's one of the stronger reveals of the show.
Or maybe it's just that it didn't keep enough people interested. The ratings lend themselves to that conclusion, despite Alcatraz's only season garnering a 2.2 average demo rating (find that on most networks these days, I dare you). But that just wasn't enough.
PROMOTER OR DETRACTOR?
Me? I'm a big fat PROMOTER. Fans of JJ Abrams will find everything they expect from one of his shows in Alcatraz, with the tidy bonus that if the real-life prison is your passion you will love it for that as well. The premise is strong, the cast is excellent, the acting is tight, there is a unique balance between guest star and main character that feels natural and there's plenty of twists to keep you hooked. It's well worth your time even knowing that it only gets one season, but don't expect to get answers about what's really going on, because you never will.
I'll leave the trailer here in case anybody fancies to check it out, but genuinely, if you think you might be able to watch it and not lose your shit when your questions go unanswered, I recommend you do so. Highly.
Thanks for reading everyone and see you next time!
Following Hell on Wheels' conclusion, this roundup is going to be a little lighter. But fear not, because The Night Shift makes its return just in time, OITNB cooks on gas (pun intended) and I come across an interesting predicament in Deadbeat.
DEADBEAT - 3x09 "The Duchess of Stourbridge"
"After leaving Danny Poker's party, Pac is followed home by a naked Duchess who says the royal painting of her is flawed: she only has one chin. Pac and Clyde try to get the painting at auction but when that fails they attempt to steal it - only to run into a second burglar."
Deadbeat's yo-yoing continues, as today it returns to the brilliant form that has characterised most of its third and final season. The frequent and explicit sexual advances of the Duchess made Pac uncomfortable and me laugh, but everything else was laced with just the right amount of laugh-out-loud humour, including the auctioneer's questionable descriptions of buyers ("Sold to the couple who haven't gone down on each other in a decade") and the name of the second burglar, with whom they team up to try and retrieve the Duchess's painting, Hugh Janus.
But where was Danny Poker? Pac and Clyde spent at least two episodes trying to get a meet with him but when it finally happens it's completely skated over and ignored by the writers? That cannot be right. Oh wait, the episodes have been listed out of their natural order online. OK, so it looks like we've reviewed episode 9, not 8, so we'll have to do some off-kilter backtracking and fastforwarding over the next couple of weeks.
VERDICT: A truly exceptional episode. Frustratingly ordered wrongly online, but that's nothing to do with writing quality. 9.5/10
THE NIGHT SHIFT - 3x09 "Unexpected"
"Paul and Shannon struggle to find an equilibrium after their passionate encounter and the nurses go on strike over pay. Then a bomb goes off in the ER, and the team have to scramble to save everybody and figure out why they were targeted. But it becomes clear that the bomb was just the beginning."
The Night Shift writers are smart. Knowing they probably won't get the 15 seasons their source material show ER got, they've managed to steal from the final episodes of ER's season 8 and the early episodes of season 9 and cook up one big nurse's-strike-and-anthrax plot. They even threw in a bit of the patient-needs-a-transplant arc from ER's fifteenth season. At least they used anthrax rather than monkeypox, though.
But that's not to say the episode felt like a rehashing, just that it's easy to find parallels in plot. It's the characters who made this episode stand out, especially since after the first twenty minutes had gone by it (and the nurses) petered out, ending with something close to eight minutes of emotive wrap-up scenes that felt about four minutes too long. Shannon and Paul's cute relationship has hit a stumble as they've both agreed to not date because of work (that won't last), which admittedly is an annoying obstacle, Jordan is reminded of the death of her baby when she recognises the bomber, whose motive (revenge for them not saving her husband and son - I think?) I felt was rather weak (this might have worked a little better if it was a character who had featured before that the show had actually made memorable), Kenny goes to bat for a young patient he's been training up (gotta love Kenny) and Topher can be the brilliant big boss and make as many magnificent motivational speeches all he wants, to me he's still always going to be the lovable idiot Leon Tao from Person of Interest. It was a nice moment when the nurses quit their strike in the explosion's aftermath to help, recognising this was more important, but they didn't appear at all afterwards so ... they may as well have carried on.
And lastly, the cliffhanger of the hospital being bought by an insurance company wanting to sell off the ER ... setting up a series end in case it doesn't get renewed or actual plot they want to carry through in a similar manner to OITNB's prison privatisation arc? Either way, the last third of season 3 is going to be stunning.
VERDICT: Loads to talk about because it was filled with loads of good stuff and has set up a lot more. Seeing anthrax at work rather than as a spoken-about airborne virus gave it more of an urgency, but it did lose its momentum at the end. 8/10
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x07 "It Sounded Nicer In My Head"
* "Piper starts to realise her power has corrupted her, and though she takes steps to make amends, a plan of revenge is already in motion. Her new 'bodyguard' turns against her, handing her to Maria and her gang, who burn the Nazi swastika into her arm. Lolly finds a friend in a kindly Healy, and her past as a journalist who turned into a homeless 'crazy woman' is explored. Nicky continues on her self-destructive drug binge."
For once a very short and sweet Wiki description for you! I'll start with the main bit of business: Piper's comeuppance. It's been brewing, and in a Wentworth v OITNB comparison blog that's coming to you soon which I've part-written, I talk about the value of loyalty between a top dog and her bodyguard, and today's episode shows exactly how you don't treat your bodyguard. After all the disrespect, Piper crosses the line by leaving her bodyguard (I literally don't know what the woman's name is) out in the cold, so she gets revenge by shopping Piper to the Latinas. Poetic, just and may I say, Taylor Schilling's acting in this episode was top draw. Seeing Piper get the devil's share (to quote my POI buddy Fusco's phrase to describe when someone gets what's coming to them), in that scene I've been waiting for where the Latinas have her arm over a gas hob, was excellent after all her pretence of being a big bad so far this season.
Lolly's past was extremely interesting but it didn't really reveal anything about her - like she tells Healy at the end, there wasn't a point in time that she would go back to to change her insanity (except birth), and that conclusion made the flashbacks rather pointless.
Daya got her customary two lines an episode, I loved Nicky's return (which was honoured well by the writers) and Red got some good airtime. Caputo is becoming further disillusioned by MCC and that will hopefully reach breaking point at the end of the season, and Alex Vause continues to slither in the background in a wholly disappointing misuse of Laura Prepon's acting ability.
VERDICT: Now we're getting somewhere. When OITNB doesn't take its bloody time about things each episode can be a thoroughly gripping ride, but its bloated cast list keeps consigning previously major characters to the sidelines, a fact that is becoming glaringly obvious and frustrating. 7.5/10
Final thoughts
OK, so it's disappointing we saw Deadbeat out of order, but we'll skip back in the canon and watch episode 8 next week. Our next The Night Shift offering is another double header, so look out for that, while OITNB will hopefully kick on from its stunning cliffhanger ending.
Thanks for reading everyone and see you all next time!
The Night Shift is taking a break this week, so we've only got three shows to have a look at. However, that frees up some space and time to look more in-depth at Hell on Wheels, following its series finale But we'll start with our ever-present sitcom Deadbeat.
DEADBEAT - 3x07 "Am-Ish"
"Pac gets into Danny Poker's party, but before he can speak with him he has to help out the ghost father of an Amish boy who isn't keen to end his rumspringa."
Playing on a number of Amish stereotypes, and maybe adding an extra one by making nearly all the Amish people's accents German, "Am-Ish" was an about average offering, and we're certainly hitting the stage of deterioration (or yo-yoing is perhaps a better phrase) I expected to happen much earlier on. The laugh-out-loud toilet humour largely vanished, and instead the only real light comic relief came from Clyde, who remained at the party while Pac helped the Amish boy, in his efforts to start the fabled "avalanche" that leads to sex orgies. The best moment by far was Clyde tied up to a bed by just a single drunk girl ... who then vomited on him from her significant alcohol intake and left him there.
VERDICT: Not one of the season's standout episodes, and I do wonder if the Danny Poker arc will detract from the bank of goodwill the first six episodes built up. 6.5/10
HELL ON WHEELS - 5x14 "Done" (series finale)
* "Following the golden spike ceremony, both Durant and Cullen are given summons to appear before Congress in Washington, D.C. Durant has been charged with bribery, fraud and corruption. Cullen asks a Chinese worker to translate Mei's note: it's an address in China. Eva declines Louise's book deal offer, her "survivor story", saying that she is "done whoring". In Washington, President Grant offers Cullen a position as army colonel and undersecretary for the western territories. Cullen states that he is a railroad man, to which Grant counters that he is a soldier "without a war to fight". Dressed in his Union Army uniform before Congressmen, Cullen refuses to implicate Durant, repeating that their railroad could not have been built without Durant. Cullen then goes to the church where he killed a man, and a priest asks if he seeks salvation. Cullen breaks down, thanks him and leaves. Despite Durant's lawyer invoking the Fifth Amendment, his client defiantly describes the future that he has wrought for them. As Durant speaks, Mickey departs for San Francisco, Eva rides her horse into the sunset, and Cullen boards a train, leaving behind his uniform. He disembarks in San Francisco and boards a ship for China."
An appropriate title for a series finale, but also a very good gauge of my feelings as Hell on Wheels comes to an end. That's not to say it wasn't a great show - if it wasn't enjoyable I would have stopped watching long ago, like with Arrow or The Blacklist - but the final season has underwhelmed, and the finale was no different.
The final episode saw the aftermath of the railroad's completion and our characters find fitting endings, but it wasn't beautiful to watch. Cullen (after surviving a seeming heart attack without any help and being just fine) went off to China to find Mei, who I enjoyed as a character before she left, and Durant got his comeuppance for his crimes, but Mickey and Eva didn't really have that kind of poetry. And that's why in a way the finale, which had reached this point of closure for everyone, didn't work. It was no Person of Interest, because this end hadn't been planned years in advance. Eva getting a book deal was a random throw-in for her to decide to leave into the sunset and I'm not sure there was a particularly strong connection between Mickey and SF.
VERDICT: Made dull by disloyalty to our characters and the need to somehow fill 45 minutes, this finale doesn't do Hell on Wheels any favours. I spoke in a previous blog about how shows that get the chance to bring their story full circle need to do it properly, but Hell on Wheels failed even to interest me so much that I wrote all of what you've read about it so far before the episode finished. A generous 4.5/10
HELL ON WHEELS OVERALL
I won't spend too much time on this, but I do want to speak about it because my criticism of season 5 has only been reserved for season 5. And that was because it split off from the previous four seasons when Cullen switched from the Union Pacific to the Central Pacific. It splintered the cast, meaning we had one episode here of the CP-central cast, and one episode there of the UP-central cast, and that was forever stopstarting everyone's storylines.
But Hell on Wheels was at its best in its first few seasons, with its original cast. Rapper Common played freed slave Elam Ferguson, but along the way we lost Elam himself, Toole (an Irish worker), Lily Bell (Durant's financial advisor), Ruth (the preacher), and Sean McGinnes (Mickey's brother and implied serial killer). Elam fought for slave's rights and had a baby with whore Eva before he was mauled by a bear and had to be mercy killed, Mickey and Sean built up their business in the moving city until Sean had to be killed to prevent him murdering Ruth, Ruth involved religion in everything and provided a moral compass before being hanged for murdering a lawman who had burnt a child to death, and Lily was a great adversary to Durant before Gundersen strangled her.
It says a lot that when I first picked up the show, I binged the first 5 episodes instantly. It's rare I do that, so it promised a lot that I was so easily sucked into the world - although I am a sucker for most forms of peering through the looking glass at our world's past.
All of the actors were exceptional, although those performances by Colm Meaney, Christopher Heyerdahl and Common (Durant, Gundersen and Elam respectively) stood out. Special mention, however, to Anson Mount's superb portrayal of Cullen Bohannon over the past five years. What an incredible actor.
Finally, with Durant's speech at the end we get this wonderful quote: "history is written in pencil". And no truer words can have been spoken because, ironically, what that final speech does is muddy any preconceptions we had about the real Thomas Durant's corruption. Maybe he was simply an evil, money-grabbing, heartless bastard - or just maybe that's the way history and Wikipedia remembers him. But as (appropriately) the TV-Durant says "history is written in pencil". It's grey.
Overall, I'm not sure I'd recommend Hell on Wheels. It was a great ride, but I'm not sure I'd want to suggest anyone invest their time in it knowing that the outcome was so unsatisfying. It made its mark on the TV landscape, but the railway is now complete. And never has the phrase "end of the line" been more appropriate.
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x06 "Piece of Shit"
* "During her janitorial stint in maximum security, Nicky encounters Sofia in isolation and later gives her a magazine to read. Later she is asked to clean a cell and finds it is Sofia's which is covered in blood. Luschek feels guilty about his role in landing Nicky in Max, and Judy decides to have her powerful lawyers arrange to have Nicky sent back to Litchfield. However Nicky's anger has caused her to relapse into her heroin addiction. Taystee decides to try and get a picture of Judy to sell to a magazine (using the internet connection in Caputo's office) while Black Cindy and Allison bond over their disdain of Scientology. Poussey and Soso declare their love for each other. Piper plants a set of panties in Maria's bunk and arranges for them to be discovered, which results in Maria getting three to five years added to her sentence."
Much, much better from OITNB: as it reaches mid-season things are finally starting to heat up. As Piper's accidental white power revolt leads to the revelation that someone is making contraband prison panties, Piper makes a decision to frame Maria - and it's excellent. Watching Piper's resolve as a big bad continue to crack as she is forced to make tougher and tougher decisions is riveting, but setting up basically a war between her and the Latinas is going to exacerbate the already bubbling racial hatred throughout the prison. Judy King does something interesting by helping the whiny guard Luschek attempt to make amends for framing Nicky a year ago, and then blackmails him (into sex?) And Brook and Poussey's cute relationship goes one step further - although I know the outcome (bloody online releases mean spoilers after two days), I'm still enjoying this immensely.
With the focus so heavily on Nicky, most central characters in the main prison make only small cameos: Red, Freida, Alex, Blanca and Maritza get about five seconds of screen time. Boring boring Stella reappears for one scene in max with Nicky and is back on drugs, and Daya, who has seen her screen time reduced to practically nothing since her prison baby storyline ended, is too friendly to feature in the panty war and could benefit from Matt McGorry's return as Officer Bennet (doubt that will happen, though).
Standout scene of the episode: Luschek visiting Nicky in max, an intense, emotion-driven scene reminiscent of Pornstache's mother visiting him in prison in season 3.
VERDICT: For a light-hearted hour-long prison drama, today's episode was heavy on everything it needed to be. Things that have moved slowly previously will hurtle forwards from here. 8.5/10
Final thoughts
While Deadbeat slipped, the gas hob trying to boil the waters of OITNB has finally generated some simmering bubbles. We say goodbye to Hell on Wheels after five years on AMC alongside and overshadowed by critically acclaimed The Walking Dead - but can happily expect The Night Shift to return next week. I need my hospital drama fix.
Every TV show does some great stuff at some point, and today I want to go through all the categories I can think of. Starting with -
FIVE THINGS POI DID WELL
KILLING CARTER AND HR WHEN THEY DID
Now I understand that this isn't going to be a popular view among POI fans. Carter was there from the beginning and it's always hard for a show to lose a main character and a huge continuing arc and still improve, but POI did. I've said before that Reese ending up as a homicide detective after Samaritan came online was necessary so that he could have legitimate reason to show up around town helping people - and that couldn't have happened with Carter alive. And also, there would have been no time for HR, what with the rise of Dominic in season 4. It would have shrunk Elias to the point of nothing and he deserved more than that. So sorry not sorry, because Carter's death was the best thing the show could have done. Well, not the best, but it's close.
SEASON FINALES
The season 4 finale: Finch tries to save the Machine by
compressing its code through 30 laptops.
Season finales are an important part of any show. They need to be bigger than before, emotional and explosive, and POI's five season finales met that criterion each time. In season 1, while Reese is cornered by both HR and the FBI, he's also unknowingly protected their enemy Root, who escapes and kidnaps Finch so she can hunt for the Machine. In the season 2 finale, our main characters try to stop the government and Root from getting their hands on a Machine that Decima has infected, only to discover it has moved itself secretly. In season 3, after orchestrating a terrorist attack and revealing Vigilance were a puppet of theirs set to take the fall, Decima bring the evil ASI Samaritan online, forcing our heroes to go underground with new cover identities. In season 4, Samaritan instigates The Correction, the quiet execution of everyone it deems a threat to it, and our team have to compress the Machine into RAM chips and an indestructible briefcase and flee from a wave of Samaritan agents. And in the series and season 5 finale, Team Machine make one last desperate attempt to shut down Samaritan once and for all, and not everyone is set for a happy ending.
The season finales are great on their own, but they get bigger and bigger throughout. Epic showdowns linking each season's arcs culminate in explosive standoffs, with the exception of the series finale, which was so emotion-heavy I cried for half of it. Incredible stuff.
FLASHBACKS
Flashbacks were an important storytelling tool for POI. They needed to show a lot about our characters. Utilising flashback arcs in the first two series to show us Reese's past and Finch's building the Machine was clever, but in later seasons the flashbacks were only called upon when absolutely necessary and relative to the plot. From Reese's mission in China to Finch being attacked by the Machine - to flash-parallels of what everyone's life would be like had the Machine never been built - they were always unique, informative and often as surprising as the present day plots.
GRAPHICS
One of the unique things about POI was its Machine and Samaritan graphics. No matter whether it was a topographical map of New York, a gunfighting scene where the Machine projected weapon trajectory from one of our heroes' guns to the villains like a laser pointer, or simply the rolling footage as either Machine or Samaritan found the next scene in the show (see the image), the graphics were always incredible and well done. Just as intriguing were the opening credits, where two seconds of footage identifying the POI for each episode was added - or for the times when the opening credits were messed up as a plot device regarding the Machine (ie no credits because it's offline or slower credits because of the virus in season 2). Whenever there was a Machine-POV or Samaritan-POV shot, there was some kind of identifying computer graphic to denote that and they were always exceptionally well-thought-out and beautifully crafted by the visual effects team.
CASTING
Quinn Shephard as Claire Mahoney s4
In my final pick for the top five things POI did well, probably the most important thing a show needs to get right - casting. If you miscast your characters, the boat will struggle to float right off the bat. Fortunately, all six of our main characters were portrayed by exactly the right actor or actress for that role. If Jim Caviezel isn't Reese, POI isn't POI. But just as easily if Robert John Burke isn't Patrick Simmons or Quinn Shephard isn't Claire Mahoney, the show suffers. Every actor or actress was cast based upon what was needed no matter their importance. Michael Emerson was in all 103 episodes in some way and if he isn't Finch nobody is, but Quinn Shephard is only Claire Mahoney in 2 episodes in season 4 and still you can't imagine anyone else playing that character. I've never seen such a brilliantly cast set of characters in my entire TV life.
FIVE THINGS POI DID BADLY
4x20 "TERRA INCOGNITA"
I'll talk about this more thoroughly in the "Worst Episodes" section, but it needs mentioning here. When Carter died in season 3, the producers teased a flashback return and this was that - only it was more underwhelming than I could have anticipated.
USE OF ELIAS AND SHAW IN S3+5
Another unpopular view, since Shaw is a fan favourite, but I think it's a fair one. Elias and Shaw were both important to the plots that they featured in, but in the third and fifth seasons I think they were misused. Speaking for Elias, I think the idea of keeping him alive past season 4 was a bad move, and one I'll explain in more detail later on, but in season 3, after Carter had broken him out of prison, he was just sort of there, hidden in the background in a self-imposed confinement. His character had nothing to offer beyond a few short appearances armed with information that helped Carter take down HR - and after that he disappeared from season 3 completely. I just think that was poor use of his character since he couldn't contribute to the Samaritan plot.
But Shaw is a whole different kettle of fish. I know I'm slightly biased because I'm a Fuscovite more than a Shaw thing (I give myself a pat on the back for that sentence every time I read it), and in the first half of season 3 Shaw took a significant amount of the attention away from Fusco without really doing much interesting stuff. With Carter now dealing secretly with HR and Shaw grabbing the headlines trying to settle into Reese and Finch's vigilante band, Fusco's role was diminished to the point where if he did appear in an episode, it was for one or two scenes at most. That was a deliberate move to build us to the HR "event" trilogy that would lead to one character's death, but Shaw didn't really develop until after that when the real threat in Samaritan emerged.
In season 4, her use evened out, until the actress had to leave the show due to pregnancy, and Shaw was written out as being captured by Samaritan, something that led to a compelling arc of Root's desperate search which continued long into season 5.
Which brings me to my next point. The search for Shaw took a lot of space up in season 5, including an entire (ballsy) simulation episode. That's not to say that it wasn't a great arc, it's just that if they'd left Shaw dead they'd have had more space for the arcs they couldn't fit in because of the shortened episode order.
DEATHS OF LINK, MARTINE, ELIAS, REESE + ROOT
A lot of characters who died in the show died either brilliantly (Dominic's assassination as part of The Correction; Collier shot right after the revelation his fight for privacy had been in vain) or poetically (Anthony, Elias's right-hand man, sacrificing himself; Blackwell being shot by Shaw in retaliation for killing Root), but some deaths were not handled so well.
Cara Buono as Martine Rousseau, s4
Link was Dominic's right-hand man, who Elias framed for ratting Dominic out, causing Dominic to shoot him on the spot. I feel like for a game-player, Dominic fell for this ruse too easily, especially since he had killed Anthony earlier in the season. It should have been obvious, and so Link's death fell flat.
Martine was the main Samaritan field agent in season 4, and a constant threat to Team Machine. It was odd then, that after all her build-up as a villain, she just had her neck suddenly snapped by Root in a room full of Samaritan agents, including Greer. Another character whose death fell flat.
Elias's death should have been during The Correction, same as Dominic. I understand the producers had bigger plans for him, but to die then felt appropriately big and shocking for his character - and his actual death in season 5 in the same high-rise apartments we'd first met him in season 1, while supposed to be poetic, just didn't feel right.
Reese's death, being riddled with bullets on a rooftop in the series finale, was a beautiful scene. And yet somehow, after taking probably 50 bullets to the chest, he was still alive when the cruise missile hit the roof and blew him to bits. Nah mate, don't give me that. No one survives 50 bullets.
And finally, Root. She was shot by Samaritan sniper Jeff Blackwell in 5x10, and took the bullet to protect Harold. Her death was foreshadowed, but the way it was done (sniped in a moving car) and the fact that it was the sudden-Terminator Blackwell who did it, did not work at all.
Honourable mention to Control, who was last seen being taken away by Samaritan - only for the producers not to know if she was dead or not. I mean, they said that was her death scene ... but then they said they would have wanted to bring her back had there been more time in season 5. Yeah OK then ...
KEEPING SHAW ALIVE
I've touched on this already and may be repeating myself but in honesty I think Shaw not dying was a bit of a copout on the writers' part. Having spent so long with Samaritan agents hunting and trying to kill the team, Martine inexplicably decides not to kill Shaw? So she fires off a bullet just to give the impression to us and Team Machine that she killed her?
Truly, not only do I think it was a bad decision (and it took way too much time out of season 5's already limited timeframe when Shaw returned), but it was against Martine's character to spare a life. One of the few poorly written things in the show's tenure, it defied logic and tasted bitter because of that.
COVER IDENTITIES IN S4+5
This one mainly relates to Finch. When Samaritan came online, he, Root, Shaw and Reese all had cover identities uploaded to Samaritan servers to keep them safe. Reese was a cop, Shaw was a petty criminal and Root had rotating identities. Reese's cover as a cop gave him legit reason to be everywhere helping everyone, as did Root's, even Shaw's in a smaller way. But Finch was a professor, and that was shown or referenced very rarely. I understand of course that to overuse it would have taken the focus from other more pressing plotlines, and they had already done a college POI in season 2, but there were more plots that could have been centred around it. Maybe the Brotherhood extends an arm into the college Finch works at, or they have another college POI. It's not like the writers aren't smart enough to make it different from their previous work.
In the end, I can buy everyone else's identities holding (even Root's, even when the rotating identities idea was necessary but weak and wouldn't hold up against a real ASI), but not Finch's, and all it needed was a little bit more.
FIVE THINGS POI SHOULD HAVE DONE
A FULL SEASON FIVE
Given that CBS weren't obliged to give us any sort of season 5, I should be more grateful. However, the lack of development caused by trying to condense 44-46 hours of TV into 13 meant the ending lost a little something of its magic, and some aspects were criminally underdeveloped. Had CBS given us a full episode order but announced it was cancelled, the writers wouldn't have had to take it upon themselves to write us an ending and CBS wouldn't have had to stunt the Samaritan storyline by demanding the inclusion of some weekly POIs. Both would have had their fair share of screen time.
BROUGHT BACK LEON, ZOE, CLAIRE, QUINN, CONTROL AND WESLEY
Due to the shortened and focused season 5, we couldn't see the return of a number of our favourite characters, and the above are just a few who we would have liked to feature had there been more time available. Leon Tao, the scammer who frequently ended up in trouble throughout season 2. He needed Reese's help on 3 occasions and became something of a helper in return, part of the team that revived Shaw in the ambulance. Ken Leung who played him got a starring role on The Night Shift afterwards, and once Samaritan got going it would have been hard to feasibly fit him in, but still, not seeing Leon again was a shame.
Clarke Peters as Alonzo Quinn
Zoe Morgan was a fixer and Reese's occasional lover. Their flirtatious banter, Zoe's intrigue and Caviezel and Turco's chemistry made for compelling scenes, but after giving Reese some love advice in season 4 Zoe was never seen or heard from again. I think she could have fitted into "A More Perfect Union" as Reese's wedding date, at a push, but alas, it wasn't to be. Claire Mahoney was introduced in 4x02 as a troubled chess grandmaster and genius searching for purpose by undertaking a puzzle reminiscent of the real-life Cicadia 3301. Only this time it is Samaritan's own way of recruiting people. She returns in 4x15 under false pretences, eventually revealing to Finch she wants him to join Samaritan, but is wounded by Root and flees. And then she never reappears. She definitely would have in better circumstances, but that she didn't left Claire's outcome unresolved. Alonzo Quinn, the City Hall Chief of Staff and head of HR, was taken down by Carter in 3x09 and imprisoned for his crimes. I understand the nature of a trilogy that closes a storyline - it's a definitive end - but I still can't help but think having Quinn orchestrate something from behind bars would have added some unexpected shock to season 4. Control was written a "death scene" at the end of season 4 after investigating Samaritan's behaviour, only it wasn't a death scene it was a "we're taking you to a black site" scene, and while it was good I'd hardly consider it an adequate ending for the character. Nolan said he wanted her back in future seasons, but without the time we'll have to take what we got. Alistair Wesley was the British Reese, an MI6 spy introduced in 2x07 as the man behind the blackmailing of a surgeon set to perform critical heart surgery on a very wealthy man. He is a smug man who knows Reese from a mysterious mission in Istanbul (although Reese doesn't recognise him), but after being outwitted he promises to return in the future. He is never seen again. Dammit.
ROOT FLASHBACKS AS AN ADULT
Every one of our six main characters got a flashback episode bar Root. And by that I mean a flashback episode in which the actors and actresses play their characters in the past. All that Root got was one flashback episode in 2x02 but it was about her childhood and, since Amy Acker can't be physically transformed back to a fourteen-year-old girl, they brought in a child actress to depict how Sam Groves became Root. It's a shame, however, that we saw none of Amy Acker portraying Root in flashbacks. Overall, her past bore little relevance to the main arcs of the later seasons, but it wouldn't have been hard for the writers to create a standalone episode that actually showed us her murderer/hacker exploits, rather than just referencing it in a few centric episodes. A shame, as Root was the most interesting of our six mains.
LINK KARA TO DECIMA BETTER
Maybe with this one I'm displaying my own ineptitude for joining the dots. It took me at least 3 rewatches of the first 3 seasons before I realised that the virus Kara uploaded was Decima trying to attack the Machine, not just her. Even a line such as "So that's what Kara was doing for Decima, trying to kill the Machine. Do you think she knew what the virus was intended for?" would have worked to remind us of the endgame that Kara was used to achieve.
We also never got an answer as to whether Kara knew about the Machine or Samaritan. Perhaps that was set to be revealed in the full season 5 or 6, but it's another example of a question that we never got full closure for. A shame, but ultimately not a massive oversight.
I couldn't think of five things I think POI should have done, so we'll end this section here and move onto the "Top 5" categories.
TOP 5 BEST EPISODES
5. 1x23 "Firewall"
Root first appeared in 1x13's "Root Cause", but at that point was only seen from behind sitting in a chair at a computer and her voice was distorted (interestingly, she wasn't played by Acker in that shot as Root hadn't been properly cast yet). But in "Firewall", the script was flipped.
The latest POI was Caroline Turing (played by Acker), a psychiatrist who knew a lot of dark things about some very influential people. It's presumed one of them wants her dead for knowing too much, but as the plot unfolds things get weird. While Reese takes Turing to a hotel to protect her, Finch enlists Zoe to help investigate the threat to Turing's life. Now cornered by the FBI and HR, Reese has no way out of the hotel, and Zoe finds that Turing's office doesn't stand up to scrutiny - nor does her high-class client, who is actually a lowball con artist named Jimmy White paid to act like a rich arsehole.
So while Reese gets Turing out of the hotel, he is pinned down by HR who are trying to keep out of the way of the FBI, until Carter and Fusco rescue him. But by that point, it's too late. Finch has come to extract Turing, only to be sidelined by paranoid government spook Alicia Corwin - and she is shot dead by Turing, who reveals herself as Root and holds Finch hostage.
She engineered everything: worked out how Finch and Reese were able to stop her before, how the Machine worked, then put a hit out on herself and waited for them to show up and save her.
That's one heck of an introduction, and coming at the end of a series that didn't offer too many big episodes like this, it stands out even more.
4. 3x08-3x10 *The HR Trilogy*
The HR arc spanned nearly three seasons, so it's right that it took three episodes to take them all down, and the trilogy followed a commendably well-thought-out and logical three-part plot. In 3x08's "Endgame", Carter sets off a war between HR and the Russians so she can get them in one place and have them arrested. In 3x09's "The Crossing" (appropriate title is appropriate), she and Reese try to get the head of HR, Quinn, whom they captured at the end of 3x08, to the FBI building across town without being stopped by HR. Carter is killed by the one remaining HR footsoldier, Simmons, at the end, so in 3x10's "The Devil's Share", Team Machine hunt down Simmons and bring him to justice while Reese goes off the reservation in grief and attempts to track and kill Quinn.
The Carter flashbacks may have been dull and only important to show us that her son Taylor actually had a dad he could go and live with after she died, but the rest of the trilogy was superb. It was dark, intense, action-heavy, well-written, utilised all of the characters correctly and of course focused on one of the best long-running plots the show ever did. A stunning goodbye to HR. They came back once before, but this time they're shutdown permanently.
3. 3x16 "RAM"
The fully flashback episode. Timed to perfection with what it included. It came shortly after Root's revelation that Finch had had a previous "helper monkey", tied up the laptop mythology and why it was so important to the Chinese, the government and Finch, and included all of our characters. Even Shaw made a cameo as the ISA assassin who killed Finch's "helper monkey" Rick Dillinger, and Jay O. Sanders, dead in the present day, returned as Special Counsel for a scene. Brilliantly written, "RAM" answered nearly all of our questions, introduced Lambert as a villain, was slotted in at exactly the right time for the show, set up a powerful war to keep Samaritan coming online and saw Root return in the present day after spending 3 consecutive episodes missing (Amy Acker had a lovely holiday there!) in a tiny scene stapled at the episode's end. Superb.
2. 4x11 "If-Then-Else"
"If-Then-Else" is a reminder that very little needs to happen in an episode for it to be brilliant. The majority of this episode takes place in Machine simulations: while Shaw is stuck on a train with a man driven to suicide bombing after the stock market flash crash caused by Samaritan wiped out his life savings, the rest of the team try to stabilise the market by breaking into the stock exchange and get stuck getting out - hence the Machine running through various possible outcomes. How can it get Shaw and the team out of their various situations alive?
The action of the episode is brilliant but not the focus, as seeing our characters in different scenarios, some ill-befitting their strengths, is a nice novelty. That moment when Root finally gets Shaw to admit they have a chance at a future relationship only for the camera to pan round and show a dozen Samaritan agents gun Root down always catches me off-guard, and the simplification scenario was epic (and will get discussed later). In the end, Shaw saves the team after talking down the suicide bomber, but is captured by Samaritan when she sacrifices herself so they all escape.
A clever, inventive and insightful play on the characters we know and love, and, much like the "event" in season 3, included the loss of a major character, albeit less permanently. Doesn't ever lose its charm, "If-Then-Else" typifies everything a simulation episode should be.
1. 5x13 "Return 0"
Any show that gets to write its own ending should be consigned to the Bullshit Bin if it doesn't create a finale episode that ranks among its best. Fortunately, POI is right at the other end of the scale. "Return 0" pays homage to all of its cast by giving them the happiest endings possible (Reese sacrifices himself to save Finch and destroy Samaritan; Fusco goes back to casual police work; Shaw carries on working the numbers with the Root-Machine guiding her; and Finch flies to Italy to reunite with his lost love Grace). And it pays the show homage as well, bookending the series by making the final shot the Machine watching its primary asset, Shaw, through the same camera on the same street that it watched Reese in the closing scene of the pilot.
The promo photograph. The man in the top left is show creator Jonathan Nolan making a cameo as a crowd member when Samaritan speaks directly to Finch. I'm also sure some of the other three people around Finch are among the writing crew, also making cameo appearances.
But that isn't all. Root's death is avenged by Shaw when she kills Blackwell, Bear (the f**king dog) gets his ending as Shaw collects him from Fusco and Samaritan is destroyed as the Machine reboots itself back on Earth, the Ice-9 virus now gone.
As a sidenote, if "If-Then-Else" is a good marker as to how an episode can have very little happen and still be brilliant, then "return 0" goes one step further. Finch and Reese travel from the Subway to the Federal Reserve to stop Samaritan's code escaping to a satellite, then to a rooftop to send the Machine up after it when it does escape. Meanwhile, Shaw and Fusco protect the Machine in the Subway from Samaritan agents, including Blackwell.
But that's about it. The action is sporadic but well-timed, as is the movement from the Machine's (personified by Root in Finch's hallucinations) insights into the meaning of life and death to all the action. Which is impressive, because even the Machine, a non-human character from day one, gets its own happy ending in its rebirth.
Emotion-heavy, tear-jerking and every scene either a perfect payoff to a character or an answer to a question that season 5 left open, "return 0" is the ultimate tribute to the 102 episodes that preceded it. A truly unbelievable show bowed out in style.
TOP 5 WORST EPISODES
5. 1x05 "Judgement"
There's nothing technically wrong with this episode, it's just a bit dull. Following on from 1x04's "Cura Te Ipsum", which is still highly regarded as the episode that really proved POI's capabilities early on, "Judgement" just fell flat. It was about a judge whose son has been kidnapped as a blackmail tool, because that never happens in any TV show ever, and honestly didn't amount to much. Fusco's past gets touched on but that's about it. It's just boring.
4. 4x14 "Guilty"
David Slack might have done some good for the show (and had a cameo role in the season 2 finale as a POI Reese and Shaw rescued), but he's right royally ballsed it all up by writing not one but two court-themed episodes, both this and "Judgement", which were both annoyingly dull. In "Guilty", a juror is blackmailed into convincing everyone else to vote a man suspected of murdering his wife guilty, when in reality he is being framed by the CEO of a cellphone development company to prevent him squealing on them and making them withdraw an unsafe product from the market. It's 1x06's "The Fix" all over again, but from a dull angle, and actually served as a bookend for both Zoe Morgan's role (she was introduced in "The Fix"), and David Slack's writing, as he didn't feature again after that. Probably for the best.
3. 3x14 "Provenance"
"Provenance" was a totally standalone episode in the back end of season 3, coming right after the introduction of Samaritan. It was all about helping a Chinese ex-Olympic gymnast steal the Gutenberg Bible from a highly secure vault to delay the blackmailers while Reese travelled around the world to rescue her daughter. Although it felt like "Provenance" was scraping the barrel for complex standalone plots it wasn't a bad episode, just exceedingly dull. There's little more that needs to be said about it. Very, very forgettable.
2. 3x05 "ра̏згово̄Ñ€" ("Razgovor")
"Razgovor" is the Shaw-centric episode in early season 3, one that gives us a bit more insight into her past, but it's a dull past. All of the flashbacks just show us what we already knew - that Shaw was an emotionless psychopath - without really expanding on that. Meanwhile the main plotline of a 10-year-old Russian girl named Genrika, who has the same spy skills as Shaw, is only made more interesting because her spying has led to the collection of incriminating evidence against HR.
Genrika is a boring character; Shaw, already at this point getting too much air time, continues to dominate a show that lost something when she was upgraded to main character status; and Reese and Finch taking a back foot didn't really work. I can't say much more, other than this episode remains high on the list of episodes we need to forget.
Wanna guess who wrote it? I'll give you a hint: David Slack.
1. 4x20 "Terra Incognita"
My hatred for this episode cannot be understated. Again, I know that this is an unpopular view, for Carter's return was for most POI fans a delightful treat, and even Jim Caviezel (Reese) said it was one of his favourite episodes. But for me, it was absolute nonsense. Supposed to be Reese solving a cold case Carter couldn't close, it quickly descended into some ill-timed gumbo as Reese, bleeding from a gunshot wound and crawling through snow outside a cabin in the middle of nowhere, began to hallucinate Carter, who spent ten minutes telling him about-ways that he was a lonely dickhead and he should trust his team, as if after four seasons he didn't. The worst Reese-centric episode, the worst Carter-centric episode (and that's hard when she had some absolutely awful ones) and the single worst episode POI ever wrote.
I saw a POI-Lost comparison video and a category of "that one episode we'll never talk about again". Apparently POI's was the Samaritan two-parter ... Yeah, OK. No mate, it should have been this. So I'll follow his lead and never talk about "Terra Incognita" again.
NOTE ON DAVID SLACK - It's unfortunate that certain episodes he's written have dominated this list, because he's also penned some stunners, too. 1x22's "No Good Deed", three episodes of season 2 including Reese's imprisonment at Riker's (2x12) and the penultimate episode "Zero Day" (co-written), 3x17's "/" and he also co-wrote the season 3 finale "Deus Ex Machina" with executive producer Greg Plageman.
TOP 5 PERSONS OF INTEREST
5. 2x02 Hanna Frey
Root's origin story.
Hanna Frey was a fourteen-year-old girl from Texas, who disappeared in 1991. Her number is given to Reese as a means of locating Root, who has kidnapped Finch. The episode is interspersed with Root trying to coerce Finch to lead her to the Machine, along with a government official, Denton Weeks. However, it's Reese and Carter's search for Root's identity that is the more interesting plot.
Originally, Reese believed Hanna was Root's real identity, but it was discovered that she had indeed been murdered that night in 1991 - leading them to realise that Root was actually Hanna's friend, Sam Groves. Armed with that knowledge, Reese is able to track Root down and rescue Finch, but the actual investigation into Hanna's disappearance was more intriguing. Admittedly, that was probably because she was thought to be Root, but still, Hanna Frey reached the top 5 POIs.
4. 1x22 + 5x12 - Henry Peck
Henry Peck (played by Jacob Pitts) is an NSA analyst who discovers intel he's forwarded to the higher-ups in government have been altered, so that the name of a terrorist (which the Machine has generated) is added to his reports. Peck stumbling onto the Machine conspiracy blew the whole episode out of the water, and put Peck in a highly volatile situation. He was innocent, he was a good guy and he was trying to do the right thing, and it was painful to watch his life be torn apart as the government fought to keep the Machine secret, but that's why it was so gripping. I always do love it when they do "ruin your lives one step at a time" episodes (and they did at least two more that I can think of off-hand).
The speech Peck made to Fusco about the Machine being built was stunning, although I feel Fusco has been made out to be far too cynical and short-sighted given the number of times the Machine has been mentioned in front of him without him ever cottoning on.
Jacob Pitts as Henry Peck meets Finch
But less about Fusco. In the end, Peck's story comes full circle as Finch meets with him to reveal that he built the Machine, right before he advises Peck to let it go and leave the country. A whirlwind of a story based around an interesting character heightened by Pitts' performance.
Peck returns in a flash-parallel in 5x12 that shows what the world would have been like without the Machine. Shaw would have still been working for the ISA, and it would be to her Peck makes his speech about the Machine, not Fusco. He doesn't escape this time and Shaw shoots him dead. A telling insight into a different world, and the perfect character to use as a signpost for the alternative world.
3. 5x02 - *31 numbers, including Jeff Blackwell and Laurie Granger*
The numbers. Top row, fourth on the right is the house painter
The Machine has spit out multiple numbers before. Four in 1x10, five in 1x19, six in 2x17, thirty-eight in 3x08 etc etc, but in 5x02's "SNAFU", a glitching open-system Machine sends through 30 numbers at once. But by the time Reese and Fusco are finished with the first four (a schoolkid who called in a bomb threat to avoid a test, a stage actor, a decades-dead mob boss and an ex-con house painter), it's clear the Machine has a problem: it can't contextualise threats and it's come unstuck in time. It even deems Finch, Root and Reese as threats, locks the former two out of its system and sends a 31st number, that of a hitwoman, to kill Reese.
This turnaround, with the Machine becoming the perpetrator, is a clever, logical, well-timed and well-executed one. Laurie is only in it for a short while, but she's a decent character for four minutes of action. But the kicker comes when in the final scene the house painter from earlier gets a job - working for Samaritan. And Blackwell grows even more interesting later on. But still, that's a major oopsie.
2. 1x04 Dr. Megan Tillman
The story of Megan Tillman and Andrew Benton was an enthralling one and displayed POI's versatility at an early stage. About a doctor who stalks her sister's rapist while she plots the perfect murder, Linda Cardellini executed the first real standout performance by a POI. She portrayed the hurt of a woman who feels responsible for her sister's suicide with the sensitivity it required.
I don't want to discuss it much more here because Tillman will be reviewed a little later on, but suffice it to say that Tillman, for her deeply emotive characterisation brought to life by the wonderful Linda Cardellini, is one of the best POIs I think this show ever did.
1. 1x07, 4x09 + 4x21 - Charlie Burton/Carl Elias
When Carl Elias was a number, you knew it was going to be big. Introduced in season 1 as a high school teacher named Charlie Burton, and a witness to the murder of someone with a message for the mystery Elias, Reese spends the whole episode muddling through some high-rise apartments protecting him from Bulgarian and Russian mobsters, only to find out at the end Burton is Elias.
In the following three seasons Elias morphed into something of a frenemy to the team, and in 4x09 and 4x21 his number comes up due to the rising Brotherhood gang looking to take over his territory.
Ruthless, cold, but forever smiling, an awesome tactician and an all-round likeable mob boss, Elias is one of the best recurring characters never mind POIs. He brought another elegant philosophical mind to the table, but equally a lot of danger, the kind that isn't easily predictable by today's TV standards.
I would have selected a more appropriate smiley photo, but I like this image of Elias right before he dies in 5x10 protecting Finch. It's the only time you ever see him scared, right before he realises the Samaritan agent is about to kill him and he can't reach for his own gun in time. RIP Carl Elias.
TOP 5 SCENES
5. Vigilance's purpose
I won't go into any detail here because I'll discuss it thoroughly later, and also I have no YouTube clip to show it, but for its game-changing reveals and giant effect on the characters, season 3's finale scene where everybody learns the "true nature of Vigilance" makes its way in here at number five.
4. The "If-Then-Else" simplification
Never let it be said POI doesn't know how to mock itself.
In the simulation episode, the Machine shows its power by replicating its characters mannerisms and speech type by simplifying the scenarios to just those. For example, instead of coolly delivering a sadistic warning whilst holding a gun to the Samaritan guy, Reese says "Coolly delivered sadistic warning", followed by Fusco's "self-deprecating inquiry into the time necessary to infiltrate system". And so on. The scene is also broken up to simplify the method with which Root flirts with Shaw (and Shaw's responses: "Annoyed attempt to deflect subtext.")
Lasting just 50 seconds, it was a fun addition to a thoroughly dark and intense episode that gave us a chance to see our characters' personalities (and those of most TV characters in a way) picked apart by a Machine that had learnt how they acted and spoke.
3. Shaw saves Fusco's son
This has to be one of the greatest scenes of the show for the effect it had on the fans and the characters. CBS had promoted for weeks the fact that someone was going to die and it did a great job of putting pretty much every major character under the cosh. However, crucially (or at least for me), CBS had been slowly decreasing Fusco's airtime since the introduction of Shaw, so when he was kidnapped by HR things seemed pretty bleak. It went from bad to worse when we were given a reminder that Fusco had a son - and it was he who Shaw decided to save.
Kevin Chapman gave a powerful performance as a beaten father forced to listen to his own son's murder, but when Shaw's voice came through the phone there was a second in which I cheered, And then she said it all.
"But Lionel. You understand this means I can't be there for you?"
Just the way Sarah Shahi delivers that line broke my heart, but knowing his son was alive gave Fusco the resolve to fight for his own life.
In the end we lost Carter, but for the ruthless manipulation of fans' emotions and the performances Shahi and Chapman put in, this has to be right up there.
2. Elias has Simmons killed
"Civilisation rests upon the principle that we treat our criminals better than they treated their victims. That we not stoop to their level."
And how true is that in the end. Carter does her bit to keep within the law (as best she can) when she brings down HR. The team do their bit to ensure Carter's legacy is upheld by stopping Reese from killing Quinn. And Fusco gets his moment of redemption by arresting Simmons instead of killing him.
"But you and I are outliers, we're not really a part of civilisation. [...] Which means of course that we can do the things civilised people can't."
So with Team Machine refusing to commit murder, there is only one man who can deliver justice to Simmons for killing Carter.
Enter Carl Elias.
The whole scene was pure poetry. For the writers to have written themselves to a place where the team refused to commit murder to honour Carter's wishes, but still have the murder committed by the anti-hero everyone loved to hate (and whose act of murder doesn't serve to dishonour Carter's memory or wishes) is an incredible doing - but no surprise given the writers' evident talents. Elias's speech is rousing and philosophical and true to his personality, and you can tell he was enjoying playing with his food by making the point he was about civilisation. And then he reveals he's not going to kill Simmons, but will have his right-hand man Anthony Marconi kill him while he watches on ... creepy, satisfying and an easy top 2 choice.
1. Benton's Ambiguous Ending
Andrew Benton was the victim in 1x04, but he can hardly be described as one. After first presuming he is the perpetrator because he is a known sexual predator, Reese and Finch discover Dr. Tillman is in fact planning to kill Benton in revenge for his raping her sister, an act that led to her eventual suicide. Linda Cardellini who plays her is a wonderful actress and shows the deep hurt that Tillman feels in a number of heartbreaking scenes, but it's Benton in the final scene that takes top spot.
Reese rescues him from Tillman, if only to stop Tillman from committing murder herself, then takes Benton to the house Tillman had purchased - which has enough lye in the cupboards to make a nice big acid bath and ensure Benton is never found.
But instead of that, what we get is a near four minute scene with Reese trying to work out what to do. Is he still a killer? Is Benton sufficiently scared to change his ways? Can people change?
"Which do you think I'd regret more? Letting you live or letting you die?"
For what it's worth, Adam Rothenberg gives a truly genuine performance of terror at the prospect of being murdered for his crimes, but Benton makes the mistake of trying to reason with Reese by using all the typical arguments of a man who is scared to face the consequences of his actions ("I won't do it again"; "I can change" etc.)
Reese has a wilder look in his eyes than ever I've seen and it's actually quite a scary thing to see: Jim Caviezel giving you a death stare. With a gun laid out on the table between them, the music rises to a crescendo with Reese discussing good and bad decisions. Benton sees his life is almost over and then Reese puts it to him whether he should live or die, "Help me make a good decision ..."
And then it goes black.
Truly intense, this was the strongest scene of the show. Reese's calmness was scary and his pain at being broken was beautifully juxtaposed with the fright of a man who broke people, the music was edited perfectly to affect the lines it needed to to evoke our emotions and heighten the suspense, the performances from both actors were incredible (just look at Reese's eyes), and the scene going black with the question of whether Benton lived or died remaining unanswered was an inspired end to the episode.
Did Benton die? I don't know and I've never wanted to choose what I think happened to him because I think that would detract from this scene's power. But I can tell you I could watch this scene over and over and over again. And you should give it a watch too.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Reese's pre-death speech, 5x13; Root telling her psychiatrist "the truth", 3x01; Henry Peck's speeches 1x22+5x12; Finch's coffee date with the Machine, 5x11
TOP 5 REVEALS
5. Finch had a helper before Reese
In the middle of 3x09, Root still locked safely in the Library, Finch brings her food (gotta keep your prisoner alive, you know?) He's clearly distressed by the situation in which Reese and Carter find themselves - trapped in a morgue running from HR - and Root has the distaste to dismiss Reese by reminding Finch he's not Finch's first "helper monkey".
That one moment made me and probably a lot of other people go "well, of course, why did we never think of that before?!" Because we didn't. And the revelation just suddenly sparked within us all that there was a story before Reese, and something happened that went drastically wrong. Little did we know then that when we eventually found out more about Finch's previous "helper monkey", it was going to link all of our characters and the laptop together in as stunning a way as it did, but the revelation itself was strong enough to deserve a place here.
4. The identity of the laptop's seller
The laptop was an important part of the show's mystery in the early two and a half seasons. We knew that Reese had been sent to China with Kara to retrieve it, but instead the government deemed it too important and, once Reese and Kara sent up the signal they had it, the government blew up the facility. Both narrowly escaped, unbeknown to the government. But why it was so important, how it ended up in China and who sold it became big questions.
These questions came to the forefront again when Kara finally put her plan into action by kidnapping Reese. Her mission, to upload a virus to Department Of Defence servers, was one she agreed to in exchange for the name of the laptop's seller. Who caused all this turmoil? Can you guess?
Harold Finch.
Seeing that piece of paper, on which Kara had written down the name, flutter amid the ruins of the car she and Mark Snow exploded in, was a great reveal, and one that had POI fans gushing. What was on the laptop? Why did Finch sell it? How did he get the laptop in the first place?
In retrospect, it seems obvious the laptop contained code from the Machine, but then either I'm slow on the uptake or POI has a knack for keeping the straightforward unguessable. I think it's a bit of both.
3. The Machine takes Root's voice
Throughout season 5, Root argues with Finch over the importance of utilising the open system Machine in the war against Samaritan, and giving it a voice in the war. So at the end of 5x10, Finch unaware that Root has died, gets a phone call. But it's not his closest confidante at all: it's his Machine, who has selected Root's voice as its own.
That's one punchline, but that one reveal has a ripple effect. The speech we heard from Root at the beginning of season 5, the one we were teased with before season 5 began airing, the one telling us she didn't know who won but would tell us how we fought back, wasn't actually Root. It was the Machine.
This is even taken one step further in the finale when we realise the Machine is actually speaking to itself as it reboots after defeating Samaritan. Clever, intelligent writing, paced well, and it worked better than anyone could have imagined, but that first moment when we realised Root was dead and the Machine had taken her voice was simply amazing.
2. The existence of a second Machine (+ Control)
In 3x11 "Lethe" and 3x12 "Aletheia", we are given two huge reveals. Firstly, that Finch's college friend Arthur Claypool, now suffering from a brain tumour, built a second Machine named Samaritan which Decima wants, and its drives are kept in a guarded bank vault. It's a really smart move and one we as fans should have seen coming - much as we presumed Reese was Finch's only helper monkey, we presumed the Machine was the only ASI out there. It wasn't, and the shock hit us in much the same manner as Root's revelation about Reese, and then again when we realised what a second ASI meant. A rival. BOOM.
Also in these two episodes we learned the identity of Control, the government pen-pusher who ran the Machine project Northern Lights. She appeared in the season 2 finale, faceless, and was introduced here as Claypool's wife, Diane. At the end, Arthur had a sudden epiphany: his wife was already dead. Cue the CIA taking over the scene and demanding the location of either Samaritan or the Machine from Arthur and Finch. Top draw, especially since without any mention of Control since season 2, people were not expecting this one.
1. Vigilance's purpose
POI had twists and turns galore and as you've seen even my educated guesses throughout season 5 came nowhere close to what actually happened. But even I wouldn't have been brazen enough to guess at Vigilance's true purpose.
Emerging at the beginning of season 3 as a group of privacy terrorists hellbent on freeing the public from illegal spying, led by their fearless leader Peter Collier, Vigilance became a true nuisance. Team Machine and Vigilance's paths naturally kept crossing, until eventually Collier realised they must have access to an ASI - but the situation escalated just before Decima activated Samaritan, in a kangaroo court full of Greer, Finch and kidnapped U.S. officials. Vigilance's endgame, their biggest stand yet - and one where they risked the world seeing their faces - was that kangaroo court which they broadcast around the world.
After witnessing first-hand illegal spying destroy his brother's reputation and cause his suicide (flashbacks in the final two episodes gave us this insight), Collier's entire purpose for existing was to reach this critical point in time. And he had succeeded - only for the carpet to be ripped out from underneath him when Greer revealed to Collier that Vigilance were a Decima puppet formed to provide a patsy to a terrorist attack that would force the government into granting Samaritan full access to surveillance feeds. Followed by Decima quickly murdering Collier.
That was a twist nobody could have seen coming, and just proves how inventive and unpredictable the POI writers really were. But it's also making number one on my list for the huge emotional payoff the reveal gave to us as fans. Look at Collier's face in that picture. He's distraught.
And it's a credit to the writing that I can I feel genuinely sorry for a character who had up until the final two episodes been a monster to the audience. But no, he'd spent his life trying to get justice for the government's causing his brother to commit suicide (all right, terrorism isn't the way to do it, but still), only to discover his whole fight had been engineered by the very kinds of people he was trying to expose. It's pure sadistic poetry, and I can watch that scene over and over.
And just look at Greer's smug face! He knows he's just completely broken Collier - and is about to kill him too - and look how much he enjoys it. That's just evil!
And I bet the producers loved it, too. Bravo, Nolan. Bravo.
(This also got an honourable mention in the best scenes category, so I hope that shows you just how immensely powerful this scene really was.)
HONOURABLE MENTIONS go mostly to the script-flipping of character identities, including Root, Elias and Dominic, but also to the reveal of how Finch got his spinal injury and just what The Correction really was at the end of season 4.
TOP 5 RECURRING CHARACTERS
5. Gabriel Hayward (s4-5; 3 eps)
This little guy is without doubt the creepiest character the show ever featured. Martine, despite only being an asset for Samaritan is a parallel to Root, who is the Machine's analogue interfae. Gabriel is just a weird bastard with no parallel. On the surface he's a normal ten-year-old boy - but enter the primary school classroom in which you first meet him and you realise that he is actually Samaritan's human avatar. He is a ten-year-old boy speaking as Samaritan itself. As if the boy whose body he inhabits no longer exists.
I was going to simply post a photo of Gabriel as I will and have at every other point in this roundup, but I figured I would instead leave the clip of the aforementioned classroom scene. If you want to see just how creepy this guy is, I recommend you give it a watch.
4. Robert N. "George" Hersh (s2-3; 13 eps)
Hershey! The ruthless murdering bastard that is George Hersh (the softness of his name juxtaposed with his killy personality is great), appears in only 13 episodes, but is one of the best used recurring characters. In season 2 he mostly appears when someone needs killing on the government's behalf (Reese, Shaw, Root, some outside characters, and is even revealed in a flashback to have let a terrorist go free to execute the ferry bombing that killed Ingram and injured Finch). In season 3 his focuses shift more to relocating the Machine and stopping Vigilance, and in the end Hersh dies trying to stop a bomb that Decima placed to frame Vigilance for terrorism.
I was sad to see Hersh die, as Boris McGiver was just another stunning actor the show signed for a recurring role, but Root makes the point all too succinctly once Samaritan is activated that people have died who could have helped (and as her voiceover admits that we see an image of Hersh's autopsy, indicating he could have become an important player in the story had he survived).
Apparently Hersh's first name was Robert, but that's never mentioned (only shown on his autopsy) whereas George is so ... RIP George Hersh.
3. Peter Brandt a.k.a. Peter Collier (s3; 8 eps)
Peter Collier was the face of privacy terrorist group Vigilance throughout season 3. A clever juxtaposition with the work of the Machine and Decima's persistence to activate their own ASI, Collier provided a ruthless and gripping account of the opposite viewpoint: why mass surveillance is bad. He answered questions we already asked and presented as many more, and did it in always a calm and composed manner, no matter the pressure of the situation. At one point he even looked capable of turning Shaw, though that thankfully never happened.
Leslie Odom Jr. as Peter Collier
In the final two episodes of season 3, Collier received the ultimate praise: flashbacks. We learned his rise to Vigilance began when his brother committed suicide after being falsely accused by the government of terrorist activities, and saw his rise to power as not just a member of the cell but the leader. Hypocritical in his willingness to go to any lengths for his cause, Collier became the dictator in his own fight against a dictatorship, and was spectacularly destroyed by the knowledge that Decima created Vigilance to ensure that the threat of them could spur the government into accepting Samaritan as its new surveillance system. Collier was then promptly killed, bringing the arc of Vigilance to a satisfying and stunning conclusion.
Collier was a well-rounded character who served his cause and his purpose in the show as he needed to, and was disposed of when unnecessary. This is how one-season recurring characters should be written.
2. Patrick Simmons (s1-3; 16 eps)
Here's a big bad guy. Robert John Burke was the perfect fit for the evil Simmons, who is Quinn's right-hand and the face of HR's street activities. Present in all HR's dealings with the Russians and Elias, and always on hand to blackmail or simply threaten Fusco, Simmons is a remarkable villain. He's cold, ruthless, conscience-less and unforgiving, and is one of the few one-dimensional villains the show ever had, which is, I think, the point. HR were money-grabbing, self-serving scumbags and no more than that. They were never made up of philosophical entities like Elias, Collier, Greer, Finch, Root etc, and they weren't so serialised a plot as to get that much of a close examination.
But Simmons himself got a good run-out, with a spread of 4, 6 and 6 appearances in seasons 1 to 3 devoted to establishing Simmons as a lead villain and HR as a threat. And yet Simmons has an abominable closure rate on murders: if you look at the list on the POI wikia, of 14 known victims he manages to kill or successfully arrange the killing of just four, including Carter.
Burke's silky smooth and intimidating voice works well when he's put in the role of a villain (I've seen him as a good cop on Blue Bloods and it doesn't seem right), and his character was done justice when Elias murdered him in retribution for Carter's death. I'll say RIP Simmons, because you did kill Carter and I'm grateful for that ... but you're still a bastard.
Bit of a cheat having two number ones, but Nathan and Grace are so integral to Finch's character that one without the other detracts a significant amount from the flashbacks and even the main plot. Finch's engagement to Grace is why, after Ingram dies and he is injured, he has to go into hiding - to protect her. Throughout the show, Grace is mostly used in flashbacks and largely in season 2, but appears in the present day in season one as Reese tries to learn more about Finch, in season 3 when Greer kidnaps her to learn more about Harold, and in season 5 when Finch finally returns to her.
Carrie Preston (who plays Grace) is in reality married to Michael Emerson (who plays Finch), and although Emerson claims he deconstructs her as his wife in his mind so that he can view her as her character when they work scenes together, their genuine love always shines through. It's in their eyes, it's in their facial expressions and their voices, and it's something that not even the top actors can replicate. And what that love does is actually make us root for their relationship even more, and makes every scene Grace appears in seem all the more enjoyable.
Nathan Ingram is Finch's best friend, alongside whom they built IFT (presumably Ingram-Finch Technologies, but that is never confirmed) and later the Machine. It was he who took meetings with Alicia Corwin and other government spooks while the Machine was being built so he could keep Finch's identity secret, which was instrumental in securing Finch's anonymity later on.
They bond over the morality of their endeavour, their love lives, their normal work, and it's great to see. And having worked together before, Emerson and Brett Cullen (who plays Nathan) make the characters' on-screen friendship that bit more real.
Nathan is also important for the irrelevant list story, as it turns out it was he who built it, not Finch. Nathan is the reason the numbers come, but, overwhelmed by his conscience, is killed in a ferry bombing orchestrated by the government to stop him telling a journalist about the Machine. Finch is injured, and, after a long time of arguing against saving the irrelevant numbers, Nathan's death spurs him to reverse his position, and in a fitting tribute to his best friend Finch continues his work from then until the very end of the show.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Carl Elias (1-5, 19 episodes); Dominic (4, 7 episodes); John Greer (2-5, 28 episodes) (I had to discount all 3 on the basis that they were mentioned so much already and I wanted to talk about some other characters); Leon Tao (2, 4 episodes); Zachary (3-5, 5 episodes)
FIVE UNDERUSED CHARACTERS
Jeremy Lambert
Lambert was one of the few Samaritan field agents we saw throughout the show's run, along with Martine, Zachary, Jeff Blackwell and Martin LeRoux. He is probably Greer's right hand man, a cold, calculating Englishman and the Samaritan equivalent of Reese. He's connected, resourceful and just an all-round intriguing dude (more so than Martine ever was), yet makes only seven staggered appearances from seasons 3 to 5. One of his two season 3 appearances come in the flashback episode where he chases down Daniel Casey, and a fair percentage of his scenes from the three season 5 episodes he features in are simulations - or scenarios he has rigged to look like simulations.
Overall, Lambert was by far Samaritan's most interesting asset besides Greer, but was never really called upon to reach his potential.
Anthony Marconi a.k.a. Scarface
Anthony Marconi was Elias's right-hand man and childhood friend from season 1 until his death in season 4. David Valcin's stocky physique made the intimidating Scarface even more imposing and threatening, but while I loved him for his intrigue he didn't appear enough to really affect things. Mostly, Marconi made appearances as the face of Elias's business - usually in dealings with HR when situations wouldn't call for Elias himself to turn up. When Elias was arrested, Marconi naturally vanished for most of season 2, but, like Elias, appeared only a few times in early season 3, his use now thoroughly diluted. He returned to form in The war with the Brotherhood in season 4 as we learnt about his and Elias's connection and friendship born of a punishing childhood in a group home, but then sacrificed himself to save Elias.
There were options for Marconi to appear more often. A reminder in season 2 that he was still about could have been made in a Reese/Marconi joint operation following Reese turning up somewhere and Marconi being busy with something for Elias, but the writers didn't feel that was ever necessary. He might have made only 11 appearances and done little, but Marconi was a fascinating character, and David Valcin played him to a tee.
Dr. Megan Tillman
OK, so maybe I'm biased here because Linda Cardellini is my ultimate celebrity crush and anything she's in is good for me - but hear me out. She makes her only physical appearance in the fourth episode of season 1, when Reese stops her from killing the man who raped her sister. Since then, Tillman has been referenced at least twice by Finch, and on at least one of those occasions (in 4x16's "Blunt") it was implied she does favours for Team Machine. And it's not like they had a regular doctor. So while I'm a little biased, I also think it would have made a lot of sense for Dr. Tillman to have made a few scattered appearances as the series progressed.
Detective Bill Szymanski
Szymanski was so underused that it wasn't until I came to write this roundup I realised he only made 5 appearances in the show altogether. All of the four appearances across seasons 1 and 2 he made while alive involved some kind of mob hit (usually Elias-related, but in season 2 he made an appearance investigating the Irish mob), suggesting Szymanski was loosely focused on organised crime (this was never confirmed). He was killed in 2x18 by HR boss Alonzo Quinn, along with an Assistant District Attorney, to prevent him testifying against HR's allies the Russians.
In 5x12, Szymanski makes a short cameo in a flash-parallel to Fusco's life without the Machine. Ironically, Szymanski has Fusco's desk in the 8th Precinct.
I always liked Szymanski and Michael McGlone who played him. There was plenty of organised crime strung through the first two and a half seasons that he could have had a stronger involvement with, but in the end his few scattered appearances were enough to make me cheer when I saw him in 5x12. RIP Bill Szymanski.
Root's helper monkeys (Daniel Casey, Jason Greenfield + Tatsuro Daizo)
Root's helper monkeys (it's funny cos it's ironic) consist of the above three characters. At least two (the first two) were former season 3 POIs (in the sense that we were shown their rescue), but of course it's entirely possible Daizo was a POI too off-screen and was rescued by only Root.
With Greenfield and Casey's hacking skills and Daizo's forgery abilities, Root spends the penultimate episode of season 3 crafting identities for herself, Shaw, Reese, Finch and her three teammates, to protect them all when Samaritan comes online. But before she adds the identities to Samaritan servers, she sends her team into hiding anyway and, each having made just two appearances, they are never seen again.
Daniel Casey Jason Greenfield Tatsuro Daizo
I was disappointed with this: Casey, Greenfield and Daizo had the highest level of protection from Samaritan and could have proved useful in the fight against the evil ASI, but the writers chose not to ever bring them back. That was disappointing, especially since Daizo was a little cutey with his no English and his fist bumps.
Final thoughts
So that's it. That's everything I needed/wanted to say about Person of Interest. I've done an episode-by-episode rundown of season 5, covered it as a whole and covered the show overall, and now I've furnished you with my top picks for a number of categories. Now it's time to let POI go, something I've been having a great deal of trouble with since it finished - until of course I buy season 5 and get the urge to rewatch it all again.
Thank you for reading everyone. Go and watch this if I've piqued your curiosity, because it is well worth your time. If you don't want to go and watch it, then I'll see you all next time here at TVR Roundup!
The recurring characters were also very well done. It must be hard to sell a guest starring role to an actor and then request that, for continuity of character, they return for a large number of prison scenes to make cameos in episodes where no one but the observant will notice them, but for the most part whenever we saw a prisoner captured in the modern day, they did return for small cameos in Alcatraz flashbacks - but also in their secret present day prison too. That's credit to the writers and the actors, who, every time I wondered if continuity was going to be difficult for the show, managed to show up and remind me they had their eye firmly on the ball.
