Strictly 6,741

Person of Interest 5x04 - 6,741

Big spoilers ahead for any Person of Interest fans who haven't yet seen the fourth episode of its final season - continue at your own peril!

Hello again

Hi. At least this time I kept my promise when I said there were no more roundups to come this week, but since it's a new week and I've just this second completed watching 5x04, better get right to it!

6,741

OPENING CREDITS

After the insane Finch/Greer combo of the previous episode, 6,741 opened without one, partially because of time constraints but also because there was no POI for the voiceover to introduce. A shame though, for that combo voiceover is incredible.

THE FIRST RED FLAG

6,741 starts with Shaw as we've seen in the promo - lying on a gurney, strapped up with all kinds of tubes and electrodes. She is undergoing brain surgery, where a Samaritan chip is being implanted into her head. What a good start!

Lambert makes his first appearance this season, and tries to discern whether the brainwashing techniques and the chip have worked in turning Shaw into a Samaritan asset (indeed, we see from SPOV that Shaw is now regarded as a "potential asset" rather than a "threat" to it). He plays a cheerful game of "Dead or Alive", whereby he shows Shaw pictures of people from her past (plaudits to the writers for their neat throwback to her introductory episode with the inclusion of her ex-ISA partner Michael Cole as one of the "dead") and she has to determine for him if they are currently dead or alive. There is something of a parallel between Finch's re-anchoring of the Machine in episode 2, (where he showed pictures of previous POIs to the Machine in order to realign it and disregard him and Root as threats) and Lambert's here, where he is trying to convince Shaw to see her old allies as threats, and it worked very, very well.

When it fails, of course, Greer simply says they should implant a fresh chip in Shaw's brain and just not care if she gets any brain damage. Weeeeeeell, that seems fair.

Except later on, Shaw escapes. When Lambert comes for another visit, she poisons him, straps him to a wheelchair and uses him as a human shield, playing with him and the Samaritan agents firing at her a slightly more realistic version of "Dead or Alive". He just about survives, and Shaw nicks his keycard, escapes from the ward and the building itself, to discover she is ... on an island. Fortunately, there's a boat anchored not far away that she can steal.

That was too easy. Waaaaaaay too easy. This was the first red flag for me that things might not be as they seem.

(Props for the creepiest quote I've seen on TV in months, from Shaw's Samaritan surgeon: "You have lovely eyes ... and grey matter")

GETTING IN CONTACT WITH TEAM MACHINE

Shaw makes it back to New York, escaping a Samaritan tail, and hides in a department store, stealing supplies to try and get the chip out of her brain. In the process, she is rather mean to store assistant, Bobby Jackson, who enthusiastically offers to help her, giving him the death stare and telling him to "Move along, Milhouse". When the chip in her brain starts to affect her, she has an idea about how to get in contact with Team Machine: use the department store phone to ring up and admit she's about to kill Bobby Jackson, hoping the premeditated nature of her threat will alert the Machine and produce Bobby's number, whilst simultaneously expecting some trouble from Samaritan, too.

And she predicts correctly! Samaritan turn up just before Root, who is understandably shocked to see her love just standing there, after Root had spent 9 months fruitlessly searching for her.

THE SECOND RED FLAG

Shaw blacks out from the malfunctioning chip, awakening on a moving subway car (not their stationary subway base, which sadly never makes an appearance this episode), where Reese stands guard while Root, as lovingly as can be given the situation, proceeds to perform brain surgery on her to remove the chip.

When she wakes up, she's in a Team Machine safehouse. Reese, Finch and Root are discussing their concern for her mental health, something Shaw doesn't take too well. She accuses them of not looking for her, which prompts Finch (guilty of that) to suggest he and Reese leave Shaw in Root's capable hands. And no less than a minute later, Root tries to get off with Shaw, except Shaw's been through quite a lot so she's not quite having it and turns away. Until thirty seconds later when she decides well why not? And we get a very steamy sex scene between the two, something a lot of us had been expecting (although A: Not so early on, given that Shaw had until this point not reciprocated Root's lustful feelings, and B: I couldn't help thinking as I watched them make the love that, given that Shaw had been through numerous brain surgeries of late, Root passionately throwing her up against things wasn't particularly sensitive). Quite hilariously, Root's face when she realises she's getting some is a picture of delight and smugness - like a kid whose one parent has let them buy more sweets than the other parent does.

This way-too-quick getting together of #Shoot was a second red flag. It didn't feel particularly organic to me. 

THE THIRD RED FLAG

After a bit of pillow talk, another painful chip malfunction in the bathroom (but the chip's out of her head now, right?) and a night in Root's loving arms, Shaw wakes and slips a bug on Root, then follows her to a diner where Root meets Reese. Root seems rather suspicious of Shaw's erratic behaviour (what like, sleeping with you?), and is somewhat justified when Shaw storms in to confront them, calls Reese a "professional dick" and deliberately gives away their location to Samaritan operatives.

They obviously escape the Samaritan operatives, but use the laptop one of them carries to backtrace Greer, whom they then kidnap and take to the basement of a church which, now that I think of it - why didn't the POI writers think of that before? You don't see CCTV cams in a church: it could've been a great location for a new base at the start of season 4 after the Library was destroyed. Anyway, never mind that. They have Greer in custody! Brilliant!

Except his kidnap was all way, way too easy. Again.

THE FOURTH RED FLAG

Shaw is now going very off-the-rails. Root wants to kill Greer, but Shaw suggests they try and force him to talk. Never gonna happen, what with his MI6 background, but she does find a chip in his arm, which Finch plugs into the Samaritan laptop to identify. He believes it to be a Samaritan killswitch - implant this in a networked device above ground and Samaritan will be shut down.

Finch then admits to Shaw in a very moving moment that he gave up on her, and apologises sincerely for having done so. Interrupting as usual is a chip malfunction (it's gone, right?), and Finch and Root go above ground to try and work out how to implant the killswitch, leaving Reese with Shaw and the subdued Greer.

Reese makes the mistake of leaving the two of them alone, and Greer promptly delights in telling Shaw this whole plan was her doing, that the killswitch will actually destroy the Machine and that she is going to murder all of her friends!

Red flag! Yah think?

So out of rage, she then shoots Greer!

By now, I'm sceptical, because his name is on press releases for at least 2 upcoming episodes. He can't surely be dead then? Well, it certainly looks real enough. He doesn't wake up, and Reese returns rather shocked.

AM I STILL COUNTING RED FLAGS?

Reese leads Shaw out of the church, intending to sort out what is wrong with her before they go back to the subway.

SO SHAW SHOOTS HIM DEAD.

WHAT IN THE - I'm not buying any of this!

Not only does Shaw kill Reese, but she steals his gun and tells Finch and Root Samaritan killed him. Root then meets up with her in a park, where Shaw admits she shot Reese and tells Root she's going to kill her next. (Root's not so gleeful now, but hey, at least she got to do the sex before she died, right?)

Except Shaw doesn't kill Root - she kills herself to stop herself from causing any more damage because of Samaritan's interference!

So now Greer, Reese and Shaw are dead.

I'm calling bullcrap on this. I called bullcrap ages ago, in all honesty.

THE FINAL REVEAL

In an episode packed full of twists and turns, the final reveal is shown as, while Root holds a dead Shaw in her arms, Shaw is then also shown lying on a gurney, strapped up with all kinds of tubes and electrodes.

The simulation has failed. She did not escape, she did not kill Reese and she did not lead Samaritan to the Machine. She also did not have sex with Root, which is possibly the biggest disappointment here.

But Greer just says "oh well, let's go again!"

And what number is that next simulation?

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you got that right, well done. I thought of that question myself and got it wrong twice!

Overall, I would say 6,741 was better than Truth Be Told, but not either of the 2 opening episodes, B.S.O.D. or SNAFU. However, it was an absolute mindfuck. Again over 43 minutes long again, full to the brim with action and plot, something I reckon I'll be saying often this season. Although again, I feel some of this was unfortunately condensed due to time constraints. But we'll ignore that, because time constraints will be another factor throughout that will affect the storytelling and I won't need to repeat it every week.

In 6,741, there were as many twists and turns as a piece of string a cat's assaulted for a couple hours. My heart was in my mouth the entire final 15 mins, especially when Reese was murdered.

No Fusco either. I'll just leave that here.

And the episode itself was completely not at all what I expected. The "kidnapped-and-brainwashed-to-kill-your-friends" trope is a boring and unimaginative one, and it's disappointing to see used in a show as innovative as Person of Interest, so the reveal that this was all a simulation has refreshed Shaw's potential use by Samaritan for a short while. Of course, I imagine it will become her destiny to kill them all again in reality, but still. For a while, I can believe things won't go down this route. And her and Root can do the dirty again for realsies, too!

Thanks again for reading, and I will see you soon with a review of 5x05, ShotSeeker!

Sam