Synecdoche, 5x11

Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a rhetorical term where a part of something is used to label the whole. Among the most commonly used of these expressions is "The White House", which refers to the Executive Branch of the United States Government (i.e. the office of the President of the United States.) In other uses, an individual proffering assistance might offer to "lend a hand", the hand serving as a metaphor for the whole person.

Person of Interest's episodic middle is certainly well and truly past us now - and thankfully so. It's head-spinningly quick airing of the first ten episodes has slowed to a crawl at the absolute most heart-breaking time for fans, with one episode now for the final three weeks (including this episode just past) which, after the treat of an all-guns-blazing rush right out of the blocks and the notoriety and madness of what is to come, makes the wait for our final three (two now) episodes an impossible ordeal.

FINCH

Finch leaving the secure facility with the Ice-9 virus.
The Machine turned the guards on one another to clear
a path for him.

My examination of Synecdoche can begin with our main protagonist, Harold Finch, who isn't in this episode very much at all. Split from the team, he is now working to set in motion a plan to destroy Samaritan once and for all. But he's not entirely alone, a direct Root-esque connection now established between him and the Machine, who has settled on using Root's voice to communicate with Harold as one he will recognise. So while Finch flees to Texas to steal Ice-9, a weaponised virus that could bring Samaritan down, from a secure government facility (which the Machine helps him to do by clearing the path of all its security guards), he also has to consider the pain that hearing recently-"expired" (as the Machine coldly puts it) Root's voice brings him. Except he's used to pain, an example that is stated being he never had surgery for his spinal injury. Finch concludes at the end of the episode that he misses Root and wants the Machine to continue to speak to him in her voice.

In the end, Finch leaves with the virus, leaving us to wonder exactly what he and the Machine will do next.

THE POI

This is probably going to be our last POI ever (unless they do a reboot), because now Team Machine are going to try and catch up to Harold and help with his final crusade to destroy Samaritan. So it's probably fitting that the one person who really needed to be a POI at some point takes that final slot: the President of the United States.

After mourning Root's burial, Reese, Fusco and Shaw receive POTUS's number, and travel to D.C. to intervene. But getting close is a problem, because POTUS is either unreachable for Reese or on the move in a heavily-guarded motorcade. And when they do manage to get close, it's only close enough that they know where the President is going to be - for example the charity gala, where they foil a bomb threat that provides a lead to a band of vigilante privacy terrorists (déjà vu, anyone?)

Eventually, they realise the President is going to be assassinated in his motorcade at by an incoming drone - one they can't stop. Their only way of protecting the President is to stop him from getting in the car, and the only way to do that is to fire a sniper rifle in his direction that forces him to take cover long enough for the drone strike to pass without casualty.

For Team Machine, though, that isn't the issue: getting out afterwards is, since the entire Secret Service force now thinks Reese and Shaw are would-be assassins. It takes some doing - and a quick escape from a group of Secret Service who corner them - but they manage to blend into a small team of army guards who are also on-site providing security.

After that, it's down to the Washington Monument to discuss exactly how in the hell Team Machine received arguably the most relevant number in America, rather than the government or ISA (Intelligence Support Activity: a black-ops government unit who foil terrorist plots unknowingly using intel from the Machine and, latterly, Samaritan). The assumption is Samaritan is now so ingrained into the government that it is able to make them believe the President is irrelevant to national security. That's just ... damn ... that's an impressive feat.

But I'm missing some crucial details - namely how did Team Machine pull this off and escape so easily? Well, they wouldn't have, without some outside help. There were rumblings for a while that we would see Logan Pierce, Joey Durban and Harper Rose return at some point in season 5, but the rumours were unconfirmed and their names were (deliberately) absent from all the CBS press releases. But they did return, and their involvement was crucial.

L-R: Harper Rose, Joey Durban, Logan Pierce

Logan's billionaire status enables Reese, acting as his advance security, to get into the charity gala where the first attempt on the President's life is made. Joey Durban is on the army team that provide extra security for POTUS's plaza visit where the drone strike takes place, and gives Reese and Shaw the outfits to camouflage them. And Harper, acting as a Homeland agent, retrieves Fusco (who had fed Reese and Shaw info on the drone's status) from the house where he had disabled the privacy terrorists, after police were questioning him.

That all seem a bit too convenient for you? Because it didn't for me - and it should have done. Three POIs all returning at once, to support Team Machine in exactly the way they needed support? Something else had to be going on, and it was.

The two Team Machines facing the Washington Monument, asking the all-
important question:
Fusco: "How many more of us you think there are?'
Pierce: "Could be none, could be many."

We already knew Harper was being utilised by the Machine as an asset (this was made clear in her last appearance in the season 4 finale, where the Machine assigned her a yellow box), but we hadn't seen Joey or Logan since their appearances in episodes 1x03 and 2x14 respectively. With the Machine now truly active, it can recruit as openly as Samaritan does, and it transpires in the final scene that it enlisted Logan and Joey, alongside its already-enlisted Harper, to help Reese, Shaw and Fusco. But not just help. It gave them Reese's number. It gives them other numbers, too. Our Team Machine might be the central focus, but they aren't the only Team Machine.

For the first time we see the power of the Machine as a whole. Suddenly it doesn't seem as weak as Samaritan - and the Machine was here first. And with it unshackled, we'll only see it get stronger in the final two episodes, which is a gift and a curse. It's something that, given the premise of the show, was never going to be utilised as a plotline for very long, but it will last only three episodes and I do regret slightly that we won't see more of the Machine's power. Regardless, it tempts a fascinating question: if Samaritan is destroyed, will the Machine continue as an open system or will Harold close it again? It's already showing some of the intent to help humans on a wider scale that Samaritan has demonstrated - could the Machine be as powerful, even equally damaging to human life, as Samaritan? Whether we'll get an answer to that I don't know, but it's an intriguing thing to ponder.

UPCOMING

However, the intrigue doesn't stop there. The press release for 5x12, .exe, states that Greer and Zachary will return (of course), as well as Senator Ross Garrison, who presumably has taken over Control's role as the government's overseer of Samaritan, but appearances will also be made by SAC Leroux (the FBI agent who questioned Fusco in 5x01 following the deaths of Dominic and Elias), Nathan Ingram (Finch/Ingram flashbacks?), NYPD Homicide Detective Bill Szymanski (but he's long dead; how the hell will he fit in?), Michael Cole (Shaw's ex-partner when she worked at ISA; but he's long dead, so how the hell will he fit in?) and Henry Peck (from 1x22, an ex-NSA analyst who presumably went into hiding after the government tried to assassinate him multiple times for asking questions about what Finch confirmed to him was the Machine).

And then in 5x13, return 0, the finale - no Greer or Zachary. Wait what? That's quite significant: so they die in 5x12, surely? Garrison's in this episode, too, so presumably he has to be involved to shut down Samaritan within the government. That's understandable. Blackwell returns as well, but his role I can't guess at after his Terminator-style execution of Root blowing away two episodes' worth of disillusionment with his work for Samaritan. And then, in what will be the final flashbacks of the series - Reese as a child, and Reese's mother. Son of a ... this is going to be good!

But then, word has it Grace will return to the finale and she's not listed. Like the Machine in its previous form, CBS is withholding information, and as such anything could happen, really.

Final words

This episode highlights exactly why POI is the smartest show on TV (for two more weeks anyway), but also highlights exactly why it's going to be a dark day for television when it's gone. The reach of this show, plot-wise, goes beyond anything most TV shows normally offer, and for that it creates a world where we can't guess as accurately at what will happen. But I don't want to guess, I just want to see. GIVE ME THE ENDING NOW, CBS.

Thank you for reading everyone, see you next time!

Sam